April 2, 2021 State Board of Education Meeting

001it's friday april 2nd and the time is 906 am live web streaming will be available through the state board of education website dot www.education.ne.gov slash state board good morning to everyone we welcome the audience that we have today board members please engage your microphones before speaking and turn them off when you are done speaking and please turn off your cell phones thank you if you are joining us by video conference board members please unmute your audio microphone before speaking and mute your audio microphone when you are not speaking but i see that we all all board members are here if you should lose visual okay excuse me the april state board meeting will now come to order agenda item 1.1 roll call andrea please call the roll patty googles jacqueline morrison deborah neary patsy co

002johns lisa fricke here maureen nichols robin stevens here patricia tim commissioner bloomstead all present thank you andrea agenda item 1.2 the pledge of allegiance please rise and join me in the pledge i pledge for which allegiance stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you agenda item 1.3 information regarding the open meetings act is posted as you enter the room from the main hallway doors the opens meeting act is also posted on the state board of education's website www.education.ne.gov state board agenda item 1.4 provid meeting protocol commissioner would you handle that for us yes and so just so everyone knows there is the the protocol that we have been using uh during these times posted um hopefully all the the guests that have been able to see that obviously our

003purpose is try to keep everyone safe keep our distance where our masks according to lancaster county public health recognitions and otherwise just try to stay safe and keep distance so thank you thank you commissioner agenda item 2 which is public comment period we are going to i have made the decision that we are going to move this down on the agenda because on agenda item 4 we have a special presentation and discussion by our teacher of the year 2021 teacher of the year paul tim and we would like him to be able to get his presentation done before we start public comment and he will have 10 minutes okay is paul available i am i'm right here thank you very much for that introduction i appreciate that thank you for being here paul we wish

004you we wish you were right here with us it is certainly my pleasure well you know this year has been a different year for all of us right um if i were to compare this year uh to any other year and had to give it an analogy or comparison um i would compare it this year to being like in a beehive um you know bees build comb by putting a chunk of wax here and then they pick it up and put it there and then they put it there and it and it feels like with the constant adapting that we've all had to do as we're building building this structure of education in nebraska and continually adapting it and refining it we're always kind of moving things changing things and kovit has definitely kept us

005on our toes so i'm going to go ahead and share my screen for my presentation because i do want to be respectful of everyone's time especially with with guests that are there today um so uh the past six months for uh for me as nebraska teacher of the year i definitely think we can sum that up within within three words growth connections and development and hopefully everyone can see the venn diagram i've provided there on the screen that i've shared but not only growth for me but my goal this year has been able to been to make connections with people so that i might bring people in on the work that i feel passionate about so together we might create resources create opportunities for students and for teachers and to to further continue to develop

006and sharpen our education as we move forward into the 2001 year and my hope is that after this year is is completed that that work is able to continue forward and so some of the things some of the actions i've done some of the things i've developed have been with that foresight of this is not just a one-year thing but this is something that uh we want to continue to build and so i've provided kind of a summation uh and this certainly does not include all of the things that have have taken place this year for me or things i've been involved with but but just a very beginning list of things that i've participated in this year there's been a number of times to present and speak to different groups as well as student

007teachers i was invited to co-speak co-present to the virginia association of environmental educators with tony swann who's a virginia teacher of the year one thing i really value is connections and so very early on after being identified as teacher of the year i started reaching out to all the other state teachers of the year and through social media and a marco polo group i established have been able to continue uh regular contact with at least 24 of them that are a part of that group daily messaging each other sharing ideas seeing what they're doing within their states and how that might apply within our own i would like to draw attention hop down to the website that i have developed because it's through this website that i'm sharing with the public my objectives for this

008year and on which i plan to develop branches on that website to each of those objectives with materials as well as contacts for people relating to those objectives so if any of the state board members or the public has not looked at my website already here is where it is at the end of my presentation my last slide there will be both a shorter link as well as a url and a qr code that can be scanned so that you can find it the front page obviously is just an introduction of myself who i am my family the things i've done but the second link is one that focuses on my platform objectives and i think you'll see as we go back to my presentation and look at the items that i've listed that i've

009chosen to focus on over the past uh six months they have definitely been focused around encouraging nebraskans to get involved with collecting community science data through family friendly activities bird watching and pollinators but also focusing on trauma focusing on how aces has aces which are accumulated adverse childhood experiences things that involve maybe neglect or abuse or experiences that that many of our children on a daily basis are encountering and then bringing that trauma experience as they come into our school systems and so how do we as educational systems and as professionals engage with students being trauma informed but also trying to provide those systems of support and connections and relationships that help students to build resilience and that's something too that as we look at this covid year and we consider not just the trauma

010that children are experiencing but also what are the trauma traumas that every single nebraskan is experiencing and how is that manifesting itself as you as a parent or as you as a professional seek to try to do your job um i'm going to be teaching i'm going to be teaching on that and i've been partnering up with star commonwealth out of michigan which has been in this business for about 104 years in helping people in the process of healing after recovering from trauma that's something i feel really passionate about but also you'll see i got a passion for encouraging student inquiry doing science inquiry as well as a focus on collecting pollinator data and so as i'm doing things throughout the year i really want to encourage everyone to continue to come back to this

011website because on this website not only will i be showing different workshops that i'm teaching but there's going to be a series of resources with which people will be able to connect to so if they're they're interested in the birds aspect of things um you'll be able to go to my birds resources page that's linked to this and you'll be able to see not only cool opportunities within our state right now we have the cranes migrating through but also curricular resources and connections so if if you're a teacher sitting there looking to um boy you know that some students in your classroom have experienced trauma or you know oh yeah i'd really like to get my students out and doing something outside focused those connections resources that i'm developing will be available there so i

012wanted to take time just to kind of share that and plug that because i do see that as as the way in which i plan to proceed into the future even after this this year as teacher of the year is over to be able to share resources and opportunities with nebraskans going back to my presentation um we uh i i mentioned i've been connecting with teachers of the year from across the country um we had a two-day training in february with ccsso with a focus on equity uh which is which was excellent um let's see a couple other items on the past six months i really wanted to hit on number one i have addressed or approached the nebraska game in parks and through a series of meetings we have begun developing a pilot for

013a bird curriculum that is something that will be available for upper elementary middle school and lower high school ages for implementation within the classroom we're going to be rolling that pilot out this summer with a group of we're hoping 10 teachers but then after we get through the first year this upcoming year starting in the fall are planning to continue that curricular program running to encourage teachers as well as if there are home school parents out there opportunities in providing them resources with getting their students doing inquiry with birds involved with birds and then down below one of the things i'm kind of excited about i believe stories are powerful in education and not just in education but my family we love to to sit and read stories or listen to audiobooks in the car

014and when i was growing up as a kid there was a program called reading rainbow maybe some of you remember that my mother was a was a preschool and kindergarten teacher and she had books around all the time and i can remember listening to stories and reading rainbow listening to my mother tell stories but also reading stories of her own um and so i started thinking about my objectives and how i might reach out and provide resources or opportunities for for ages at lower elementary that i often don't have a chance to interact with being a middle school high school science teacher and i thought what if i shared with nebraska the stories of my youth that i loved and so i any of you that are involved with with elementary know that uh stephen

015kellogg is a pretty big name as far as uh illustration books um i reached out to stephen kellogg and and obtain rights to be able to read and videotape the mysterious tadpole which is my favorite book from childhood one one of the reasons i got so interested in the outdoors and science but not just that but i'm developing a series of uh i'm working with a friend who's a retired ron caesar's name a retired community college biology teacher who's a wonderful illustrator and thornton burgess which is a around the the turn of the 20th century a very classic nature writer wrote many children's books peter rabbit ready fox and he created a series of children's stories bird stories and so ron and i are developing a he's doing the illustration portion um and i've approached

016laura and nde uh to try to set up uh recording sessions come it'll probably be around september but we're going to seek to read and record a series of of children's stories where i present at the beginning of the video about a 90-second quick introduction lesson i read the stories as ron's pictures are coming coming across the screen uh and then at the end have a short little two-minute lesson so something that a a kindergarten classroom or a second grade classroom could easily attend 15-minute slot within the day be able to share a video from from myself and from ron inspiring them to pay attention to the birds in their environment and the other organisms and things getting them outside so i could talk for the next hour but i see that my time is

017already up um and so you can see there's all sorts of things on my slides there but there is my my short url to be able to go to that website i'm trying to post many of the things that i'm doing on social media so that our public can see what things are happening both on facebook and twitter but do please oh and forgive me i thought the qr code was present on that screen i don't see it there um so you'll have to write the the url down the website address um but i just want to thank you for this opportunity it's been fantastic it is it has gone so fast um but as you can see much is developing from it and i'm very excited for the next six months and what's going

018to come out of it as far as working with educators and and students as as well as our nebraska game and parks who are in their 100th anniversary and what i would consider a very family-friendly great organization focused on getting nebraskans out there and exploring the natural resources that we have available to us well thank you paul uh despite the pandemic and as teacher of the year not being able to uh experience so many of the things that other teachers of the year previous to you have experienced you are doing an amazing job and i need to have you come to my house to show them tell me what certain birds are that are coming that i've never seen before which is wonderful are there any [Laughter] [Music] are there any other board members that

019would like to share anything or ask anything of paul i don't think so so paul thank you so much we look forward to seeing you again and maybe in person i i absolutely would love that thank you okay thank you paul [Applause] okay agenda item two public comment period we will now have public comment period this period of public comment is available for any person who wishes to address the state board of education on subjects within its authority please note that public comment should be on topics related to the state board's constitutional and statutory authority thanks to the members of the public who have attended today agenda item 2.1 request for 10 minute special appearance we have two 10-minute special appearances and our first uh speaker is jeremy eckler from the nebraska catholic conference in

020response to the health standards draft thank you for being here jeremy thank you for having me is this can you guys hear me okay great thank you for having me i'm gonna work off the paper a little bit because i've got a lot of information to cover here all right my name is jeremy eckler i'm the associate director of education policy for the nebraska catholic conference i want to thank the board for their service to school children public school non-public home school all children a little bit about what we do here the nebraska catholic conference advocates for the public policy interests of the catholic church and advances the gospel of life through engaging educating and empowering public officials catholic laity and the general public i work with the nde the nsaa legislature anybody in nebraska

021concerned with schools and education i began in this role after 18 years in education in nebraska and in south chicago although i'm a native nebraskan as i present today there's going to be some common threads and this is all going to be related to the human growth and development portion of the health standards i want i want you to recall this as we go through here there are 400 000 catholics in nebraska and those folks send their kids to private and public schools and while nebraska is ranked 37th in overall population we rank 17th in the nation in catholic school enrollment that's a unique disparity there are 112 nebraska k-12 catholic schools they are all approved or accredited often i hear people say are those private schools accountable yes we're accountable or accountable to the

022nde and we're accountable to the people who choose to send our their children to our schools those catholics across the branch nebraska send their kids to catholic schools and to public schools and we come to the table today as catholics we certainly express the truths of our faith but we don't come here with just mere religious opinions our tradition has a firm and strong belief that the truth and reason the truths of reason and truth of faith cannot contradict so the things we're going to bring up today are are grounded in truths and i'm going to throw a lot of things at you i thought about going simple with the presentation but then i thought getting this 10 minutes is a unique opportunity so i'm going to lay the foundation for i know a process

023that's going to take five or six months of drafting i don't believe there's a vote on this until until the fall so that i hope everybody hears that as well we've got a long process in front of us here much of the standards in the health the draft of health standards is quality i spoke to some of the writers they deserve a lot of credit for their hard work in particular i think the standards tied to foundations of personal health and nutrition and physical activity are great because they involve a variety of sources converging to create healthy habits they're not ideological they've undergone full scrutiny over time and they're based on best practices from a variety of sources so it is against that good work that the standards and indicators related to human growth and

024development are concerning i hope to show you today why the draft of human growth and development is void of some essential truths regarding parents marriage family and child well-being and not right for nebraska children and their families i'm going to begin with an overview of concerns or consequences if this were to pass as it is and i know we have a long process we have deep concerns that number one sex would be seen as another activity rather than its beautiful intent to express love and bring life within marriage number two concepts around sexuality promote contradictory and confusing ideas that start as early as age seven when with gender identity gender is fluid yet on the other hand gender is essential to one's identity and cannot change number three the standards treat the body as an

025object to be used rather than a gift that is essential to who we are as human beings but this very idea of objectification of the body lies the root of other major social problems we're facing like pornography sexual abuse and trafficking those items are barely touched upon in the standards though number four we are concerned that groups like planned parenthood are creating a marketplace they are already hard they are already working to get a foothold in hormone therapy and transgender treatment markets groups like this can simply plug and play their curriculum into standards developed by the nde and i'm going to go into how that would happen number five the first draft of standards would undoubtedly and almost immediately lead to real problems for conscious rights for teachers i'm aware that 30 public school teachers

026from one town in nebraska have already raised such concerns what is happening in this small class c2 town is a microcosm of what is going on throughout the state this will inevitably lead to legal issues for school districts and we know there's legal groups who look for opportunities like this we i'll leave it there number six 80 to 95 of children with gender dysphoria will come to identify with original biological sex by late adolescence no one's denying the truth of some of the things in this document but some facts are being left out and inside these human growth and development standards those children with gender dysphoria and or same-sex attraction are not given the time space and parent school cooperation that is seen as best practice this is dangerous for children we need to use

027best practices and get a lot of sources and a lot of people at the table who of us knows who we are at age 10. in this document we'd be teaching those kids about hormone blockers so that's what's at stake and here's how i think we got to this point number one um and i'm gonna pass this out can i pass those are those are handouts for the board uh there's miss representation occurring we believe it appears that the human growth and development sections of the nde standards taps into the national sex education standards edition 2. based on the national sex education standards own curriculum map sexual orientation and gender identity is mentioned 32 times anatomy and physiology of sex is mentioned five first part the nde draft of health standards mentions gender identity gender

028roles in sexual orientation at every grade level it also mentions anal and oral sex in seventh grade yet traditional marriage is disregarded despite its innate and essential value in society and procreation marriage is a bedrock upon which society is built in this document even though 53 of nebraskans are married marriage between a man and woman is ignored in regard in regard to being representative i've also heard people defend the human growth development section by saying these standards are indicative of where children are in the culture today you just don't know where they're at they claim kids are sexual beings more interested in sex than ever those folks in these standards choose to ignore the cdc data showing a historic decline in sexual activity in high schoolers teenagers are waiting longer than having less sex less

029than half of american high schoolers have ever had sexual intercourse a decline of 15 percent since 1990. they also ignore that 40 percent of teens say they feel sex education sex education classes pressured them into having sex 40 of teens say they feel sex education pressure them to have sex in other words while teens are hoping to be more sexually responsible many are feeling pressured by their own schools to have sex let that not be nebraska why would we reference what young people are going through today do we not discuss this excuse me okay i'll hustle speaking of representation parents aren't treated really well in this document as a teacher coach and principal for 20 years i taught and worked with lgbtq students i appreciated and learned from relationships built with those kids and their

030parents yet the human growth and development sections of these standards do not look to engage parents beyond grouping them into trusted adults that's important because a lot of parents are angry right now also all educators know that children are confused when the teachings of two authority figures conflict this is even more sensitive when the topic intertwines identity morality and faith parents must be prioritized next section is utilized resources these standards are presented as guidance by the nebraska department of education so you're giving them clout and credibility but i'm not sure that all the sources used especially sex education for social change answering advocates for youth are credible and if they are credible i would like to see other resources used as well in your packet you'll see that there is one of the groups answer

031runs a website that hosts cartoons for 10 to 14 year olds you can look at those cartoons but the other piece of this is the mission statement the mission is says the proliferation of abstinence-only programs and crisis pregnancy centers which peddle biased information masquerading as sex ed are jeopardizing our vision of a nation where young people receive accurate information they didn't deserve i point back to the statistics that say teens are having sex later and less these are things these are groups with agendas i like to talk about all these sources but i don't know the time you've got a long day so i'll leave that there i do want to talk about the process before i get off though there is not an application process for the advisory team it's by invite multiple political

032activist groups were included in that invite including the group yet other groups with educational expertise inside traditional marriage and human sexuality we're not invited clearly this is problematic on its face it is also contradictory to the nde value of representation and inclusion look at today we're in the midst of an uncomfortable conversation various people from various experiences can come up here and take the mic and i think that's great i think that's fantastic but i think it's way too late out of authentic conflict and conversations comes fruit that represents all nebraskans my point is that today is an example of how standards are developed when one is placed not is pulled outside of their echo chamber and all voices are heard i understand that's part of the process i just think it's happening way too

033late based on representation we will present a full packet of information from the catholic conference regarding our is that one minute for me oh gotcha well okay and stop so i'm simply i'll just close by asking that we pull out the human growth and development standards continue to work with the rest honor families and parents and i really want to thank you for the opportunity because i know it's not easy to get the 10-minute slot thank you jeremy and thank you for the handout 2.1 b daryl brown jr has requested and has been granted a special appearance to comment darryl you have 10 minutes thank you for this opportunity to stand uh before you as the board of education i stand before you as the testing specialist at nebraska aids project as well as the

034founding senior pastor of kingdom builders christian center in omaha as well as an ops parent and a grandparent um i'm going to talk today uh primarily about three things i'm going to talk a little bit about faith i'm going to talk a little bit about equity and i'm going to talk a little bit about data talking a little bit about faith because as has already been mentioned part of this conversation has been deeply religious and the reality is is that we are not all teaching preaching and believing the same thing i represent a community that believes that one of the chief commands of christ is to love that involves the fact that there is a sacredness of all people that involves the fact that love is inclusive and not exclusive we love our young people

035and we love them for real and we're in community with them on a consistent basis i stand before you as a sexual health educator that has provided education to thousands of young people in our community and have been in community with them as they navigate school as well as life that being said with all of that faith conversation i believe that the board of education actually owes nothing to the faith community other than facts um the schools are we have an obligation to teach facts parents that are the primary educators of their young people have an obligation to teach values and it is unfair to teach anything otherwise why because navigating the complexities of childhood without appropriate information is daunting and it leaves too much to chance and the truth is is that information by

036way of education actually is an equity issue so let's talk equity i can speak to the issue of equity as a black man that is part of only a small fraction of this state's population and having my own history tragically glossed over or left out in history books and classes and other subjects as well my racist history and contributions to this country and this state are consistently left out of the conversation and at one time that actually was tied to religious beliefs about blacks about people of color and about whites so here we are again with a minority population being left out of the picture and in my opinion hate being spewed as well as fear of truth navigating our decisions to possibly not cover medically accurate age-appropriate science-based inclusive sexual health education why because

037we do not want to address the truths of our own diversity our complexities and our differences we would rather for some we would rather steer away or run away or condemn rather than having those complex conversations that by the way youth can navigate i know it firsthand these proposed standards actually are about data so let's have a quick conversation about data because data indeed ought to lead our navigation through this process what's the data to the contrary of what my colleague jeremy mentioned nearly 60 percent of high school students will have had sex by graduation adolescents make up only roughly a quarter of the sexually active population in the u.s however they make up 50 percent of all new sexually transmitted infections in the u.s additionally adolescents are disproportionately affected by hiv in this country

038additionally 11.6 percent of high school students have experienced sexual violence well since we want to leave the lgbtq plus community out of the conversation let's uplift the fact that that number increases to 38 percent for lgbtq plus youth 17.7 percent of high school students have considered suicide since we would like to leave the lgbtq plus conversation out of the mix let's talk what that number looks like for those youth that number jumps from 17.7 percent to 60 percent for lgbtq plus youth education over the course of students schooling can heavily impact these numbers i'm hopeful that they will be adopted i'm hopeful because i have a granddaughter that will very soon be matriculating her way into the school system and it is my hope that as she navigates her experience in school that she has

039the language and the tools to navigate her way through experiences that are happening that we would be lying to ourselves if we pretended as though they are not happening and we cannot negate education that is specific to a particular group simply because they are a minority or simply because they do not align with particular religious beliefs we do not owe that to the state of nebraska that being said i am urging the board of education to adopt the standards as presented as age-appropriate as medically accurate as science-based as trauma informed and among other things as lgbtq plus inclusive thank you for your time thank you mr brown we will now move into the general session of our public comment and do we have sarah scaretta oh okay thank you okay due to the numbers who

040have signed in uh i am going to entertain a motion to amend our public comment policies for this meeting patsy in accordance with the bylaw b-9 i moved to approve each member of the public having three minutes to speak during the public comment period patty okay the motion was made by patsy and seconded by patty discussion many of you have concerns about going from five minutes to three minutes lisa the objections i just i know the reasoning we we need to hear from everybody and have them have equal time with their input so i think this is probably a good idea so we can get to all the people who took the time to come here can you hear me you guys know i'm technology technologically challenged um do we have an estimate so far

041of the number of people i know that we've chosen or we're saying three minutes but just wondering if we've we know approximately how many people are looking to speak today just so that we can kind of do the math fair point i don't i don't have the exact number david's gonna go find that for us but i i know we're up over 60 i believe already so that would be three hours at least right so yes so i'm just wondering if we so if we say three minutes and we know that we have approximately 60 people are we also agreeing that we're doing public comment for three hours or are we putting a time limit on the amount of time just wondering if we've kind of thought through that as we go and meant to

042the motion emotion emotion so the the possibility is you can limit the amount of time each one has and you can limit them the amount of time overall that you provide that by by our policy if you choose still coming in if if we said an hour you know hourly we're going to do three minutes or three hours and that's it who are we going to leave out i don't want anybody left out three minutes for each speaker that has signed up and right there's still people signing up and so our issue is whether on 64 people i think is our latest count so another option is to think about two minutes and give a little grace on the two minutes but if we said two minutes that would be another option if you wanted

043to pursue that one done the math on that uh let's say three minutes starting off with three minutes then two minutes then five minutes four minutes if i could have the math on all of that that would be helpful three minutes of 60 if we had no time in transition is three hours five minutes obviously hours and and two minutes is give me over two hours so and that that's my quick math robin i'm too on paper here i can't hear you no how about now so i don't have an objection to the three mi to the motion that we're debating right now i just would say that i think we should think about it in conjunction with the time amount of time that we're going to hear comments so if right now we have

04464 people and we're looking at approximately three minutes i would then say if we're going to agree to that three minutes then i would also like to possibly amend the motion and say we cut off public comment at the people who are here or if we're not going to cut off public comment at the people that were here that we consider reducing that time to two minutes so i'm open to either one but i do think we have to look at it in the aggregate rather than just as an individual time limit to make an amendment to this three-minute motion i would like to hear what others think if we should cut off comment now i'm not cut off comment but cut off the list and then we know that it's at 65 or 64.

045um so we're approximately at three hours and 12 minutes or for us to agree that we'll leave it open until a certain amount or that we limit the time to two minutes and then we're no we'll know we're at approximately two two hours or so i mean a little over two hours so i don't want it to be my opinion alone but i'd like to hear what others think about that but i do think it has to be done in conjunction with the time jacqueline so are you saying in part of your conversation that we cut off people signing in at this point from this point i think if we agree to the three-minute time then we i would like for us to agree that we'd cut off the people signing in if we don't

046want to cut off the people who are signing in i think we need to consider two-minute time pat makes a good point i'm sorry i think jacqueline makes a good point because we also need to understand that we are here for a business meeting and that there are motions that need to be made to carry on the work of the department aside from the health standards and so i think i think jacqueline makes a very good point um i too understand what is being said about hearing people i think that's an extremely important piece in a public meeting but i would i would entertain the fact that we have a specific time limit so that we can do our other business as well jacqueline would you entertain a friendly amendment to the motion sure cutting

047off any further sign-in yes let me see if i can put it into speak up closer yes let me see if i can put it into the motion in accordance with the board by law b9 i approve that each member of the public having three minutes to speak during the public comment period and the cu and the public will be no longer registered to speak the amendment amendment we're going to do in the separation oh okay all right so be cleaner that way okay all right so we'll vote on the first part first any further discussion on the three-minute amendment or three minutes speaking time is that if by reducing to two minutes we can allow everyone apparently who wants to speak if that takes care of the the concern of too too long a

048period of time then i would be in favor of reducing public comment to two minutes per person inferring to figure out how many people are actually standing in line and waiting and so what i what i'm going to tell you is i think we have closer to 80 that by the time you take the line and this my my gut feeling is if you want to get through everyone to do two minutes that's my gut feeling and it's not to cut off folks but it's to give everybody a chance to have it to be able to come before you see no further discussion patsy would you read the motion i'm reading the first emotion yes okay all right in accordance with the board by law b9 i moved to approve that each member of the

049public have two minutes to speak during the three three three minutes to speak during the public comment period please call the role google's no no morrison yes mary are you agreeing or not well i we're going to have another proposal for two minutes so i'm going to vote no co john's freaky the three minutes is that with the cut off of the sign-in then no okay uh no no no nichols no stevens no tim no motion fails patsy would you go with the next motion just read it the same please advise me madam president if i am to add that we will cut off okay no okay all right got it due to the number of persons wishing to come in in accordance with the board bylaw b9 i am ruth i i moved to

050approve limiting the public comment period on health education standards to two minutes do i have a second second motion was made by patsy seconded by patty discussion seeing none andrea please call the roll nichols yes no i could we just have the um um the uh new uh proposal read aloud one more time for me please i'm sorry no that's all right in accordance with the boards by law b9 i move to approve limiting the public comment period on health education standards to two minutes per individual further discussion jacqueline yes i have a question is this motion is the only limit on the public comment the two minutes or is there also a proposal for a limit on the public comment to two minutes with the maximum amount of time being a certain amount of

051hours for two minutes for every individual that has signed up that implies to me signed up as of right now does is that a con rolling sign up i guess i'm just not clear i'm asking uh ryan to go ahead and end the line somewhere so we have a solid count of it and then call that good not have additional people walking in i believe it'd be around 80. it could be 85. i don't think that what was just stated that it limits it to the people who have signed up i don't think that's clear in this motion this motion because we didn't vote on the amendment i don't think if someone wants to amend it to address the amount of person someone needs to propose an amendment okay we have to vote on the

052um the proposal that has been placed on the floor and then if you want to amend it then we have to go back and re-vote on that okay in accordance with the board bylaw b9 i move to approve limiting the public comment period on health education standards to two minutes further discussion debra just curious whether amendment's really going to be necessary because uh did i hear that ryan is cutting it off the line now okay so if the line's being cut off now then we can just vote on this right um where we've told there's no more people gonna sign up after this so you'll know it's roughly 80 people it could be 84 it could be something less but it's roughly that so i i don't mean to be difficult i just want to

053make sure that we get this right and i guess are we saying that is it my understanding that only the board has the ability to cut off that line because if so and just to make things clear i would like us to vote no on this amendment or no on this proposal and then to offer an additional or a new proposal that specifically says we are limiting the amount of time for public comment for each person to two minutes and at 10 o'clock which is the time we are right now we are cutting off the um line for any additional persons that way the directive is coming straight from the board because it's our meeting and there's no um there's no ambiguity on what we're doing so for that reason i'm voting no but only

054so that we can put forth a new motion with more clarity technical point you could still amend the motion am i not incorrect on that so you could amend this motion to add that so are you starting to vote i'm sorry i didn't realize you started to vote okay on the table is for two minute limitation i guess you started voting i did not catch that so i missed that so you need to vote this one down then well it is your new motion thank you call me again andrea please call the role that's all right sorry uh as i am listening first of all i appreciate your your suggestion uh but from what i'm understanding and scott i'd really like to have your clarification on this so if we passed they made the motion

055and then they're still in discussion i just checked with andrea so our records are we were still in discussion so you could still amend the motion is what i just because i don't believe we called for the vote did we okay i mean i will have to roll the tape but then in that case you have an activate and you there should be no further discussion you should continue with the vote there should be no further discussion we should continue with the vote in this case [Music] we've had one vote issued and so you need to go through the rest for the vote yep with the board bylaw b9 i'm removed to approve limiting the public comment period on health education standards to two minutes per person any further questions robin yes i will vote

056yes uh just so folks know with the understanding that there is the possibility of a further uh motion uh reflecting the comments i heard uh from jacqueline okay go ahead andrea morrison no neary no code johns no fricky stevens yes tim six no two yes okay motion fails do i have a new motion on the floor here's my micron at this time i believe it's pursuant to root rule b b9 i would move that we limit the time for public comment for each individual person to two minutes i would also move that we close the current list or availability to speak at 1004 am which is the time right now so anyone who is not in line or hasn't indicated that they want to speak would not be added to the list and anyone who

057is currently on the list would receive two minutes of talk time i would like to have a report uh from uh the commissioner based on the information that he has as to whether or not uh everyone that is out there feel based on on your your runners here i do we feel as if everyone's name has been placed on that list that wants to speak and and i believe the answer is yes that we've cut off the line where the line ends currently and and that's who will be allowed to be able to speak then okay and and that means that there's no other people out there that are thinking they came here with the idea that they were going to get to speak we made clear that everyone that's out there that has already

058identified that they want to speak will be able to speak with this for two minutes yes thank you very much any further discussion okay seeing none patsy would you re-read the motion i will most certainly try in accordance with the board bylaw b9 i move to approve limiting the public comment period on health education standards to two minutes per individual and close the availability to sign up to speak to speak uh beyond that has been ended at 1004. andrea please call the role neary yeah code john's yes freaky yeah googles yes stevens yes morrison yes nichols yes okay we will now proceed with our general public comment our first person to speak is sarah scaretta welcome sarah you have two minutes good morning my name is sarah skretta i am the certification officer at the

059university of nebraska-lincoln and just want to take my two minutes to talk briefly about the educator preparation programs um in the state because we know that the quality and accountability is one of the state board goals at unl i'm really proud of what we have been able to do we've been able to place between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred students across the country in a pandemic to make sure that none of our students programs were delayed because we know how important it is for them to keep moving through programs and our schools particularly in nebraska also realize how important that is to get those students in their classrooms as teachers and did you know tremendous work so we are excited about what the future brings in our partnerships with our schools across the state it

060also has availed us to a different mode of delivering some instruction to increase availability and accessibility outside of the city of lincoln which i think will continue i'm going to step into my hat as president of the nebraska council for colleges of teacher education and talk a little bit about our summit coming up to talk about this teacher shortage we're excited we've got um we're built we're drilling down based on our conversation we had earlier with nde nsea ncsa executive directors last fall about how we can address as a state and coordinate the teacher shortage we are excited to expand that this fall to those building level folks who actually deal with us on a daily basis we want to make sure that we are all educated on all of the certification options we have

061as well as the change in recruitment that we're probably going to need to do to make sure this happens to continue to keep nebraska at the top of the heap nationally educationally we want to be the model for the country continue to show what kind of great schools we have and teacher preparation that we have and so we're excited to be able to be a part of that and we just wanted to share that with you and thank you for your support and your work and in supporting those efforts thank you robin do you have a point of clarification the uh the conference that you mentioned or summit uh will that be offered in person and uh uh via zoom or one or the other yes that's the best way well we'll see we're looking

062this fall our hope would be in person because we can get much much more robust conversation but a hybrid may be also an option you bet thank you sarah next jenny jansky good morning it's so nice to see you my name is jenny jansky i'm the certification officer at the university of nebraska at kearney but i'm not here today as certification officer from unk i'm here today as an officer from the nebraska association i always stumble over at nebraska association of colleges for teacher education we call ourselves nakti which is what sarah just referenced she referenced the summit that we have upcoming this fall and so i'm here today to just give you a little bit of background on our group of the nebraska chapter and also give you a quick update from last month's

063meeting so nakti is the nebraska chapter of aact acti all right and that is a group of 800 institutions across the state so in nebraska nacd is represented by all 15 institutions that have teacher prep programs they are all active members and those members include deans certification officers other senior members of the institution we meet three times a year formally and in addition to our membership from the institutions we have three ex-officio members from the department of education and for example last month in march kelly heinecke attended as one of the members updated us on dr steiner's recommendations brad dierksen updated on this state board strategic planning goals and the reason we like to hear about the board as a group of course some of us keep in close contact with the board but um

064we like to hear as a group because the state board's issues is actually part of our mission statement it's something that's always on on our agenda and clayton waddle also um always gives us an update of what's happening in the certification office at the department we also bring in guest speakers and one of our past guest speakers right here is vice president co johns she attended our group pre-pandemic probably a year and a half ago one of our last meetings in person so much of our meeting time is focused on working through common issues and problem solving and establishing best practices oh it is no you're fine just thank you we appreciate all the work you do thanks thank you jenny next we have jenna lopez so when the group gets seated i'll try to

065give a welcome and then instructions no they are okay where are we yeah thank you and sorry for the uh consternation as you get in here to provide comment the board has taken this public comment and really do appreciate your attendance and this opportunity for you to provide some comment uh we've given some general instructions we just had a discussion we're trying to keep it to two minutes and so uh actually vice president code johns will hold up a one minute sign and then a stop sign and i would just ask that you stop at that stop point to give as many people a chance part of our dialogue today was to make sure that everyone showed up got at least a chance to appear before the board and we thank you very much for

066your time here so uh with that i'll turn it over to president nichols to to start the order thank you commissioner jenna lopez and on deck is jamie gould please jenna please come up to the microphone i'm sorry maureen but number one is damian don again oh so i need to stop her so number one okay jenna hold up we just messed it up sorry about that yeah we'll get it right we'll be good by the end of the day i'm sure okay thank you everyone just has to be forgiving of my mistakes here my errors okay first up is damien donegan and on deck is ginger jalanik and i hope i have pronounced these names correct eamon donegan donegan okay welcome damon thank you there's no way i can get all this done in

067two minutes so i really hope that you do read what i was able to provide my name is damon donegan i live in omaha nebraska i work in public health i have over 10 years experience in working in hiv and sti prevention i really wanted to get the point across the hiv sti stigma gender identity discrimination perpetuate perpetuating misinformation can lead to poor health outcomes according to a 2015 national transgender discrimination survey nearly one in three people who are transgender avoid getting medical care because of fear of discrimination or stigma one in five reported avoiding health care completely when we discriminate against our transgender gender non-conforming students they will grow up to be people who will avoid health care people who are transgender are disproportionately affected by hiv and these are the fields that i

068work in as i try to help people get the best health they can get having age-appropriate medically accurate information available for our students is paramount to help me to prevent hiv transmissions in their lifetime i can't stress this enough some people here today will be arguing that this should solely be the responsibility of parents but let's be honest honest more often than not many parents are unequipped to navigate these conversations because they themselves did not have this education as they were growing up even when the sex talk does happen parents struggle to cover the complex aspects of sexual health let alone medically accurate in a way that is inclusive to all gender identities or sexual orientations in my opinion solely depending on parents leave students unprepared to face the realities of sexuality as they grow

069up i also have the benefit of having been an elementary school teacher in my first career i worked with k-6 students as an art teacher i probably had about 900 kids in my time i got to watch them as they grew up because i had the benefit of seeing them year after year i can tell you that when it comes to things like stigma and consent and gender identity and sexual orientation that children are capable of understanding abstract concepts meaningful issues problem solving and things like this at an appropriate age level which these standards are working towards i appreciate your time thank you thank you thank you damian ginger jelinek and then rachel west good morning i'm here today as a parent of children in nebraska public schools as well as a taxpayer in lancaster

070county it is stated in what as one of the goals of these standards is to create the framework for students to learn basic health information resources and services needed to maintain and promote lifelong health the purpose of health education in schools should not be to influence or shape children's minds with ideological themes such as gender fluidity influencing and imposing such themes is exactly what i feel several of these proposed standards are doing specifically under the human and growth development strand the american college of pediatrician states that 80 to 95 percent of pre-pubertal children that are confused about their sexual identity generally experience resolution by late adolescence that's if they are not influenced by social affirmation and medical intervention such as puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones using hormone suppressants to help to block puberty in children

071is an off-label use that has not yet been proven safe studies have shown that this has not resulted in a lower suicide rate and it does not relieve the many problems experienced by individuals with gender confusion yet these standards are proposing introducing the idea of hormone blockers to children in the fifth grade that's children as young as 10 years old it is absolutely possible to teach our children that everyone is different that we should respect each other and be kind to each other without continually forcing ideological themes i know that because my child's school is already doing that in addition the burden the standards will place on our teachers are great the likelihood of personal bias being inserted into the curriculum that will come from these standards is high parents or guardians are are and

072should be the primary educator of their children a point that is widely omitted in these standards for those parents who are not capable of that it should be encouraged to find a trusted adult for those children to confide in it should not be the school's responsibility to take that objection over the transparency on the contributors is lacking the proposal feels very one-sided in certain topics and does not include an even representation of all aspects of families and beliefs i've been told numerous times at the passing of these standards thank you you're written comments correct thank you rachel west and next after her will be sarah ripped welcome rachel thank you my name is rachel west i'm the prevention coordinator at the nebraska coalition to end sexual and domestic violence yes sorry about that this i

073prefer not to thank you the centers for disease control and prevention offer a number of evidence-based strategies to prevent sexual and dating violence among young people these strategies include creating protective environments for young people teaching young people safe and healthy relationship skills and teaching young people skills to prevent sexual and dating violence schools play a critical role in implementing these strategies and can do so through a variety of approaches including by offering social emotional learning and sexual health education to students age-appropriate trauma-informed medically accurate science-based health education promotes healthy relationships by increasing young people's efficacy and empathy respect and communication including communication with parents and other trusted adults and it increases young people's overall sense of safety all of these factors are factors that protect against sexual violence i want to highlight it's important to

074teach children as young as two or three the anatomically correct terms for their body parts and help children become comfortable using these terms when talking to a trusted adult using these terms is critical to teaching young children about safe unsafe and unwanted touches and it helps navigate any disclosures of abuse and forensic interview process i also want to talk about the concept of teaching consent consent extends beyond sexual behaviors we all choose whether or not we consent to many social interactions throughout our day we can teach the concept of consent to young children through some of the interactions they have with friends and families in their homes on the playground in schools example of these behaviors include hugs fist bumps pets on the back pat's on the shoulder this helps children learn how to identify

075their boundaries communicate their boundaries and gain a healthy sense of bodily autonomy finally i'd like to touch on the need for health education to be inclusive and socio-culturally relevant for all young people we know that lgbtq plus students and students in racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by this type of violence so it's important to make sure that our prevention curricula cover that thank you uh we have a point of clarification sorry i'm gonna ask this from you but also if anybody else is in the room i know that you probably prepared a statement that would have taken five to ten minutes and you're trying to squeeze that into two so if there's something did you email us your statement so i provided it there's lots of stats and yes please okay thank

076you so much thank you thank you rachel sarah and then um sarah go ahead thank you ma'am honorable members of the board my name is sarah ripps and i am here on behalf of the aclu of nebraska and our tens of thousands supporters across the state first i want to extend our gratitude to you for your public service as board members and educators you understand that updating curriculum standards shouldn't be about politics at its loudest or its most divisive which should be about educating kids with accurate information that is age appropriate and keeps them safe healthy and successful our standards should recognize reality including the beautiful tapestry of all kinds of people and families that make nebraska great i am privileged to work with lgbtq nebraskans every day who love their families and contribute positively

077to our state i also regularly meet with lgbtq students and their parents who face painful legal discrimination and social exclusion simply because of who they are imagine what it really says to our trans and gay youth when people try to use politics to erase and deny the realities of their lives it's heartbreaking and it also won't work the proposed standards are medically accurate and they are inclusive the standards provide our great public schools with the guidance they need to empower students to stay healthy form positive relationships and prepare to be well-rounded citizens these proposals also respect local control of each for each district and existing state law already protects the rights of all parents to make decisions that honor their beliefs common sense and science show us providing inclusive accurate educational information saves lives teaching

078students about different kinds of families different kinds of people including people who are lgbtq and healthy relationships provide valuable lessons that promote well-being prevent suicide and self-harm attempts and reduce bullying and harassment these lessons teach our students how to stay safe and how to self-advocate i want to thank you for your leadership and to establish clear and strong policies to ensure educational equity and non-discrimination thank you thank you sarah and uh your documents will be handed out perfect thank you so much next up is laurie uh i'm not going to pronounce this name right colematcher and then julene hill following lori hi i'm lori komitcher can i go ahead okay okay i'm lori komicher i'm from south central nebraska i'm a grandmother of two young girls they're going to go into kindergarten this fall i

079am a mother of three sons that have gone through the nebraska school education public education system i'm also a school board member and i'm approaching you i thank you for letting me speak i'm approaching you because i am strongly opposed to these standards i think that they are they are are into given to a child too young and i may not be uh educated in uh in the psychological sense of the word but i am a parent a grandparent and a school board member and i know that how kids grow and this is just too much for a young child to be taught and also i just i think that these standards put a teachers our teachers and our school boards and our administrators in a terrible position where they have to conflict with parents

080that have their own ideals and i think we're a land of freedom and freedom of thought and i think you guys are taking that away in closing i i i have a letter that i put in as a public comment in closing this is my opinion and i believe the opinion of nebraska parents guardians and really most of nebraska the department of education is overstated overstep stepping its boundaries now why is that i wonder the only thing i can think of is that you are agenda driven by a radical group of people that don't care about the mental health of our children only your agenda to push for the destruction of the family unit and the removal of christian and other beliefs this country was founded on those beliefs and freedoms for everyone these standards

081as well as the social state standards that rewrite history have no place in our schools or our homes i urge you to scrap these standards and protect the mental health the well-being and the future of our precious children julian hill and then jenna lopez welcome julian thank you my name is julian hill i'm a retired i'm a retired health education teacher and former coordinated school health director for nde madam president members of the board commissioner good morning and thanks for the opportunity to visit with you guys today children come to us with all kinds of excess baggage that doesn't fit neatly into their backpacks they come to us hungry homeless depressed having been physically and emotionally abused bullied sexually abused and much more i witnessed this firsthand as a teacher the nebraska health education standards

082strive to address the behaviors that students engage in that put them most at risk unhealthy dietary behaviors tobacco use alcohol and other drugs intentional unintentional injuries violence and yes sexual behaviors the health standards provide students in grades k-12 the knowledge skills and attitudes needed to maintain and improve their health in order to achieve this outcome the health education standards i identify eight content areas and i was going to read those but due to the time i'm not no matter how hard the writers and advisors tried to please everyone we knew it was impossible every discipline has its hop buttons math with basic facts social studies with civic science with evolution and english with phonics the health standards hot button is the human growth and development component which constitutes a small segment of the standards but

083has produced the most vitriol and hostile comments the governor chose to politicize these standards in the nebraska catholic conference along with the nebraska families alliance chose to religiousize these standards let me be clear there is no place for politics or religion in these standards as you have done for the other disciplines it is my hope that you will give to into the individual's personal not give in to the individual's personal beliefs and biases but will instead follow the data research science and best practices as this is what is best for all students regardless of their sexual gender their sexual orientation gender identity or family structure in addition our schools have a res oh thank you julian and your document your handout will be passed out jenna lopez and then jamie gould welcome jenna hey one

084minute because i've noticed people are reading and not seeing the one minute card so not to interrupt you just to let you know one minutes past so fast hi my name is jenna lopez i'm speaking to you today as a mother of two nebraska public school students as a queer human who experienced a school system without inclusive evidence-based standards as a social worker who worked for six years in the public school system in nebraska and finally as a mental health professional who provides therapeutic care to those students currently i could talk about the mountains of research and evidence that support and prove how these new proposed standards and policies improve the lives of all students but i'm going to assume those have already been presented to you let's start with the reasons people oppose these

085policies what are their arguments it's always some version of these are not appropriate to be discussed with children so now put yourself in my shoes i'm 12. i'm very aware of my homosexuality but no one will talk to me about it because it's inappropriate it's very confusing i never understood how talking to a human being about being a human being was inappropriate what is the other argument this is meant to be talked in the home and not in the school well it's a bold assumption to make that all children have a home but even more bold that that home is a safe place for these discussions unfortunately for me my home was not that safe space so i internalized these messages and by 17 i was depressed anxious and suicidal i thought my family and

086my community would never accept me unless i was not gay but i didn't know how not to be gay and more importantly i did not want to be straight it would take a decade of therapy before i was able to fully realize there is nothing wrong with me i'm a wonderful human being and there's nothing wrong with being gay if twelve-year-old me was able to attend a school that taught the kinds of lessons these types of inclusive evidence-based standards make it possible for teachers to do i could have loved myself and those teachers lessons would have saved me many years of struggle as a school social worker i was constantly confronted with the damage the current policies and standards continue to inflict on students they shared their same feelings of depression and anxiety i also

087experienced the ultimate devastation of a student suicide right because of these thank you thank you dispersed next up is jamie gould good morning my name is jamie gould and i'm testifying in support of the new proposed health standards specifically those related to human growth and development today you are probably going to hear a lot of testimony if you have not already claiming that an lgbtq inclusive curriculum starting at a young age will corrupt the children that learning about gender identity and sexual orientation in early elementary school will make them gay or make them trans well i was only exposed to heterosexuality in school when we had assigned readings or watched a video in class that included a love story it was always a heterosexual one by that logic i should be heterosexual but i am

088not my partner is non-binary and only received cisgender content in school yet they are still non-binary sexual orientation and gender are not a choice and they cannot be changed by learning that someone else's is different with my remaining time i'd like to express why the introduction of consent into curriculums at an early age will be life-saving for any survivors in the room or watching on the live stream i'd like to give a trigger warning i'm going to talk a bit about sexual assault and abuse the most immediate change we will see from this is children being better able to advocate for themselves when it comes to sexual abuse we don't often offer children the option to consent and regularly ignore when they explicitly deny consent this will give them the tools to advocate for themselves

089and i can't imagine why that is controversial the long-term difference we will see is when the next generation of children under these standards grow up we will very likely see a drop in sexual assault and rape if we teach children the importance of consent from an early age according to a 2001 study from australia nearly one in three survivors of childhood sexual abuse attempt suicide and a 2014 study found that rape survivors are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide i wish i had been taught these standards in school and as a survivor of sexual assault please listen carefully to what i'm about to say these standards will save lives and as a member of the lgbt community please hear that anything less than these standards will fail the next generation thank you time thanks

090thank you jamie and your handout will be given to the board members thank you [Music] that completes our first group [Music] i just leave you want me to just take these off well no because then i hope they have a hand i want to acknowledge we're glad you're here the commissioner yeah welcome thank you and again apologize for all the the consternation but thank you for being here the board is here to hear your public comment uh we have reduced time to two minutes i know that's not very that's not very much time many of you have provided written comments so we have that you will look uh vice president code john's we'll have a one minute and a stop sign i've learned in the first round i need to say one minute because people

091are looking at their notes not to interrupt you just so you you know what the time is and hopefully that'll help you in your testimony so thank you and welcome welcome to the state board of education and we we welcome to hear your comments so okay first up will be harper king followed by kandra king get right up to the microphone thank you for the opportunity to talk today about this important topic i am a 12 year old and i am a lesbian i am also a lot of different things actually i am a sister a daughter a basketball player a soccer player and a friend i am a kid who wants to feel safe and supported at school i actually just found out what recently what lgbtq stands for it doesn't matter what letter

092i am in lgbtq i have known since i was in the first grade that i was one day going to marry a girl it always has been what felt natural to me my mom and dad have recently taught me more about how some people in the outside world talk do not support me during my elementary and middle school years there have been several times where i feel discrimination and against due to how i look in my sexual orientation there have been many times at school where i didn't feel comfortable being myself i want to be able to go to school and not have kids who ask me about my expression and identity this new health curriculum will help my classmates and fellow lgbtq students feel safe and supported at school i have friends who identify

093as lgbtq and as i go on in school i meet more friends who come out to me they have told me that they don't feel comfortable or supported in their homes and at school too i would like one minute i would like them to feel like they can be themselves and feel safe around their parents teachers students and peers change change is something not everyone is used to this change will allow for a brighter future for all students thank you thank you and your handout will be given to the board members thank you up next is kandra king followed by christian mata garrett i know i slaughtered that name my daughter who just stood proud before us today and shared her heart to you is the same daughter that ditched dresses pink and bows when

094she was four at five she transformed her hair to match her gender expression to to look more like a boy at seven she told me that she was in another kid who is male have so many options for girlfriends on the playground at eight she expressed with confidence that she plans to marry a girl in the future at nine she got into a debate with a classmate at lunch in her school cafeteria and told him that she plans to marry a girl he repeatedly argued with her that she couldn't do that no you can yes i can't they decided to ask the lunchroom teacher for the answer to their debate instead of giving a simple yes answer a woman can marry a woman she told them we don't talk about that at school this answer

095did not give an opportunity for the children to learn and for her peer to become an ally but instead shame my daughter into thinking that she couldn't be herself at school this same child continue for the next two years to make non-supportive comments to her regarding her gender expression and sexual orientation at 11 a child in her younger sister's class continually referred to her sister as a boy again after repeated attempts from her younger sister explaining to the child that her sister is a she uh there was a bullying and harassment at 12 at the current school she is continually called by a boy in front of her friends and laughing and chuckling unfortunately i have countless more examples of how my daughter has been be experienced bullying because of her gender expression the underlying

096issue is their lack of education this area for both teachers and students this new health curriculum gives me hope that we can start the groundwork to help create a safe and inclusive school children do not understand vague terminology such as all means all this is a curriculum that will teach them who the all is the all is the child's classmate who looks like a boy and wants to marry a girl the all is a child's classmate whose parents are the same gender a classmate who was born a female and now identifies as a male what i want to say is you know what as my angel once said do the best you can until you know better then when you know better do better thank you and your handout will be given to the board

097members even though we're just wanting to make sure that we can hear everything that takes place so thank you next is christian i'm not going to say your last name you can say it and followed by taylor henningy good morning my name is kristen mctaggart i'm the freedom from violence project director with the women's fund of omaha but i come to you this morning with multiple hats as a mother of elementary and middle school children who attend nebraska public schools as an active volunteer in those schools as a domestic and sexual violence expert with over 20 years of experience with healthy relationships and consent and lastly as someone who was born and raised catholic familiar with many of the opinions that you've heard today the american academy of pediatrics recommends that children learn the names

098of their genitals along with other body parts to understand that the genitals while private are not so private you can't talk about them my kids earned appropriate names for their vulva vagina and penis at the same time as they learn names for their nose eyes and knees this is primarily because learning the correct names for body parts including genitals and their function is a key protective factor in their ability and mind to recognize and report child abuse i am one person but could share with you multiple stories of children who disclosed abuse and weren't heard or understood in part one minute because they used names like pocketbook toony peach or pipong for genitalia names uncle joe playing with my pocketbook is not understood in the same way as uncle joe was touching my vulva teaching

099children protective factors is a core component in any sexual violence prevention curriculum this is a life skill that should be practiced long before it has anything to do with sex additionally conversations around sexual activity must conclude consent with the reality that 57 of nebraska students have had sex before they graduate high school and it must also include individuals of all identities lgbtq individuals experience physical and sexual contact with partners in a variety of ways and it's no less important that they understand and exp they know and understand consent and the ways that it looks for them there's no questions the positions identified by opponents today will put children and youth at greater risk for sexual violence and remove crucial access to information for youth who've been victimized i know this is not their goal or

100anyone's goals thank you i think we have your written comments so okay thank you will be distributed christian thank you taylor and then keegan korff welcome taylor thank you okay good morning and thank you nebraska board of education for speaking for letting me speak to you today my name is taylor henke and i'm a sophomore at nebraska wesleyan university and a high school graduate of elkhorn public schools and here today i am going to provide a position of support for the proposed health standards as a white straight cisgender person from a solid middle class household i am aware of my privilege in having ready access to health care and resources i am also one of the lucky ones in that my mom and my aunt had ongoing and open conversations with me about the things

101in these standards and that my high school did not teach i understand consent and what rape looks like i understand what a healthy relationship and dating abuse looks like i have access to birth control and medical care and i respect and understand people with identities that are different than mine such as the lgbtq plus community you might ask why am i here if i got the education that i needed from supportive adults in my life and i would tell you that there are several reasons one is that experience is not of the norm of all the students i went to high school with played sports with were friends with or dated few of them had access to the information that i did as a result many of them have experienced these issues that these standards

102cover they were hurt and abused by someone they were dating they did not understand how to give and withdraw consent from within their relationships they had pregnancy scares and were not aware of how to access resources for any of these findings this was even more true for lgbtq individuals as even the minimal information provided by our schools did not include specific information or support for those identities young people want comprehensive and medically accurate health information that reflects their lives and issues they deal with most schools right now are failing to teach young people what they need to stay healthy and safe again i am one of the lucky ones but i first hand seen the need for every student in nebraska to have access to the same information and what happens when they do not

103thank you again for this opportunity and i ask you to move forward with these proposed health standards thank you taylor and your handout will be disbursed thank you next is keegan korff followed by doug kagan good morning members of the board commissioner my name is keegan korf and i'm here today as a proponent in favor of this effort and these standards and i kindly ask that you vote in favor of them as well as this process moves forward in the coming months i'm coming to you today as an active community leader and a technology educator who focused the majority of my teaching career on digital citizenship common sense media defines digital citizenship as the responsible use of technology to learn create and participate common sense media founder jim steyer says as the lines between digital

104life and real life merge we must prepare young people to harness the power of technology for responsible participation and active engagement this first draft of the health standards emphasized just that in my work with our schools across the state i know digital citizenship is a priority for our teachers and schools and commonsense media provides a thorough and in-depth curriculum to support these skills but the nebraska health standards do not even prescribe a specific curriculum they're simply writing written as a guiding framework for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and while adopted as a state school district boards of education can choose to adopt the standards and curriculum of their choosing continuing to provide nebraska educators and families with the autonomy and voice that we all appreciate digital citizenship while encompassing media literacy and information bias

105is addressed in every single grade band listed in this 60 page document within the social emotional and mental health strand on a personal note my parents divorced when i was just four years old i spent my formative years being raised by a single parent before becoming part of a two blended families the first time i was offered a cigarette i was just six years old the first time i remember being inappropriately touched by an adult i was just eight years old our entire world has shifted since the 90s when i experienced these events young people are facing issues today we would have never dreamed in our own youth these standards address so much more than the life-saving gender affirming language they support young people time thank you appreciate it and your written comments will be

106distributed doug kagan and then deborah mcknight good morning doug kagan representing nebraska taxpayers for freedom although we found many categories in much of the health education standards content praiseworthy and acceptable the coverage of sexuality topics we found alarming and biased against traditional cultural norms the stated intent of these standards is to gain health knowledge and skills to maintain and promote healthy lifestyles form healthy relationships prevent disease and reduce health-related risky behaviors however the standards fail to identify the community-based organizations or the advisory committee so taxpayers had no clue about the quality of professional credentials of these individuals until media exposure documentation we have consulted convinces us that this sexuality content exposes children too young to understand and analyze it and forces on them materials for which they are not physically or psychologically ready these classes

107will degrade the natural modesty of boys and girls it propagandizes the learning of being that traditional family households consider abhorrent and perverted contradicts traditional and religious beliefs and exposes children to accept and respect such behaviors as normal we perceive the intent of these standards to advise children the values learned in their families are negative biases in fact the content attacks and undermines family values and the parental right and responsibility to teach sexual morality to their children this board should not expect state taxpayers to fund content that we would find in the k-12 schools of sodom and gomorrah if such cities had public schools this content amounts to child abuse therefore we urge this board to remove this objectionable content that contaminates otherwise exemplary standards thank you comments will be distributed to the members next is

108deborah mcknight followed by kent whitaker hello my name is deborah mcknight i'm a united methodist clergy woman i have been serving in nebraska for 12 years and i don't come alone you will be receiving a sign-on letter from more than 50 clergy in the state of nebraska from different mainline denominations i'm here today in part because i don't think religious leaders and churches need to be consulted on public health standards for public schools if you consult one organization will you be consulting all of them if you consult one christian denomination will you consult other denominations and other religious identities i'm also here because i want to be clear that there is a multitude of christian voices and understandings and lenses on theology and the fear-monger mongering of some christians and their extremist language around sexualizing

109young people is an embarrassment to me as a christian and as a faith leader their attempt to control people's bodies identities and beings within but especially beyond their own congregations astounds me it is an absolute denial of the real pain in the real world a nostalgic vision of relationship sex and identity that never really existed and never was really good for all people cannot guide our choices in addition to my masters of divinity i have a master's degree in curriculum and instruction during my time at doane i explored heterosexist language and the impact of the secondary school climate it is vital and essential that people of all ages have the opportunity to see themselves to be honored to have safe space last i'm a parent i have a seven-year-old daughter in public school and these

110standards are exactly the kinds of conversations that i have with her whether it is about brushing her teeth knowing her anatomy safe or unsafe touch thank you very much thank you deborah and your written comments will be distributed kent whitaker thank you for allowing me to speak today my name is kent whitaker i live in football my name is kent whitaker and i live in papillion nebraska i wish we speak against several points of the draft of health standards the first point is a concept that sex is assigned at birth gender is determined in the womb not assigned this is a basic fact of science people can attempt to change their gender yet their dna remains the same these basic concepts are contradicted by he dot 4.7.2.f another point is parents not school should be

111the primary moral teachers of our children ideas about when sex is appropriate or not should be taught by parents not teachers as children progress through the grades teachers change only parents are the consistent influence on our children and they should be allowed to teach moral values i remember when i first learned about the birds and the bees it was after school and with my parents knowledge and consent a film about the subject was shown at school later that night my father talked to me about it and answered questions i bring up this story to indicate the necessity of parental involvement in this very important subject teaching children the first and second grade which is in he 1.7.1.a and he 2.7.1 to identify genitalia is way too early to be approaching this subject standard he 3.7.2.e

112talks about defying sexual orientation is this the appropriate at this age will stigmatize some children if so who pays for the counseling required for the children to recover i would continue with my objections but i am somewhat limited in time so in closing i would ask that you please do not adopt these standards they will be detrimental to the lives of our children thank you thank you thank you kent and that concludes our second set of eight speakers thank you again for taking the time to come we appreciate it thank you so 10 51. so thank you and sorry for the concentration on uh getting organized but we're getting a little bit better as we go so thank you for being here i just want you to know the state board of education and i

113sit here to actually be able to hear your comments and appreciate you doing that we have limited to two minutes and i know that's a little tight vice president coach johns will show you a minute sign and a stop sign i will also verbalize those things not to interrupt you but just so you sometimes people are reading and can't see the sign so so thank you for being here and i'll turn it over to president nichols thank you and welcome again we appreciate all of you being here to speak to us the first person up is going to be tessa bloom and following will be mark i'm not going to say your last name mark i'll slaughter it okay speak closely to the microphone everyone can you hear me good morning my name is tessa

114bloom i am from hastings i'm a mother of a seven-year-old son four-year-old daughter and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence i am here today to support lb 360. i wish i would have found my voice sooner that i would have known with just a few words i could have saved myself a lifetime's worth of pain shame and guilt i wish i would have known that my body belongs to no one but myself that the threats made my made by my abuser were empty words used to keep me compliant i wish i would have known that a person's sexual identity does not make them any less deserving of respect and love i wish that i didn't have to figure out the hard way that relationships are built on love trust respect and not

115hate fear and anger i wish that i had known i did have a choice my hope is that as my children grow they continue using their voices that they keep advocating for their bodies and minds that they do not falter when it comes to their boundaries and respect for others that they remember that a person's gender identity or sexual orientation one minute does not mean they deserve to be treated less than anyone else i hope they remember they always have a choice my vision is that every child finds their voice that they know without question they have sovereignty over their lives i want a world where children are given access to information about consent boundaries healthy relationships gender identity and sexual orientation so that they are able to make informed decisions my vision is that

116every child knows where they can go if they need help i envision a world where our children know that they have a choice i believe that implementing this bill will help ensure that every child will learn the skills and be given the knowledge to not only advocate and protect themselves but others around them as well our children deserve to know that they matter to us that we want to empower them and this bill will show them that thank you for your time and the space to share with you remember you do have a choice thank you tessa and your written comments will be distributed next up is mark good morning i'm mark bonkowitz a former farmer from sydney nebraska out in the panhandle i live in omaha now because we have grandchildren that are there

117there were two documents that i submitted the very first one came from the central nebraska patriot party and they have collected 3 100 signatures in opposition to the standards and they've only been doing it for a two week period of time my submittal was the ivory colored sheet right here so i'm here to oppose draft one of your standards that you released on march 31st i find it extremely ironic that these proposed health standards actually promote unhealthy behavior in our precious children promoting lgbt lifestyle is not healthy and is actually child abuse how many of you or your family members have ever needed or used a blood transfusion nearly half of you and your family members according to a study recently performed by a north carolina hospital the american red cross inventory of whole blood

118typically lasts two to three weeks during normal times with few emergencies during catastrophes this supply quickly diminishes to only two to three days so there's a mineral supply on hand so we need more future blood donors than we have now currently only 38 percent of americans are eligible to donate the 36 000 units of blood used daily in the united states when you go and you have to answer a whole series of questions one of the randomly selected questions that's frequently asked of us male donors is if you're a male have you had sex even once with another male since 1973 if your truthful answer is yes then that male is no longer eligible to donate blood the rest of their life i am a 100 plus plant donor and have answered that question many

119dozen times so for the sake of all nebraskans please remove all the sexy oriented standards and draft one so we will not lose any more of our potential blood donors due to unhealthy lifestyle choices thank you thank you mark and your written comments uh robin clarification to make sure i heard right did you say that these uh became uh public uh on march 31st march the 11th that's when i heard all right thank you mark and your written comments both sets will be distributed next up is gerald hershey chris i'm sorry and rachel pinkerton i'm sorry gerald if i messed that up my name is gerald kirschner i'm here today to assert that the comprehensive sex education bill uh excuse me rules are fundamentally dangerous and uh should not be undertaken forgive me reading but

120you don't want me to just start reproductive biology should be taught in a biology class and it already is how is human reproductive biology different than animal biology why do we refer to human sexuality and not animal sexuality because human behavior always manifests a moral component for 10 000 years all humanity has always manifest a one-minute opponent about sexuality therefore this puts the classroom teacher in the position of teaching morality they either teach their own morality or they teach amorality the comprehensive sex education set forth in the nebraska ed standards affirms to take an amoral or hands-off moral position this amoral teaching about sex at least children excuse me has led children and has been proven to be led lead children to sexually early exploration encourage sexual abuse and interferes with family communication and cohesion

121these standards should be rejected outright teach biology in the biology class and my wife left me with this one we all have private parts we don't have public conversations about private parts even in our classrooms thank you thank you thank you next up rachel pinkerton followed by maris bentley i'm rachel pinkerton since 2015 i've been telling people that the teachers union prioritizes promoting the ideology of gender fluidity a report from a mole who attended that year's nea annual meeting documented a half dozen new business items mythologizing binary biological sex and establishing a subjective fluid spectrum as the new reality what is the harm in that my favorite expert on this topic is charlie evans who began the d transition advocacy network in the uk in november of 2019 a biologist and professional science writer dr

122charlotte evans lived 10 years as a man suffering souls flocked to her group to process harm done by professionals who when encountering someone with gender struggles made no attempt to help that person find a way forward that didn't include fighting biology charlie owens calls criminal scientists and doctors who are silent as ideology drives the narrative that hormone blockers are safe despite evidence suggesting they are dangerous with no research demonstrating otherwise one minute evans maintains that there are thousands of such voices hidden because quote we are seen by the queer community as an inconvenient consequence of their movement close quote this health education draft purports to promote student mental health how ironic does it help kids nerves to send second graders home anxious about how much salt is in their food does it ease young minds

123to worry about mom and dad's caffeine use or the loved one smoking is creating calorie conscious fifth graders a winning strategy talk about nervous what happens to a child's sense of security when taught that mom and dad are ignorant or lying when they say people are created male and female this draft should disappear it's an embarrassing demonstration that a statewide health standard is a mistake at least as long as the teachers union holds the reins over state education policy in nebraska thank you thank you rachel your written comments will be distributed maris bentley followed by ron zimmer welcome rachel ramirez i'm sorry it's morris actually oh i'm sorry morris my name is morris bentley i am a lifelong nebraskan a wife of 44 years mother grandmother retired teacher and k-12 school counselor i've spent the

124majority of my life working with and caring for children nebraska parents do not send their children to school to learn about oral and anal sex acts they send their children to learn to read and write to understand math science history and to learn to seek and appreciate what is good and true imagine the total hypocrisy and deviousness of standards which claim to promote health and well-being yet would encourage and teach children to question their sexual identity and would propose to children the feelings based totally unscientific and irrational idea that there exists a spectrum of gender identities imagine standards which will teach seventh graders about anal sex acts because you know no one is going to get pregnant if the penis is inserted in the rectum even though any medical doctor worthy of his or her

125degree will tell you how extremely unhealthy and damaging this behavior is just ask my friend joseph shaumbra who engaged in this behavior for more than a decade and even though he's younger than me he now has to wear adult diapers for the rest of his shorter than normal lifespan these are all medical facts and they are not included in what will be taught to children by the way imagine standards which will promote all of this and more will we no longer have to imagine this scenario do we here we are but why have you ever asked yourself the history of this and examine the organizations and individuals who are behind it well you should why do we have a small but vocal and influential minority of people who promote and help fund the indoctrination of

126children with information about sexual promiscuity abortion and lgbt behavior and lifestyles why what motivates these people who are so intent on teaching other people's children all about sexuality time mars thank you thank you and your written documentation will be distributed okay protect the children next is ron zimmer followed by melissa mcclana clanahan welcome ron thank you very much uh first up i do want to thank you one thing we are seeing in the nation's report card at that government location that we are seeing some improvements in the teaching standards of our schools the effectiveness and that i'm sorry what i here to share with you is some of the comments we're getting from many of my employer friends we're finding out based on the number a lack of applicants that we're getting there appears to

127be in the age 18 to 25 a decision not to work apparently they are finding that many who do work will apply when they they last about one to two months and then they quit they're finding the employers are finding it is very difficult to train them and this is the one issue they ask me to refer to you there is a lack of critical thinking in the ones that they meet and they ask you to really take a hard look at that in your school thinking critical thinking otherwise i just want to thank all of you because you are doing a good job thank you ron next is melissa and followed by mike davis welcome melissa hello uh first i just wanted to thank everybody for hearing out everybody's opinions and i'll try to

128talk real fast oh yes i'm sorry um first i just wanted to say i'm a mother i'm a preschool teacher a director of a faith-based preschool and this this topic that's come up is absolutely alarming to me i'm also a god-fearing christian as well and um i'm all for teaching sex education the way it's always been taught the basics the separation of boys and girls learning about the anatomy and the biology that's perfectly normal but the fact that now we're starting to kind of go so far the other way and we are welcoming more of the lbgt as a normal but you cannot forget the other side please don't forget the christians the god-bearing people who want to teach our children our way and so i'm actually going to skip over all of my facts

129because i feel driven to just read this one part here it says instead of teaching things about lbgt we should be teaching our children that our human bodies matter that we are uniquely designed according to male and female whether you want to put god into that that's your choice but that is the way it is scientifically as a fact we need to be teaching people our children to love everyone and accept everybody no matter how they see themselves why can't we be teaching that instead of pushing these views on those of us who don't want to be to be pushed into that i just i really want to see the board of education consider the other side the christians the ones that just don't want to see this in our school curriculum there's a wide

130range of cultural background and religious beliefs and i hope you can take that into consideration thank you thank you melissa mike davis my name's mike davis and i spent 38 years in education in nebraska as a high school teacher a principal and then a superintendent of schools my wife and i have been married 48 years we have five children and 16 grandchildren my recommendation is that the controversial sections of human growth development and social emotional mental health be removed from the standards i emailed that to each and every one of the school board members and to the commissioner of education the proposed intent content is to assault the value systems and the life principles of the majority of parents across the state of nebraska i would recommend the removal of the following standards for the

131following reasons as indicated in bold in consideration the time i will not read those but allow you because you'll have a copy of this identify those standards but the categories are those that are in genitalia and sexual function sexual intercourse condoms and birth control which does not promote abstinence but only that is one of the ways that you can prevent pregnancy all those standards that pertain to different types of families all the standards that pertain to gender expression sexual orientation consent sounds like it's a good thing to teach but how is it defined is it only to not to refuse sex unless they were a condom or does it refer to no sex at all and this also says demonstrate which could mean role playing sexual scenarios with fears thank you thank you thank you

132and your written documentation robin clarification point point of clarification did you indicate that the standards did not mention abstinence did i hear that correctly it's not it doesn't promote that abstinence is the best way thank you mike and your written comments will be distributed that concludes this group is the board feeling the need for like us eight minute break okay we will break and return it is 11 10. let's make sure we're back in our seats ready to go by 11 20. ready to go at 11 20. 7 20 we are going to resume our business meeting and to those that have walked in group the group that just came in welcome we were pleased that you are here and when you speak make sure you get close to the microphone go ahead matt yeah

133and again just thanks we are here to hear your comment right so that's our intention sorry for the consternation two minutes goes by very quickly that's all i can say to you uh uh patsy co john's our vice president will hold up a one minute sign and then a stop sign and i'll also articulate one minute uh so because some people are not not being able to see the the sign so my intention is that you're able to uh uh provide that in two minutes i'll say one minute then you'll see the stop sign come up too so thank you for being here we look forward to your comments up first is kelly larson followed by eric jones welcome kelly thank you for being here thank you as you said my name is kelly larson

134i live in kearney nebraska where i'm a pastor of a congregation of about 300 people i'm here speaking to you both as an individual citizen and as a representative of the people of my church we want to say to you thank you for the role that you fill we'd also want to say thank you for taking the time to hear us in doing this work we're confident that you all desire to formulate teaching standards that'll serve our children our communities well and i would not want the comments i'm about to make to be construed as an overarching impeachment of this work or your motives however obviously the time is short so i need to move to the grave area of concern that i have in reading through the proposal i'm dismayed and alarmed in respect

135to its approach to human sexuality the standards set forth in this subject at every grade level are rooted in an ideology that is new and untested in the course of human history and that would have been unthinkable to the citizens of this state just a decade ago but this is also an ideology that is antithetical to the christian faith and if adopted will set public schools on a direct collision course with pastor with parents teachers and administrators and community members who hold the deeply convicted christian views please know that this is the distinction that sits at the heart or excuse me the the sex assigned at birth and gender identity distinction is the distinction that sits at the heart of a current controversy between the people of christian faith and those who advocate these new

136beliefs you must know that christian teachers will not be able to teach this material in good conscience and will likely face termination or other pressure for refusing to teach these moral belief-based convictions that are contrary to their own we're asking you to see that these are standards that are established in a belief-based system that is just as morality and belief-based as is the christian belief system and you need not create this conflict by leaving off of the subject entirely so we would urge you please remove all materials that address human sexuality from this material and allow families and churches and communities to address these issues with their own values and their beliefs thank you thank you eric pettigrew followed by sarah brewer hi my name is eric jones oh eric did i me eric i'm

137sorry thank you another mistake welcome eric thank you get close to the microphone okay i'll try not to touch it though so yes my name is eric jones i am from kearney as well a father of four and uh and reading the health standards i'm very concerned for the main point that the school is not the place for these topics the sex gender topics to be taught more and more responsibility has been taken from parents over the years and given to the school and parents have been too willing to give up those responsibilities but not this this is way too far the proposed topics are in clear contrast to many people's beliefs yes parents do mess up but they are there for their kids in the long run for the long term schools cannot be

138there for their kids in the future and these things that are being put into this draft of health standards will have huge ramifications for these children far after they have graduated from any school life is confusing enough for these kids without having to make them doubt something that is so basic as their gender their sex the parents will be there for these kids and be able to teach them what is right what is wrong this is not something that the school should have the responsibility to do in psalm 139 verse 13 through 15 it tells us that our creator created us intricately with he made us fearfully wonderfully made we are knit together we are woven together my my wife loves to knit and if you were to take the end of the blanket and

139start unraveling it the whole thing would come undone you see our identities aren't just compartmentalized we don't just have our gender here and the rest of it over here so if we teach these kids that they can change so quickly then they will begin to unravel so i call on you guys to remove any and all topics that deal with the sex and the gender and leave that to the parents as their responsibility thank you thank you eric up next is bob pettigrew followed by sarah brewer welcome bob all right thank you thank you for your time i respect your role in the role of thousands of educators across the state many of which are very close friends i'm also going to speak out in opposition to some of the content of the draft standard

140that's been created i'm going to do my best to speak from my heart but i'm also going to speak from some notes my question i guess i have two open questions one is why squander the opportunity to instill policies in our education system that are rooted in political propaganda the things that were just mentioned by the last two gentlemen around gender and sex based education most of that's probably political propaganda it's not rooted in fact and by establishing protocol in a policy that's going to give educators a very difficult decision to make to teach against their own beliefs teach against their own standards and follow the standards that you set it just doesn't make sense to me and i would appreciate it if you did take those policies out most of all i appreciate the

141opportunity for us to be able to have this discussion and i would hope that the content in the draft is not finalized that it is still up to debate and it gives us as parents and citizens in this state an opportunity to voice our opinion but then to also hear your perspective i don't know that your perspective is apparent when i read the content i'd like to know what your thought process is because all i can do is assume and i do assume that you're taking on more of a political agenda and i and i'm not for that for the kids in this state so i really appreciate your time thank you very much and and i hope you make the right decision thank you bob next is sarah brewer followed by steve ray welcome

142sarah hello thank you um i'm sarah brewer i have three small children ages three and under so our lives are crazy um but i was made known to this curriculum that is being proposed and um you say that this is our ch in in our children's best interest but my question is to whose standards whose views and whose beliefs it is our responsibility as parents to do what is best for our children and introducing those these subjects and topics at these ages and at school no less is wrong on all levels it goes against morals beliefs and our right as parents to teach our children these subjects do not belong in school there is no way to remain neutral and unbiased when teaching these subjects the teachers who went into their profession to make a

143difference in the lives of young people will now be forced to go against the very reason they began teaching one minute there is a place for this education it's at home where kids are safe and taken care of and if home is not a safe place then that's a whole new subject that we have to address but it begins at home and i hope that you guys can agree with everybody who's spoken before me to not pass this curriculum thank you very much thank you sarah steve ray followed by doug whitman name steve ray would you speak up closer to the microphone okay i'm here to say that there's a lot of controversial sections in this human growth development standards you're proposing i think some of them should be removed parents are the ones that

144should dictate the children's education and not teachers in school systems teachers and school teachers and school systems should support the values of the parents and the values that they're instilling in their children not bring up controversial subjects that undermine their values the local school boards and parents should be able to have decide what's appropriate in their districts and teach what they think is right for their communities sexual orientation such as gender identity need not be taught especially at some of the young ages you're bringing it up children should be taught that gender is biologically determined and you can't just choose your own gender teaching children that a family structure is two men or two women together is not acceptable standard value for most nebraskans it should be that a man and a woman make a

145marriage and they constitute a family as the bible teaches you i would certainly not want any school telling my children or my grandchildren that any of these alternatives are acceptable it goes against what god teaches us and what i would believe it would have students questioning what their parents are trying to teach them if the school's teaching things that are different schools should enforce the values of the parents and their ideals not contradict them for these reasons i would ask you to take another look at the standards you're trying to implement and not vote for this thank you steve doug whitman followed by william mickel i believe that's correct yeah hi doug welcome thanks for being here thanks for letting us come uh and thank you for your responses to my email i sent each

146of you last week two of the responses stuck out to me that informed of your overlying principle used and decisions you make the well-being and welfare of students good motivation but who determines what is welfare to students right is it the teachers is it the parents i mean you're hearing all kinds of testimony about who is responsible for what students learn in the multitude of counselors there is safety but i notice that there's no place for god to be invited into these research teams that you've established these expert teams that that are advising you on these standards my my email to you referred to william blackstone's commentaries on the law where he says in part as man absolutely depends upon his maker for everything it is necessary that he should in all points one minute

147conform to his maker's will this will of his maker is called the law of nature this law of nature dictated by god himself is of course superior in obligation to any other it is binding over all the globe in all countries and at all times no human laws or standards of are of any validity if contrary to this upon these two foundations the law of nature and the law of revelation or god's word depend all human laws that is to say no human laws should be permitted to contradict these in order for your standards to have any validity in reality they must agree with god's revealed law i advise you to include an expert in his law to be welcomed onto your expert teams that seek to establish standards by which nebraska students true welfare

148may be truly insured thank you very much william and he's followed by sandy dennick i hope i got that right welcome william good morning madam chairman dr bloomstead members of the committee my name is william mickel i'm from lincoln nebraska and i'd ask that the committee be very very hesitant about enacting the sex education portion of the health education standards in essence you the government are attempting to impose on nebraskans by doing this what is right and what is wrong what it to do and what not to do how to act and i'd ask that you'd be very hesitant to become involved specifically in the human growth and development section of the standards parts of the standards of the health education standards are admirable and need to be enacted however you need to be very

149careful and very hesitant to act on such a divisive topic secondly you as the reviewing body need to critically review the input and the sources one minute to identify whether the standards that are proposed are truly reflective of nebraskans and their values many of the standards appear to be parroted or drawn verbatim from standards implemented in other states that have different priorities and values and lastly if approved and implemented the standards and the curriculum based on the standards will be taught by individual classroom teachers across the state how will the implementation of the standards be evaluated if each classroom teacher is able to teach the standards as they see fit i see a number of comments and people raising their opinions here your actions will affect all students across the state minority students as well

150so time asian muslim native american and i'd ask and i don't envy you in your in your responsibility i ask you to not implement those standards thank you thank you thank you william sandy dannick welcome sandy thank you so much for being here and allowing us to come i'm the executive director of nebraska right to life and we are the longest running pro-life organization in the state so i represent grassroots activists who are the pro-life movement in the state i come for concern for what everyone else is speaking due to time i won't quote what is in the language that i have most concerned for but specifically when you're talking about federal and state laws relating to a minor's access to health care we know that that includes the judicial bypass option which allows a

151young girl 17 and younger to receive an abortion without parental consent and while it does not specifically say abortion in the language we also know that pregnancy options is a term that's generally used that includes abortion and it's most concerning to us that these uh this these directives are under the sexual health section as we believe abortion is not health care whether or not you believe a pre-born human is equal in value and worth to the born human pregnant person that is caring him or her a preborn human is scientifically without a doubt a completely unique whole living human and killing a human whatever the reason is not health care lastly at the core of the pro-life movement is the belief that all human life is equal in value the most vulnerable of our human

152family are the pre-born and we choose to advocate for them and protect them from dying under youth using such as health care abortion or reproductive health again abortion is not health care therefore it is inappropriate under any circumstances let alone with an eighth grader to receive instruction on how to quote eliminate an un intended pregnancy end quote thank you very much for your time thank you that ends uh those that wish to speak on this round thank you again for coming welcome we appreciate that you've taken the time to come today to speak to us commissioner yes and and once again thanks and sorry for some of the consternation that you have to go through but we do very much appreciate you coming and we're here to try to hear all of the uh public

153comment that you have today obviously we're down to two minutes for that public comment it goes quickly um vice president code johns will actually hold up a one minute sign and then a stop sign um we ask you to complete that when she holds up this complete your comments when she holds up the stop sign we do really appreciate you being here the board's really here to listen to your to your comments and and again look forward to hearing those thank you okay first up will be laureen renate i hope i pronounced that correct followed by jerry vicki welcome thank you good morning my name is lorene renante and i live in papillion nebraska and i am testifying here today to oppose the new nebraska health education standards something so basic and personal has been

154politicized for school age children with these new proposed nebraska health education standards this information is about topics that should be communicated between the parents and the child at home clearly there is an agenda going on here and it doesn't take too much detective work to realize that it is a radical left agenda i don't see one conservative group involved with this curriculum shape america.org and shape nebraska.org says it all the agenda is to change and indoctrinate children that don't have the ability to understand all these complicated subjects none of this curriculum is done from the legislature it is all from a coalition of nonprofit companies across the united states they get grants from the united states taxpayer future of sex education fosc and sexuality information education council of the united states seek us are driving

155forces one minute initiatives none of you will be affected by this so i have to ask the rhetorical question what's in it for you none of you will be um nor will you have to deal with the potential consequences for these children you won't be teaching this or answering questions at home introducing such abstract information to elementary children is too much for them to process children don't understand and left on their own won't care about this information until you plant the seed in researching this curriculum i came across the national sex education standards which makes it sound like a real important program it was developed by the advocates for youth and the seekers sex education for social change both of those non-profit organizations are very left and political there is too much confusion with war

156on reality there is too much emphasis to wipe out the objective truth congress and state officials seek to outlaw mother and father and replace the state as the parent for the new world globalist agenda by destroying the nuclear family today thank you thank you and your written comments will be distributed to all the board members we have jerry vicki i hope i pronounced that right followed by justin thiel welcome thank you hello my name is jerry fike and i've been a lifelong resident of lincoln in my opinion elements of the proposed health education standards are not suitable to the public classroom instead these elements are best discussed within the privacy of the family unit i believe that the family unit should address questions from children regarding the very very small fragment of our society struggling

157with gender identity or gender expression or sexual orientation i believe that no educator in the public school system should advocate for abortion or abortion as a legitimate health care alternative thank you jerry we appreciate you being here justin and i know i didn't pronounce your last name right welcome thank you i've thought long and hard about what i might say to you this morning i completed getting into the science of gender and sex or the fact that most of this curriculum is not age appropriate after consideration of these topics along with many others i landed on the topic of choice which is you you the elected officials that are supposed to have the best interest of the children of this state at the forefront of your decisions however i fear that most of you have

158already made up your minds ms nichols you said in a piece by amtv news that it was an area that we felt it was very important we had standards for that psychiatrist psychology folks sexual experts when it comes to these things we feel are age appropriate in the area of sex these people are very well versed have you ever stopped to think what they are very well versed in or do you just finally follow what they say of course you do because that is what people in your positions have been conditioned to do let me tell you what they are versed in their verse in the teachings in the teachings of a man named john money john money was a new zealand psychologist who was accredited widely for being one of the first to contribute

159to the ideas of gender identity and sexual orientation as you both know those terms as we all know those terms are widely proposed throughout the curriculum based on what popular culture promotes you would think that john money is most limited for his contributions to good and equitable things you would be dead wrong money is most well known for forcing a young boy to go through gender transition surgery then forcing his own twin brother to perform sex acts on him while money photographed it tragically they both committed suicide and adulthood that is part of the foundation of what this curriculum was built on that is what they are well versed in and that is what you already seem to be siding with even though you told me your job is to just listen for one i

160don't buy that for a second that goes against your human nature of course personal biases will play a part and i believe they are in favor of the quote-unquote scientists because you and them have been indoctrinated in the same system the system that says if you have a master's degree or a phd everything that comes out of your mouth is scripture i hope and pray that over these next few months you will prove me wrong i hope that you truly hear the outcry of your constituents and most of all i pray for that you find wisdom and the courage to stand for what is right if you vote to pass the standard that contains any of the teachings of john money you endanger the children's future and directly contribute to the degradation of our society

161consider this my opening statement i'll see you next month sid danielle kleinschmidt followed by jim lange welcome danielle i'm a 21 yes sorry i'm short you are i'm a 21 year old former para educator from crofton nebraska i'm a soon to be mother someday hopefully god willing and honestly the fact that this made it to a second person's death kind of sickens me matters such as this ultimately decide the fate of our educational system and our children's future in many ways this is something that while i feel for the kids whose parents neglect to take into their hands it purely violates a right that parents have to choose what they feel their kids are not ready mentally or physically to learn kids are a few things two big ones are being curious and innocent kids

162touch stoves to see what it feels like teach a kid about sex or sexual health for the sex that they shouldn't be having and i can about image imagine the problems that might just occur i truly believe we live in the greatest country in the world supposedly the land of the free i can see how many would assume this bill would add to that let's not forget though that religious freedom has slowly been pushed to the wayside and our right to choose has been decreased down to only circumstantial topics since the beginning of time most have simply followed the golden rule of treat others how you want to be treated children are understanding and forgiving and that's really all they need to hear when judging others for how they look or act which is why

163i think we should teach young children in a science class the girls and boys have private parts used for bathroom purposes and that they're the only person allowed to touch them nothing more is needed until they're of the talk age as it infringes on kids innocence and pushes the border of sexual harassment what more will children have to give up to have this new curriculum that so many oppose i also propose that the teammates program become more widespread for the children who are in need of a mentor in our town in crofton a very small town we do not have this available and it is a great way to guide our less than fortunate children this would teach them everything that they would need that their parents neglect to have thank you and god bless

164thank you danielle next up is jim lange followed by rhonda homer bo hardy i hope i got that right i messed it up didn't i i apologize hello i am a father of three and would like to and i understand how hard it is to stand up against this wave of that's overtaking this nation and the world it is so easy to feel like you are in the minority with this liberal loud voice well funded well orchestrated i understand that nobody wants to be labeled as haters for disagreeing with them we aren't haters and we aren't advocating against anyone we don't hate the lgbt community and aren't even asking for them to change their beliefs we respect their right to disagree and live a different lifestyle than those we have chosen we simply ask that

165we are respected and that our beliefs are not that their beliefs are not mandated on us uh the constitution affords us that right for over 150 years the state of nebraska has existed without the board of education feeling the need to take a stance on this topic during this time the vast majority of the state believed and upheld traditional views of family and sex we the majority did not ask the state to take a stance and mandate our view to be taught over the views of any therefore in a current state of affairs without these standards families and communities already have this freedom which includes the lgbt community equally so why is it imperative that the board institute the sex standards now which uphold the views of some over the views of others it is

166purely to take away the freedom of those that uphold traditional values and mandate we teach our children to agree with their new agenda and clearly their end goal is so that our children be indoctrinated and that there will no longer be any dissent with future generations this is not an effort seeking love diversity and acceptance of others but conformity i've also heard the argument that these standards aren't mandated they simply can be utilized by districts if districts so choose but don't try to kid yourself what is the point of these standards if they if you board members aren't wishing districts to accept it besides dictionaries currently have the freedom to teach any or all of this agenda with any out any action from the board if you allow the standard to be put into effect

167you're putting your personal seal of approval time on each of these thank you jim rhonda followed by charlene edmondson welcome rhonda thank you good morning if it is morning still i don't even know first i would like to start off um my name is rhonda horner bohati i probably wrote it sloppy there i'd like to start off with a quote from my state senator i have concerns with the proposed health standards too if educators are adequately teaching good character then there's no reason to teach young children different sexual orientations with the goal of being inclusive they do not need to be taught what adults do behind closed doors to learn kindness and to be inclusive i totally agree with that statement and i agree with most of what everyone else has said here i'd like

168to first express my sympathy for all those who've experienced trauma or stigmatization of themselves or their children as we know and it's well documented abuse become the abusers and it seems to me that there's a little bit of that going on here adults should not be shepherding children into any type of lifestyle sexual sexualization of young children leads to indoctrination of a life child excuse me lifestyle that represents 0.3 percent of the population with higher teen suicide rates why do we need higher teen suicide rates especially after covid we need a broader range of experts with an input into this program that did not seem to happen it seems political to me as well now there's five stages of pedophilic grooming identify the victim collect information from the family and the victim fill in need

169emotionally lower the inhibitions which this program certainly does and initiative you're handing teachers the tools to do that and we know that's happening in nebraska thank you thank you ronda for coming charlene edmondson followed by wyatt morse good morning i'm here to represent barbara gard who is not physically able to be here i'm going to read from barb's notes i have heard served as an elementary school teacher in principle in both public and private schools in nebraska california and overseas when i look at the draft standards you are considering at the meeting today i'm absolutely appalled by what i see there is no place to teach such things as gender identity how to perform sexually in other related matters that are age inappropriate and based on personal opinion shaped by political agenda adding gender identity

170in gender expression to your health standards is not appropriate at any level and now i'd like to quote from you uh or excuse me i'd like to quote to you uh a report from the journal of the new atlantis in august of 2016. that changes everything the media is telling us about sexual orientation and gender it was co-authored by two of the nation's leading scholars on mental health and sexuality and summarizes over 200 peer-reviewed studies documenting what scientific research shows and does not show about sexual sexuality and gender all of this is footnoted and you all have copies of this the most important finding is that only a minority of children who express gender gender out gender atypical thoughts or behaviors will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood thus transgender school curriculum such

171as you're considering will only result in prolonged identification for students who have otherwise naturally grown out of it this is this is because of neuroplasticity if children become fixed in their false identity as transgender the long-term results can be tragic individuals who go through sex reassignment surgery because of gender dysphoria have been found to be five times more likely to intense i think we have the written comments correct we do okay thank you okay thank you uh wyatt morris hi everybody i'm wyatt morse i serve as executive director of the society of health and physical educators of nebraska shape nebraska i also am a k through 6 visual education teacher first like to thank the department of ed for beginning the process of creating health standards it's important to our profession the writing team did

172a fantastic job of trying to comprehend all of the information into eight content strands which cover foundations of personal health nutrition physical activity promotion substance abuse prevention deve disease prevention injury prevention and safety social emotional and mental health consumer environmental health and human growth and development thanks for everybody who provided input public comment on these standards is very very important to the process we understand that please understand that the human growth and development piece is more than just sex ed it covers body systems recognize and manage physical and psychological changes development are during development of maturation experienced throughout the lifespan however sex education is a critical component of school health and education uh in a perfect world all these subjects areas will be led by parents unfortunately not all of our students have the support

173of parents they need to help guide them through these life-changing events whether we choose accepted or not we have students struggling with these issues every day in our schools all students should feel safe at school and our schools can be the resource needed for students who are struggling to find themselves these standards give us a starting point and as our hope through this process that we can find common ground for these make these standards a success every student deserves quality health education to enhance their well-rounded education thank you for listening have a healthy and safe day and happy easter thank you thank you oh point of clarification yep what was your name again i think i missed it uh wyatt morse okay thank you thanks a lot appreciate it thank you wyatt and that concludes

174this group thank you so much for coming and sharing with us and taking the time we appreciate it yeah i'll let you take it over yeah uh thank you welcome everyone we are pleased that you're here and we look forward to your comments and the time that you've taken commissioner yes and thank you for uh coming today and just want to welcome you obviously this is an opportunity for your public comment we're here to listen to that comment and appreciate that two minutes goes by fast right but we do we do appreciate you taking that time vice president code john's will have a minute sign and a stop sign as well we've noticed that as people are trying to read their comments i'm going to go ahead and verbalize one minute and then time for

175you so you can so you will hear an audio clue as well so thanks again for coming we look forward to your comments okay we're going to start with sarah roth and crystal meduna and i may mess up names so please correct me welcome welcome sarah stand close to the microphone go ahead okay i represent district one well there are beneficial health related items in the recently released health education standards i want to express my deep concern over the sex education material and my disappointment in the nebraska department of education to allow this material to be inserted into the overall nebraska health standards while at the national level sex education standards are a separate document the sex education material which is primarily under strand 7 are human growth and development and was taken directly from

176the national sex education standards core content and skills k-12 is cited in your national resources needs to be completely scrapped from the nebraska health standards as a mother and wife of three children ages seven eight and ten i am deeply concerned as a para educator as an educator working as a para educator in a preschool study i am concerned you have inserted comprehensive sex education material that is explicit in content at an alarmingly young age and are taking away the rights and roles of me as a parent to teach on matters of sexuality marriage and gender why is the role of me as a parent widely omitted in every grade level on these matters let me give some examples on sexuality my eight-year-old will be learning to discuss her sexual feelings next year and fourth

177grade my 10 year old will be learning to discuss sexual intercourse in fifth grade in sixth grade he will be learning to evaluate when he's ready for sexual behaviors in seventh grade he will be learning to define anal and oral sex let me break down that definition anal and oral sex is defined as i'm sorry it involves penetration of the anus by a penis or sex toy the sexual content in his terms such as anal and oral sex will never be discussed in my with my children along with discussing sexual feelings in fourth grade and sexual intercourse in fifth grade i am appalled that the state of nebraska is proposing this kind of sexual content in our education system i am the primary educator on manners of these types of sexuality with my children on

178matters of gender gender we'll be teaching children as early as first grade to define gender gender identity and gender role stereotypes stereotypes teaching children as young as six it's that gender is time sorry it goes fast i mean do you have written comments you can give us too i'm also concerned about content that's missing um you're welcome to give us either really quickly digital citizenships for ch for children to promote healthy internet and social behavior just so other people can get there okay thank you very much and you're welcome to submit us anything uh by by email ramsay welcome crystal thank you my name is crystal meduna i'm a registered nurse of 13 years and mother of four i proudly have two children in the lincoln public school system second grade in kindergarten and we

179can't say enough about the educators who have invested into our children's education i'm going to read a letter my husband and i wrote to the nebraska state board of education as parents of two elementary age children in the lincoln public school system we would like to express our opposition to some of the proposed human growth and development standards it has been brought to our attention that some of the updates for health standards include teaching children as young as kindergarten about questionable familial relationships and many younger grades about gender identity issues along with sexual content that is not age appropriate these new standards also propose teaching upper elementary and middle age school children about differing sexual identities and normalizing abortion as standard health care none of these issues are appropriate for schools to be teaching to

180children period nor are they appropriate for children of such young ages while each of these issues are important they are also very personal to each family and family beliefs each are also far from being settled as fact many families disagree with these ideals and approaches and presenting them as fact undermines the family's role in educating our children while appearing to do so from only one side of the political spectrum it is disappointing to see the sexualization of our children especially in our school system please respect families their values and leave these issues out of the health curriculum thank you luke and crystal meduna of lincoln nebraska thank you crystal and your written documentation will be shared with all the board we have barb ramsey followed by leah johnson i'm barb ramsey i'm here today to

181voice my objections to these standards all of the standards need to be rejected as they're not in alignment with the values of the vast majority of parents in nebraska parents are the primary educators of the children teachers in the school system must support the parents and the values the parents are teaching their kids schools are not must not teach controversial topics that undermine and assault values being taught at home the areas of sex education gender issue gender identity transgender issues need to be managed by parents exclusively with their children and any other professionals they choose to bring in any discussion or lectures pertaining to multicultural issues racism diversity justice privilege must also be left to the parents teaching six years six-year-olds that gender is not biologically determined but can be chosen by each child that's

182not science based it's not age appropriate kindergarten children naming genitalia is grooming in my opinion and way over the line teaching consent to elementary and middle school children that's not age-appropriate critical race theory that's antithesis to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and teaches children to be victims mired in hopelessness this education provides planned parenthood into our school system the largest provider of abortions and murder of pre-born babies in america i wish i could go over each point i find repugnant and in violation of our values and culture in nebraska this draft must be rejected in total thank you for your time here in nebraska hear us speak here are these parents this is a battle between good and evil what side are you on thank you barb you submitted a written document are

183you wanting all the board members to have a copy of it we now have leah johnson welcome leah and you have a little one it's my friends it's borrowed she just fell asleep so i couldn't give her up sweet okay my name is leah johnson i actually have a teaching degree in elementary education and my specialization is in early childhood and i can tell you after reading these standards obviously i share the same sentiments of people that came before me but the one thing that i want to tell you is you can tell from an educator's point of view these standards were written with pieces of what the counselor would talk about pieces of what science would talk about and then this entire agenda is slipped through and the thing that i can tell you

184and the reason why i know this is because you left out things like transgender suicide rates why didn't we want to talk about any of that you don't want to talk about the negative impact you don't want to talk about the other side this is a completely one-sided document i want to read something and things i'm going to cut right into this because i know i only have a minute left but gender dysphoric personality disorders have a staggering rate of suicide and substance abuse these kids suffer from depression trauma attachment disorders and abuse the rate of suicide attempted um is about 32 to 50 higher than transgender or then cisgender t children or teens substance abuse is 26.3 percent higher complicating the already precious mental status these are medical issues you guys these have a

185medical diagnosis so when you go to a psycho therapist you can actually get diagnosed with these mental disorders and it's written that way for billing and insurance purposes these people need these children need psychiatric support even adults as even as adults 40 percent of lgbtq gender dysphoric they contemplate suicide this is something that we need to be talking about the proposed health standards the curriculum if they're not educating children it's putting them at risk it's endangering kids by introducing concepts that are outside the purview of grade school and high school educators even the questions that may arise from family structures that deviate from traditional roles should be addressed by parents at home as they will likely lead to more in-depth questions it is lowering the threshold of acceptable discussions with relative strangers putting them at

186risk for being targeted and falling prey to sexual predators it is normalizing psychiatric conditions that lead to significantly significantly higher suicide rates in both children and adults it undermines the integrity of the relationship between the parent and child and i also want to just say that packet that was passed out in lincoln public schools if my neighbor gave that to my child i would call the police time thank you guys next we have laura hanford and followed by brittany holtmeyer laura hanford did i not pronounce that correct hera speak closely to the microphone thank you yeah hi my name is sarah sanford i need my glasses um our kids went through the lincoln public school system and we love their teachers since our kids have already graduated you might wonder why i care about what's

187being taught in the public schools and there are several reasons we may have grandchildren someday but even if we don't i care about all children and it's my instinct to want to protect all children we're to speak up on behalf of those that cannot speak up for themselves so for those children who don't have someone to stand in the gap for them i care about you and want the same protection for you that i would want to give my own children when i first heard about the new proposed health curriculum i was shocked then to my horror i came to the understanding that this curriculum was intended to be taught at the grade school level which is so disturbing for so many reasons i consider the conversation about sex at any age to be a

188privilege god gave me and as a parent because you cannot teach about sex without teaching about values and about the emotional connection that takes place when two people mutually decide to engage in the sacred act the curriculum put forth by the nebraska department of education is a gross overreach of power and should be left to the parents i saw an argument for this curriculum online that said we should teach this curriculum because children are learning it anyway but when someone teaches something they're getting behind something and therefore proving us something it also comes with an unset expectation that you will need to know how to use this information and grade school age children do not need this type of information or influence from teachers and i'm betting most teachers do not want to be put

189in the position to teach this information for my dear friends that homeschool or send their kids to private christian schools or parochial schools do not think this type of encroachment will leave you unaffected the nebraska department of education has the power of accreditation and i believe they will soon be coming to influence your curriculum with the likes of these do not think they will stay out of your business and leave you alone to discern what's best for your students i believe their overreach of power will continue if we don't stand firm in the values we hold dear time thank you thank you sarah brittany followed by christina campbell welcome brittany hi can i lower this [Music] good okay so while out in the lobby when we were waiting a gentleman and a lady had spoken

190up and were telling what they were doing around here in the community and the guy who is presenting out there to us tells them we will not be turning this into politics well what are you preaching in the schools because to me it's getting political when it's your agenda it's okay and i'm grateful i am involved with other like-minded parents on social media who share things that are going on i messaged all my family members with children in school who had no idea what your rough draft book looked like and it's absolutely disgusting what the news reports on this new curriculum is not what you will be teaching the kids in school our children do not need to learn about sex from our schools or government they're trying to steal the innocence and will be

191left with a society where kids are getting pregnant younger because they are putting this crap in their minds in the beginning god made man and woman adam and eve a vagina and a penis it's science now maybe that made you feel uncomfortable because that is not what your beliefs are in yet my beliefs are not what you are wanting to teach in your schools one minute and what about what about the straight kids are they meant to feel ashamed or bad because of the way that they feel about their sexuality is it now not okay for them to want to have a traditional family someday is it not okay for them to want to feel accepted why does the curriculum teach kindergarteners so much mature context when they have trouble deciding what they want to

192pack for lunch on a daily basis why can't we just let kids be kids without shoving a radical left wing agenda down their throat if you're going to teach kids anything why not teach abstinence did you know in the state of nebraska you have to have a one-parent consent if you're 18 or younger or a judge can bypass it to have an abortion and then let's talk about the number one death of cause in 2020 it was abortion this year alone nebraska has gone up 30 in home school and if this passes i foresee that number rising especially by the comments on this channel seven thread and the reason i had found out about this is from a facebook group that my friend had made in a week has over 6 000 members that are

193not agreeing with this thank you thank you brittany christina followed by ali french i'm christina campbell i'm actually running for lincoln public school school board and district one up in northeast lincoln um i really do hope that you are listening because that's what i've been doing walking door to door i've hit at least 400 houses in the last week so i do know what i'm talking about here um i love people all people that's what god commands and that's how i live my life bullying is not okay i got bullied as well people are mean i totally get it but i just want to make a point here we do not need to be teaching children how to engage in explicit acts at the age that these standards are promoting i do not will not

194and will never advocate for that i will not vote for that let's focus on mental health for every kid let's not teach kids how to be sexual before they're even aware of what that is and let's not forget trusted adults speaking with children is a well-known grooming technique parents play an important role in kids lives and we need to let them do that and not take that away from them my heart truly does go out to the kids that feel safer at school than home that's heartbreaking that should not be happening i don't care who you are since nebraska doesn't have school choice some of their parents can't send their kids anywhere but public school they don't have a choice they should not have to compromise their values to put kids in school all kids

195deserve a valuable education with values there's got to be a better way to accomplish that than teaching a child a child how to have anal sex do you want to go in there and teach them that because i sure don't and if my kid got taught that i would be horrified please reconsider and rework your standards do better for every single student thank you thank you christina ally french welcome allie thank you hello everybody my name is ali french i am founder and leader of nebraskans against government overreach um i'm here today to express the entire group's 5 000 members opposition to the drafted piece that you guys have put together um my main thing is that you guys can't even seem to wrap your heads around the fact that when you put children in

196mass you're causing brain damage every day and then you want to impose new health standards and expect us to just sit down and take it if we really care about the mental and physical health of our children we're going to get the children out of masks you are causing brain damage and every single child even in yourselves in fact chronic oxygen deprivation leads to multiple organ failure if we really care so much about our children's health let's start with that rather than sexualizing our children in school when it's no when it's not your business that belongs in the home that is where it should always be that's all i have today thank you thank you welcome to each of you we're glad you're here and have taken the time to speak to us so thank

197you commissioner yes just a couple of instructions first of all thank you for being here i know a lot of consternation it's a little bit tough to get through everyone so we've reduced it to two minutes that goes fast i just want you to know that um we will hold up a sign that says one minute and then stop and i'll verbalize one minute in time uh just to be able to do that but thanks for providing comment we appreciate it that's why we're sitting here today so we welcome your comments thank you first up will be tanissa conkey and then lori lowry i hope i have those right tenessa conkey i am a mother of four um in elkhorn and i will just keep my comments brief the american academy of pediatrics has taken

198the stance that sexuality is often forced upon children by adults rather than being self-initiated by them in a developmentally and age-appropriate way i believe that is what this health initiative is that you are presented is doing forcing sexuality onto the children of nebraska this element of force applied psychologically through indoctrination and grooming in the name of education is a key component in the push to sexualize children these efforts to expose children to age inappropriate content while leaving little room for parental notification and making opt-out difficult or impossible undermines my constitutional rights as a parent excuse me public schools should not become a place where children are exposed to radical sexual ideology or groomed in an effort to promote a political agenda when reading the initiative i found myself in support of 80 percent of the

199material however this draft contains ideas and information that doctors and law enforcement agencies have deemed harmful to children i respectfully ask that you re-draft this initiative with children and not politics as the focus thank you lori lowry followed by adam downes hello i am a former substitute teacher and paraprofessional and i am a proud mother of three from gretna so after reading the proposed standards and reviewing material that is presented in this health initiative i cannot shake the feeling that these standards are actually a textbook example of grooming a child for those of you who are not aware grooming according to numerous child advocacy sites states that grooming often begins with perpetrators sharing sexual materials to normalize sex they will use sexual terms freely in the presence of your child they will show sexualized pictures

200or videos at this point the adult exploits the child's natural curiosity is this not what these standards are doing by introducing sexualized terms and ideas to our five-year-olds how about our second graders who will be exposed to the knowledge that and i quote this is from grade two lesson one page four curriculum and it says that the vagina has great elasticity to adjust the size of the penis if the thought of a seven-year-old hearing that sentence does not absolutely appall you then you may be a proponent of these standards this is not sex education this is behavior of a predator not an educator thank you adam downs followed by jacob warwick welcome adam thank you i work in higher education and my job is to create uh customized educational programs learning outcomes competency-based learning sequential

201learning are all areas where i have a deep knowledge base i'm also the parent of three children in nebraska public schools and is within that context i connected with members of this committee revising the standards and others at the department of education about a year and a half ago i showed up with a stack of research of k-12 practices in health education i was ready to go into full-on program design presentation mode right but there was no need they already had all that research plus more and better context is subject matter experts on how it all fits together than i will ever have i did not meet with him to push a political agenda or on behalf of any organization i represented then and i represent today a parent who just wants the best education

202for his children and other children in nebraska and that is the goal i felt from the members of that committee as well and they delivered the standards include current proven science they prepare our students for a variety of life circumstances it is inclusive so that as many students as possible can connect and see themselves or their lives and their family in the education the outcomes help promote empathy and understanding between boys girls and yes those who may fall between or outside those identifiers the majority of the written public context that was submitted were identical emails in opposition to this standard this does not negate by any means the opinion of those individuals but it does call into question the accuracy of the overall public sentiment as represented by that feedback are nebraskans truly against these

203standards or is the public feedback feedback skewing negative due to the influence resources and campaign of an organization the standards a common theme in there is that they violate the christian beliefs of nebraskan parents well i recognize that as a concern of the parents and i appreciate the position they find themselves in these are the nebraska health education standards not the christian health education standards these standards do not apply to private religious schools but to public schools who must not favor one religion over another the nebraska standards must rely on evidence-based practices as compiled and presented by experts in their field not on the moral code of a single religious belief i implore you to trust your experts and recognize the underrepresented voices of our community thank you thank you adam jacob followed by brenda

204anderson i don't know if anybody's ever heard him just get closer to the microphone i don't know if anybody's ever heard of body integrity dysphoria that's where people think they have a limb that doesn't belong and they seek to have it hacked off through amputation what should we start teaching our kids about that at a young age where where do we choose the victim hierarchy group they're a smaller subset should we give them you know civil rights and change our language for them no so a book was written by abigail schreier that takes a real look at the epidemic of sudden onset gender dysphoria and that's why i'm here to talk though i am a christian that's not the issue entirely for me this is a humanitarian crisis so that book was stricken from amazon

205as the political left has merged with big business to go after dissent all the book points out in a nutshell as trier as a journalist who writes opinion pieces a paper by lisa littman of brown university showed a prevalence rate of 70 times that we would normally see expect to see manifesting in friend groups so if the doors are just now being opened for coming out we would expect that this would be evenly dispersed among the population and if we are just reverting to a normal base rate of transgender women we should expect to see women in their 40s 50s and 60s coming in a minute but instead the spike is consistently in the same age group skipping uh the original shetty study shows a huge epidemic of teenage girls in america after the emergence

206of social media and it's traced back to the origin of the indoctrination the same girls would be anorexic bulimic demon uh worshiping witchcraft the ones that are all into that cutting are highly uh functioning autistic many times so they fixate these are the ones that fall into the trap the suicide rates don't change there's another paper that was written by oh shoot i've lost my notes you guys should be ashamed for taking away my five minutes when everybody else got theirs at the last minute uh actually we did not change the time limit it's been the same consistently no it was five minutes earlier it was everyone has had two minutes well you're welcome also to submit anything in writing to you there's a paper damn it see it really aggravates me even though your

207time is up sir you're welcome to give us anything in writing now or later um you'd be welcome to do that yeah lyndon said give me four years to teach the children the seed i've sown will never be uprooted thank you jacob brenda anderson followed by stephanie johnson get close to the microphone please good morning brittany anderson i was asked by my children who have graduated from the public school system in nebraska as well as nebraska colleges to come and speak out on their behalf against this indoct indoctrination against our youth as due to their work schedules they could not be here indoctrination is defined as oh where's my notes is defined as the process of teaching a group of ex to accept like indoctrination is defined as the process of teaching a group to

208accept a set of beliefs and uncritically which is what these standards are as not all parents in the public school system are for these standards i know i have a granddaughter who is attending public school this is not something that their her parents want they believe it is their right as parents to teach her at an appropriate age and time what they deem um right and appropriate in these very personal and private matters it is not up to the public education system to do this for those parents that wish to explore these standards there are resources already in place at public schools counselors psychologists i believe it is the school district's board of education's responsibility to educate our youth to have the skills to be able to go out into society get a job be

209self-sufficient and independent thinkers thank you thank you stephanie johnson followed by stephanie mckee welcome stephanie oh thank you i stand before you just on behalf of all children and i was a public educator i was a speech pathologist here in lincoln public schools for 16 years we've raised six children who've all gone through public schools so i completely support the educational system but on behalf of somebody who sent our children i have a grand baby coming i am very very concerned about what is in this curriculum and i have one logical question that i just want to propose to you just to think about is many many years ago we decided to take the doctrine of the biblical nature out of the public schools we eliminated that right we all said at that time it

210is up to the family to instill those type of values to our children it was it had no place in the school what we're looking at here is instilling a doctrine that comes from the authors advocates of youth elizabeth schroeder and nora gilbert they are two of the three authors of this curriculum and they have uh worked for planned parenthood and it is a doctrine it is a moral compass it is a way of thinking and so i it just makes no logical sense to me that we can say on one hand we need to replace a moral doctrine but then we replace it with the planned parenthood doctrine and i just like to to let to read to you a couple of the the items um it it completely denigrates the authority that parents

211have in the home that is one of the the major things that this does as a matter of fact it gives teachers the ability to place their ideas and thoughts upon the children brainstorming ideas of why people would why you would need contraception at 8 and grade 10 and one of them is do you know that you don't have to tell your parents if you're on contraception and one of the arguments i know that we have is that parents don't teach this at home well that was one of the arguments we had when we took god out of the schools too we don't need this parents teach it at home or they don't so why do we take part of a society's opinion planned parenthood and we put that completely in the state of nebraska

212thank you sarah malik watches porn sometimes when he's home alone and he's nervous about whether he'll know what to do malik watches porn grade eight stephanie sorry i called you sarah i meant stephanie apparently so stephanie mckee followed by judy kleinschmidt hello my name is stephanie mckee and i'm a former educator i taught lincoln in lincoln public schools all my life i wanted to be a teacher it was what i dreamed about doing my dad served on the school board for roughly 25 years in my small hometown i have always held the school board in high esteem and the nebraska board of education in the highest of esteem i just always believe that people on the board both locally and and statewide had the best interest of all students in mind um i i i

213cherish teachers and the responsibility that we've been given as teachers but sometimes we can lose our way i as a kindergarten teacher there was a time where we completely got rid of phonics and we went completely another direction and in the meantime we lost an entire age group of kids their reading skills and strategies were completely lost so what concerns me about this program is the united states of nebras the united states is the number one producer and consumer of pornography i did not know that but it's alarming and i'm right now i i was a former teacher i'm completing my masters in counseling currently at the university of nebraska in omaha i just have a heart for working with hurting people but what i know is the earlier a child is exposed to pornographic

214images and thoughts the more likely they are to develop an addiction we are feeding an industry an industry of pornography of pedophilia of addiction we are breaking down the family in doing so and i am trusting that we have a board of education that sees nebraska values and nebraska and cherishes nebraska values and i'm imploring you to get back to the basics our scores are at an all-time low in reading writing math and science it is time to um to to put those on the highest priority and to put our kids safety first thank you so much [Music] julie kleinschmidt oh i'm sorry lisa lisa uh stephanie just wanted to know your last name thank you julie kleinschmidt i hope i pronounced that correct [Music] sorry about that okay my name is julie clinton would

215you speak up louder or closer to the microphone i came here today to express my strong objection to this curriculum proposed curriculum my personal negative feelings about it i could not express in hours much less minutes we are supposed to protect our kids from garbage like this public education and educators are paid for with tax dollars the role of public education is to teach academics and play a supporting role in ensuring the health and well-being of our children it is our god-given rights as parents to guide our children on the very serious issue that this particular curriculum covers it is not the job of the public education system and it is not their right either thank you julie that concludes this group you may exit thank you again for your time and dedication to come

216and talk to us oh my god there's just one um are we taking a break to get that coffee refilled yes thank you i also just thought it's kind of ironic reading donuts and discussing health standards hey i don't suppose you would go out and get me a cup of decaf would you sure only about half full that's it half full or half empty half empty but decaf three more groups yeah only decaf yeah probably about three more the microphones are out um okay thank you to each of you that have come today to spend time uh to wait in line to have a conversation with us so welcome and thank you for coming commissioner yes and thanks and sorry for some of the consternation we're trying to be able to hear everyone we've given

217everyone two minutes of time and that two minutes goes quickly um uh patsy code john's as our vice president will hold up a minute and a stop sign i'll give you an auditory one minute and then time i ask you to go ahead and stop at that time we've had a little bit of slippage on that we want to make sure to get through everyone i also asked that back in the audience that there's not extra talking we've had a little bit of hard time hearing folks so we want to make sure that we can hear all of your comments so thank you and we look forward to your comments i see a question i don't know if i can address it that everybody gets to speak and testify and i want to clarify that

218i was told i couldn't testify i also was told that once i entered in this room i could only sit here be not quiet those weren't the exact words but that if i had to excuse myself to use a restroom which is a physical need that i would forfeit my seat and my spot so i just wanted to clarify not everybody that's here is able to testify and this is a personal testimony because i was shared that the cutoff time you guys had decided was 1004. i couldn't get down here any earlier and i also feel that i'm speaking for those who couldn't get here by 1004 this is a weekday uh you guys are here to serve the people this is something you are putting upon the people and you've been working with state

219senator adam moorefield the nebraska department of education you're actually yeah you're out of order yeah thank you you're out of order to sit down ma'am you need to go ahead and step away for so we can you just got about a minute so um we're going to go in the order that we've received folks sorry sorry if that was a problem let's go ahead and continue with the order as we have them thank you first person to speak is colleen i hope i say this right michaels followed by steve michaels i hope i said that correct thank you welcome colleen and get close to the microphone i am colleen michaels and we're from lincoln nebraska we have four children and my statement today can you hear me okay okay i believe that parents are the

220primary educators of children for the state of nebraska to propose and potentially implement such so-called health standards to children from grades through 12 is basically in my opinion usurping a parent's rights as guaranteed by our constitution to rightfully quote opt out end quote their children of participating in any health class which potentially will encourage children to use hormone blockers or any other coercive means to promote this ideology parents and children have rights and i kindly ask the board to respect the duty of parents to teach their children in the most appropriate way that they deem possible this is an issue which demands attention of families and not the state and i thank you for your attention and for letting me speak thank you up next is steve followed by bill [Music] well robin i'm sorry

221okay it's all right point of clarification yes you mentioned opt out that is not an option in the state of nebraska is that what i heard um yeah i i just wanted to make sure i understood what you were saying okay all right thank you i'm sorry robin we now have steve michaels followed by bill telke i hope i pronounced that right hi my name is steve and i'm the father of four children and i'm uh you know a taxpayer property taxpayer because i own a house and and i also uh for the money to raise or educate our children in a catholic school and i found it curious in the listings of the subjects that they had that uh as far as people that raised their children many were mentioned and what was not

222mentioned though was a married couple which i thought was very interesting i know those were examples but i uh thought that was rather strange was not even mentioned uh i'm also a recovering grateful recovering alcoholic and one minute the last thing i wanted to do is admit that i had a problem and when i finally did i was set free and i find that the same thing happening in with couples that have the same gender parents that they feel that this is all there is and i know that that was not true with me for so many years i saw testimony on the internet about it and i found their problems exactly so thank you sir thank you thank you for coming bill i don't think i pronounced the right jilkey okay can you hear

223me yes ready okay good morning to all my name is bill teogy i've lived in hope county my entire life and been involved in local and state government most of my life i'm currently the setting chairman of hulk county board of supervisors i'm also a parent of five daughters and the grandparent of 12 grandchildren 10 of which are currently educated in public school systems across the state two go in omaha three at atkinson west holt three at hershey two at o'neill we go to church school work and play with all the people in these communities and have it have a solid core belief god first family country our flag we stand and put our hands over our hearts because our hearts and our neighbors because ours neighbors grandparents parents and brothers and sisters have fought

224and gave their lives to protect people across the world and the great people the united states of america we are both shocked and opposed by the state's board's proposed language and content concerning the education of our children in public schools in regards to nearly 540 items that have been proposed i mentioned a few but this is not an all-inclusive list do not teach genitalia and sexual functions fifth and sixth grade items on sexual intercourse and educated perverted acts that are mentioned birth control and pregnancy prevention through abortion or abortion pills no gender identity there are only two genders and they are determined at conception no teaching of lesbian gay bisexual other language absence abstinence is not planned parenthood it's it's only answer to it's only an answer to unwanted pregnancy these items have been and

225should continue to be taught by loving and caring mothers and fathers of the privacy of their homes and that task should never be imposed upon the wonderful men and women who dedicate their lives in teaching the administration and the precious children of the great state of nebraska thank you for your time bill telke and is there any questions robin thank you i hear you say that in the standards it talks about abortion and abortion pills yes okay where and do you know where that was not i don't remember the line i i was looking at them out there and there's a number of a number of pages of of lines anything else thank you let your conscious speak for your decision thank you comments will be distributed to all of the board members perfect thank

226you thank you next is marni hodgin and gwen easter i hope i pronounce those names correct get close to the microphone sure hi my name is marnie hodgin i'm a mom of three boys my biggest heartache in the proposed human growth and development standards is that the things being proposed to our children are not in alignment with their actual human growth and development it's proposed children will learn about gender gender identity and gender role stereotypes as early as first grade third graders are to be discussing ways people can express their gender define sexual orientation describe and discuss puberty and all physical changes that will occur most children from my observation of my child and his peers are not going through puberty in third grade why is the nebraska department of education eagerly rushing our children's

227childhoods out the doors with concepts and milestones their bodies and minds are not ready for i want you all to think back to third grade for a moment where were you where was your headspace what worried you overwhelmed you what was important to you in third grade i was worried about my multiplication facts making friends and showing off my new alph tennis shoes can you imagine having to learn the labels and definitions of all the things that are proposed i recall feeling uncomfortable and thinking of all the things changing during our sex ed when it did start in fifth grade and how that made me feel back in fifth grade guys let children be children please i wasn't going to mention the agenda of h573 in the role of hormone blockers for fifth graders but

228this morning it occurred to me could this be the reason for the push on puberty sexual orientation and sexual identity because how can you bring up hormone blockers conveniently in the fifth grade right before puberty onset if you haven't been laying down the foundation of all this indoctrination for years i do think children ages kindergarten through fourth grade need to know the difference between appropriate touch and inappropriate touch and what to do if this happens to them keep that in that's important on the news last night it was said that the board would be listening to the experts and medical professionals i'm here to tell you you're listening to the wrong crowd we are the parents we are the taxpayers we are the ones that know what's best for our children thank you for the

229time thank you thank you barney gwen followed by uh you hello jennings i slaughtered that name i'm sorry i'm sorry uh welcome gwen welcome thank you thank you all for having me uh my name is gwen easter i'm with safe haven community center and safe haven early childhood preschool education academy and i came here today because i wanted to discuss the issues with this health education standards i believe that this needs to be halted on all levels there is a few things in there that may be able to stay but as a child care provider we're not allowed to teach children about their body parts and and i don't feel that healthy uh the nebraska board of education or the school system should be allowed to teach these things also i feel that you all

230are bringing confusion to children about their identities pushing homosexuality upon children children are not thinking about these things you know i have never one time had a child wanting to change their identity because they played with a toy or like pink things or uh you know different um colors or any of this type of stuff i feel like you all need to let children be children and stop listening to these people who have an agenda to push homosexual lifestyles upon our kids god made man and he made woman you know boy and girl you know telling children they can't call themselves a boy or a girl this is all wrong and this is a agenda i would like to see it stopped just teach our children how to read and write there's so many kids

231that come have come to my center who can i read can i write and i do work with kids who are dyslexic so i understand exactly where our kids are and parents are the first teachers it's their choice and their decision who teaches who take care of their kids and what is taught to their children it is not the board the school board or any of these boards or any of these rich people that you all are following any of these universities or homosexualities who want to choose that lifestyle it is a choice and not every parent is in agreement with those choices so stop pushing this upon our children time teach our kids how to respect each other that's all you need to do thank you gwen euphemia followed by paul erdenberger i hope

232i got it right the second time you did oh my goodness hello everyone my name is euphemia jennings i want to start out by urging the members of the board to work with senator state senator joni albright on two bills that will address many concerns and protection needs for our children the first bill lb 281 the purpose of lb 281 is to require that public schools provide four hours per year and body awareness training to students k through five and teacher training as per the prevented method for healthy reduced incidence of child sexual abuse the second bill is lb 282 the purpose of lb 282 is to protect children from being groomed by obscene material exemption without lb 282 obscene materials by present law are allowed to be shown in our public schools and libraries

233to our children so i strongly urge the nebraska state board of education and then and the nebraska board of education to work with senator joni albright in protecting young minds and protecting our children from those who want to pray upon our children and i thank you for your time thank you paul erdenberger i hope i pronounced that correctly very good some people call me free spirit my name is paul ehrenberger i'm from schuyler nebraska today i'm not merely expressing my personal opinions on this statement i'm also wholeheartedly defending the sacred role of parents and churches in the formation of our children's moral character these fundamental rights must not be countered or tampered with by our taxpayer-funded education system we have elected the nebraska state board of education members in good faith to protect these rights

234and i won't settle for anything less personally this draft of health education standards is a proposal of secular humanistic ideology which defies the laws of nature and nature's god it has no place in our schools standards are only as good as the moral principles which they embody the draft of health education standards is oh i'm sorry today on good friday americans immigrants christian brothers and sisters all over the world celebrating the most the only means by which we can live up to god's standards we are all flawed and dependent on christ who is crucified for our forgiveness who is buried so we can humble ourselves and repent who rose from the dead to prove that he is god and all this so we can be redeemed and live up to his standards from the very

235beginning of our country's foundation it has been the christian ethics that make us a free people they give us reverent respect for one another because we see each human being as created in the image of the creator we will not continue to be free and equal people if our leadership usurps the rights of god-fearing parents and dictate man-made false morality without regard to the respect for god's truth i don't think you should be looking at this standard it comes from a bad place time thank you thank you paul and your written comment will be dispersed to each of the board members um aryan maze irian i'm sorry if i missed that um so my name is erica can you get closer to the microphone raise it maybe [Music] is this okay i'll just do this

236a little bit closer a little bit louder testing testing once there you go cool so i am erica mays i am a person that came from chadron nebraska i went through the school system there class of 2017 and i am transgender as you can probably tell i've looked through these standards as far as lgbtq identities are concerned i think that most of these standards make a lot of sense because when you are talking about protecting children i think that's important i think you should protect children but one of the issues that i see time and time again is that nobody thinks about what about children who are lgbtq plus what about children who are transgender what about children who have never been introduced to that idea except through very unaccepting media and the culture that

237they exist within i think it's very important that we do protect these children but teaching people about gender identities and how they work is not a moral claim teaching them this is what being gay means this is what being transgender means that is not a moral claim if you want to say that being gay or transgender is bad and you want to manage that in your own home that's fine i'm just saying maybe we should teach people what that means so they can figure out if that is their truth and then regarding sexual education i think it is very important that we teach children how to have safer sex because like it or not children are having sex i'm not happy about that i remember 13 year olds when i was in middle school having

238sex i'm not happy about that i don't think that's good that's too young unfortunately 13 year olds don't care what i think so we have to make sure that if they are going to do things that are dangerous and that i do think is something they should not be doing we should make sure they're doing it in the safest way possible the name of the game is harm reduction i urge you to keep these standards as they are i think they do cover the material very well and i think it's very important that children have the tools to understand themselves if there are any questions go ahead thank you miriam we appreciate you being here that concludes this group thank you again for taking the time to be here and speak and speaking with us

239us and it's been a long wait out there but we appreciate you being here and we look forward to hearing what you want to share with us commissioner yes good just thank you for your patience i know it's been a long wait um uh within here we've offered everyone an opportunity for two minutes of time two minutes two minutes goes quickly uh vice president code johns will hold up a one and i'll also give you an auditory one minute and then a stop sign and i'll say time at that point in time but appreciate your your willingness to be here and provide public comment that's what we're here to do is listen to you so thank you very much and we look forward to your comments first person up will be dr michael potestis i'm

240probably okay i've slaughtered some names this morning and then followed by gail rule well thank you for the opportunity i guess everything you do here is related to football that's where we're getting this two-minute warning however i'm dr michael pertes i'm running for school board district seven in southwest lincoln and the nebraska board of education i understand once a stand wants to change the health standards and adopt new health standards my question is what was wrong with the old health standards it worked in the past i believe that and my constituents believe in district seven that sex education is not the responsibility of the school system these sensitive yet controversial issues should be discussed as a family with their children we need to focus on the success of our students academically we've seen some low

241test scores across the boards and that is for every demographic here no matter how diverse one minute thank you i believe that we are 25th as a country in the world and we're not doing that great as a state compared to the other states we need to spend the taxpayer dollars on reading writing math and science the lps lincoln public school that i'm i'm running for district seven their educational policies and curriculums should be brought to the attention of the constituents as should be across the state transparency is the recipe for success and i know everybody here has a kid has a grandkid and we don't these kids can't even tie their shoes at age five we're going to give them this knowledge it's going to be disastrous but focusing on academics time thank you

242well you're welcome too thank you i'd like a point of clarification for you yes you noted in your uh information that what happened to the old standards nebraska department of education has never had a set of health standards this was something that the board has wanted to have a set of standards in every uh area schools do not have to uh they are not mandated they can choose their own standards or the national health standards which most districts in the state follow in your opinion was the standards or even though it wasn't as a standard was it failing were kids doing something wrong were parents doing something wrong is it does it have to be changed is it the responsibility of the nebraska board of education to take that responsibility away from parents that want

243their kids to learn certain things and maybe they don't want them to learn other things there should be options where there shouldn't be a forced choice and i'm glad you're giving this form so we can express that and however the educational process is not just about sex education it's about reading writing math and science and i don't see any policies being adopted for that or any new interventions interventions and i'm sure we'd like to hear about that too if you had any well thank you thank you okay gail rule followed by mark rule okay [Music] tall to short yeah i don't know you can hold it i can okay [Music] hello my name is gail rule and my background is that i am a former elementary education teacher with a specialization in early childhood i

244also from 1987 and on have been a natural childbirth educator so i'm also the mother of three the grandmother of four so i feel very qualified here since we are here to discuss the state board of education's guidelines on human growth and development i think there's something that you need to understand about human growth and development of the senior citizen i no longer have any desire to be tactful my time here on this earth is limited my goal is to protect my children and my grandchildren i only have two minutes here to talk to you and i am here for one reason and one reason only and that is to publicly shame every single one on this board who for some reason is attempting to blatantly sexualize our children i'm sorry but i'm coming right

245off of the standard set by this board of education when we have five-year-olds one minute i heard you i see the little sign when we have five-year-olds that are trying to learn how to stand correctly in a single file line raise their hand learn their shapes their colors and their letters you have decided that we need to be teaching five-year-olds components of sexual health and the correct terminology for their genitalia i'm gonna flip because the time goes by quickly but i'd like to remind you that in fifth grade he 5.7.3 e says explain the significance of the physical changes in puberty and the potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender i have just one more statement it's actually time thank you well i'm sorry thank you the conclusion is that

246nebraska is filled with good people and loving families and it is shameful that your goal is the perversion of our young children this board should be publicly shamed for feeling on the previous um um dr um i'm sorry michael patel just just to make sure and as you're running for the board uh there have been state standards that have been passed for math so yeah there we go where's the tv cameras huh uh anyway uh there have been standards that have been passed on all those areas that you did mention so i just wanted to make sure that that everyone understood that thank you thank you hey let's actually go ahead and return to our order so [Music] welcome mark thank you i hope you're hearing enough opposition i can't hear you i i'm sorry

247i hope you're hearing enough opposition to the whole idea of sexualizing our kids i think it's a point that he made earlier that i mean the united states is rated around 26th educationally in the world nebraska is approximately 11th i think there's a far greater agenda we can pursue other than sexualizing our kids i want to thank you and i want you to think about the fact that a physician mental health practitioner all have to have consent from a parent or a guardian are we going to do that with our children going in these classes i happen to have enough standing that i could be a substitute teacher do you know me do you want me teaching your children i don't think so i think you want to know who these people are thank you

248thank you mark up next is kathleen kaufe followed by kathy halpenboer kathleen did i pronounce your last name incorrectly well the funny part is kathleen kaufman cannot be here she had to leave at noon and so i'm kathy hokemore and i live in bellevue during world war ii a watchmaker named casper ten boom lived in holland his family was part of the underground that protected many jews from the nazis and paid for it with imprisonment and death one of their number who did survive was casper's daughter corey i want to quote from her book the hiding place about an experience she had as a grade schooler and so seated next to father in the train compartment i suddenly asked father what is sex sin he turned to look at me as he always did when

249answering the question but to my surprise he said nothing at last he stood up lifting his traveling case from the rack over our heads and set it on the floor will you carry it off the train corey he said i stood up and tugged at it it was crammed with the watches and spare parts he'd purchased that morning it's too heavy i said yes he said and that would be a pretty good one minute that would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load it's the same way corey with knowledge some knowledge is too heavy for children when you are older and stronger you can bear it for now you must trust me to carry it for you and i was satisfied more than satisfied wonderfully at

250peace there were answers to this and all my hard questions for now i was content to lead them in my father's keeping from my observation as a mother of four and now grandmother of seven added to my years in mothering other people's teens uh through more tutoring in classroom situations i would say corey hit the nail on the head please do not be the cruel father who demands that children lift such a heavy load to determine let alone discuss sexuality at such young ages yes there are some parents who won't be doing the job but do not destroy the timing that parents want to use in educating their children on these important issues thank you thank you kathy and your written comments will be distributed to the board members thank you we have blake winter

251followed by christina saint hilaire i believe tyler welcome blake hi sorry your honors um i just wanted to point out that government is force um and so what you're doing is you're by governing you're forcing people to to comply with the common good and so when we have education and government force you're it's basically indoctrination and so we need to be very careful about what we're indoctrinating our children with and so most of the the majority of what i read in the standards was was fine you know it's not uh you know the the objectives are good but some of the objectives are not good and you know i'm i'm not gonna judge your intentions i'm i'm gonna assume that your intentions are good but your objectives are still bad and uh among those are

252not even the sex ed just having five-year-olds exercise reason and judgment on life and death things like what is it is it safe you know is is this person safe can i trust this person those are not decisions that a five-year-old is capable of making and so when you do that when you try to make a five-year-old do that they're gonna become fearful and people who are fearful can be controlled and manipulated and they they don't develop the way they're supposed to and it's a lot like trauma i would think i'm not a psychologist i'm a father of seven so maybe i'm a you know amateur psychologist anyway and then then on to the sex ed parts of it um that's more traumatization it's it's putting the thought in there a five-year-old's head the five-year-olds

253don't think about sex but your these standards are gonna put the thought in their head and that's gonna lead to more exploitation and you know experimentation etc i mean one last thought don't think about blue elephants okay christina followed by valerie lackey welcome christina hi yes i'll just hold it down hi i'm christina st teller thank you for the opportunity to address you as a parent of a five-year-old and a parent that's considering the educational future of my five-year-old i read the proposed changes and i'm very concerned about the human growth and development section as it regards to marriage family and human sexuality um surprised to see that the board would think that it's appropriate age appropriate for five-year-olds to be learning the name of genitalia in a mixed classroom that's just something that has

254traditionally been taught by parents and i know not all parents do the job correctly but i still feel like that is a parental right and it shouldn't be taken away from us also talking about family structures single parent blended cohabitating same gender i wondered why there was no mention of traditional family structures in that and why are we thinking that we need to bring up such topics to five-year-olds and then of course the controversial topics of gender identity that has no place in the public schools that in my opinion and belief is that's based on a belief system not on science it's not biology it's what the person perceives and for the public schools which are government institutions to be teaching a belief system i think that's unconstitutional it's it's undermining parental rights and what

255our country is based on so for those reasons i will hope i hope that you will reconsider and write a new draft and not be introducing things that are um just inappropriate for children to be dealing with at such young ages and also in the later grades i think it was fifth grade there was only one line mentioning abstinence instruction whereas thank you thank you thank you christina valerie thank you president nichols commissioner bloomstein could you speak louder or get closer yep thank you nebraska state board of education members thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today about the proposed nebraska health education standards while there is quality material in this first draft there is an abundance of concerning issues regarding marriage family and human sexuality parents are the primary educator

256of their child especially on matters of human sexuality there are individual standards in this draft that take this right away from parents additionally the human growth and development programs are not developmentally or culturally age appropriate nor are they free of bias i currently teach in lincoln public school where many of my students have experienced trauma we know that topics like this covered at an inappropriate age create more trauma rather than reducing it these standards will move us further toward normalization of child sexualization this is not what we want for our children lastly many educators will find their professional judgment and conscience under attack please carefully review the surveys and feedback from nebraska please respect the rights of parents and educators and please protect our children thank you for your time thank you valerie we appreciate

257you being here that concludes this group of constituents come to speak to us today we welcome you and we're glad you're here commissioner yes and thank you and i know for your patience in particular uh uh kind of a long time but and one of the things within this room uh we're trying to make sure to just uh organize the decorum you have two minutes to speak everyone so far ahead of you has had two minutes to speak um that goes fast um i will say uh patsy co johns who's our vice president will hold up a one minute sign and then a stop sign and i'll verbalize that not to interrupt you sometimes i can't hear myself if it picks up so um but the uh the intent really is to be able to

258listen to you and so we encourage folks to kind of maintain the decorum and thank you for presenting some comment to the state board first person up will be virginia ship followed by chris hassell brooke can i begin yes i am here today to speak for the children i find the proposed health standards not only confusing but appalling how's the normalization of sex masturbation pleasure anal oral abortion and pornographic material health education was curriculum teaching all forms of a normalizing sex not lead to an increase of stds and aids well this curriculum teach condoms are not fail-proof against aids stds and pregnancies that condoms don't protect areas they don't cover and stds such as herpes warts and syphilis i've taught my teens this because their education and health are important it is not appropriate for

259an adult to talk to a small child about genitalia by kindergarten we know if we have a penis or vagina it is not appropriate for an adult to talk to adolescents about when they will be ready for oral anal or sex of any kind i would like also like to add that gender identity is widely accepted and more the norm for all youth and without curriculum adolescents are already confused yet figure it out themselves when ready reproduction abstinence awareness of aids stds and the consequences of sex this is a healthy education the definition found in the urban dictionary for sexual conditioning states it is the act of using sexual pleasure to make one open to sexual acts a kind of brainwashing technique this is practiced commonly in colson by pedophiles so why are we implementing

260it into our schools as health education i'm a byproduct of child sexual conditioning i was deemed a failure to thrive trial because i stopped growing for six years i am 41 and suffer from ptsd chronic anxiety and depression these are the results i personally see this as attack as a direct attack on the children and it should be considered a crime against humanity not a health proposal thank you for your time thank you virginia chris followed by eric black excellent i did bring copies for thank you everyone okay stretch the timer my name is chris hassebrook 242 north 248 circle waterloo nebraska 68069 i oppose many of the updates and or additions to nebraska health standards currently under draft review let's start at first grade we have he 171 he 172 he 1 7 2

261a he 172 d and then we have this gem he 182 now you have copies of what all these he's are you're teaching first graders to define gender gender identity and gender role stereotypes but don't trust them to know how to safely cross the street i am asking for someone to put two and two together and realize that those two don't match up he-171 and he 172 do not belong in the first grade curriculum and i'm asking for you to remove them from the draft proposal second grade is much the same as first grade i call on you to remove he 271 and he 272 from the second grade curriculum am i asking you from for you to remove them from the draft proposal moving on to third grade he 372 c and he 372

262a and then we have he 352 b one minute in third grade you don't trust kids to be able to safely ride a bike but you're going to teach them how to define sexual orientation how does this make sense they are either kids or they are not kids there is no in between i urge you to remove he372a he nhe372c and he 372e from the curriculum and the draft proposal on the fourth grade we have he 464 and he 423a you don't trust kids to know that drinking water when exercising is good for them but you are teaching them about conscious and unconscious bias who writes this stuff i want he 464 removed from the draft proposal in its entirety has no business in fourth grade likewise it appears that sex ed has been moved

263from to fourth grade in the role of he 4.7 puberty starts at 11 years for boys and 10 years for girls at the earliest that's fifth grade sex ed should not be taught before then i can go on and on because there's a lot to work with here but you get the idea keep kids kids stop confusing them with woke identitarian nonsense and you won't have so many sections of this draft proposal devoted to social mental health and we think we have your comments so thank you yes go ahead stayed at 10 years old is what grade did you say was fourth grade fourth grade um it's looking like you have he 4.7 that's the that's what i want pulled i'm sorry the age of the child who would be in fourth age of the

264child of running through fourth grade could be anywhere between nine to ten did your statement say it wasn't that ten that the age of 10 was in fifth grade what did your statement say about the age of my statement says that you could have fifth graders at 11. uh quote unquote puberty starts at 11 years for boys 10 years for girls at the earliest and that is fifth grade so are you stating is your statement that 10 a 10 year old would be in fifth grade or fourth grade could be either okay thank you thank you chris we next have eric followed by andrea price welcome eric yep thank you thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this afternoon i'm a member of a small nebraska community i have six children in a

265traditional family my wife and i have homeschooled our kids for about 25 years and in 2019 we enrolled our four younger kids in the public school that we are very satisfied with my first argument is not based on the content of the proposal but on where these decisions should be made and the short answer is that these should be the controversial issues should be made first and foremost by parents and if not by the local school boards i want to say that we were very content with homeless homeschooling our kids and i feel like we were pretty good at it all of our kids were are are now in the top of their class if not the top in their classes so i'm saying all of this just to say that that we don't feel

266like we need the public school education the public school system however we do see the value we definitely see the value in it and we see the value of supporting our local school especially in a small community and something that makes it palatable is that we have a direct voice and what and how our children are taught and it's strikingly obvious by the diversity of all who have spoken before me today that these issues specifically on sexuality cannot be addressed by a one-size-fits-all solution from the state or federal level in a top-down approach i also want to say while i believe in traditional values i do not hate or discriminate against anybody in the lgbt community i have close family members in the lgbt community we fellowship with one another we have family dinners together

267we hug each other after and yet they know my stance on their beliefs i believe that we can love and disagree at the same time and because of this diversity in urban and rural communities these concepts should be taught either at home and if not decided on the local level my second argument really quickly is regarding the concept actually time so we're gonna okay do we have your written comments or not is there something we don't have your written comments it's just okay yes uh eric yes uh first of all thank you very much just so you know these standards whatever form that they take will be the responsibility of the local school board to decide whether they want to or do not want to accept these if they choose not to which is fine

268there's no penalty or anything like that but if they choose not to they can create their own they can pick pick and choose from ours or any of that sort of thing so i just want to make sure that that i know you mentioned several times the importance of local control that's my word i understand and i just want to make sure you understood that and i understand that very clearly and i would say that you shouldn't bother wasting your time with laying it down on paper leave it up to the local schools that's my argument with that thank you very much thank you andrea price followed by calvin davis welcome andrea thank you so much um thank you for your service to nebraska and its students and happy friday to you and happy holiday

269weekend i appreciate you spending your friday inside here listening to the voices of the public who are whom you are a public servant of i'm a big supporter of public schools and a cheerleader of all educators i've worked in several elementary and middle schools and i know how hard educators and school board members work i applaud your dedication to students i have a master's degree in psychology marriage and family therapy and after reviewing the draft of the human growth and development section i believe it's too sexually explicit for elementary ages the nebraska department of education would do best to let the parents who know the emotional level of the child to introduce the topics of human sexuality a school board or teacher will do harm by introducing human sexuality without being sensitive to the child's

270individual cognitive and emotional ability to handle that information in the classroom i asked the nebraska department of education to leave the topic of human sexuality for levels k through 6 to the parents and the legal guardians alone my hope is for all students to love and respect others in every type of situation and that can be taught through kindness lectures and pro-social behavior lessons there is no need to teach explicit human sexuality for elementary ages let's love and let's care for lgbtq students let's love and care for them as well as all marginalized students and all students of every situation but it's not necessary to teach explicit human sexuality to classrooms especially the elementary kids so i asked the nebraska department of education to leave the topic of human sexuality for levels k-6 to the

271parents and legal guardians alone for the health and well-being of the students that you are here to serve thank you andrea thank you calvin davis followed by rachel herron here not sure all right thank you uh for the opportunity to share um my name is calvin davis uh my background's uh i'm from colorado we my family and i came here a little over 10 years ago because of the job market was amazing here in nebraska but that's not why we stayed we stayed because of the values and nebraskans should be proud of that i have a daughter and a son and my son will be five this month and going to school this year that's what brought me here and i'm gonna make this short and very simple so everyone can understand you don't have

272to be a doctor or psychologist or on the board of educators to know it's not your responsibility to teach my kids who they are not even allude to who they are there are lines we shouldn't cross it's it's not your job to tell my kids how black they are then why is it okay to tell my kids what identity they are or could be they are my kids not yours to experiment on so i asked please stop trying to take away my role as a father away from my kids there is enough fatherless kids out there one minute this would make more thank you and god bless thank you thank you calvin rachel i'm not sure i can karen okay thank you closer to the microphone please thank you for your time um i'm nervous

273my name is rachel herron i'm a mom a taxpayer a teacher and an omaha resident i strongly oppose the proposed health standards for these reasons i believe these standards create division with children by establishing labels early on around gender sexual identity racial and ethnic identity as well number two it appears that the education system is bent on planting ideas and questions into the minds of our kids that the vast majority of them do not have on their own these private matters are meant to be discussed at home because they're private number three you are teaching our kids sex these standards corresponding curriculum and corresponding curriculum are outrageous and promote behaviors that are ultimately destructive and destroy their moral fiber number four i think if you took time to really listen which i see that you're

274listening one minute but lean in and listen further you would see the majority of nebraskans do not support these proposed health standards because they're radical number five finally and maybe this is some of what my tears are about the last year we have all endured much change in our world kids have been traumatized they're out of school their faces have been covered with masks they're struggling to find a sense of normal all of us are so why now why would you throw in a new radical hyper-sexualized curriculum to further traumatize our sex and sexualize our children why thank you rachel um i'm not sure how to pronounce his first name but the last name is blithe am i next okay yes yes i want to hold the mic can you please sanitize it and tell

275us what your name is again i'm just passing out this is a book that is in our public schools i'm giving it to all of you i don't know which one of you are school board members those two at the end [Music] and before you start my time there's a mother in this room that has been out there since nine o'clock she spent three hours speaking with people on the opposite side and i believe you should allow her two minutes liz is in that corner [Music] god made mothers and grandmothers to be nurturers and encouragers god made mothers and grandmas to be protectors of our children you can spell protectors mama bears and boy there are 80 million plus bears now awakened when i read your draft number one standards the first time i thought

276my heart was going to explode due to the anger of such negative material being proposed for our children and grandchildren i've been praying the lord's wisdom and insight for the actions i should take a lot of today's opposition testifiers are here due to the many phone calls and emails that were generated by in by concerned nebraskan citizens that not said to be bragging but to tell you that today's crowd is minimal to the number we the people can rally for next month's meeting with today being good friday many could not be here and i hope you didn't plan this meeting today on good friday knowing that most christians will be traveling to see family not one person that i reached out to about this curriculum told me i was wrong other mama bears were even

277more upset than i was we the people will be scrutinizing draft number two standards when released to verify if the bad elements of sexuality education social emotional learning and critical race theory have all been removed last we the people 80 plus million across this country will be rising up strong in the november 2022 elections four of you are up in this election and i promise you you will be primaried with a strong candidate god bless you all he is risen and have a blessed easter are you going to allow her to speak no that was just a stop robin did you have a point of clarification now all of a sudden i've it is as i've lost it go ahead maybe patsy has it i missed where this is being used i can hear you

278it's fine yes thank you uh this is a book that is in your public schools i called two weeks ago to verify i live here in lincoln and that is in lincoln in lincoln public schools i called the district office and asked for the person in charge of the libraries i asked her myself if she knew about this book and she said i had no idea about this book i highly and strongly encouraged her to go and check it out i testified in front of the legislature about this book of clarification uh we meet the first thursday and first friday of every month where do you meet in lincoln or uh the thursday are committee meetings and in person those are done in zoom and then the business meeting which is today is well we've

279kind of bounced around because of the pandemic so have you always done zoom on no no no just because of the pandemic okay so hopefully maybe with the numbers lowering you will but but my main point is that there was no intent that you seem to insinuate just just so you know i testified every city council i just want to make sure i just i just want to i just want to make sure you know thank you very much any more questions yes i got a phone call about them i got a phone call about the handout that we received today and i know that your testimony or i think it was suggested that this was in the schools or in the lincoln public schools i live in omaha but my question is when you

280say in the schools are you saying as a point of curriculum in the schools or that it's in a library what are what do you mean clarification i believe in my heart you are going to put this in but a child can check that book out in the library within some schools here in lincoln nebraska yes now are you going to let one more mother speak for two minutes that's ashamed prior to i heard yes down to two minutes um debra thank you maureen um oh i'm not commenting on you yeah you can put the mic away um i just wanted to say that um to my fellow board members that i have a concern [Music] is it a point of clarification oh okay we are clarifying some facts of the speakers but we're not

281clarifying other facts and that is a concern to me because there's a lot of things that have been said today that are not facts and we're not clarifying those and so i just wanted to point that out that anyway i just wanted so i don't mean to offend jacqueline point of clarification i i think what debra is saying it's and it's a concern that i have had and i i think this is a matter that i'm i guess i'm seeking guidance from ryan on this is for this afternoon isn't it um well it it's it's so we have and for everyone who's here i i think perhaps what deborah is saying is perhaps we need a fresh refresher or some clarification on what is a point of clarification that the board is asking of the

282persons who were speaking because some of the questions that might have been presented from board members aren't necessarily asking clarification on the testimony of what people have stated but rather either going off topic or providing additional information to the person which isn't necessarily clarifying what they have spoken on so while no i'm not asking a point of clarification from the last speaker i think i'm just clearing up what deborah's concern was which is a concern i was starting to have is what exactly are we clarifying when we're asking our questions because we seem to have maybe gone farther than what we should be thank you jacqueline okay that was our last speaker correct ryan yes we are going to move to agenda item 2.3 written public comment we have over 700 written public comments submitted

283from constituents of the public the written public comments are linked in documents in the spark data system for each of you to read these written comments have been made available to the board members prior to the meeting so agenda item three we are going to break here for lunch and we will return it is 1 43 we will return at 2 15. session for the remainder of our agenda for today we are at agenda item 3 the commissioner's report commissioner it's all yours for 3.1 through 3.4 and i'm going to be extremely brief we have a report on rules and in that report there are no rules currently under under consideration so we're up to date on that ryan anything else you had for board operations briefly so ryan will come out last month you

284amended your expense policy to be more in line with state employees and statutory boards and so as you submit your expenses this month i'd ask you to review that policy if you have questions from andrea or laura please ask them questions as you're submitting your expenses but know that it'll be different from what it was before all right thanks ryan all right next uh for my report i guess i didn't go through the consent agenda but i don't believe we've had any requests to remove anything from consent agenda so um i i'm gonna go to and i hope hope they're ready anyway for a little bit of an update on the every student succeeds act uh shirley vargas and lane carr are gonna give us a brief update hello everybody i'll get us started here

285uh it's good to join you um from afar and um as uh to provide a little bit of an overview quick overview of some changes that we'll be pursuing with our every student succeeds act plan so as part of your policy making prerogative um part of your part of the work that you are going to be um doing is to make sure that we are in alignment with our state and national statutes and part of that is with every student succeeds act so there's multiple reasons that we need to update um our plan with the changes to position statement s2 with updates to our endscass assessment system uh multiple different um you know just evolutions and policy and understanding and the way that we support schools have led to this um necessary change and update

286to our plan so we're really seeking to to redesign and rejuvenate the conversations around um around essa and really see clarity correctness conciseness and credibility and through lines of an unabashed focus on historically disadvantaged students a tiered system of support and alignment to other initiatives within the nde we're working really closely in fact we provided a very similar um more in-depth update to the sppi committee so we're thankful that um chair neri would let us come and share a little bit more in depth and we'll be working really closely with um with the sppi committee to know when and how best to engage throughout the process it's going to take us around a year or so to really get the deep input that we want from our stakeholders across the board engaging educators advocacy groups

287state and national organizations so really seeking that feedback to make our our plan uh fit where we are in the state um and the policy structures that we want so um i also so that's kind of step one in our uh essa plan revision i also wanted to share that we are pursuing the flexibilities necessary to advance the assessment and accountability for this year and so um just hang tight we'll have more of an update probably next month to be able to share about what the u.s department of education and how they have responded to the waiver that we have submitted so with that i'm going to go ahead and turn it over to my colleague shirley to talk a little bit about the state side of things and the designation and classification of priority

288schools good afternoon everyone if my video or audio lags please let me know and i'll adjust accordingly um like lane is mentioned right the aqueous accountability system is based off of multiple indicators and um he also mentioned that we have submitted the appropriate waiver to be granted the flexibilities for the designation and classifications of our schools designations are those that um through our accountability process we're able to identify the schools that need additional support to improve either based on overall student performance or specific student group performance as such this would require um our last school year 1920 to kind of be exempt so to speak so that year wouldn't count in years of status therefore allowing us an additional year to provide continued support to our schools and what we are also suggesting is that

289we want to maintain that same consistency with messaging and communication for our priority schools so um with that it would mean an additional year for our schools to continue the support that they've been receiving through my office and through the coordinated supports of other offices and esus and our external consultants and um this would mean that they would have an additional year that of that support and you can see that in writing in our um in our uh gender that has been um agenda rationale that's been posted to the site on spark and um you can also anticipate that our priority schools as normal would be presenting to you as their annual progress in june so you can anticipate that um presentation and we'll bring that through the sppi committee next month as a discussion

290item and then we'll bring it to the full board in june so i'll turn it back over to the commissioner or uh chair more thank you yeah thanks thanks shirley and lane and um basically uh as we continue to kind of monitor the the next steps in our in our federal processes obviously a lot of uh ongoing conversations at that federal level and so again as shirley and lane mentioned we'll come back in at a future time so i certainly take questions if you had them don't really have a lot of additional updates for you so i think we'll be fine there how were the i'm going to assume that the priority schools were pleased to have an additional year or not i yeah i don't know that i can place judgment on that myself

291no i think what our intent was to be number one fair and continue to provide services and supports as best as we could and and uh again we're not unique in this across the country we're actually on the federal side with the st the schools that are comprehensive support and improvement or targeted support and improvement many places are trying to handle it like we are i mean to extend that year and and to build some more uh supports in the meantime well i think it's a great idea i like that situation so that's all that's all i have so well that was short okay all right jacqueline question does that conclude your report commissioner can i ask you a question um do you have an update on the status of the cares funding for the

292private or non-public schools from the grant and where we are with those funds yeah in fact um uh update-wise i'm going off top by head so i might be a little inaccurate but the uh the the effort to kind of roll that out with the contractor and i think it's facts that's actually going to be working on that i think we're still in that final negotiation with them um we had i'm going to lose track of time a little bit but we we had conversations back and forth with the non-public we're also trying to work on the federal side with the the latest in the guidance that they provided us too so um so i i don't know i have a lot more detail to that but i can get you some more information on

293it too thank you okay agenda item 4 that was our teacher of the year report this morning agenda item 5 the president's report mine is short as well first off vice president code johns and i want to thank each of you each of our colleagues for the long days that each of you have put in in the last 10 days to two weeks regarding responding to emails phone calls um and whatnot that that took a lot of work on your part and a lot of time and i know my inbox i have a lot yet to respond to and hopefully i'll get it done yet this weekend but thank you for all of your dedication it's great our our constituents should be pleased that reached out to you the other piece i just want to

294thank each of the staff here for the work that you've had to do um laura out there in the hallway this morning and ryan and our capitol security guard you really had a lot of work that you needed to do to keep the crowd in good order and we we really do appreciate that vice president co johns and i we talked about that yesterday and thank you so much all the detail that the staff went to to keep us safe and secure so thank you agenda item 6 consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda patty is there a second pat the motion was made by patty seconded by pat per board policy there is no discussion on the motion to approve the consent agenda andrea please call the roll morrison yeah

295mary yes coach johns yes fricky nichols yes stevens tim yes eight yes motion passes thank you andrea agenda item seven standing committee reports um 7.1 policy committee pat please provide a report from the policy committee meeting now we've we've combined budget and finance and policy so i'll do both of them okay the committee on budget and finance reports that there is a consent agenda item that we discussed uh was uh three three consent agenda items excuse me uh related contracts with viva yak whatever for cte program work unl for a study on the impacts of coven 19 and allowing the commissioner to obligate funds from the federal preschool development grant no issues or concerns were noted you did have the monthly board travel expense on there and there were no questions about that we reviewed

296the month and those were were reviewed it's still very low since most of us the only thing we're doing is going to the grocery store um in-state travel authorization uh there were those were reviewed we had no updates so that that concludes the budget and finance report we did mention last time that we're going through an audit with the budget and finance and uh bryce indicated that we would probably he would probably have a report on on that uh for us next month the committee on policy reports that the committee reviewed and discussed the one action item on today's agenda and that's the affirmation of s-9 model policy to prevent dating violence just as some clarification in it it talks about this this is a model policy to give to school districts and in the

297policy it said something about administration uh quite a ways down in the in the policy and so it was suggested that we insert the word school districts so that it was understood that it was a school district that was the administration that was was being mentioned and this is nebraska statute 79 2 141 was developed in 2009 through the legislature and it is primarily just reaffirming what the legislative statute says on my model dating violence i believe that was senator howard that did that the committee discussed the concept of the reorganization of the board bylaws policies and physic position statements and this has kind of come about because we are also have up for review bylaw b12 which is policy development and so we want to do some clarification we think that there's uh some

298things that can be put together and reduce some redundancy and so we'll be looking staff is going to look at that for us and and we will bring be bringing that back to you for discussion and then we will uh scott talked to us about the four-year review of the state board bylaw b10 which is hearing officers that's all i have any questions for pat and her committee pat do you have uh is there an action or is there a motion on item 7.18 yes move to reaffirm state board position statement s-9 model policy to prevent dating violence i have a second on the motion lisa the motion was made by pat and seconded by lisa discussion on the motion seeing none andrea please call the role tim yes google's yes niri yeah morrison yes

299co john's yeah nichols yeah eight yes agenda item 7.1 b board members is there any discussion on item seven point b which was the restructuring of the state board policy manual that pat talked about i just want to say that being on the committee i really applaud patty just being on the board for three or four months who has really put a lot of effort in into this process along with ryan and some of the nde staff i think she really knows her stuff so thank you i just wanted the rest of the board to know that it'll look really good i believe when you bring it forth to us okay anybody else on that okay 7.1 c board members is there any discussion on item on the bylaw 12 the policy development that pat

300talked about that's just the next step okay the next step okay thank you okay agenda item 7.2 the legislative committee robin would you provide us a report from the legislative committee yes uh madam uh president uh first of all we have no action items so just so you're aware of that and as usual rather than then name them i do want to thank my committee and probably as important is the support staff and all the work that they do to to help us out what i am going to do is just refer you to actually item 7.2 a that is the main document that we as a committee have identified areas that are bills that we are supporting bills that we are on watch i guess would be the best way to put it so

301that is the most important document that you all um have in front of you and i'm not going to spend time uh going through any of that but we always encourage any of you especially those that are not on the committee that if there is a bill that you want us to watch or to update us on we want to know referring now back again to that document 7.2 a you will notice where the bill is currently i don't know if you recall but brian has on multiple times defined different things for us such as priority bills such as select file such as general file census committee as you go through that you will see where all those bills currently are in the legislative process and as i understand it the brian would be able

302to give us the actual number of days but i'm just going to say it's slightly over halfway done at this time uh any comments first of all from from my committee members and then after that if there are some quick questions that you'd want we'd try to answer those for you right now otherwise that will be the end of my report madam president yes so we would find something uh in spark uploaded in your committee okay i'm talking about the document the document is on 7.2 a it is there okay thank you yeah thank you yeah anyone else jacqueline i am not finding that document that that just could be my own problem could you just give me an update i know that senator mckinney's bill on the literacy became a speaker priority bill at

303one time it looks like we remain neutral is that still our position or do we change our position on lb 452 adopt the financial literacy act i'm i'm looking myself here jacqueline did you say 452 okay it looks like from what i see we had it as a bill that we were going to follow i know that it did receive a speaker priority and so i was wondering if we were going to take any action or if we were going to continue to like what were we going to do in terms of following something that we know got a priority and will be potentially debated uh we have it has not been moved from the area that we had it in the last the last time that we put this forward and to be honest

304with you i'm not sure that we discussed it yesterday if you do remember any of that i i would certainly encourage you but i don't think that we have changed any of our discussion on that if you will we see where it is like you say a speaker priority bill and it is on general file which is i understand it it means it's up for first round debate uh and i look to commissioner on that just to make sure uh that we're were that i'm giving you correct information but we have not changed our uh standing on that if you will can i ask a follow-up question i guess then what if you could just tell me procedurally if we have something listed as bill to follow what exactly does that mean what are we

305following and what are we what's our procedures if we're following something well what we're basically saying is on all of these i would say we are quote neutral we haven't said that we are in favor or that we are opposed to it but we are indeed just doing that we continue to uh follow it i don't know if that really answers your question i guess the thing that that we always encourage from a committee standpoint if people such as yourself if there is something there that you want to be uplifted and say hey i'd like to see this move up i think we would certainly be willing to at least listen to that discussion when i say move up move it to a point of of this is something we support commissioner anything to add

306to that uh i hope that that helps you jacqueline i guess before the commissioner uh talks do you have any anything that i'm listening to you i think i'm hearing you say you'd like to see that be moved up to uh we support no i i don't want to imply that that's what i was saying i was just wondering if we are so for instance if we're following bills there will be a lot of bills introduced but that doesn't mean that they'll make it out of committee or that they would even be debated and so my question is if there are bills for instance that get a speaker priority or perhaps the senator priority do we then give that bill more attention or look at it in a different way or with a new light

307considering that we know that that bill is going to be moving forward i said i'm going to answer it in this way obviously they become because of their priority status whatever it may be committee or speaker or individual simply because they are prioritized they become much more on our radar if that helps in any way thank you yes commissioner i i might just add i mean i think for kind of internally we follow a lot of bills at the agency that aren't on this list i think these are some that the legislative committee or this body has asked us to pay close atten closer attention to i don't know if we pay closer attention once they become speaker priorities the answer is probably yes right we're paying a little bit more attention there and i

308think as senators for for our sake inside of the department we often get asked technical questions or other things so it's really just a notice to you that we are paying attention to it largely because the legislative committee or the or the state board said please follow this and that's why we put it on the list jacqueline do you feel as if we've answered your question yes okay all right and again i emphasize not only to jacqueline but all if there is a particular bill that you would like for us as a committee to at least consider to be uh in as a proponent or i suppose in opposition to we're certainly willing to listen to that at the meeting the other day because i brought forth that lb 338 on broadband and said i

309thought that would have a lot to do with education in the state of nebraska and um asked um robin or matt to take a look at that bill and see if it's something that we should be supporting that we haven't you know that we've sort of ignored and so um matt i think was going to look at it and see if there was some things in there that maybe we didn't know about the bill before we support it thank you very much for that question anyone else okay thank you robin thank you agenda item 7.3 the commissioner's appraisal committee and that would be me the committee uh thanks to pat and patsy and myself we have finalized and working with joel sherling on staff we have finalized our preparations for the commissioner's performance evaluation for

310twenty twenty through twenty twenty one board members you will each receive the link to the electronic appraisal today and you will have two weeks to complete it as was done last year you will be provided with some written guidance to assist you with the navigation you will receive a report of the appraisal reports on or about april 23rd and we will discuss the commissioner's performance at the may board meeting we will take action on the commissioner's contract at the june meeting and that concludes my report anything else from my committee okay moving on a quest or agenda item i'm sorry agenda item 7.4 aquest teaching learning and serving domain committee lisa thank you madam chair um take this thing off oh that's better um [Music] the committee on acquest teaching and learning and serving domain

311had only one action item the committee recommends approval of the non-public schools under rule 14. for the discussion item the committee discussed the health education standards process the committee reviewed the purposes of the standards and reviewed the data from the nebraska youth risk behavior survey and they were able to show us the details of that on the screen the purpose of the health education standards is to help guide schools in the adoption of local standards and ultimately students gain knowledge and skills so they can avoid or reduce health related risk behaviors school districts and school systems are not required to adopt the state standards for a health education the committee recognizes the immense amount of public input and interest in this topic particularly related to the human growth and development currently there are approaching 4

312000 individual responses to the survey and several thousand additional emails and communications largely focused on a singular strand of the draft the commit committee recommends that um nde began to analyze the public input received through the public input survey and the standards input email the committee requests the preliminary report identifying themes based on the input process the committee recommends that a revision process follow which addresses the themes identified as concerns raised thus far and that will lead to a second public draft after that the committee also recommends that the board have a discussion today with the commissioner relative to the recommendation to proceed with the standards process including specific areas and or standards for which the board has received feedback and that the commissioner outlined a plan following the meeting to share with the board

313this concludes my aquest teaching and learning and serving domain i would like to remind committee members that i would like you to share something from the committee meeting as we begin the discussion so are you ready no okay lisa is there a motion on it on item 7.4 a yes there is i moved to approve the non-public schools appearing on the accompanying list to operate for the 2021-22 school year under rule 14. is there a second patty the motion was made by lisa and seconded by patti discussion on the motion okay seeing none andrea please call the roll co johns yes morrison yes neri yeah tim yes stevens yes nichols yes googles yes eight yes motion passes thank you andrea agenda item 7.4 b board members is there any discussion on item 7.4 b the

314nebraska health education standards can start and then yeah i'll be glad to share a little bit first off i just i so appreciate all the communication that has not only been sent to me but to all of the citizens from across nebraska that came to speak to us today that's so important and the survey the people that responded to the survey over four thousand the emails straight to the nde uh what was that over two thousand some plus all of ours i so appreciate it um one of the things i i would like to uh to share in one of what what i noticed oh i'm sorry thank you one of the things that i repeatedly noticed in my email messages or phone calls and some of what i heard here again today so many

315think that we as a board wrote these standards and we did not you know we had a writing committee put together of educators from across the state administrators teachers esu folks and then there was the advisory committee made up of a large group of them so we did not write them and i just and i i worked really hard at explaining that to folks that at least emailed me or i spoke with so i just want everyone that could be listening in fact to understand that this was just the first initial draft brought to us it doesn't mean that we agreed with them or disagreed with them in fact i have no opinion yet on them because my role as a board member in this part of the process because it is a process that

316we've done with all of our standards and i think that is so important you know the governor has his process with the covet protocol and whatnot we've got our process at the nde with the standards and so um my my role i want i just want everyone to understand that my role and my colleagues role is to simply listen at this point in time and so but i have so appreciated the many messages in support of the one thing that stood out to me from several mental health what do we want to call them practitioners in my district was that the bullying the social emotional health they are inundated with with students and that they saw a lot of good in in these standards and i think i heard that again today and here so

317and of course we have our social emotional learning component in there in the strands which can be applied right in there but yeah i i just and i want folks to understand that whatever we end up passing for our new health standards we've never had them before in the state by the state department but our districts have to have standards they either create their own or they most of them go by the national health standards as their guide meaning they don't have to follow everything and i just want folks to understand that it is a local decision because we are a local controlled state and i'm very proud of that very proud of it so with that i'll stop until maybe further thank you lee and robin would you like to see her well i'm

318going to go because i hate to follow patsy anyway uh first of all i just want to say that the things that that lisa just pointed out in her comments i'm in full support of okay so um the direction that we are sending to uh the nde the commissioner and then uh through those who will be uh again putting forth that second um that second draft and i certainly uh had many of the things that you just mentioned too so i just ditto's to you guys but i am going to talk about uh two basic things i think it's just two it may end up three or four but right now it's set at two as i listened to the multiple presentations the word love was used according to my unofficial statistics here six times

319and probably the the point that really grabbed at me and i shared this with jacqueline was i believe it was a young man by the name of eric who said we can love and disagree and i hope that i would be able to say that even though this is good friday we are approaching easter sunday i hope that i would be able to say that very same thing uh in three weeks from now um but i just i just appreciated when people talked a little bit about love and because i think that's crucial and then the other thing is we hear a lot of stuff about scrap the standards or scrap at least parts of the standards if the constitution if the people at the constitutional convention would have said scrap what we've done because

320there were times when they wanted to do that they wanted to scrap it head back to their own states and say i've had enough but they stayed the process they stayed with it and now what we have is what we as americans believe is probably the greatest document uh greatest constitution that has ever been written it wasn't easy and i'm not trying to say that the health standards are going to be the greatest document ever written but we have to in my opinion stay the course stay the process it's a proven process so that would be i guess my comments i i would agree that we need to stay the process and i would suggest that what that means is that we have a process and we need to respect it um i am so

321appreciative that we are going to use data as a at least a part of that review process i certainly see things just looking through these standards that don't have to rely on data for us to really for nde to really start looking through them thinking about them and recommending changes for example and i'm coming at this from the perspective of teaching child psychology adolescence psych human cognition i think it's really important throughout this document in the review process to consider developmental appropriateness that's very important it's also important for us i think to look at the standards and ask ourselves for each standard does this standard truly relate to health education then beneath those standards with the indicators because i noticed some that just in reading through them very quickly i was saying this is not

322health ed as an indicator this doesn't align with that standard this fits in social sciences so i think there is lots of opportunity to really do that kind of analysis this is a huge document it could afford to be collapsed some so i think a place to start that is to to think about and if appropriate eliminate those indicators that aren't aligned with standards or that really fit under social sciences or wherever they they happen to fit and i'm i'm basing some of that on just reading through rule 10 and seeing what the descriptions are for all of our content areas i think i i have faith that we will come out with the next draft that will give us lots of opportunity for discussion um i i believe in the process and i think

323it's important for us to put the best set of health and standards together that we can so that local school districts will say these are good this is what we want to adopt right i don't want the state department of education to be in the position that we say boy there's a lot of work that's gone into these but you don't have to pay any attention to them right i think it's really important that we believe that these are standards and indicators that will benefit local school districts realizing they don't have to adopt them but i hope you understand the mindset that i have thank you patty well just to follow along on the conversation i think um i think we've all got questions and and things that we need to reconcile you know in

324our own mind and our own uh experiences and um i i i also have some questions and and have some people that i i have a lot of trust in in the profession to talk about age appropriate uh particularly young children and um and just alt all of them but but the the age appropriateness piece is very important to me um i also think that as you were talking about patty about things maybe not being in the right place um i think um and and it's one of those things that you've got a lot of so-called people in the field as well as teachers and esu people and so on and um the i struggle a little bit with the medical specificity um that maybe you know a little more common words instead of um

325and you know i talked about that a little bit um that maybe a little more or um everyday conversation kinds of things i don't want things labeled with pocketbooks and weird stuff like that but um i think you know there's you talk to a psychologist it's kind of like talking to a doctor or a lawyer you get legalese or you get education ease or you get you know those kinds of things and and i think we need to think about that so that it is a common language that people can understand there was a statement and i'm not sure who made this statement but i thought it could be a real guiding light for how we approach our suggestions for revisions or our questions about what language and that sort of thing but one of

326the speakers said that now i'm going to lose it it was oh darn it was so good oh one of the speakers said in the middle of his presentation i remember that that part about who it was that we should think about harm reduction as we look at this document as we look at this document and so we have to harm harm harm reduction and i thought that was so profound because we don't want to throw things out just because one person disagreed with it or thought it thought it wasn't needed or um it was a little bit shocking um we want to think about the children that we're representing let's say under child abuse sexual abuse that sort of thing all of that is shocking and and it happens and i had stories from

327my constituents when i talked to them and called them back about their children their grandchildren um and patty i shared one with you the other day of a little girl who was sexually abused and then adopted and they were making bird houses and um she put her new mom and new dad on there and then she put her principal on there and they asked her why she wanted the principal on there and she said he saved my life he saved my life and i think we have to keep our eye on reducing harm for all those innocent kids that can't can't do it for themselves they need us and we're we're here and we're sending the guidance for it and it might not be pleasant to hear what some of the people think about what

328we're doing or what we're saying but that's our job and so i like that statement there was one other thing i was going to say one thing i think we really need to define for the public before we go on very very much primarily is many people in the public don't understand the difference between curriculum and standards and we are not in control of anybody's curriculum and how they go about teaching this is local control now i am sure that the state board of education with corey upler will will come up with wonderful suggestions for curriculum but we need to calm our constituency down about thinking that curriculum and frameworks are the same because that is frightening to them and you can tell it by today's testimony and so those were two things i have

329lots of things that are repeated repeated concerns throughout my discussions with with my constituents and i'm not sure when you want those but those were two things that i thought there are emergencies for us as emergency talk when you say harm reduction curriculum standards thank you patsy can you hear me i tried to jot down some things to say and so i want to speak first to the people who showed up today if they went home and tuned in i heard a lot of themes and one of the things that i heard was that they didn't want this process to be political and they they didn't want this process to be political and they were concerned that we were inserting politics and political agenda into the standards and so if you showed up i want

330to assure you there is nothing political about where i stand on these standards i am listening the other thing that i heard a lot from people today was these are our our children and i believe i'm the only board member here who has children under the age of 18. so i want you to know that i hear you because it's not just your children they're mine too and so we all have an interest in what happens with children because mine are included and just last night i had to explain to my daughter why why she was crying and couldn't understand why something made her so upset and it's because i explained to her we as women sometimes start to develop hormones and we can't control that so it's very personal to me because these are

331conversations that i'm having every day with my own child so if you are a parent i am listening the other thing as i have heard phone calls or answered phone calls from people it was really tempting to say i just got on the board in january please stop saying these are my standards but i didn't also easy to say your local school board doesn't have to adopt these but i didn't because that's easy it's easy to deflect the reality is we hire the commissioner this is our department of education these standards came from us thus they are ours and i am owning them and with that we will try our hardest to get them right because as patti said we want this to be the standard that schools want to adopt so i will not

332say that to anyone who calls me i will listen and i have returned every single phone call whether in my district or outside of it but what i noticed today was a theme of fear there were a lot of parents here who were afraid and you saw two sides of the aisle you saw the parents who were afraid of what happens if we pass these standards as is and there were parents who are afraid of what happens to their children if we don't and that resonated with me because one gentleman said people who are afraid can be controlled and manipulated and it was that moment that i realized that's what this is about people concerned about what their children are going to learn so with that said my hope for this board as we move

333forward is that there were people who feel like they were left from the table people who felt like their voices were not included in that initial group of people who developed these standards i'm not sure in that process going forward who will be included or if we'll go back to that original group but i think in the in the interest of transparency people have to feel like they were included and that their voices were heard that's why we had so many people here today that's why we've had so many emails that's why we've had so many phone calls so i hope or my request for the staff is as we go forward look at that list of people who we had as representatives of the community as representatives of the medical field the educators and

334part of our own department of education make sure that group is truly representative of the people of nebraska because if we are that inclusive we will get standards that work if we leave people out people will be upset and so i think we have an opportunity to get a second draft that works i've heard that there are a lot of good things that people want to keep but i don't want us to punt and say they don't have to adopt them i want this to be a draft that everybody everybody won't always agree but it can at least be a draft that people feel included and that works for most people in nebraska so that's all i have to say i just want to follow up on that a couple of things and then i

335i had some thoughts from what i heard today too and since you are a new board member jacqueline um i just wanted to say that the makeup of the committee uh before we approve that committee i asked a million questions and i was actually shown the matrix and they are i know that they were very very intentional about who is on that committee so that there is representation from all parts of the state from all different professions from all different age groups in the education profession so that we had nurses and health professionals and medical doctors and they did pay attention to the equity makeup of the committee and and i i and made sure that we even had people who really understand health education and have master's degrees in that i i feel like

336that matrix um for our public school system that they were thorough and um anyway that was that's just my thought but you know i i liked that you analyzed what you heard today and i love your comments about the six times we heard the word love well i i wrote down i actually typed everybody's comments uh it helped me concentrate a little bit and it helped me just think about what's the main theme of what i'm hearing from that person and but halfway through the meeting i started on a separate sheet of paper writing down some of the stuff that i was hearing that made me sad and i heard words like sickens me perverts political agenda mental disorder disgusting crap absolutely disgusting shaming straight kids grooming radical sexual ideology garbage perverted acts crimes against

337nature crimes against humanity humanity etc and that doesn't even include all the attacks on us personally but when i heard those i mean it made me understand some of the statistics that you know when a young person is in a home that's supporting um they they have a much better outcome but when a young person who identifies as trans or glbtq is bullied a lot there is a very high percentage of um suicide and and so i i those words hurt me today and it it said to me that if these are the words we're using then maybe there really is a strong need for better education and better facts around some of these ideas but i also just felt like everybody that i've talked to on the phone i've had the best conversations and

338i've been so grateful for the opportunity to talk and and today i heard so many good intentions and everybody spoke from the heart and there was a lot of fear i didn't think of that until you said that but but i did feel like everybody felt like they were here to do the right thing and it just it kind of made me some themes started bubbling up for me and you know it was it came down to what is your view of education like do you feel like education should be based on values or should it be based on you know evidence and facts and research and if it is supposed to be based on values uh what religion should it be based on or do you believe that our country was founded on freedom

339for all religions or do you believe our country was founded on christianity and these are the questions that i kept hearing over and over again and what the beliefs were that people were talking about you know many people believe that we should be basing our education on their values their religious values uh not on what the evidence and the facts and the medical professionals are saying and and that's sort of a division we have in our country that i know we can't solve as a group but it it just i wanted to just acknowledge that i understand and i hear everybody that's talking to us and what their concerns are and these are large philosophical questions that we're not going to be able to answer but the best we can do as a group is

340look at what's developmentally appropriate for each of the grade levels and that's what we are going to continue to do and i just want to say that i have tremendous respect for everybody in this room and i know that none of you took it personally but we were attacked as individuals a lot today as having political agendas as i mean which i i can't even imagine that anyone would think that we were trying to put children in harm's way at all um or that any of us were in the pocket of the teachers union which i know i have not talked to one teachers union member or even a teacher i've talked to a lot of parents but this has nothing to do with the teachers union or and so i just wanted to say

341that i respect all of you because i know the integrity and hard work that you're all putting into this and just i feel very likely to work with a group like this in order to make these really important decisions so sorry to go on and on but thank you add on to what deborah just mentioned we were asked i mean our committee yesterday had such a wonderful what two two and a half hours of discussion but one of the questions was asked of us the word nebraska values comes up a lot and yes i saw that in my emails in my phone calls and today and what my nebraska valley i mean what is the definition of nebraska values my nebraska values may not align with robin's thoughts of what nebraska's values are and so

342debbie brought forth a good point um the values that we all hold and i know that the values i hold personally is i want the best health standards the gold standard debra as you have said i do that gold standard will be one where i believe our districts will say we want to adopt those standards as patty has said so i think we have to be careful when we talk about our nebraska values and i think we need to question others you have said nebraska these are not our nebraska values well what are your nebraska values because they may not align with mine and i think that's that was a really dynamic point for me yesterday and i want to thank ryan one of our staffers who brought that forth because he's not a nebraskan

343not a native nebraskan i should say so uh i think that's really important to think about and i and i would like all of our constituents who feel that to think about that lisa i'm just in finishing up the committee one of the things from the emails phone calls and the presence of people today is we are seeking input from all stakeholders that are willing to come forward that i'm very proud to say is a dedicated focus and one of our mentors said it's not enough to get the people to the table it's are you listening and we listened i looked around the room we were listening very intently and so i know that the staff and this board um truly and and i i hope we asked the commissioner a question certainly uh commissioner

344um could you explain the deadline for i think this will help the people that aren't in the committee the deadline for the first round of input in like the from the 10th to the 29th and that input going forward and then how unl is going to compact everything yeah so i'll if i can i'll just walk through a little bit of what we discussed in the committee for the full board's sake and kind of what the next steps that that you're asking me to make sure we ensure accomplished so first of all we have a lot more public comment on this to review obviously more today probably more comments coming in by survey and email our intention is to be able to review that content as thoroughly as possible and bring that back to you

345um or bring that back to the committee at the may board meeting just so we can identify the themes just like i appreciate this dialogue because i people hear things differently and it's it's helpful to be able to kind of analyze where that's at i think we have specific feedback that we already know i think to paddy's point there's some things that we've already recognized that are needed improvements within this i think also to the point of where does this go after that right and to jaclyn's point i think about so does this go back to the writing committee as it's constructed or do we find other ways uh to engage people in that in a way especially if they didn't feel included in some fashion and so what's our best way of doing that

346and i think what the committee was asking me and what you all are probably asking me to do is figure out how we do that and we will between now and and the may time frame um i would tell you that there is no way we were likely to have a second draft by may i think it's unlikely that we can have a second draft by june right but i do think we can talk about the themes and the areas in that time frame that we can begin to do that and then be able to lay out i think maybe what i've heard today a second draft that we actually believe could be owned by by folks within the state of nebraska right that we are thoughtful about how that gets done and where we

347go with this i've spent a lot of time contemplating since we released these standards right why is this miss the mark from a public's perspective or standpoint why is that miss i really appreciate the fear dynamics because we all care about our kids i i will say like jacqueline i also have kids under 18 years old so as commissioner of education this impacts my children as well so one of the one of the realities for us is to think what's really gonna what's really gonna be most effective to advance what's beneficial for kids i actually worry one other thing and i guess in the in the hippocratic oath from those in the medical profession is kind of the first do no harm i worry if we put something out that's not appropriate for for children

348we don't want that i don't think anyone wants that and so regardless of what folks are saying that doesn't seem to be appropriate so i'm going to have our staff and they'll you know address the writing team address the those types of inputs and bring back in may what that process would look like what our analysis is a bit more hopefully of a timeline i i have a hard time just fathoming how we get through all the analysis that we need to do but we will i do want to say we're looking at every single comment just like you've all talked about calling people back i think that's important to keep people engaged and that's at least what i'm hearing i think what i'm feeling maybe even more than i'm hearing that we need to

349do that and do that well to ensure that this actually improves education improves this draft but it mostly improves what what experiences students have in our schools across the state thank you and i guess that's the final conclusion of my committee report commissioner clarify um the data that's come through the survey link uh the nde staff will not be disaggregating that will they well it's actually a combination so yes i mean the staff will be but the the survey results and other feedback that we've gotten we're also trying to work with other third party folks to do research mostly from a time standpoint but we'll do that well and that'll be that'll be transparent i i think when people will see the analysis it will reflect the comments that we've received right and that that's

350the intention of that analysis the third party will disaggregate some of that will they or come up with the themes it's a combination so the third party is looking at the email responses the survey portion of that it was designed for our team to be able to look at so we have a data research and evaluation team that will do that that aren't part of the writing team or any of that but they'll be able to put that information in a format that that identifies those themes in an appropriate way so i misunderstood that thank you for that clarification jacqueline i see you wanting to you're thinking over there i am thinking and i don't know i guess i try not to speak if i don't have the words i need at the moment um

351but i wanted to be clear on my comments and it's weird when you go right before someone or after someone so i did not mean in my comments to suggest that the committee that was put together was in any way inadequate um i am certain that the committee that was put together to put forth these stand standards is a lot of hard work and for the most part what we heard with the exception of one strand of our standards people were happy with them and so i think that that is a testament to who was on the committee and the hard work that went into that but we can't deny that there are people who feel that they were left out that is a fact and so i'm not getting into whether the specifics of

352it if i agree or disagree the point or our reality is we need to make sure that the people who feel like they were left out feel like in any second draft that we have we took them into consideration that was the only thing i meant by my statements and so whoever was on the committee or the work that went into this i think it's good work i think it's a great start but i fear that fear word again that if we don't listen to the people who are speaking up we will continue to have problems and so we need to make sure that that concern of theirs is addressed and any next steps that we take to support that um just like i said a few minutes ago oh yeah um i just was

353saying what i agree with what jacqueline just said that we've brought him here they've emailed us and it's not only listening to their voices they're going to want to see that they were heard and so i just wanted to echo that there you know the the majority of emails and phone calls and things that i received were with the um developmentally uh age-appropriate of k five or six i can't remember so that that was a l i i bet i'm between 150 and 200 emails and then you put us all together and then the four thousand and several thousand um they're gonna wanna see what we are saying that we're gonna do does that make sense okay i'm getting tired anyone else okay moving on thank you good discussion everyone moving on to agenda item

3547.5 aquest student success access and support domain patsy would you provide a report yes madam president i will okay the committee met on april 1st and uh we had two discussion items the first one was um on leading for equity and leap the state policy network and we discuss the progress that we're making creating the nd equity policy in our last meeting last month we looked at all of the pieces that we've created and decided that we would try to combine all of those things that we had worked to create into an equity policy so human dignity statement the non-discrimination statement um all of those into one document and so it's not a piece here and a piece there and uh so and um that's that's our goal and in order to do that we

355ask our committee to come back together uh zainab and i are going to work together beforehand but to come back together april 12th at four o'clock and we would kind of put out what what we had put together and ask their opinions and their input into that that information the committee also discussed the teacher waivers for esu 13 and melody hobson was there and we were able to ask her questions um and we had our own expert for early childhood in the room pat tim was in that room and that's what the problems are with is getting people qualified in that area to work with early childhood and they've got a couple of like dings for that where they haven't been able to do that well i think i asked the question what happens if

356we don't pass the waiver and she said well then there wouldn't be any early childhood in that community and then i asked how many kids and they said a hundred kids and so it's harm reduction melodies i said what do we do and she said well we can do this this and this and keep working on it and working together with them and so next month that will come before us as an action item and this concludes the aquest student success and access report thank you patsy uh board members is there any discussion on uh the item 7.5 a leading for equity and excellence program that patsy talked about okay 7.5 b is there any discussion on item 7.5 b on the discussion of the waiver request for esu 13. robin and i'm going to

357ask this to patsy did i understand correctly that that is not an action item for this month but it will be an action item next okay thank you okay thank you thank you anyone else kate thank you patsy um agenda item 7.6 but pat you already did the budget and finance didn't you so we're going to move on agenda item 7.7 strategic planning performance and improvement committee deborah would you provide a report not have a meeting so there's no report okay that was short agenda item 8 additional business there are there are no additional business items agenda item 9 information items and reports item agenda items 9.1 through 9.3 those items are information items and written reports for the board and for our information only agenda item 10 the good of the order this section

358of the agenda is intended for board members to offer informal observations of the work of the state board board members may make brief announcements about attendance at future events for the purpose of informing other board members no business or motions or suggested actions of the board may be offered at this point in the agenda nor should or any nor should board members engage in substantive discussions about other agenda items or introduce new agenda items so is there anyone that has anything for the good of the order robin hope i i always feel like i'm breaking a rule whenever i start talking but we love hearing from you that's okay i guess i just continue to break the rules anyway i i did want to make mention of the presentation that was made out at nexa

359uh and and uh obviously it was it was fun to uh share the wasn't a stage but the the panel with uh patty and and our esteemed president uh but what i was really wanted to highlight was i thought our facilitator uh did a really nice job of of um leading us through the the land mine maybe that would be the best way and that's way way way an exaggeration because it was really i thought a well done panel discussion and i always think the facilitator is crucial to that that process so i wanted to mention ryan thank you anyone else for the good of the order i just want to say i thought robin was going to steal my thunder but he didn't the commissioner's noon keynote address to the group was absolutely outstanding

360the thing i really appreciate about him is his small town growing up years and always having a piece of history because i think didn't wasn't your understudy in civics or something like that but he talked about so many wonderful pieces of history from back in palisades or juanita palisades and uh but the bottom line was is that about the grit that nebraskans have it's a value a nebraska value according to matt for him the grit that nebraskans have through the pandemic to get kids in school all year and it was you can have an opportunity to view that on your appraisal uh in one of your appraisal folders his uh presentation is on there i already watched it again it's great so i just wanted to make sure i shared that so seeing no one

361else has anything to say it is 3 44 and it is adjournment thank you for those who attended in person we did have one person hang around with us this afternoon thank you and who tuned into the broadcast as needed a work session will be held on thursday may 6th at a time and location to be determined a business meeting will be held on friday may 7th at nine o'clock am at a location to be determined the state the april state board meeting is adjourned you