001conference Mr Cerrone here Miss Doyle here Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson president Mr pluger present Miss similton president miss Swanson States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right item 4.1 is an opportunity for the board to recognize our teachers and staff for our pride Awards so if you'll join me up front that would be appreciated tonight the Board of Education acknowledges Pride winners for the month of April 2023. Pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education implemented this program in the fall of 2015 to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers and employees across our district teachers of the month are sponsored by Allied First Bank this recognizes what our teachers do
002day in and day out for the continued growth and success of our students awardees as your name is called please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr sparlin congratulations to the following teachers for having been recognized as April teachers of the month Kim Kasten second grade teacher at Wolf's Crossing [Applause] Lori Johnson special education teacher Bernard 6 Junior High [Applause] Paul kidler a special education teacher at Oswego East High School [Applause] and John tamez an avid teacher at plank Junior High [Applause] at this time we'll invite any of our administrators that are here this evening to come join our awardees in the board for a photo thank you congratulations t-shirts the next awardees this evening are the April employees of the month co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A in Huntington Learning Center this award is
003given an appreciation of employees to go above and beyond and who are always willing to lend a hand awardees as your name is called please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr sparlin congratulations to our April employees of the month Lois Goulet Federer and Georgie headphone these ladies are from Oswego East congratulations [Applause] foreign congratulations ladies we're going to invite Laura to come up and join you for a photo congratulations ladies [Applause] we thank our generous District sponsors Allied First Bank Chick-fil-A Huntington Learning Center in Culver's for helping us to make this program a success and we thank all of those who nominate individuals this is our final recognition for this school year so we ask you to stay tuned for the program next year two three two foreign [Music] courage everyone
004to take an active interest in their public school system residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked who have completed a comment card and more when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to minute no discussion of personnel matters or responses to questions I've submitted the board has not participate in discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns registration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Lillian Driscoll good evening good evening um Mr Sparling and board members my name is Lillian Mata Driscoll I have been an active parent in SD 308 Community these past 18 years I am a mother of six
005children that have been part of the Dual language program my youngest two are currently enrolled in DL I came to SD 308 because it was ranked one of the top school districts in our area and it had opened a pilot program known as dual language I know firsthand what an amazing program we have in our hands as a district I also know that it has been our struggle to keep the district leadership informed on how DL program runs but also pushing for it to be more equitable we find ourselves once again faced with a situation of our full-time bilingual reading support for DL being pulled from Hunt Club to a halftime position in between both of our DL schools we have known that our Boulder Hill school has needs and we should definitely be putting
006those supports in place for DL why has it been a struggle for our district to do the right thing for our students after meeting with Mrs with deliquis and Renee Wednesday we voiced concerns on how decision the decision would greatly be disservice to our students it was a gut-wrenching feeling once again a repeat feeling of 2015 school year those that were here then know I kind of was given a felt like to share an analogy the solution that was given it's like having a pair of shoes and seeing a need a person in need that has no shoes and giving one of your shoes so that now you each have one shoe which doesn't make sense um there has been much growth in this program every year and we still do not make it a
007priority our classrooms are busting at the seams which clearly shows there's a need I have come to you today to see what needs to be done to make this right teachers have been working to exhaustion and as a parent I'm here to show support for the students we cannot accept this plan for the upcoming year it's not right so Mr Sparling I have faith that you will stand by our SD 308 students thank you for your time I look forward to working as a team and coming to a better solution that is not hurting our students education thank you Wayne harshberger foreign good morning or good good evening Wayne harshberger 457 Baroque Drive I've got two graduates from the district and currently have a junior at one of the high schools um our Saga that
008I've talked about before really started back in eighth grade when we were told oh well she's got good grades you got to understand my wife's involved in special education and testing and classroom teachers had leading indicators that said something needed to be done but we were ignored we then encountered a bullying issue in that eighth grade classroom when someone told my daughter why don't you just kill yourself I didn't realize at the time the dramatic impact of that experience would have on her Mental Health until last spring she wrote out a note to one of the high school social workers I have no idea was written but the fact the social worker and my wife destroyed it before I could see it told me everything I needed to know let's fast forward to Spring of
0092022 now okay so in the fall of 21 went through a lot of Life Experiences lost both my parents lost Uncle Matt who used to come over to our house a lot and spent a lot of time with the kids so we had a lot of experience life experiences in the house my daughter suffers from things that need a 504 okay it's needed we were pushed by the team to do a complete all-in IEP evaluation in spite of the team knowing all the life events that we had already communicated in fact we had asked the team a long time ago her freshman year to start tracking all these incidents so we had this wonderful spreadsheet with all the instances dates times how long it goes on we have everything that spreadsheet was used against us
010as a reason to do an all-in IEP we said no but if in the fall we said well let's try it let's see what happens well this is our experience so back in eighth grade no problem don't need to do anything then we get to the district saying you got to do something The Forum that came home not filled out right okay my wife's comment is I wish we could get away with a form that that was poorly written there was no why the why was missing okay that that's really an isbe violation and then when we got through the whole evaluation you're supposed to get all the paperwork that goes in the domain three days prior to the meeting legally you're supposed to get it three days partial information provided we called we called
011the team on it okay Dr Hildebrand got involved she's aware of it admitted to heirs they scrambled to fix it it wasn't done right they didn't follow it per the domain okay so in the process we've had to get an advocate involved the district has now had to spend money to go get an outside evaluation done okay so why am I here why am I here let's get into that so some issues blindly pushing back on the need for a 504 back in eighth grade so nope no issue don't need to do anything let's fast forward to the recent events nope you got to do something reluctantly agree agree form not filled out right the evaluation not done right it's just a lack of execution so I could have submitted probably two or three of
012these to the state and have the state investigate these complaints instead I'm coming here to present this to you to maybe ask the team to reflect on what's going on and under your purview not the state actually try to make some improvements okay it's lack of execution quite simply lack of execution I understand there's challenges from budget and Staffing okay but what's the true cost of screwing this up now we're redoing things now you're having to pay for an outside count outside people to do Evolution what's the true cost of this what is the real cost think about that another question I really have is so my wife and I are educated we know what was supposed to happen so how many other families in the district are going through this type of process and
013the district's not doing it right but the parents and Guardians don't know that and then what happens when it's not done right and the services that the student is due are not being provided there's a bigger problem here and talking to my colleagues I work with with students across multiple schools I think you've got some problems Beyond just our family item 6.1 is an informational presentation and professional development and Mrs dalquist is going to lead us in that thank you thank you because working all right this is just the summary of the annual report the annual report in its entirety is linked to board docs and will be into our district website shortly the highlight of this is our goal by 2026 and envision 308 is an annual three-year plan as well as the piece
014of professional development based on feedback and then everything around what we do we follow our expectations for engagement which is part of the climate for learning framework so we're really pushing to have a lot of Engagement collaborative structures and inquiry even with the training with our staff to model the type of instruction that we want with our students the left hand side if you scroll down just a little bit for everybody is the indicators of success that we had agreed upon at last time around for August for our meeting here and we had a three-year professional development plan would be part of those and then really basing that off of our walk through data so I'm proud to say that this year we've had nearly 2 000 classrooms that we have visited as a team
015to look and see how we're doing so this is not an evaluation of teachers when we go in and do this this is to see how we are doing at providing professional development to impact change the entire piece of our three-year plan is linked up there and I want to emphasize that we base all of that on our model for managing complex change which first is having a vision for what it is that we want and then putting in the why or the incentive plus providing skills to do that and resources to do that all of that combined into an action plan so our first part of our work was really around creating vision and that was completed for most Parts last year and then the vision part for our climate for learning that was
016really focused on this year was around behavioral expectations the other Link in there is just the archive if you look at all of the trainings that members of executive leadership team have done and provided to various groups you might be interested to see all that we've done in the last school year so those next pieces around that Vision component as I said we now have everybody all schools have K-12 expectations for behavior um what that looks like and that Vision piece now really working on the skills and the resources to go along with that and then our work continuing is the vision for supportive discipline and what that would look like as well as having our behavioral design team which want to just remind the board that we have a district Improvement team that has
017several different teams that report to it the K-12 SEL team and the K-12 behavioral design team are important parts of that and you can see kind of the work that we have done so far as well as some of our work that we're wanting to continue in the next pieces if you scroll down a little bit more so that's the indicators of success that we'd like to report to the board for next year we'll come back at this with the three-year plan and the next steps that are needed to go through that will base that again off of data such as student achievement data staff surveys like we did this year we now have an annual staff survey that we give and then our walk through pieces and we'd like to incorporate student surveys next
018year as well and then a second component of that is establishing a system of data collection for the effectiveness of student Behavior using our new student information system and helping teams do that and then finally the board asks us to draw correlations to this work to those four areas I want to remind everyone that whatever we can do to improve instruction it does help us out frequently for costly interventions later on so that is a piece as we get better at our craft that can help save money as well as save students and getting better at what we need to do obviously the time with student learning is pretty self-explanatory as well as support for student learning and then Community Partnerships we continue to look for ways to do that but we also have to
019make sure that our staff has enough professional development and the resources that they could do to be able to go beyond that to Community Partnerships are there any questions I just have a question about the number of participants of the survey do we typically see something that low no this this year it was particularly low the year before that we were over 600 this year we had quite a few less did have you looked into like redoing this Earth doing another version of the survey to try to get more input to see where you can see the trends across maybe elementary junior high so um some of the things that the work with the instructional coaches are at those particular particular areas or even at the junior high level for departments they're seeking that input
020but geared just toward Junior High Math teachers are just toward High School social studies as we get ready to do those pieces and we find we get a lot of meaningful impact there in addition to the K-12 everybody taking their survey okay all done inside of the district we do some of both we do a lot of the in-house that is definitely more cost if you're thinking about costs to be able to do it that way but we have brought in experts and looked at that we've also brought in a lot of books where we're using expertise from others to do study groups so more in-house than not but we have done some pieces we also have just sent a group of staff to another District to see how they're doing with instruction or going
021to visit them of what they're looking at doing for supportive discipline or engagement so combinations so the results of the walkthroughs and I have different feedback at different levels of what that looks like one of the big pushes this year has been collaborative structures and engagement and we are seeing more of that in general uh at at all of the levels but we're not yet where we want to be with that so one of the things that we did when we talked amongst the leaders here and then also with our Union leadership committee where we talk about initiatives is we pared down what it is that we were going to try to move forward next year in order to revisit that and get it where we want it to be we have seen an increase
022in math vocabulary instruction both at the elementary and Junior High Level where that's been a big push we've continued to see more classrooms implementing the independent reading portion and then we're beginning to see more people skilled in small group instruction and reading but as we did our walkthroughs we realized we need to provide more support and more Reese's resources to be able to do that so that's something that we are revisiting um and kind of doubling back on to make sure that that's in place before we go on to another subject inquiry process we're seeing more of that especially with social studies at the elementary level but really excited about some of the junior high math things that we're seeing where there are big white boards up and students are working in groups and solving
023more critical thinking questions where there's a lot more application of the math skills at a higher level and that's the kind of thing that we would really like to see learning targets were a focus at the high school and are seeing a lot more learning targets but we need to generally work on the quality of the learning targets I have one last question what is the um reasoning or rationale behind non-certified Personnel doing walk-throughs non-certified people doing walk-throughs which what are you referring to I don't I don't want to say names but I've just heard that there were many people in walkthroughs that were I don't know non-pell Health holding or non-certified uh the only time that I'm aware of that is I am having District leaders that go on walk through so that they
024know what we're talking about when we're looking at instruction I want everyone to have uh be able to talk about climate for learning framework and see it in action so the only people that I can think of that would be non-certified would have been District staff that always go along with a buddy and have walked classrooms with me and others 7.1 superintendent report good evening board I have a few announcements for this for tonight I'd like to stop by congratulating Aaron Holtz and many of the OHS student participants at an outstanding Southwest uh Prairie conference literacy Festival uh competition on Saturday April 15th OHS not only took home the most Awards of any school 14 but they earned the top honors in both poetry and first play and several other first place Awards April is
025Autism Awareness Month each year during the month of April individuals and organizations across the world celebrate Autism Awareness Month which began in 1950. we use this time to provide resources to deepen deep in understanding and raise awareness and acceptance of students with autism celebrating differences and encouraging inclusion recently and National encouraged a young writer day April 10th Boulder Hill Elementary School held a book signing event for two of its students Evelyn Mendoza and Jeremiah Smith Jones celebrating them for each having published their first books over the summer of 2022. it's very exciting so I encourage you to visit our district website to hear more about these fantastic young authors and congratulations to Evelyn and Jeremiah those are two elementary kids with published books this summer yes I'm feeling a little slacky yeah yes yeah it
026definitely wasn't publishing a book right I'm also happy to say that geared forward robotics Oswego 2338 made it to the finals at the world championship robotics competition in Houston Texas this last weekend out of over 3 200 robotic teams worldwide and over six uh and over 600 who qualified and competed at the world championship they finished 64th which is incredible so congratulations to this very talented group of Team students and their coaches and yes those are the world competitions and finally I'd like to share that our annual student-led amplify event is on May 1st from 6 to 8 30 at Oswego High School the event will feature student works and expressions in an environment celebrating diversity and inclusion I'm sure it will be a great night and we hope to see everyone there Mrs Hamilton
027that is my report for this evening thank you thank you I'm speaking of students [Music] hello good evening everyone um I guess Caitlin and I are really excited to announce that the student uh survey that we were working on this past year was released on Thursday uh we're currently clocking in at 2208 responses um we were really excited about that we were actually kind of concerned that we'd have to push out the deadline Andrew what was that number 2208 thank you and that's among the Oswego High School and Oswego East High School and we're currently looking for other schools as well who will contribute to the survey overall it was a really good mix of multiple choice and free response answers we definitely took a bit of a turn this time and added more free
028response to give students that expression we do want to analyze how that turned out this time and we're going to be working on disaggregating that data later on in the future but I think Caitlin do you have any general trends that you want to just disclose before meet with the ssac um yeah so as Anya said we have a lot of responses so far which is really exciting and it shows that people really want to be involved and have their voices heard um we found data about the present the sexual harassment presentations and the work that was all done by the ssac last year we have updated questions and data about that and Anya and I were just looking at all this data before and we're really there were some lots of surprises and there
029are things that I think really need to get worked on in the district and we are very eager to go over them with the ssac to work towards some of fixing those document Ed did any did if you have any questions about the draft it is still a work in progress but pretty darn close um Ursula uh Dr Kincaid you did an excellent job of summarizing and putting together all that work so thank you so much did anybody have any questions on the the draft that yeah because we're gonna we're gonna go over that later on right yeah that's item 9.2 under information I have yeah I'll wait till then okay perfect thank you thank you any other questions on the board committee reports here we go point four board member comments any board member
030comments foreign I just want to acknowledge the work um of the policy committee and the two co-chairs um Jim Johnson and Ali Swanson for all of the work that was done and I don't want to forget to say to our administrators who also worked on this process um the knights and the long hours um I it it's mind-boggling the time that was spent but it's also going to be a benefit to our community community and our district to have gone over all of those policies and so I want to thank the board also for acknowledging the effort that it would take and the opportunity that we had to purchase press Plus in order to achieve the work that was done and so I think there's a round of applause required for everyone involved in that
031effort thank you I am excited for our future so I didn't prepare um comments tonight I just wanted to say two things and then I'm going to defer the rest of my time um it is we are coming at to the end of our first full year of school after three years of uh figuring out and pivoting during the pandemic and I've had the opportunity to speak with a lot of our teachers lately and uh they're tired and our students are tired and I think we're all ready for summer if the weather would catch up so with teacher appreciation just around the corner I just ask all of our parents and our community members to thank a teacher and remind them of the fact that they really do Make the World Go Round because they
032need that boost right now to get through the end of the school year so I just wanted to share that um one of the other things is that uh it is an honor to sit up here and to be the voice of community members of our Educators our administrators but mostly of our students and I've had an incredible honor of getting to know Anya and Caitlin through this year and Caitlyn came to me and asked me if I would sit down and talk to her about a speech that she wanted to submit the seniors can submit speeches and it was an incredibly compelling and I asked her to push herself outside of her comfort zone and share it with us tonight okay speak loudly it's a little long so just bear with me I remember
033when I was in kindergarten the day I brought my first backpack to school it was blue sparkly and had Tinkerbell on the back and I showed it to all my new friends with as much pride as a kindergartner can have I like to think this was slightly a universal experience getting a new backpack and excitedly showing it to your class on the first day of school well we're in high school now my backpack is no longer blue or sparkly and it is so much heavier people tell me all the time that my straps hang too low and my bag is too heavy but nevertheless it has everything I need I basically live out of it from August to May so if you haven't guessed by now I want to tell you a little bit about
034my backpack when we were told that we were the class of 2023 way back when we were younger I sure did not know what that meant it doesn't even feel like that long ago when we were greeted as a class of 2023 but here we are it's 2023 and I wish a time had gone a little bit slower but back to the backpacks because when I was younger and perhaps could have been contemplating what class of 2023 even meant all I worried about was what was in my backpack along our educational Journey we have put a lot of stuff inside our bags and I'd like to share with you just a few in most backpacks we carry pencils notebooks binders and a lot of stray papers but I can confidently say that the weight of
035our backpacks also holds resilience growth opportunity and adaption these are all positive things that we have in our backpacks as you all know not everything has been perfect along our journey there have been many things that we have been forced to carry in our backpacks broken promises family issues friendship highs and lows health problems and one of the biggest for most of us covid we couldn't have avoided all of these but we've had to overcome them anyway and we could have avoided some of them but part of growing up is making mistakes and learning from them on the way we have gained skills that will help us in the future when we walked into OHS four years ago we were all anticipating that we had four years to make our high school experience Unforgettable for
036many of us that did not go quite as planned as our high school lives were intercepted with so many unexpected turns however I think it has made us strong and allowed us to become resilient and while we take on this weight and make light of it we must learn to take out the needless things that put us down others opinions of ourselves the unrealistic expectations set by some of our parents teachers or other people in society our backpacks May hold school supplies but with the weight of that comes a degree of growth that I want to believe has changed us and our society for the better despite everyone being so worried about how we carry our backpacks and what's inside I think my straps are just fine [Applause] and Anya edited and gave feedback as
037well so it was a group effort thank you guys so much that's beautiful and were you going to present it or okay I love it very good all right we're moving on oh we have one more um I think this is kind of going to be your uh last swan song so I wanted to uh yeah so I wanted to uh yeah I get it but there there'll be a lot of yes but no no no no no yeah please yeah because number one and number two um having gone through this before it's it's it's a lot more about who's coming in so really this meeting is the time where we really should recognize them and so uh thank you um Ali and thank you Lori for for your service to the community it's greatly
038appreciated uh obviously we as fellow board members know the time and the commitment that goes into that so um thank you and um you know will uh you'll I'll miss our conversations and our back and forth believe it or not yes I will um and um and no matter what you uh you put yourselves out there decided to represent the community and that's greatly appreciated so thank you for your courage [Applause] you're almost we're so glad to have completed this year's service yeah you were counting down the day we were well we have something planned for you guys for next week so I don't don't be here Ally right it's debatable oh I feel like it's time for me to miss a meeting finally no all right 8.1 consent agenda are there any questions on
039the consent agenda no questions can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please I make a motion to approve all items under consent including minutes of the Board of Education meeting from April 11 2023 open and closed session and to acknowledge the foyer request received by the district second Miss Doyle aye Miss Swanson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr flogger aye motion passes 7-0 item 9.1 is the Consolidated District action plan and Mrs Douglas will present thank you again this is just a summary there's a lot more details uh in the memo that was sent every year at this time as the state requirement that we create a Consolidated District plan and that sets off the process for all of the different grants that are
040managed through the state and I just wanted to remind people kind of we we throw around these terms Title One title four all this what this means so this is just explaining what the purpose of each of those types of Grants are and will be in the process very soon as we get our allocations from the state once this is done to begin writing these pieces so if you're ever wanting to look into what are the name of the grants and what they're for that's on this page this next is just what our annual amounts have been this is not something that is always predetermined you wait until your allocations come in and then you begin writing that process so there's some similarity but the amounts do change somewhat over time uh and then lastly
041just some of the evidence that is we have to present as part of the Consolidated District plan is that we've looked at coordination between all of those grants that are listed so there is an overlap and that we're focusing on similar things uh and that we've done A needs assessment with the staff and having stakeholders and teams in process for what this looks like it needs to be aligned to both the district goals and to the state and then there are also some Financial things like auditing processes and we also are required to coordinate with private schools on these funding mounts too any questions yeah um what um I know this probably isn't included but can you talk to me about um where where are we at or other grants that we might be looking
042into I know they're probably matching grants but um sure so the ones that I've been speaking to tonight are those that are run through the state and federal grants but we do look at competitive grants or other pieces sometimes there's a great alignment with our district sometimes there is not I know Dr Kinkade sends a monthly piece of those that we're looking at to inform the board and we do bring many opportunities to cabinet and then look at whether there is a good match and then divide up who could write or if whether it meets the needs so again the Consolidated District plan isn't a requirement from all grants it's just by those that come through the state and recently I had um I'll just leave it as an elected official who was inquiring about
043some grants and the one thing I'll say publicly um you know I've never heard of a grant that was a bad idea that I'm aware of um when it's you know money that's coming into us but um you know we we sit up here and we see and we know and we're aware of uh the fact that we need resources and usually um I don't want to say all the time but a large proportion of the time many of the uh complaints we deal with we we can look back and we can say yeah uh we we're aware of the resources we need and and we're aware that many times um when we have a lack of resources that leads to problems uh and so my my message to that elected official was that's great
044when we talk about the resources we need um we would appreciate not hearing crickets help us right so when I read in the Press about being lambasted about simply doing what every other District around us does when it comes to resources would be great to hear from those um elected officials instead of oh that's not us that's them us to look into grants than help us so that's that's what I'll say publicly about that any other questions for Mrs dalquist this is totally random it just popped into my head because of what Jared was saying but there's two things that I I wonder can we put some sort of like Teresa like a little Grant dashboard up on our um website that just says the ones we've applied for and what we've gotten and not
045gotten for and I'm wondering because our administrators put a huge Grant together spent hours and hours and hours and what it was not awarded and so we get questions a lot and they get questioned a lot I don't think anybody realizes the amount of work that they do put into these grants and that we just are not chosen for them because they're federal grants and they go to other schools that may be more needy but um I I get personally very protective because I know that those are being worked on and that they don't they fall through and it's to no fault of our own but I think that would be good for the community to see but also um Jared about the policy and legislative committee is there a way to work in next
046year now that we've done this huge project that needed to be done to maybe discuss more legislative of the policy committee and start to work with our is that a use of our I my suggestion is that you divide them again I don't think policy and legislators should have ever come together well I didn't I didn't do that oh I'm not saying you did oh okay I wasn't blaming you yeah you you you brought it up my suggestion would be to divide them I think there are I think there are a lot of work in the legislative area to building relationships with our um officials at the state and County and City municipal levels there's so much that can be done and so we have talked about that in our meetings and we've asked Dr
047sparlin to put together a list of all the opportunities that are available um and then let's uh come together and as a board decide on what that could look like because I think that's a really good idea and I know um Jared had mentioned it um before too as well so yeah so uh regarding that oh can I just ask and I'm not super experienced in in this but does it necessarily potentially negatively impact the ability to get grants if the people issuing the grants know that we're going to advertise whether or not we get it do you know what I mean sometimes people can get a little more inclined if SD 308's website though okay I I mean honestly no there's obviously local like I mean maybe that looks different but like for the
048mental health one that was millions of dollars I pretty sure the US Department of Education is not they wouldn't care at our website but that's that's definitely to think of but for a transparency point for our community we get foiled all the time for it it would and it would be nice to show we do not have a dedicated grant writer our admins do this as like bonus work so um I mean we had had I remember yeah okay yeah anymore and so we get questioned a lot and it's like well we can dedicate somebody to do that and then you know when Cuts get made that's typically where we go first so a I just wanted to get notoriety for that's not the right word at all I want to get recognition for our
049administrators that have done this and that Grant took a lot of hours the board was involved our our elected pushers were involved and it fell through but um there's so many of those Brands and I would like the community to see that and since they're doing the work it's just like pop it up there you know on the screen pass it over to Teresa and and so forth but also if we could pivot to maybe helping our admin and um you know using our committee uh which is the address I don't know that'll work but any way we can help you okay thank you all right on to 10.1 about 90. I'm getting ahead myself go ahead item 9.2 was a draft of the Board of Education policy manual and uh Dr Kincaid why don't
050you uh guide us through the conversation absolutely so um you should all have a memo attached within your documents as we've discussed the ongoing process we started a few months ago we've been working as a committee with a representative front press really to evaluate not only section by section but every policy our first lens was the alignment with press and then was there anything from our current policy that we needed to bring over but ideally we wanted to be in alignment as much as we could with press as we went through the process um part of the conversation also was regarding the exhibits the administrative procedures we have had some of our admin procedures it's been quite a few years since they've been reviewed so what you also have attached in your documents is the
051chart that is aligning all of those so you have access to not only the policy our proposal for the draft any current proposed or uh upcoming proposals of exhibits related to the policies in addition the administrative procedures and then additionally we've also linked any policy that is referenced to students rights and responsibilities so you can see the progression from the public view of board policy to the the admin procedures because we thought that that was important to review a lot of our policies as we move to press what we would potentially have been removing was administrative procedure information it was a lot of fine detail that was within our policy that needed to be present within our procedures but through discussions with Community advisory and with our team as the policy committee we really wanted
052to see it not only from the board level but then the implementation in their schools to the connection to the students so that's why we wanted you to have the entire picture kind of from start to finish can I also say that you focused very much on for myself and Ally but also for the administration what is really policy what is really procedure and what is really practice and we found a lot of our policies were not policies and um so that was I think the second part of our overall goal was to really make sure that our policy manual was a policy manual and so we had some policies that we hadn't reviewed since 2007 2009 so that was the other part of it that was incredibly important as well as tying all the
053documents together so today we just wanted you to have access to all of our current drafts so in the document that was shared at the very top of each section you have what the proposed draft is of the policy manual you also have a link to the current uh policies you have a summary of what the changes were and then you have either the current proposal for exhibits and APS or a yes it's a plan so there were quite a few and we'll be working on those in upcoming months I don't have a question but I spent a little time going through it just reading and I know we've said it uh already about the amount of time and effort that you put into it but I think equally as important and appreciated is actually
054how you even presented the information because it's been fairly easy for me to follow and any question that I had I was able to find the answer so thank you that's Ursula and Dr Kincaid all the way so um I don't have a problem with any of this except one thing uh and I think maybe the historical and I don't know if you were going to go there or not but maybe the historical piece is important here and that was 425 and I'm not surprised you didn't find it impressed because you wouldn't find it impressed um but I have a problem with us looking at that one and I have a problem with us eliminating it and I think we need to have a deeper discussion on it and I think it's the board that
055needs to discuss this because while the Prospect of this happening again are probably slim I think we need to be careful of the message that we send to the community and Lori I'm glad this is coming up before you're leaving because the board when they decided to put this in policy purposely put this in policy because they wanted to make sure that they sent a message to the community that they were taking this matter very seriously and that was it was a it was a commitment it was a commitment at the time from the board that the concept of any type of sales tax that would be passed by the school district was specifically put in place to bring property tax relief for property owners of the school district and the reason it was put
056into policy was to show that we were serious about that right and while I understand the desire to allow a future board to take this into consideration my my fear and taking this away is we send the message that the policy really can just be done away with at any point and if this matter is brought up um we're going to end up having the same debate and we're gonna have the same challenges it would seem very much more desirable to leave the policy and have a future board debate it at another time um if in fact this ever comes up again I think we um we undermine that conversation that occurred in the past and I think there will be elements that you hear from and you are going to create distrust for a
057future board if we ever have to bring this up again and we have to go this route I think it's far more advantageous to say if we need this for something else to have that debate at a future time and leave that policy in place I understand the counter argument is going to be it's more procedural than anything else but that board was very serious and the community was very serious at the time that they needed to see it in a policy and that's why it was placed there and Lori I'm sure you can you can anything that I missed or anything on that I just want to make a point of clarification we were a committee so if we may have had dissenting opinions I'm not blaming anyone I want to make sure that
058we have historical context and I want to bring that up that's all right but I need I I needed to make a point of clarity that we were a committee and what is brought forward in front of you is what the committee is recommending realizing that the board makes the final decision I know that okay so this is a a lot of policies to chew at one time I love the format I'm so appreciative for it um the one thing about the sales tax and and just want to clarify that what this was for people listening that might not remember that if we asked for an increase in sales tax we would use that to Abate property tax this was an opportunity that we would have had separate from an operating referendum to actually reduce
059property tax it wasn't appreciated by some other Municipal organizations who wanted their own property tax um so again any kind of safe cards we can put in to make sure that we don't get in the financial position we were in before and to give us opportunities to make sure that we actually use this for property tax relief in the future I'd really rather leave in having been through it it it was not something that's worth having to argue all over again just to put it in place it was I I don't disagree necessarily again totally understand where you're coming from yeah it you know is it a policy no can have we left other things in here that aren't necessarily policies yes because we had a committee that met and felt very strongly about it
060I have another one to bring up but I also believe strongly that your board attorney should always bring that forward and you know make that public when it comes to we have to lean on our subject matter experts too when it comes to sales tax and sales receipts so it was this this was discussed in all of those points of view were were brought forward and it's here where it needs to be no I don't think anybody's debating like that piece it's just that here it is and so we need to make sure that as board members who were there during it we um we strongly push I don't want to speak for Lori but I at least for me I strongly push that I'm against it it needs to stay so that's that is
061my perspective and having lived through it that's where I'm at yeah and the recommendation uh from my point of view was only because the committee was asking do we need it and can we just align with press and I said yes you can align with press if that's the interest of the board so I am not saying legally you should get rid of it you make may keep it it's at your will so I have one question so well now question in regards to next steps because I did have a the one thing that's jumped out to me were the the ones in blue of course the ones where it was a recommendation to remove it some of them gave the reason why some it would be I would have to I had to dig
062a little bit deeper but my question is when we are going in there in our next steps to approve these are we going to approve these by section or are we just going to vote on the entire theme I mean that's a lot of policies to vote on it one that's that's why I'm asking I don't have to do it the reason why it will be it would be very difficult for me to give a blanket approval for everything and so I'm just wondering what what we'll learn next week or do we have to just I would imagine if somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I would imagine that like bring it as is and I would sit there and make a motion to you know leave policy 425 in there and then it
063would pass or it would pass and then if it doesn't pass and I don't like it then I vote accordingly that's that would be my assumption and I would assume if there's something you wanted let's say hazing which to give gave an explanation yeah right then then you would do the same thing right that's my assumption but I could be wrong you might want to break it out by section do a section of meeting it would take a long time I guess again that was up for discussion as well because I believe that is one of our main priorities as a board is governance and policy making so I think it bears some of these bear the opportunity and I shared with Dr Kincaid and Mr Bell that I want if we are going to
064delete this I need the board to know that the recommendation was to delete it because maybe we didn't agree with it so um and I colon 8-1 also so so the I think the way we had envisioned it was that over the next two weeks we were going to review all of these uh policies and that we were going to vote on them prior to um Ally and Lori we don't have to do that on our account nope not not necessary I think what would help some of you guys with some of these is I know some of the explanations were there but sometimes just reaching out um to either Heather or Jeremy and just saying hey what was the thought behind because a lot of these we had this very similar questions as we
065were sitting there and I think I they're all everybody in the room came at it from a different perspective so some of it was to ease up some restrictions they were having some of it was to tighten some restrictions they were having right and a lot of it was you know kind of District specific so I think if you I I think it would be a great idea if you you know like Circle the ones you're not sure about and give them a call that's a good idea the one other question I would ask that I think would be helpful is I know that there was something broken out for and I guess that's not never mind well I'll say it yeah uh the the policies we're we're going over policies and I understand that's
066our responsibility but but in order to have consistency across the district the practices and the procedures I just want to read them so just uh what was there because I think it'll give context to um some of the policies in my mind to give me the assurance that oh this is covered but I'm only seeing one part of it so in all fairness some of those are being all Rewritten by Dr Kincaid what is there currently is not there is it oh I got it it's not uh this is the bigger reality and we were trying to share this with Dr sparlin our administrators get I I don't want to make a blanket statement so please correct me if I'm wrong but they are doing this outside of their typical work hours they typically get
067somewhat compensated for it this was above and beyond all of that press offers the service of writing an AP manual for us they will not have that service till 2024. Dr Kincaid said that's not acceptable we need this now I'm going to do it on my own so she is taking that on um we have encouraged her to take as much time as she needs but she is going to do what she wants and have it done and please buy me by no means am I saying I want that in two weeks so please know that I'm not saying that I think just this is now becomes the historical document of the Administration has told us there will be an AP manual got it and I would ask that they share it with the board
068they don't need our approval but if you can share it not approval okay so then how do we want what do we want May 8th to like in terms voting I am yes with you um let me ask you a question let me ask the question this way let me ask the question this way what access our new board member is going to have to to the packet are they going to have full access to the packet are you planning on pull putting a lot I mean I'm just I'm just remembering back to my first meeting uh Jared if we're going to bring this back for uh any kind of vote it would be done by this current board and then we then we would do the restructuring and move forward I'm not comfortable voting
069and some as an outgoing board member I would want to have new board members this is a massive policy vote I would want new board members to have time to digest all of these policies as they're getting onboarded and vote on it because they have to live by these policies so is there some deadline that we're up against anything I don't know why I had to go to so many meetings why we all had to go because you love yourself before I left for some ungodly that's what I was thinking we were meetings there's no doubt so long and so many times Ali provided an incredible history for things that we had no idea why they were policies and she was able to give and we wanted to capture that and we actually thought having
070her create the draft and then having maybe the new board members review could help now that Dr Kincaid and I and Jeremy also have then certainly don't vote on it more perspective so then this is not being up for both on May 8th will take some time when the new board members this might be good it might be a good piece to vote with on to be honest with you it might be a good piece to vote on July 1st when we do a board retreat so we also have the new superintendent here as well well let me ask this because how much of this do you guys need for this for the what we approve we need but we needed some of this for the for the drawing a blank student right and responsibility
071I would say okay so which section two which is the board section specifically any of these sections that primarily don't require procedural pieces but that are actually like how is this District going to run you should probably wait on the new ones if if there's some that are more procedural perhaps pull those to voters to them students rights and responsibilities yeah that's that's fine yeah yeah and the student section of this needs to be approved number section seven sooner rather than later and the rest of it I totally agree with you what we can take more time with but they're they're dependency on what their next step is in their jobs requires us okay so bring forth the students rights and responsibilities foreign date after our new board members are seated all right Dr Kincaid
072does that work for you hey do you need anything definitely section seven um especially as we talk about the beginning of the school year yes so we have some changes to section 7 or policy 7 100 about first day exclusion so there are some things in seven that we would um the May 8th at least on Section 7 would be very helpful but you're okay so section seven and then if we want to move to June for the remaining that would be fine the only two that like are sticking out to me to wait on is two and four I don't care what what is what's what was everybody else two and four I want to wait on well if Seven's the only one that's necessary then write some respect possibilities we will be voting
073on May 8th prior to Ali and Lori leaving their seats we're going to vote on that those that piece okay sounds good and then do the new board members have access to um our manual yet nope okay all right okay action item 10 10.1 approval of Transportation bid can I have a motion please you sure can I just want to make one more statement um regarding what Jared said about our Retreat having a retreat that late in the year is really tough for our administrators so um I just want to make everybody aware of that what comes out of those Retreats often affects their job and having a retreat on July 1st is a little just ice um um so I just wanted to throw that out there hold on though what did the administrators
074are the ones that set the date pretty much what is the what if so help me understand from your perspective is that I mean how do you feel about what that I wasn't aware about us setting the July first date my understanding is that we were hoping middle of June but not all members could make it and that a poll was sent out of when all board members could attended that pushed it that late it is certainly a correct statement that the sooner that that is Set uh the better because then we start setting other things in motion for district Improvement plans communication you know all of those pieces so I think there's a lot of flexibility from the administrative side but we also want to make sure all board members right and so but
075also but there's also a new super engine I was just gonna say well the superintendent will be there we'll be there on that day do we know if the new superintendent will be there on that day that's the plan they're supposed to be seated no no that's not my question my question is Jen well you brought up an issue so I'm just trying to adjust your issue will new superintendent be there at that earlier date because you said it was going to be a hardship will the new superintendent be there at that new date if we make it earlier I just want it they will not I know represent our administrator and support this board and for future boards they wait await information that comes out of there and so I just wanted to bring
076that to everyone's attention Okay I'll ask them do you think that the new superintendent will be there at the earlier date take your point yeah I think that because because I'm thinking about when you um when you have the retreat or Workshop oftentimes you're looking for direction from the board or the priorities exactly and so I think we we just and at this point we need to be cognizant of the lateness of the date because of these are factors beyond our control um in terms of the date that is that has been set and so we'll have to be considerate of what comes out of there in terms of running running to our administrators to say we want X Y and Z when it's already late in the gas so we yeah with all and
077with all due respect to Dr sparlin he didn't have a large role in it because it's the board retreat he did have a section of it but it was really the board as the board retreat and I'm not saying that that doesn't mean he shouldn't be in the retreat and he represents the district all I'm saying is that when something comes out of there we have often laid in front of our administrators a lot of please do this this this and this and that's great if it's at the beginning of June or if it's in May but when it's in July 1st that ship is sailing so thank you we hear you amazing now I would love to give you a motion all right I am on 10.1 yes approval of Transportation bid I make
078a motion to award the regular education contract to Durham school services and the special education contract to set trans student transportation pending a board attorney approval I apologize I was a little second Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr pluger aye Miss Swanson oh I Miss Doyle aye Ms simultan aye motion passes 7-0 action item 10 points actually uh Mrs simultane if I could I just want to acknowledge a huge thank you uh the transportation department is really looking forward to this new contract renewal and we do have a representative from Durham school business they've been a very active partner from the time we've been discussing the bid until now so we're looking forward to working with them and thank you thank you thank you action item 10.2 approval of students rights
079and responsibilities section in the student handbook can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the students rights and responsibilities section in the student handbook as presented second Miss Doyle hi Miss Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr ploger aye motion passes 7-0 action item 10.3 approval of destruction of the audio recordings can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the destruction of the audio recordings of the closed session meetings from April 26 2021 and October 12 2021. wait wait a minute it's through right not and through okay thank you thank you second Miss simulton aye Miss Swanson aye Mr pluger no Miss Doyle I Miss Johnson aye Mr sarone aye Mr Gatewood aye motion passes six one action item 10.4 approval of the release of closed session
080minutes can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the release of the following closed session minutes which no longer require confidential treatment and will be made available for public inspection as discussed in closed session you have three I do uh February 28 2022 September 26 2022 and October 11 2022. second Mr cloger no Miss Johnson aye Mr sarone aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Swanson aye Miss Doyle aye Ms simultan I motion passes 6-1 action item 10.5 approval of District administrator contract can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the district administrator contract as presented second Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson I'm abstaining because I came to closed session late and didn't get a chance to answer questions Mr cloger aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms Swanson no Miss
081Doyle aye Ms simultan aye motion passes five one and one abstention item 10.6 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented second Miss simulton aye Mr pluger aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms Doyle aye Ms Swanson no motion passes six one kind of have a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn all in favor all right