School Board Meeting 8/24/2021

001[Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] to order it's uh six o'clock on august 24 2021 this first meeting is a workshop for a review of the timeline for the hiring of a superintendent what would do is start with the flag salute to the stacy of the united states of america and here for which it stands one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we get too far in mr cassiopo the board president could not make it tonight so i'm filling in for him just for tonight what i'd like to start with is the timeline i think everybody should have a copy of the timeline that mr cassiopo had put together and what i thought we'd start with is to kind of go through that timeline

002and discuss it see if there's anything that we need to change any of the timeline any discussion that we want to add anything to it and if everybody has everybody had a chance to review that okay if you look at the it goes from the top down from the time we would like to hire and have the new superintendent on board down to the bottom it was how we're going to start the process what we want to discuss tonight is how we want to go from here how we're going to do this are we going to have an in-house search for a candidate are we going to open it up to outside candidates i think we need to make that determination and then how do we go from there i have a couple ideas on

003this but i wanted you guys to go through it give me any feedback on this so i can make notes and then we can make any changes that we need to so uh do you want to start with the timeline yes let's start with the timeline so jose not to put you on the spot but since you work in the realm of employment when are people looking to change jobs especially in the superintendent-wise thank you for the question this is trustee wilkie jose delfin for the record pretty much any time of the year is when superintendent searches can happen i've seen them throughout the year but mostly they start for the incoming school year usually around fall so we're we're not that far off with regard to timelines and typically as the timeline is stated

004and and uh drafted in the board agenda that's that's a pretty fair timeline it's not out of the ordinary do you think though that having them start in the transition on april 30th if they're already employed as a superintendent somewhere i think that's going to be a case-by-case basis mrs wilkie if you're looking for a national search you could run up against a timeline hiccup with regard to when they're released from their own district to be able to make that transition and i think that can be worked out in the details as you get to that final decision sure follow-up question with that with the um timeline for the advertisement period being four weeks is that sufficient or should we look at six weeks eight weeks i'm not sure i mean maybe we do four

005and adjust if we don't have suitable applicants that's a great question it really depends again on what trustee varner had opened up with if you're doing a regional let's just say nevada then i think a shorter timeline for the application turn in is appropriate but if you're doing a more out-of-state national search then you're looking easily eight weeks don do you have any thoughts i uh you would ask the question about uh i definitely think we should uh look internal uh first i think hopefully we have some good candidates in internal also i i think an important thing with with all of these type of jobs is you want to have somebody that wants to live in carson city wants to be here has some sort of connection hopefully wrong mike's we're going to have

006to wait till they get all the fires out before we bring anyone out for interviews yeah not a good time now so i do have a suggestion for the board just for process sake i've had a chance to review it i would strongly encourage the board to look at a third party person to help with the search and do the screening for you especially if you're going internal it is a cleaner process so it it lessens any bias that could happen internally since you know if we use our own online application system it's usually through my department so um with a third party they typically go through their system and they're vetted through non-internal people in my department so it it provides a level of objectivity that is is probably a more gold standard if

007you will with regard to these searches whether you're doing internal or external i would still suggest that you have con at least consult with uh dr r uh oliver thank you and she may know some resources in the state that could do it for a lower cost than a national organization and that way you get to see all the applicants before anybody and that's the way it should be the superintendent is your only employee so you want to make sure you're vetting that process as clean as possible and as objectively as possible that's just my suggestion just just for the board's information i know that dr oliver with the nevada association of school boards does provide help assistance with superintendents searches there is a fee for it um it varies depending on it she's been

008a little busy with elko lately um but there are um you know there's that there are other services we used a third party service with nasby when we were looking to hire a new executive director so um there are that um our state school board association is not as large as other state school board associations but that is usually i mean they have you know people on staff and they have a whole department dedicated to assisting with superintendent searches but um that is something that nasby's looking to provide to the districts i know she's and and i guess just for information's sake she's assisted with nine count uh dr oliver has assisted with nine county search um lincoln county she's working with elko right now um a couple other eureka and i'm not sure if

009esmeralda but i've heard of like she could give us more but there are quite a few counties um within the state that she has assisted with their superintendent searches so just so that you have that information do they prepare the job description and the job application mr varner thank you for the question um that is a long answer i'm going to try to make it succinct i think firstly you want to define what you want in your superintendent exactly and so once you define that and typically you can do that either as a board or with the public in mind and i've seen it both ways i've seen the board just decide what the characteristics should be for the next superintendent most school districts if they're doing a search especially nationally they're looking for feedback

010from the community saying what do you want in your superintendent what are you looking for what attributes especially for you know the next generation of teachers and staff that we're going to have as we have an aging staff leaving so i would say that that's a defining parameter for doing a superintendent search and then being able at least to get a little bit of stakeholder input because they'll be in a community forum once the final decisions are made so you want to get at least some minimal ideas of what maybe staff and the public are looking for and before i go any further i forgot to tell people that we are in a public building masks are required and i look around the room and i see most everybody with the mask if not everybody

011so thank you i appreciate that i appreciate your answer i think there's some value to going with third party if there's funding available and maybe that's a question for aj uh do we have spare funds laying around [Laughter] and okay what's coming out of my salary it seems that i don't care where it comes from if we haven't no seriously but i know that it could be expensive you know i think we heard one time ten to forty thousand dollars yeah from a third party you're also making a um an important investment in the future as well as uh the new superintendent leads almost a thousand staff and you know almost 8 000 students so i think a fair price is around 15 000 ish if you will that's that's not bad i've seen it

012upwards if you're las vegas or a big metropolitan area you're easily spending 50 to 100k and you're you're paying more too for a superintendent in the metro area you're looking at over 200 to 300 grand especially for reno and and and clark county so it it is a lot to ask for for the next superintendent so i think spending a little bit of money to to get it the way you want it i think is important thank you lupe you have any input so is there any hesitation about opening up statewide i personally don't have any hesitation to open it up out of district i i agree that it should be open to district and we should look within district as well but i don't have any concerns about opening up statewide um i mean

013we also have neighboring states that have you know uh the the interesting thing nationwide is that the tenure of superintendents has decreased dramatic decreased amount dramatically and over the last few years there there's not many people that stay at the job for the number of years that mr stokes has so um there is a much higher turnover so that may change our search as well just the number of people rotating in and out of that position i think that's going to take us a little getting used to because we've been so lucky to have superintendents that we've had for decades at a time so what do you think about the january 4th for interviews though is that too close to the holidays the christmas break yeah i think that can be pushed back a little

014bit this is uh that was my question also stacy is i thought that maybe a little close to the holidays yeah most uh candidates are in the same boat they're also dealing with you know vacation and leave at that time and if they're superintendents already i'm sure they're a little busy with beginning of the school year and whatnot and who knows with all the covet stuff what what's going to happen so i would say the the further away from holidays as possible would be beneficial for all candidates i do also want to add that you know there are only 17 superintendencies in nevada i would think carson city school district would be a very coveted superintendent position versus i'm just a little biased versus the rest of the 17. if we decided to if we

015couldn't afford to get a third party and we had to go in i mean have it the job description and application completed in-house could it be done i don't know if you'd be a candidate or not but we'd have to have somebody that wasn't in the running to prepare the announcement mr bronner i think we could work around that um i would again urge if you can to to go to a third party um yeah i i it can be done i know i've seen it done before in other districts it's just uh how many questions you want to take from the public with regard to making sure you're as objective as possible so i'm trying to protect you as well i think that does raise some concerns because mr delphin is an employee under

016mr stokes and i you know i i know mr stokes is going to be um open and and forthright and i'm not concerned with with with him but i do have concerns with how that may appear to some um individuals and i guess the other thought i'm wondering is if we're looking at wanting to get any um public feedback on the characteristics of a superintendent um that probably needs to happen sometime um towards you know september before we you know as we're developing the maybe that's one of those september early september meetings yeah questions that way so mrs crossman just for uh some expediency um most districts do a survey to community and staff and so that survey result will net in some taxonomy of the major qualities that people are looking for usually the

017top three are trustworthiness communication skills high ones high communication skills obviously and being able to lead in conflict so that's usually the three things that most people look for in their superintendent um i would be not very surprised if you know those come back as number one two three or four but you want at least your top ten characteristics to match what you're looking for in the superintendent and that's easily done through a survey so you can you can start that really anytime that's a matter of uh having mr davis post a survey out for community and staff you're going to get a different set of results from community as you will from staff so just so you know i've seen it done that way as well so that should be done as soon as

018possible probably that'll give you some idea of what the public is looking for and what the staff is looking for which could guide you again to your final decisions or at least your final three and that was one of the things that i have is doing a quick questionnaire survey also not just asking characteristics but maybe what kind of culture they'd like to see in our schools what kind of you know what is the ideal school district look like i mean it looks different up here than it does you know down there and i think that that's really important to get the right fit if we're if we're looking at culture might not depend on their characteristics so mrs wilke typically a third party person would work with your president and maybe a couple assigned

019board members to develop those questions for the survey so that you ask the kinds of questions that you want and that's why you want somebody impartial who doesn't know the district so they're able to ask those questions that maybe we haven't thought of i've been here for 14 years i can tell you i'm a little bit biased to carson so it's it's going to be tough for me to develop questions if i was trying to do it and and to help you because i i already have some implicit bias about carson city so um hence why i think all those things need to go through a a new person who isn't familiar with us and can be very objective and provide you really honest feedback along the way would the third party develop minimum qualifications

020for the job or would we you know like i know that you could ask for a superintendent's credential you know those type of things a certain type of education would the third party do that would that be up to the board it's it's a partnership between you and the board you and a third party admit uh person and that would mean do you want somebody with at least a master's and uh educational administration license from nevada and can get one if they don't have one do you want somebody with a doctorate some districts say doctorate preferred some don't care some want 10 years of experience with some kind of leadership in school some 1-5 it really depends on how you want to sculpt the job description and it's a very fluid process so it again

021depends on the flavor of the board and what you're looking for and so i would say this is a great start to the workshop to define what you are uh looking for at the very minimum and then getting some public feedback and staff feedback to look at the other essentials that maybe we're blind to one of the things i had on to discuss tonight is maybe the development of some questions for the superintendent interviews now if we go with a outside party does the board still develop those questions or do we have input or do they develop them with that third party plus like laurel said we have other options too for we can get copies of those questions that they've asked at the other ones in the state um i have them for the

022national level um we have seven other states if you're interested in that i can get those those two um everybody has their own job description so it's not we're not going to reinvent the wheel right there's a lot of things out there that we can use to to facilitate that i think the important thing is having the third party so that like he said the implicit bias i mean i can't help but think that this is the best city i mean i was born raised raised my kids raising my grandkids here so for me not to have an implied bias with me and i don't have a heart so i think it's real important also for transparency right now so that the public feels that we're not being bulldozed or we're making decisions that haven't

023that have already been made i think is important and for staff to feel that way too feel that you know they have an input and how they want to see the direction be led to this is wookie just so you know i checked our records it's been almost 30 years since you've opened up the superintendency not appointed so this is actually brand new for all of us so going back to the questions for the superintendent mr varner typically anyone who's in the business of doing this full-time already has a bank of questions and it's kind of like a la carte you pick and choose and then if you want to tweak some questions definitely that's that's why you have that person working with you and the board to make sure you're targeting exactly what you

024you are looking for yeah i like that idea but laurel you work with nasby quite a bit and dr oliver how soon if we decided to go outside do you think they could start i mean do you have any idea we wanted to contract or you know an agreement with dr oliver to serve as a third party um i don't i don't know her schedule that well so it would just be something a matter of contacting her if that's something that we would like to do to get that that could we could see when her availability is by our next meeting if we want to to see if that's something i'm i mean we're not taking action on this item no we're not no we can't make right um a decision to do that but

025i can certainly get some more information on when she would be available and if she has availability that meets kind of our timeline here i can check into that okay the research i've done it's usually a four month process at least uh is what it seems like it's kind of a common time timeline with a third party so if we adopt this timeline are we stuck with it or can it be flexible i think that this timeline is very flexible i think this is for discussion only so we could discuss it like we're doing now and make any suggested changes tweak the timeline this is not set in stone at all this was just a suggestion that president cassiopel put together for us to discuss mr verner jose delfin for the record i would i

026would suggest to the board that everything is draft until you say it's a final so let's say we're talking about just questions for the superintendent you can i would suggest that for every board meeting those are draft questions or this is a draft uh schedule if you will and then when you finally come to consensus and make a decision on the questions or the survey or what have you at every point of that you can say this is the final draft of the interview questions or the timeline or this process so that way you know everybody knows that it is fluidic until it's not stacy that's pretty much all the questions i had for the actual timeline um mr dolphin answered the the big one if we're starting earlier later and i appreciate mr castle

027while putting this together because right it's real well done i just don't want to be stuck with it in case you know we only have two applicants and so we don't need all these other little extra steps and we can't hire anybody until april no it's it's uh fluid it's very flexible uh if we want to make changes uh you know you could make the changes i was wondering um one thing that we had in mind is maybe maybe jose you could as asters this is having the board members put together some questions send them in to renee so we could at our next board meeting and maybe review those questions but if we're going to a third party would that be a waste of time i'm sorry i'm jumping in i'm just thinking it

028might be a little duplic duplicative because we probably are going to ask questions that they've already got stock questions and maybe before we even get to formulating questions we need to maybe each of us put up a list of what characteristics we're looking for what we'd like to see in a superintendent and put that survey out so i guess maybe what i'm even wondering is i'd like to see a draft of of the survey that we would send to staff and community before we do that and some of that you know we can answer that on our own as board members but i'd also like to see what we're asking our community and and maybe again jose delfin for the record mrs wilkie if you've got that you all have that relationship with dr oliver

029that maybe she's got some survey questions in her database that she can at least get you all started and work from so again you're not reinventing the wheel but maybe tweaking the wheel and making making it a little bit more efficient but you've got plenty of time like mr varner said typically it's a four or five month process so starting now in august gives you plenty of time to get a superintendent by july 1st so again being fluidic and flexible with uh you know all of this process but i i would nail down whether or not you want a third party soon sooner than later right because that affects the timeline uh severely so is that a decision we can make because this isn't an action item for mr ryan that's right no no you

030guys can't take any formal action at all tonight it's discussion only but you can certainly compile your thoughts share them with uh jose renee and if if we need another action item that you want to actually adopt a formal plan or you know adopt formal whatever you want to do we have to agendize it but for tonight it's just a discussion about the the process and and for what it's worth jose or dr delfin's right the the timeline that you have are essentially just or president cassiopo's notes um and just food for thought for a discussion so everything is completely flexible until you put it on an item and take action and even then you can take different action later if things change just a thought i'm having with it do we want to which

031we couldn't do now because we'd be taking action but putting it out there do we want to have like a smaller committee like not a quorum but you know like two people work together to kind of like a superintendent's committee like a superintendent's committee to say hey here's here's what we found here's like here's the availability of this third party here's the availability of this third party here's how much they cost so that that that could be presented to the board so that they have something to how would we go about setting something like that up ryan so mr vice president one of two ways uh the district has used superintendent committees actually appointed by the superintendent for these types of purposes uh it's a board appointed committee so for example if president cassiopo chooses

032to appoint two of you to a committee to to look at this um the only caution there is that if the committee is able to trim or or limit recommendations to the board then that committee would be subject to the open meeting law if it's just a matter of gathering information for presentation and action by the board then it wouldn't be the other thought i had before we entered this discussion period is um development of some kind of screening tool to screen the applicants to see if they do meet the minimum qualifications that's what the third party that's what i said before if we go to a third party we wouldn't need that but if we don't that's something we've got to give some thought to the review process to see if they meet the

033minimum qualifications so dan i have a question for you how long would you need to put out a survey what what's the timeline how much like from end to end developing and getting it out to the stakeholders that we're looking at uh it was hello i was just checking with uh this few song whether or not we have the the abilities i'm sure we could track down the survey tool that we utilize i think our i.t department has it so it's just a matter of building the survey and getting it uploaded i'd say we could probably turn it around in a couple days if we really put to it so not too difficult thank you luca you have anything else if we do that survey how long are we going to leave it out how

034long is it going to run for i miss a question i'm sorry if we do that survey how long are we going to let people respond that's a good question what's a normal time frame uh i've seen it go until open you know it's open and tell field i think that's two different questions because i think lupe is asking about the survey that we'd ask our community and staff okay i'm sorry we would have that is it a week is it a week and then i think what you were talking about was how long would you keep the position right advertisement open yeah it was just a little hard to hear you so i apologize maybe uh sorry i'm glad you can hear i would say a good month about a month well people are

035still fresh in in the school year you don't want to drag it out too far and then people are fatigued by the holidays i think you know open it up for a month hopefully you get enough of a sample size to help you you want at least i don't know i everybody has a different number they say a 10 sample size is good i i want to say more than that is better so um i would just say open it up for a month and look for a sample size of at least 30 to 40 returns so if you're sending it out to staff a thousand staff you get a few hundred back that's usually a decent sample size you want more the more the merrier obviously same thing for our community we have thousands

036of people and it just depends on the length of the survey also matters if you have 30 questions they're not going to be apt to fill out they're going to have fatigue by the time they get to number so you want yours your questions to be very succinct not that many but enough that you can make a good decision i don't know what that number is that's going to be up to you guys to to kind of figure out but certainly if you have you know 50 questions you're you're going to lose people yeah i know that's too many yeah what's the best way to get that this out to the community i know press releases and stuff like that but could it also go to the parents through like parent square or something like

037that absolutely we can do null broadcast on parent square on our website maybe enlist one of our ace reporters in the back there to help us advertise um i'm sure once once we have some kind of format in place uh carson now everybody was gonna want to cover it it's a big deal i mean you're it's tantamount to hiring a mayor for the city uh is what it means to have a superintendent here so it'll make a big splash so we'll have the survey is there something else you got do you want to have a special meeting open to the public to have the public come in and and talk about it too or you want to limit it to the survey do you want to limit it to public comment when we have our

038meetings or the next workshop i mean how do you want to proceed that way too to get community yeah that'd be up to the board but i had it on my notes here to talk about having a community meeting and what time frame that should fit in and if we're doing the survey i guess i personally wouldn't have a problem with having a community meeting also but [Music] i don't know how other districts do it so you can do it all kinds of ways mr varner you can just have a survey you can have a survey and then have uh spokespeople from focus groups you can have latina latino family x families weigh in depending on the demographic you're looking for you can have teachers weigh in maybe with mr wallace leading that focus group

039and giving you some feedback same thing for the admin and the classified you can divide and conquer any way that you want so you can have both you can have surveys and you can have community input but you can also have focused community input so you look at the respective groups in our town and have one or two people speak for that group if you will so you don't have everybody coming up here not that we don't want that but it makes for a long search yeah well and and i'm thinking you know when we're looking at doing workshops when obviously we're going to review the survey before it goes out in a workshop we'll get some input there as well and then when we review the results of the survey that will also be

040in a public meeting and we could certainly take input at that time as well with it right it doesn't seem and i think the other thing that we could keep focused on too is we have our strategic plan which is basically been brought to us by the community the parents the teachers the admin and us as a guide so we have five basic pillars that we already know we want in a superintendent basically so we should keep that in mind too when we're developing the questions and getting public of gamepl whole strategic plan that we've done is that we've had that whole carson city get together and talk about it thing and mrs wilkie that's a perfect segue to some of the questions you're going to be asking it should be based on what we

041currently find successful and that would be the strategic plan amongst other mission and vision goals that we have in the district and any good candidate would be looking at our website looking at those things anyway is it normal practice to have the top three candidates come in and go through or visit the district you know maybe go out and visit the classrooms or some of the principals and stuff like that is that common practice it is actually um when you get to the final two or three it is common practice for those candidates to meet the public for them to kind of give their gestalt or their vision for leadership for what they want to see in the school district so especially if they're not from in district you want to get to know them

042a little bit and get familiar with their character and you know maybe some of their resume items and be able to ask them questions about that but yeah that's that's a typical process for the search and that usually takes mr varner a good few days usually a day per person and then you finally at the end select you know an open meeting who who you want and then ryan you in here it says minimum of four trustees but they could we could have all seven correct that's how washoe did theirs okay yes any other discussion if not ryan i'd ask you if we wanted to make any decision we'd have to agendize that for the next meeting yeah because this is uh discussion only i think the the points that were made would be sort

043of akin to a request for agenda item at the end of our regular agenda and so mr cassiopo will be able to review the notes and and talk to any of the trustees and decide what should be agendized as far as the next step here goes and mr vice president if it is another workshop you can agendize an action item at the workshop or the workshop okay it just has to be properly agendized and noticed to the public okay good jose you have any other input i think my brain is well picked but i'm sure i missed something there there's so many different ways to hire a superintendent i don't think there's one you know mold if you will i think it just needs to be the right process for us and for looking for

044the next superintendent and what what your vision is along with that new person to come in and be able to mesh and have that fit so that's that's the entire process in a nutshell is what is the best fit for these times and uh i can tell you there are a lot of superintendents that are leaving because of these times they're just outright they're done and a lot of their subordinates are not wanting those jobs either so we're facing an intriguing time where the superintendency is not that coveted nationwide people are not looking at it as wow this is going to be a great job they're going oh my gosh you know what are we in or as we all know so i think for what it's worth we do have plenty of time to

045vet the best person and be able to find the right fit yeah because i mean just the climate of up here right now too i mean housing is going to be a big thing if they're not from this district um that's something that we're going to really have to look at considering the way both rentals and and sales are going they're all pretty up there um but yeah it's gonna there's a it's kind of like special ed teachers i think right now it's hard to find the good ones and then to keep them yeah it's gonna be very important that we find the person we want to keep for a while we don't want to keep doing this no not every two or three years well and i i think it's important to remember even

046i like the idea of everything as a draft because if we've learned nothing in the last year it's that everything changes and can change in a matter of days so just to keep that in mind that we we need to be flexible um and and as we go about this so jose if this is the first time we've done this in 30 years how did they how did we appoint people without getting in trouble that's really your call you can do that i mean it has happened in many districts where they just appoint people they that they know i mean it's happened in douglas a bunch of times as well so they didn't do a search they just said okay you're it you want it you got it well that's why we do associate superintendents

047too to groom you guys too have our own program don you have anything else luffy anything else stacy thank you for your input yep i'm good laurel i guess uh no other discussions uh by anybody then we'll go ahead and close the workshop and we'll meet again at seven o'clock to adjourn our i mean not to adjourn but to start our next meeting and we'll be in recess until then [Music] bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] huh [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] ah bye [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] except excuse me august 24 2021 school board meeting to order can you hear me the public is reminded that per governor systelac's emergency directive that all people in the

048public building should be wearing a mask we want to take one minute if we could of silence for mr paul brown who was a long time custodian at fritz elementary so we could have one minute of silence and respect for him thank you noah's family appreciate it and our thoughts and prayers go with the family we'll move for the adoption of the agenda do we have him i move that we had to stop the agenda as committed second second second by laurel lars lupe i'm sorry any public discussion about the agenda hearing none i'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye opposed say nay motion passes unanimously we'll move on now to the superintendent's report mr stokes thank you vice president varner members of the board members of the community welcome this

049evening just a couple of uh events for uh your information please mark on your calendar september the 2nd 2021 there'll be a joint meeting between the board of supervisors and the board of trustees as you recall we do these meetings twice a year and because of covet it's been some time since the groups have been able to meet so that meeting will be here and we'll leave it up to the staff here as to how they're going to arrange the groups i'd also like to provide some information about current conditions especially as it applies to the smoky skies obviously this is a condition that it's not new but i think the conditions under which we are facing with the caldor fire in particularly as you know if you've been watching the news that particular fire

050is nine percent contained and has a lot of fuel in front of it and because it looks like this fire is going to be long lasting it could really impact conditions here in carson city and of course in our schools for an unknown period of time but because uh there are concerns for both the health of students and staff and of course really all citizens we've had to come up with a process by which we are going to cancel school based on the air quality index that has been identified through airnow.gov i've had some questions from community members asking why we're using that particular measuring system why not another system like purple air which is one that people have mentioned regularly there seems to be quite a variation between those devices and so we have

051found that the most consistent number for carson city especially as it applies to the immediacy of the zip code 89701 we're using that particular set of data to help us make those calls so within that we're looking at a air quality index number of 400 to be used as the the the high end number of the air quality index itself as the time when we would cancel school and so just to clarify for the community when a decision is made to cancel school we put out information to our media outlets we also put a message on our web page and we have a phone tree that goes to all of our staff members and that is set up through the individual schools and so we're able to really get the message out quite well we

052also use parent square which is a an email notification to both students parents and staff and so we have quite a robust process used to to notify people if we're not going to have school some folks however have been confused and they think that we will notify people if school is in session that's really not how this works we we would be waking people up every morning at 5 30 and then we would get other questions about that process so we're only going to notify the public and our staff when school is canceled we people have asked me why we're using this number of 400 air quality index and the nevada association of interscholastic athletics has this document which is very similar in terms in terms of the the setup of the chart here and

053it corresponds with the airnow.gov which provides some numbers some values which recommend that schools or anybody who's responsible for children during a wildfire smoke event on how they should manage their affairs and so the far right category here is the hazardous chart designation and that number is identified as 301 to 500. so many folks have asked why aren't we using the number of 301 as the top end why stopping at 400 well according to the niaa the events that are at school and this applies both to students and to staff these events can be carried out but with certain conditions of caution being taken and that number at the very end of the um chart here is 500 and so we thought that it would make more sense for us to be able to use

054the niaa recommendations but not at its highest level so if the number hits 400 air quality index at air now.gov by about 5 30 in the morning then we would call school off but before that or once it if the kids are already at school and we're already having school and if the number hits 400 or goes beyond we're not going to turn around and send them home we believe our kids are safe inside our buildings as safe as they are at other locations our buildings are well equipped with air handling equipment and conditions that are filtered with hospital quality filters some folks have said well we still see smoke in the buildings and that's probably true i think of a large building with a thousand people coming and going at any given time there

055will be smoke that finds its way inside our buildings however because of that large volume of air inside our buildings we have the capacity to filter that air quickly and really all of that is aimed at trying to keep our kids and our staff safe so just wanted to make that information available to you there's more information about our decisions around canceling school when conditions associated with wildfires really impact our situation on our website and that's at www.carsoncityschools.com and you can always call your school or you can call the district office if you have more questions so uh board members hopefully that gives you some guidance and some understanding as to why we've taken the steps that we have trustee crossman yeah i have a question i've had some parents ask me um why we're

056not doing remote days during the smoke is does the nevada department of education approve remote learning for smoke days or what's their position on that thank you for that question the nevada department of education has let us know that the only way we can fully utilize remote training or or use technology is if there's a public health issue and that's why the remote learning was a possibility during last year's pandemic process but it is not permitted when we have an inclement weather day like if we have a snow day uh you'll probably remember that washoe county was in call to question several times in previous years when they tried to use what their work they were calling virtual days for um a snow day and so it's just been explained to us that we are

057not able to use our technology which is unfortunate because we have that capacity and we have the ability to do that but it'll actually uh require a change in the law for us to be given that permission thank you mr stokes thank you that's that's the end of my report thank you we'll move on to board reports and board members comments and this is for information only we'll start with julia kaiser down at the end there okay and she's representing carson high school okay hi i'm julia kaiser um i'm part of the student council at carson high uh i'm student body vice president um it's been super fun this year with some normal seat going on and so uh this year we're planning on having a completely normal homecoming which is gonna be really good

058and then uh we're also having our fall sports start as normal this year we have football going on we have cheerleading we have cross country we have volleyball we have both boys and girls tennis and then we have girls tennis and we have tournaments coming up for all those and meets and games and all that is planned out so that's been super fun um as for our homecoming we're gonna have a spirit week we're gonna have um after school activities lunchtime activities we're going to have i'm pretty sure an outside dance i don't think that's been completely decided yet but we are definitely having to dance which is super fun so things like carson have been going really good thank you very much stacy [Applause] no i just want to welcome everybody back for this

059school year and to thank the custodians for their hard work over the summer and getting the buildings ready we appreciate that and we're looking forward to a great school year thank you don lupe i do have a report from um principal sona from siller elementary school so she reported that all the students are very happy to be all together again back in the school and they had their back to school at night and it was very well attended by the parents they also began the map testing and then i also want to congratulate principal lee conley for hiring one of his very own students um hermann fernandez hernandez or was a student at eagle valley middle school and then he was also an esl student and was also part of the jumpstart program then transitioned

060to wnc and he was very engaged at wnc moved on to unr and was very successful in completing his program and now he is back contributing to our carson city school district so congratulations to him and we hope to see many more students follow his footsteps yeah he seems like a great guy and we're welcome definitely that concludes my report laurel uh mr brown principal brown over at fritz elementary school would like to thank all of the staff and parents for an awesome start to the school year i know awesome is one of the words they like to use at fridge um and principal de joseph ward de joseph from fremont elementary wants everyone to know that there is a pta meeting tomorrow 7 30 um it's going to be in the school library and

061on zoom and on august 31st they're having their parent information and support meeting they'll meet at 5 30 in the library and they'll also film it and make it available on their website and that concludes my report thank you i have two reports i have one for wardrobe bray they'd like everybody to know that they're off to a good start they love having all the students back in the building they wanted to thank all the families who attended their back to school night meet and greet and barbecue i happened to be there for that event it was very very well attended i would estimate probably 400 or plus people and kids showed up so it was really a great event it was a great way to kick off the new year they want to also

062remind people that the bardwick bray day at the reno aces is sunday september 19th tickets can be purchased online using the link that was sent out via parent square and a portion of the ticket sales are given back to sport boardwalk students and if you attend according to the flyer you also get a free hat and hot dogs are only a dollar so if nothing else it would be good to have a hot dog and at carson middle school they would like to thank their fabulous pta members for providing lunch to their staff last friday the middle staff carson middle staff is looking forward to a great partnership with the pta this year carson middle school will also be starting the map testing beginning september 8th through the 10th and then their open house will

063be held at the carson middle school on september 16th from 5 30 to 7 30 and they'll follow a student's schedule rotation so the parents and guardians are able to attend all the classes and that concludes my report do we have any association reports mr wallace good evening mr vice president trustee superintendent stokes staff and the general public my name is brian wallace ocea president and we're back everyone i've talked to throughout the schools are extremely excited our new hire event a week and a half ago was amazing once again we were i didn't get to meet carrie pryor's replacement missed prey unfortunately but it meant we had carrie pryor again so that was wonderful because she's always done such a great job with our new hires we're looking forward to continue that partnership and

064to continue to strengthen all the supports we have in place i i love when we do our new event because i think we overwhelm them with actual support um and not the opposite direction which is amazing for all of us i would like to also echo that thanks to all the custodians throughout the sites right now and a big thanks to a personal thank you and from oca to everyone at eagle valley um for pulling together over there at that site construction is always interesting and a few curveballs can make it even more entertaining but with lots of work especially with the full district support we were back in the classroom ready to go late that friday and monday morning they had it ready um it was just really amazing to walk in there and

065see it in the shape it was considering some of the issues that creeped up and of course construction is always exciting again because been there 20 years and i can't wait to see how this continues oca continues roll along and enjoy our partnership with each of you currently we represent just just right under 80 percent of the teachers right now and they do love belonging to this district listening to the round table about hiring a new superintendent and everything carson city has to offer and how we can continue to compete with other districts for teachers continues to put us toward the top especially with programs like our new hire so we've been really happy to support all of that and look forward to another wonderful school year in carson city thank you any other association

066reports uh and then do we have a update on the national nevada association school boards laurel just if you haven't yet signed up for the training there will be training uh september 10th and 11th in las vegas and that same training will be offered in reno october i believe it's the 9th and 10th um or nope it's the 8th and 9th um and so um one of those it's this going to be the same thing at either location so whatever fits your schedule you can go ahead and make arrangements and renee should have all the information thank you moving on to agenda item number seven presentation on the difference between social workers school social workers and school guidance counselors this is for discussion only and we have nikki hindi and hopefully i get this name

067right alejandra a yellow is that close okay thank you go ahead thank you thank you vice president uh varner and trustees mr stokes uh so we just wanted to share a little bit about how did you identify yourself sorry my name is nikki hendy i am lead counselor at carson high school and i am alejandra i am alejandra ayala lead plc for the school social workers and also lead at the high school thank you so we just wanted to talk to you a little bit about what school counselors and school social workers do here in carson city and how we work together to support all students so in carson city we do have council school counselors at four of the schools so all of the secondary schools the two middle schools and the two high

068schools we currently don't have any elementary school counselors several of our counselors are elab so we have our certification in teaching students with uh who are second language learners or um are gate certified so several of us are certified um in teaching gate students our plc lead is bridget gordon she couldn't be here tonight she is taking her son up to start his first year of college so that's why she's not here tonight um one of the things that was requested for us to talk about a little bit was the licensure for school counselors so we are required to have a master's in school counseling with 600 internship hours we are required to take classes in individual and group counseling educational assessments career counseling comprehensive school counseling programs multicultural counseling family engagement and school-based practices

069several of our counselors the majority of the counselors in this district are also certified to teach and many have been teachers before a quote from one of our carson high seniors my school counselor is like a safe place for me she always knows the answers i can ask her about school or if i'm anxious or if i need ideas for college and she knows all the answers sometimes she just knows where to send me so often times it is just kind of knowing um what the outside resources are for our students if we don't have the answers and for the social workers we currently have 12 one at each at every school again i am the plc lead the licensure right now everyone that's working for the district it is a master's degree the licensure

070title just changed from an lsw to lmsw which includes the master degree within the licensure or the lcsw we currently only have one and that just means that they have an additional 3000 clinical internship hours that are supervised the difference between the two it's lcsws can provide clinical therapy services and the other requirement for us is to have the endorsement through the nevada department of ed for social workers in schools there's also a quote um you know it is in spanish i'm just thanking the social worker that um it says um hi how are you i hope you you had a great day i want to thank you for listening to me and being with me when i've needed it when i talk to you i feel comfortable i've come to really trust you because

071you are have been very nice to me and and be for sure that i listened to everything you tell me um this was a letter that was written by anthony students to one of our social workers in thanking them for that support and it did take you know a while to build that report um i'm not going to go through all of this with you uh but this is from the state so um it includes all student support professionals so you can see there's overlap with the school counselor school social worker and school psychologist so we we all work together to support students um through education through emotional times um we're there to support them through their learning as well so um the school psychologist does the testing and we work with students parents and

072families oh i think i missed one oh maybe not okay so at the elementary school level if we had school counselors really a lot of of what they do is classroom lessons so they do career exploration college culture and they do some sel so they might do anger management conflict resolution time management things like that they meet with students individually or with groups there's a lot of groups run at elementary schools with social skills grief friendship divorce things like that school counselors at the elementary school level often run 504 so at all the secondary schools the 504s are written by and overseen by school counselors right now at the elementary schools that is done by deans they can also plan whole school events including college fairs they attend ieps and work with classroom teachers and

073identify issues that impact school performance for the public could you describe what a 504 is um it is for students that that have some sort of disability that doesn't need an iep so for instance a student with diet type 1 diabetes who might need to take a test on another day because they're having a low blood sugar or access to the nurse at any time when they need it things like that thank you and uh for the school social workers in el elementary um like nikki mentioned um currently we don't have any school social workers at elementary level so they are doing um you know providing a lot of that support with with 504 services making sure that they're there for the students school-wide events um the examples like week of respect uh kindness week

074a lot of group support whether social skills anger management friendship consultation with staff so just making sure that they're not only there for the students and families but also for staff if they run into any kind of issues you know with the students that they could also be of support for them they do provide support with ieps they do individual work with students such as regulations self-regulation skills um we do go into suicide screenings um case management um home visits any basic needs and advocacy for the students at the upper levels uh the the school counselors really become that placement expert as far as classes go so we work with the students on a yearly basis helping them develop their four-year plan and then meeting with them regularly to go over that plan and make

075sure that they're taking the right classes and that they're challenging themselves to to the best that they can with the skills that they have so we really work on that we work with them individually with problem solving so if they're struggling academically or socially whether that be with you know boyfriend or friends or parents or siblings whatever or with a teacher even like i said we do the 504 management we do classroom lessons so that could be academic like goal setting finding the right college scholarship writing and then also with sel for instance with anxiety management we can run small groups uh we do individual work and referrals so we we often refer out if it's something we really focus on solution-based brief counseling with students so we are not trained therapists so really um

076we work with them for you know 15 20 minutes half an hour maybe and then if it's something that it's not a quick um problem-solving situation we definitely refer them out sometimes to our social workers sometimes out into the community we run college and career events and we help students individually with that as well we are there for new students so we register all of our new students we set them up with tours of the school things like that we do all the scheduling we attend ieps and collaborate with teachers to make sure that students are taking the right classes and then we work with local colleges and businesses to provide pathways and experiences and for the school social workers again we do a lot of school-wide events last year we really focused on at

077the high school carson high school we focused on focusing on doing proactive protective factors campaigns against suicide again just helping kids start thinking about you know where's their trusted adult people that they can reach out to you as a school-wide event we do a lot of group work again social skills related to anxiety conflict mediation we work very closely with our deans as well in regards to supporting students whether you know when they're coming back from out of school suspension detention anything like that that we're also supporting them not falling too far behind or helping hopefully not repeat whatever the behavior that led to that um again we participate on iep's 504 close work close together with the counselors on that provide individual student and family support um case management so if it's needed to

078do those community referrals um to connect them with services just following up with the family making sure that um you know they the they we've addressed some of the barriers that they may run into when connecting to those resources again basic needs we collaborate with other teachers and staff and community partners again advocating for students and families mental health screeners and then home visits just to really support the family and the student in their own environment as well and just to wrap it up again we do work very closely with our school counselors in in helping support our students and our families um making sure that you know um they they have the needed resources and that they're learning any barriers that are facing um to make sure that we are address us provide support

079referrals whether that's through us or again to out to the community we refer them back to counselors at times when it has to do with academic which is again it's not so much our field but they can focus more on those academics class advisements um college related stuff and then we just work together to give support to students again mostly for those groups or or school-wide events and resources you have any questions stacy we'll start with you basically just kind of give us kind of an overview of what like last year was because and then maybe the plan you have for catching some of these kids that that are especially the mental aspect of it from the covid yeah um last year was different um it was a struggle because you know generally the counselors

080will see every one of their students throughout the year and it was really difficult with the students only being in their classes one day a week we really didn't want to take away from that time they had with teachers so it was tricky to get in touch with everybody we definitely had students that reached out to us and we met with them as often as they needed we definitely had some students that that came down quite often for that emotional support i know um in both of our offices um but we were also working really a lot with the teachers as far as making sure we got the students into the correct classes and things like that moving forward we're definitely looking forward to getting back into working with our students we really have missed

081that that face-to-face contact and so we're excited that they're back all every day we're excited you know the first two weeks for counseling at least is a whole lot of schedule changes which is our least favorite part of the job so we're really looking forward to getting back to working with students and meeting their needs whether that be emotionally or you know looking in to colleges and and future careers and and their classes and down the line um yeah like um it has been very different um you know from last year to this year i think one of the biggest things is we are well at our office we are seeing an increase in those students that struggle with anxiety um you know the class size has increased um whether they were at home full-time

082or that hybrid scheduled classes were much smaller so that is something that students are reporting you know crowded hallways bigger classes the positive is that students are being seen more regularly by staff and teachers and their peers i find that a lot of peers are speaking up um you know when concern for a friend or somebody didn't know they they're noticing changes in behavior whereas before if they're not seeing them as regularly those could be missed so there are positives there um that we do see them more regularly to offer that support washo had had a massive well not massive but they've had suicides and we've been blessed enough here in carson that we haven't and i think that attributes a lot to what both you people do and i do we really do appreciate

083the work that you guys do and the reach out that you do and and we're very thankful to especially have the social workers working hand in hand um we've as a board we've made a commitment to make sure you guys got benefits and stuff which and being part of our employees so um we're just really thankful that we've had the supports in hand and i'm glad that you guys are reaching out more thank you don do you have any other questions lupe i just want to say thank you for providing that safe environment for those students because it really does make a huge difference on their performance so thank you both for what you do laurel again i just thank you i've had some personal experience through my granddaughter i keep talking about her because

084that's my connection to the schools with having to go to the social workers and the counselors and stuff like that and always been very helpful helped her through whatever was going through drama in middle school so thank you we really appreciate the board support both counseling and social work so thank you so much thank you thank you appreciate it can you hear me okay i'm sorry about that all right i'll get closer to the microphone we'll move on to public comments comments may be made on any matter within the authority of the board public comments will be taken on items marked for possible action before action is taken speakers are asked to come to the table sign in if you haven't already speak into the microphone and identify yourself for the record speakers are to

085limit their comments to no more than three minutes and to not simply repeat comments made by others so i have quite a few here so i'll just start going through them and call you up to speak first i have is nick mayer m-a-i-e-r you nick okay great just a reminder we have a lot of people speaking so we have to keep it three minutes i understand thank you can you hear me yes i can thank you my name is nicholas meyer and i want to tell you that i don't envy board members school board members now because you are in a very difficult situation dealing with emergency directives from the governor and you are being asked to make medical decisions that you probably didn't sign up for when you ran for school board so i

086just want to let you know that you know i empathize with your situation however you are dealing with very very delicate and dangerous situations regarding the health of children and the simple fact is this the cdc and the nah are giving you and the american people bad advice about the code virus and how to deal with this virus they're not following their own science you know let's look at the effectiveness of masks okay respiratory viruses are spread through airborne transmission and virus particles are so small that they can pass through any mask and there's no definitive study that the cdc has promoted and probably no definitive study that you have given to your citizens that show that masks are effective yet the cdc and the nih continue to recommend mask wearing if you as a

087board are going to continue to enforce mask wearing then you as a board have to present data to the citizens okay that inf that shows your competency in this matter because you're practicing medicine now and you are going to be personally liable if a child is harmed and there can be a lot of harm that comes to children from wearing masks all day long second i want to address mandates for testing unvaccinated students coaches and staff recent studies have shown that vaccinated people are spreaders of the virus as much or more than unvaccinated persons there was a recent article in a scientific magazine called nature that identifies four separate studies that show that the delta variant is spread widely by vaccinated individuals therefore if vaccinated individuals who show no symptoms can spread the virus what

088is the logic behind only testing unvaccinated athletes if you're going to test you have to test everyone because everyone can spread the virus if you don't do that and you only test the unvaccinated you are segregating and discriminating against persons based on their health status i'm sorry your three minutes is up but if you want to submit or remember your comments we'll put them in the record thank you thank you [Applause] next we have michelle long my name is michelle long for the record thank you that's this yeah it should be green it should be great all right the carson city school board during the past 20 months has conspired with the tyrannical leadership of the state of nevada to act in a manner which is far beyond the authority granted to the body and

089can be interpreted as illegal unconstitutional immoral and unethical the board has failed to listen to and act according to the will of the people therefore the board has implemented policy surrounding covet 19 which is medically proven ineffective in preventing the spread of virus and proven to have dangerous consequences both physically and mentally subsequently either by your own willful ignorance or deliberate intent has put the safety and welfare of our children at considerable risk one does not have to look far to find information regarding covet 19 which at the very least would suggest taking extreme caution when mandating policy that affects the health of our children this is a fact it is universally accepted by all reputable government organizations policymakers leaders and physicians that it is absolutely forbidden to coerce influence or force any human being

090to be a part of any experimental medical treatment let the citizens remind the board that the constitution of the united states still reigns in this country you have zero authority to infringe on our constitutional rights by mandating mask wearing and coercing children to be victim of an investigational medical experiment with unknown consequences to mandate any medical procedure by any form of government is a violation of civil liberties and an act of tyranny and we will hold you accountable personally and let me tell you something when tyranny becomes law rebellion becomes duty and nevada parents all these parents we are on duty thank you [Applause] next next we have casey rogers [Music] do i have to push the button no okay you can hear me i have several things i want to address right now uh

091the federal government has hidden some information and there's whistleblowers going out talking about how 45 000 people have died from the vaccination a vaccination that keeps getting uh propelled by people that i'm looking at right now and other people in uh the other aspects of education so as far as it goes with this face mask thing that you were all wearing i'd just like you to know that i just presented you with seven different documents uh peer-reviewed studies on some of them that show one of them from stanford i'm going to read right now and it specifically addresses the fact that maths don't work you are all wearing masks that don't work and you force your uh teachers as far as i know are teachers in mass right now are teachers in masks right now

092teachers are in masks so your staff is in in mass that don't work face masks the the existing scientific evidence challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing face masks as preventive preventative intervention for coven 19. the data suggests that both medical and non-medical face masks are ineffective to block human to human transmission of viral and infectious diseases such as sars cov2 and covid19 supporting against the uses of face masks wearing face masks has has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse psychological and physiological effects these include hypoxia the definition of hypoxia is the deprivation of oxygen to the brain and is one of the deadliest injuries even some even people who survive hypoxia may experience lifelong side effects continuing hypercapnia shortness of breath increased tox and toxicity activation of fear and stress response rises stress hormones

093immunosuppression fatigue headaches decline in cognitive performance predisposition for viral infectious disease chronic stress anxiety and depression furthermore development of cases after mass mandates in many states coronavirus infections strongly increase after mass mandates have been introduced let me read that again coronavirus infections strongly increased after mass mandates have been introduced the following charts show the typical examples of australia belgium france germany ireland italy spain uk california hawaii furthermore a direct comparison between the u.s states with and without mass mandates indicates that mask mandates have made no difference i've this is for you as well you're testing our athletes right now you're segregating them by vaccinated and unvaccinated i'm sorry your three minutes is up but thank you and we'll submit your comments [Applause] marie foster is next is marie here no okay is she outside or

094just left we have dr freddie simon [Applause] yes and if you'd uh state your name for the record fred simon i'm a medical doctor boarded uh by the american board of surgery and surgery critical care medicine rana uh i see you for many years elite trauma center nih grant on sepsis related and immunosuppression pancreatic immunosuppression and volunteered last year in a covet icu where is the data the nih funded put money forward for funding of mass no data supports a mandate where is it cdc no data to support a mandate [Music] industry making billions of dollars what does industry do they go out and do research to make money no data to support mass so if you mandate mass you're practicing medicine sysel acts practicing medicine without a license okay you may get a mandate

095from above but you're not absolved for things that may happen you are liable i'm a medical legal expert 42 states puerto rico and the virgin islands 750 affidavits 50 trials i know what i'm talking about medicine is based on evidence-based medicine for you to vote on a mandate you're either ignorant which is means you don't you're lacking information you're coerced by tyranny or you just don't care all the evidence ahead of me has been presented there's plenty of papers to show the deleterious aspects of mass you must provide data to these parents if any child suffers a major mental health event or a physical event you will be liable you will be negligent based upon the standards of medicine including mr syslock but they're not going to save you you will be abandoned by the

096state mr sisilak and you will be in your own arena in a judicial process you must think about this this is about the welfare of children and you better do your due diligence because there's a lot of data coming out by a lot of people who are leaking it out thank you i hope you have a nice night [Applause] next we have joey tronskowski i'm sorry it's all right okay my name is joy trueschinsky i'll try to remember that it's all right we have a birthright given to us by god and that birthright is based on liberty our founding fathers expressed his truth in the declaration of independence stating that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit

097of happiness that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving from the consent of the governed the united states constitution outlines outlines the powers given to the federal government and the state governments but gives the supreme power to the people the united states constitution is the supreme law of the land unfortunately there is a general misconception that any law passed by congress or state legislatures constitutes the law of the land this is not true the truth is that any law passed by congress or a state legislature that violates the united states constitution is not valid the supreme court in 1803 upheld this truth in marbury versus madison by stating all laws which are repugnant to the constitution are null and void this past year mostly the democrat-controlled state governments violated our constitutional rights

098with unnecessary year-long lockdowns and mass mandates due to the covet 19 via risk which is similar to the flu what was so diabolical about this is that very early on doctors like simone gold and 16 others came out with cures to the covet 19 virus cures like hydroxychloroquine with zinc and ivermectin but they were silenced these drugs were banned and people died also dr gold and others said mass do not protect you from the cove 19 virus and experimental untested vaccines were dangerous they were maligned but these doctors were speaking the truth look up the information about covenanting virus the coven virus mass vaccines and and your constitutional rights at america's frontlinedoctors.org i say to all parents all the people no mass no vaccines for our children as both are unnecessary and harmful stand up

099for your rights joy thank you next we have laurie cusick come forward please and state your name for the record so what do i do press if it's a green it should be ready to go hello am i on yes i think so i don't really have much to say but i pre-recorded so i feel like if i can get it to go it's kind of a song-ish type thing so please bear with me can you hear me yeah okay all right so if i can get it to go it says is [Music] i saw [Music] in myself concentration camp [Music] alone naked [Music] [Applause] i had a vision [Music] a concentration camp alone naked emaciated [Music] don't let us lord please don't let us go there [Music] unvaccinated god dropped to my ear i

100believe the word weapon the vaccines god may even tell me that those are weapons that also masks are health hazards [Music] lord don't let us go [Music] this is a spiritual matter this is a spiritual matter [Music] you left your first love jesus [Music] repentance god forgive us i'm sorry but your three minutes is up thank you very much [Music] you have [Music] thank you very much i appreciate it next we have kate morrell and just state your name for the record please name is kate mora and i am going to change the subject a little bit here it is my understanding that you have partnered with national education equity and so i researched them upon doing so i am concerned that their tagline is talent is equally distributed opportunity is not this is a

101nonsensical statement does this mean that the reason i don't have the fame whitney houston enjoyed is not because i can't sing a note but because the opportunity did not exist for me to do so if this is the case then how did whitney do it while our founders espoused equality they were not saying that everyone is equally talented we clearly are not or i would be able to sing as well as whitney rather god endowed each individual with talents unique to them what the founders sought was equality of protection under the law and individual rights this affords us equal opportunity to chase down whatever god has put in our hearts to do this view of equality through the founders eyes also allows the individual property rights to possess what is earned and this lends dignity

102to work i urge you to take a long and intellectually honest review of america's history you will find that while we have made mistakes we have endeavored to remedy those errors you will also find that there are millions of rags to riches stories there are millions of individuals who have applied diligent hands to the object of obtaining the quality of life they desire and they've been amply rewarded for their efforts this includes people of every race and color clearly the opportunity exists only the systems and traditions of liberty that we enjoy can give us the opportunity to achieve whatever we want the sky is the limit but the key components are finding out where your talent lies in putting that to work please do not indoctrinate our youth with the false ideology that by virtue

103of the american system they are victims they are not victims they have won the lottery by being born in a country where they are free to achieve as much as they want in any area of their choosing should they actively strive for it this is what makes america exceptional and this is what you need to be teaching thank you thank you [Applause] next we have ashley stewart come on up ashley and for the record just state your name talking to the microphone thank you hello i'm ashley stewart um so i am here to talk about something that i am very concerned happening to other kids last year i brought i came down with cobin and people that i sat next to in class and some of my friends had to go in quarantine and when

104i got back from quarantine i a lot of the kids that i sat next to got mad at me for getting covered and i am very concerned that if you keep trying to do random testing it's going to happen to more than a few kids thank you for your time ashley thank you very much this is very good ashley thank you we have michael morrissey michael morrissey and for the record michael just state your name michael morrissey battleborn patriots taking nevada back i just want to point out that this is the most intelligent quote disease that the world has ever known this virus can travel six feet it cannot travel six feet one inches or greater it can live on only on surfaces on all surfaces except any that come in the mail or from

105amazon or target it does not live in target it does not live in walmart it does not live in home depot or lowe's or any other grocery store it's harmless in protests riots looting burning capital buildings and all kinds of things it's only deadly in bars restaurants when you're walking in not when you sit down or when you enjoy your drink it's it's not deadly in hair salons god knows we can't have that happen it's only deadly on school buses until you get off the school bus it's only deadly in classrooms because you said it was i don't have a lot of faith in you people you guys are what i'll put it another way once you bow down you have to shoot your way up [Applause] michael thank you next we have barb mathers

106and there again for the record just state your name barb and i'm using marie king's time too so i've got six minutes here is she here she's sitting right next to me i don't cheat okay um first of all i agree with everything that's been shared about the masks i didn't prepare anything on masks tonight i was going to talk about equity versus equality that we talked about in the may 4th excuse me strategic plan meeting i wanted to show this image that was used at the beginning of the slide show that superintendent stoke shared with us demonstrating what equity is versus equality and we've discussed multiple times in these meetings that there's a school board version of equity and there's a community version of equity but we still haven't actually gotten a definition of

107what equity is if you look at this picture you guys say a lot of the right things but you don't do the right things equality is saying as an example that laurel shared at that meeting equality is everybody gets shoes but equity is everybody gets the right pair of shoes the right size of shoes and as you can see in the picture in order to have equity distributed you're taking away from other students i understand it to be as the the picture on the left is a student who's probably advanced speaks english and takes advanced courses while maybe the the student on the right is probably a second language speaker may not speak english really well and in order to get the student to be at the same level as the advanced core student you

108have to take away the box from the advanced student in order to make the the other student be at the same level equity is dumbing down the standards one of the one of the examples that superintendent stoke shared is there's only 14 of hispanic students and advanced chemistry courses who cares how many hispanic students are in events chemistry courses if you guys are taking statistics based on race that's racist we don't want racism in our schools it's also taking away from another student as i explained i graduated from carson high 20 years ago i had to pay extra money for my advanced course textbooks because there weren't resources for the advanced students my next younger sister didn't even have advanced chemistry books because she was one of the biggest classes to graduate from carson high

109so she didn't even have a textbook for her advanced chemistry class but the students who don't speak english have all kinds of extra and granted they do need i mean they need to learn english but it needs to be when they're in kindergarten the slideshow that we watched with the guidance counselors versus the social workers the quote that was read in spanish was from an 8th grade student if they started school in pre-k that's 10 years of education that they should have been able to speak english by then that would have been a perfect example just practice speaking in english that shouldn't have been in spanish i come from swedish descent my my parent my dad was the first of his siblings to be born in the states and four of my aunts didn't speak

110any english when they moved here to the states they ranged from kindergarten to sixth grade and they were all placed in a kindergarten course to be able to learn english within a two-year period they were at their respective grade levels because they learned english as a kindergarten level and then they were able to go into their courses if you guys are enabling all these parents and translating things into spanish and not allowing them to learn english you're continuing the process my son attended fremont before i started homeschooling him every single paper that comes home is translated into spanish it's a waste of resources and it's a waste of time for someone to be doing that that time and money needs to be going towards something else and teaching the kids english they need to learn

111english and you shouldn't even be tracking based on any of that okay um the other thing i wanted to discuss with equity and equality is all of the um i forgot the word the job description of the equity director so some of them are supervised and evaluate the assistant director of equity i didn't know we had an assistant director so now we have a regular one and an assistant director one of her jobs is to oversee the family life advisory committee anything that has to do family should not be in the schools it's reading writing and arithmetic the basics oversight organize and direct multicultural education activities to enhance education and diversity i only shared maybe like 20 things from her job description equity diversity and inclusion were listed 19 times monitor and evaluate diversity equity

112and inclusion plan organize and direct operations personnel and resources to enhance teacher and administrative understanding of educational practices again related to diversity equity and inclusion ability to coordinate the work of a diverse team knowledge of state guidelines and requirements and practices procedures and techniques used in diverse excuse me diversity equity and inclusion and then the final paragraph actually is the kicker belief that every student has the opportunity to excel outcomes for students must not be predictable by race ethnicity gender disability socioeconomic status and culture you guys say the right things but you're not doing it that's what you need to be doing you need to thank you [Applause] if i could just say one thing for the audience not all students that are english language learners come to school in kindergarten they show up throughout

113the different grade levels they may come in eighth grade they may come in high school middle school so they're not all coming to us in uh kindergarten or first grade my point the kindergarten level to learn english that my aunts came in and had to go back to kindergarten yeah i just want to let people know that barbara thank you we have lee elliott lee just uh state your name for the record please my name is lee elliot i live here in carson city and i'm back most of you know that i'm the one would you check to see if your mic's on we can hear you pretty good but it may not be on they can hear me across the county do i start over again okay um most of you know that michael

114morrissey myself and a few others we do protests downtown we had a big rally up at the mansion on sunday and let me tell you the mood because of the masks is tipping to ugly in communities i know you don't believe that some of you but it's a fact me and mike and a few others really work hard control to control the tempers and the ugliness of what people want to do to school boards to boards of supervisors to anybody that's making the decision about wearing these ungodly masks okay i'm just telling you that we're at a crossroads and if this tyrannical mandate continues there's going to be ugly things happening and i don't want that i don't want that okay guys we have been pushing for a peaceful transition from being from wearing these

115masks to say okay it's my body my life and i can do what i want with my body and forcing kids to hide their smiles from one another to me is criminal it is criminal you know i live right behind border wick bray as some of you know and i love hearing the kids laugh and scream and play and and you know play their games out there and beat up on each other and get scraped you know but i'll tell you something guys they're confused one day they wear a mask next day they don't wear a mask one day they wear a mask they're frightened of everything and they've got to become kids again please please please and i'll continue to control as much as i can some of the people that come to the

116protest guys okay that's a promise for me and a few others we don't want ugliness but if ugliness comes say levi god bless you guys and for the work you do okay thank you thank you [Applause] is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak for your record state your name please heather co and my son had to call yesterday and i find it absolutely amazing that you want to mask up kids but yet you'll send them to school in hazardous conditions just like you say the equity is all about fairness yet it's the most racist thing that there is this comes from my son the other thing is i don't know how anyone is supposed to believe anyone of you guys let alone anyone at the school since i had to

117call the first day because my son is in a class where the english teacher locks her door and you need to knock quietly three times she has um anxiety from mass and the coronavirus and um she has black live matters posters in her room i was told by the vice principal that's not true yet i have a picture of it so that was a lie so i would like to know how you expect any child or parent at this point to believe anything that comes out of your mouth every you contradict everything this is an absolute joke mascot kids send to school in hazardous smoky conditions tell kids that they're supposed to be kind to one another everything's about equity and you teach them how to be racist and about black lives matters while the

118doors are locked right okay someone better get everything in order i know that there's not everyone voted for this whacked out equity garbage um i know two wonderful people didn't but i know the rest of you did and i think that every parent should know everyone who voted which way and why their children are not getting educated properly you don't care that they not being any extra courses any extra help for the year that they missed um no one's come up with anything for that yet still but um you're gonna teach them about equity which is critical raise theory and i want someone to explain to me uh when it's going to be taught what classes since now i know it's in english uh so that i could take my child out of school when

119that's happening because you're not gonna teach my child to be a racist thank you [Applause] anybody else in the audience who would like to speak karen i like a coat uh just for the record karen go ahead and state your name karen stevens i think i'm back in alaska it feels like it it's cold um so i just have a few comments that i like to make tonight thank you for your time ladies and gentlemen um i'm kind of wondering why the following organizations are exempt from the mandatory vaccines the fda the who [Music] the cdc the white house moderna johnson and johnson and the employees that work at pfizer [Music] another interesting fact is that the ceo of pfizer has not taken the cova 19 inoculation aka vaccine what does he know then we're

120not being told [Music] i'd really like to know that won't you [Music] thank you thank you karen [Applause] anybody else in the audience would like to speak come on up the same thing just state your name for the record please valerie burns first of all i'd like to say i wish that you would have made it mandatory to have your student body representative here so she could have heard a lot of these comments taking them back to her fellow students if she or any of your students in this county believe that this is normal that having a school dance probably with masks or having to be vaccinated or having to be tested or all the sports with the same restrictions is normal then she needs to be further educated this is far from normal i

121got a question before the government mandated this did any of you ever think to put on a mask did it ever cross your mind to put that muzzle on your face probably not because you were brainwashed by the government and if you think for one moment that that cheap piece of cloth is going to save you from anything then you all need to have your heads examined second of all i'd like to say that this cova testing and critical race theory and vaccine you are the cause of division that this this country is not divided the people that think like you are dividing it more and that's all i've got to say thank you [Applause] anybody else in the audience i'd like to come up and speak just again for the record state your name

122please hi my name is charlotte stewart and this last week i had a kind of interesting conversation with a doctor from scotland medical and i was talking to him about being afraid that they were going to mandate the vaccines at the colleges and he said that there is no way legally that they can do that that they have to offer exemptions not to take it it's definitely poison and he said if they try to try to have you take tests in lieu of getting the vaccine because you will not get vaccinated be aware that the liquid on those tests on the on the cotton balls is ethylene oxide that is a carcinogenic it's going to cause people a lot of problems especially the ones that are being made to take these tests weekly or bi-weekly

123because they don't want to get some poison they have no idea what it is put in their body so i just wanted to make you guys aware of that because it's it's going to turn out real bad thank you [Applause] anybody else in the audience okay i know we have some online but i would like to say one other thing just to clarify so everybody in the audience knows that the school district school board we're not mandating vaccines at all we don't have that authority we don't want to do it and we're not doing it all right thank [Applause] you okay right now we're going to close public comment and we'll go online comment well yes i think everybody knows the athletes are being tested and certain people are being tested yes thank you okay

124if there's nobody else we're going to go ahead and close public comment now and we'll go to any comment that may be online thank you mr varner this comment is from mr jason tingle he's the father of four in the carson city school district he extends his apologies for not being able to be here in person and provide comment but he wishes um i really wish i could have been there tonight but obviously was not able to make it i want to personally thank every member of the school board for making the right decision with regards to face masks i feel in my heart that it was the right choice to give the parents the choice for their children's well-being and not the school or the government i know that the board puts up with

125a lot of grief so i just wanted to thank each and every one of you i hope this makes makes it in time for comment at one point or another for the record again thank you for all your hard work and i he will continue to support the school district and the school board thank you jason [Applause] this comment was provided from a concerned parent and citizen i've sat quietly watching school board meetings from my home and i've been shocked by the childish and downright mean comments of so many public commenters including threats of knowing where board members live not only is this behavior completely unacceptable as a community we can do better than this many of the public comment commenters don't even have children in the school district while everyone is entitled to their

126own opinions it's a waste of time to share the same opinions notice i say opinions and not facts because you know as well as i do that the american frontline doctors are a political organization not a group of doctors that are credible with information regarding coven 19 and start focusing on facts and listening to experts in the field i understand that there is a real and valid fear among you of what these angry public commenters can and will do but it's time to stop brow beating down to them and start worrying about our children i have a high school friend from a nearby high school that contracted covet on the first day of school less than a week later she ended up in the picu over a week her district chose no mask this is

127not the only story like this picus across the country are filling up and if they're full what happens to a child that needs a chemo treatment but there aren't enough beds or physicians to care for them our local hospital beds are full masks may be inc may be an inconvenience but they're a small price to pay to keep your child safe and schools open my son said that at school most of his friends were wearing masks we asked them why why they did it since they aren't required he figured that their parents made them they told him no it was because they didn't want to catch the delta variant and they're too young to be vaccinated the children understand this they would rather be uncomfortable in a mask than uncomfortable lying on their stomachs in

128the hospital trying to avoid being intubated they would rather wear a mask than deal with the effects of than deal with the effects of long covet they would rather be in masks than doing distance learning again because of an outbreak they'd rather be wearing a mask than be the reason for a dear friend or look at three minutes i'm sorry would guts put it on the record okay thank you mr verner that's all i have all right uh thank you all right public comment is closed going to move on to agenda item number nine it's a presentation of the civic test results for the carson city school district of 2021 and this is for discussion only and it's britney witter for the record just say your name please vice president garner mr stokes members of

129the board thank you for having me tonight my name is cheryl macy and i am the director of equity in curriculum and instruction and i apologize for uh it was a different name on the agenda here so yes um brittany witter is our social studies curriculum coordinator and she really wanted to be here tonight to present but she's also the volleyball coach and tonight was their first game so she's with her team tonight and i'm just going to get this playing here so i'm going to be speaking tonight about sb 322 senate bill 322 passed in the 79th nevada legislative session states that a pupil in any public high school must take an examination as conditioned for graduation containing a number of questions determined by the district which are identical to the civics portion of

130the naturalization test adopted by the united states citizenship and immigration services of the department of homeland security um effective july 1st 2019. so i know that mrs cortez will be posting the slideshow um with the minutes and the legislation is linked here and i did want to point out that although we were supposed to roll this out in the year 2019-20 the state gave all districts an exemption because we shut down schools in the last couple months of the year so we weren't able to test sb 322 requires for students to graduate that they must take the exam the graduation requirement is specific to participation only the state requires that the test be a direct match the questions be a direct match to the u.s naturalization civics test and students may receive a white waiver

131for special circumstances for example if their iep states that they should not be taking the exam just a little bit about the u.s naturalization test it's actually broken up into two portions there's an english portion on speaking reading and reading and writing and then there's a civics portion that's multiple choice it's that civics portion that we pull questions from not the english portion this is what the nevada department of education requires of districts we have to determine the course in which the examination will be administered and a logical place for that of course was our government semester long course we have to choose a number of questions no fewer than 50. we chose 50. we have to decide on what we consider to be a passing score we chose 60 percent as that is concordant

132with the naturalization test and we have to decide how much that assessment is going to be weighted in a student's grades our district decided that the teachers actually decided they wanted it to be a part of their final and it ended up being weighted as 10 of their summative course grade and then the department of ed also requires that we report aggregated results to the board of trustees which is why i'm here tonight our process of course we do teach the content of the civics test and government courses we also provided students with a study guide prior to taking the assessment they took the test and then students also had the root the option to retake the test if necessary for a second time a challenge that we faced this year was getting our online

133students to complete the assessment but with the help of jill council at pioneer and kim cooley at carson high school we were able to get most of those students through the test we figured you'd want to know what kind of questions are on the test so here's a couple sample questions the first one i'm just going to read it because i know not everybody can see the screen which concept stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful that's separation of powers and how many amendments does the constitution have and the answer is 27. so let's look at our data we had 544 total seniors 461 completed the assessment which gave us an 84 participation rate we had a lot more waivers given than usual we had students who weren't able to come into school

134or students who were quarantined that added extra challenges we hope this number will be higher this year we're shooting for a hundred percent um so what we want to do for this year is develop a protocol that works out some of the logistics of how we're doing this to ensure that we are capturing as many students as we can and we are also encouraging teachers to give the assessment at the beginning of the semester as a pre-assessment so that teachers can set goals around that students can set goals around that and then if something happens in a student's quarantined at the end of the semester if if anything we already have participation from that particular student here's our passing rates and for those who don't know iep stands for individual education plan that's the plan

135that is given to students who are enrolled in special education frl is free and reduced lunch and ell is english language learner and i'll give you just a minute to look over those pass rates okay final thoughts we are developing an accepted practice as i already mentioned we're also developing a spanish version which is an adherence to sb322 they do give us that option for newcomers overall we believe that we had positive results we had strong participation and we're looking forward to sharing how well our students do next year and as our debate students say i'm now open for questions and further points of clarification any board questions stacey you have anything just that just to rectify everything we do teach the constitution in our government class correct yes it is the foundation for that

136course thank thank you don thank you lupe laurel but not for you but that the legislative session gave the district local control by saying the number of questions determined by the district and then took away that control by saying which are identical to the civics portion right so they this test is very much specific to the legislation that was passed and all the test questions everything that is in there we're following um that so thank you for doing that thank you yeah i have no questions but just thank you for the presentation thank you and we'll go ahead and move on to the next agenda item which is item number 10 adoption of the carson city school district test procedures and security plan for the 2021 2022 school year as required by nrs 390-275 this

137is for possible action good evening school board and thank you for having me for the record i'm ricky medina the director of accountability and assessment for the carson city school district and tonight i'm going to talk about kind of our test security procedures so kind of the long story short every year before september 1st we have to present to you our test security plan and and get your blessing and so we do this every year this past year nothing has changed in the plan except for the dates the one thing that could possibly change this year the state has put us on notice that there's a potential that the end of course assessments that we used to give at the end of algebra and english one that those tests could potentially come back this year

138in the not the last legislative session but the session before that those assessments were they were defunded but they didn't take them out as being a requirement right now the state doesn't have money to pay for those assessments but they said they're looking for to try to find resources somewhere and if they find the resources we'll have to give those assessments a couple of kind of highlights kind of worth mentioning from the plan because these are the two of the things that i think come up kind of more often than anything else the first one is that all students that are enrolled in public schools including charter schools at a grade level where it's mandated to test statewide must participate and once we get closer to testing season folks ask if there's options to opt

139out and that the federal government as well as the state government don't provide an opportunity for that to happen and it's for a very good reason what used to happen in assessment is when you had to give a state or federal assessment and you knew that you had to give a state or federal assessment all of a sudden you would a school bus would show up in front of the school and that was a day to have a field trip but only for certain kids that you knew weren't going to do well on the test and so because folks did that that's why they put in the requirements that everybody is required to test there's like a five percent cushion so five percent of our kids don't have to test and that's five percent not

140just of the overall population but of the individual sub pops like the different ethnicity groups our special ed students our frl students and that five percent is like for like super duper extreme extenuating circumstances like the kid gets in a car wreck two weeks before they have to take the exam and and they're in the hospital something of that nature so that's kind of the first thing that comes up every year the second thing in the plan is that students cannot have phones or smart watches or any smart technology when they're taking the assessment and this is one that it always pops up especially for like things like the act exam that students have to take to graduate and the reason why this is in there is one it's possible for students to cheat using

141that smart technology it's also possible for them to take pictures and because there's so few test items like available through the state if somebody were to take a picture of the exam and that got out that could be like detrimental to everything and the way that this happens is usually for the most part kids aren't cheating when they have their smartphones usually they complete their test they might even turn their test in but then their phone goes off or they text somebody to tell them that they just finished with the test and that becomes a test irregularity and that means that one that they might face some some disciplinary action but it's also going to mean that their test score is not going to count and so that if you're taking the act and you

142do really well and at the end of the test you decide to text mom to say you did great that score might not count i mentioned these two kind of test irregularities there are others that happen but for the most part there are things where like people make like simple mistakes like they're instead of giving part one of the test first they give part two of the test like on accident or we we have two kids that have the same name they give the kid they switch the names on the test and then at the end we have to switch those back all of the test irregularities they're first investigated by the site the test coordinator if they find any irregularities if anybody doesn't follow our plan they're kind of the vice principal is the

143first person that kind of has to do their research and see what happens then that also falls on the district i have to go out and kind of investigate make see what their regularity was see if we need to disqualify test scores or or whatever and then at the end it's reviewed by the nevada department of ed so if there's anything in our plan that we don't follow there's kind of three levels of review for it but the plan that you all have basically the way that it works is the nevada department of ed provides us with their test security plan and says this is what we want you to do this is the training that we want you to provide the district takes that plan we kind of make it our own we all

144add some additional kind of training examples like irregularities that we've seen in the past i'll make sure that the vice principals like really stress those out their sites and then the vice principal kind of submits their plan that goes along with the state and district plan that kind of gets into the more specifics like where are they going to lock up their assessments what are what exactly are they going to do when an irregularity happens and with that you all have the plan it hasn't changed much do you all have any questions don you have any questions stacey's shaking ahead no so lupe i i just have one question homeschooled children they can take the assessment but they're not required to is that correct yeah that is correct they have to let us know in

145advance so that that way we can make sure that we can get them into the system and that we have room to accommodate them even though that's available it's it's not taken care of or taken advantage of too often except for say like the act exam there are some sometimes home-schooled students will show up for that the other assessments they're more than welcome but they often don't and then is there any data on how many test irregularities there are in a certain year yeah i could get that information for you there i would separate them into kind of two types of irregularities there's kind of like minor irregularities like the two kids getting their tests mixed up there's always several cell phone kind of issues and i would say that those are kind of at

146the minor level and the time that i've been here there's only been like one major one where the teacher was possible that the teacher kind of allowed some cheating to take place but there wasn't enough evidence to support that but in my time being here there was only i can only recall one incidence of that happening okay thank you this is an action item i'll go ahead and don i'll make a motion i move that the carson city school district board of trustees adopt the carson city school district test procedures and test security plan for the 2021-2022 school year as submitted in accordance with nrs 390.275 do we have a second second by stacy is there any board discussion no board discussion any uh public comment or discussion of this action item seeing none any

147no mr varner no public comment seeing then then i'll go ahead and call for a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed nay motion carries thank you thank you mr medina thank you for your time now we're going to move on to item number 11 and this is also for possible action it's a discussion and possible action on a resolution does designated as the 2021 school bond resolution declaring the necessity of incurring a i'm going to put my glasses on real quick a lot better uh declaring the necessity of incoming a bonded indebtedness on behalf of the carson city school district for the purpose of acquiring constructing improving and equipping school facilities of the district authorizing the issuance of the carson city school district nevada general obligation limited tax school improvement bonds series

1482021 and the aggregate aggregate principal amount not to exceed 12 million dollars providing the terms conditions and form of the bonds and providing the effective date and like i said this is for possible action we have mr aj fueling for the record to state your name thank you vice president varner uh andrew fuelling for the record tonight i bring to you something that has we've talked about quite a bit over the last months um the would you have tonight as a resolution to um authorize a sale of a bond uh in the amount no more than 12 million dollars for general obligations school improvement bonds as you know in 2010 the voters of carson city approved a rollover bond question that question at the same time reduced the debt service property tax that the school

149is levied for the school district from 47 to 43 cents that authorization is good through 2035. what we are looking to do then is issue these bonds it would be 20-year bonds we'll be doing this with the we would be doing this with the assistance of mr marty johnson who is here a number of weeks ago our debt service revenues easily will cover the principal and interest payments on this bond as you know we have a couple well one very significant project the expansion at eagle valley middle school that will be using the large portion of these funds to assist in completing as mr wallace attested to it's slowly becoming amazing and it will be even amazing earth very soon is that word otherwise there's um still the the discussion about the 1600 snyder avenue

150property in whichever way that goes if the board would eventually decide not to do that um other major maintenance projects um heating and air conditioning roofing pavement um just efficiency projects around the district safety projects there are plenty of things that we could otherwise spend these funds on so regardless it'll be put to good use for the district and the community so i bring that for your consideration to approve the resolution if there are no questions stacy so you said so how much of this is going to eagle valley so um for sure about 6 million a little more than six million um i i would expect just with what cost increases have been that it'd be closer to seven um but uh not for sure so so really i guess in terms of you

151think about half of it going to eagle valley and then half of it to these other projects i think it's a good way to think about it and and people can find out what those other projects are by looking at our capital projects list absolutely yeah and and truly um the the other side of that is we'll be coming up over the next months our bond oversight committee to some extent will will transfer over to the facilities master planning community uh committee and so that kind of further will define once we get into i mean as of right now the the the big project on the capital improvement plan is that snyder purchase and renovation there are many other smaller projects on there but they haven't been at this point defined as being funded by

152that bond but that's once we go through the amended budget process that is a natural kind of change that happens that's always under review so and the push is mainly because of the construction costs have just skyrocketed since we just got the plans and got the approval and estimates and stuff from eagle valley's construction correct so the the initial projections done on eagle valley um on what the cost would be was almost four years ago um and as you know um that that industry the materials costs and and just with all the other things going on in the world have just exploded so that has become a real problem for us don yeah i think the 12 million dollars is is reasonable i think it's it's good that we keep the money if the board

153wishes eventually to buy that schneider property loopy i would concur with that i mean if if we come to the conclusion that buying the property is going to be more beneficial to the district that would be the way to go thank you laurel are you ready to entertain them i'm ready to entertain the motion i move that the carson city school district board of trustees approved the 2021 school bond resolution as submitted declaring the necessity of incurring a bonded indented indebtedness for the purpose of acquiring constructing improving and equipment equipping school facilities of the district authorizing the superintendent to arrange for the sale of general obligation limited tax school improvement bonds series 2021 in an amount not to exceed 12 million dollars a motion by laurel crossman do we have a second second by don

154creaney is there any more discussion about the motion is there any public comment or discussion about the motion seeing none i'll entertain the vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion carries unanimously thank you okay moving on to agenda item number 12. the annual review of ccsd policy and regulation 543 safe and respectful learning environment free from bullying or cyber bullying for which no changes are proposed per nrs 388 134 to include an outline of safe voice anonymous reporting system used to report threats to the safety and well-being of students and this is for discussion only we have ms tasha fusion thank you vice president vardar tasha fuson for the record good evening members of the board so nrs as you stated the 388.134 requires the board of trustees for each

155district to annually view policies adopted for the provision of a safe and respectful learning environment in our district that refers to policy and regulation 543 tonight's discussion will serve as the annual review for our district in addition i will provide a brief overview of safe voice safevoice is an anonymous reporting system used to report threats to the safety or well-being of students so i'd like to take a look first at the policy i believe you have that in front of you in your packets for policy um as this policy is with all policies it pretty much starts with a belief statement from the board so i'm going to go ahead and read that in accordance with nrs 388.121 to 388.145 the carson city school district strives to provide a learning environment that is safe and

156respectful in which persons of differing beliefs races colors national origins ancestries religions diverse gender identities or expressions sexual orientations physical or mental disability sexes or any other distinguishing characteristic and background can realize their full academic and personal potential the board of trustees of the district declares that any form of bullying or cyber bullying is prohibited will not be tolerated this policy further goes on to state that no member of the board employee of the district or member of a club or organization which uses district or school facilities regardless of whether the club or organization has any connection to the district or school shall tolerate or engage in bullying or cyber bullying anywhere on district property a school campus on school transportation or at school activities so i think it's important for our community to note

157that we do apply that expectation to again to after school activities or if our school for instance carson high school will hold an event off campus in the evening those same expectations exist it exists if it's an outside organization utilizing our facilities so we um we do address all incidences of bullying or cyber bullying that happens in around our properties or or within our organizations that our our schools are supporting or um activities which they are putting together so the it further states that as you can read but we do have to provide for the training of members of the board of trustees administrators teachers and all other personnel of the district on the elements of bullying and cyber bullying effective methods of intervention and remediation for bullying or cyber bullying strategies to build positive

158school culture rights and needs of special populations and available community resources further states that we have to disseminate information concerning the need for a safe and respectful learning environment free from bullying and cyber bullying and lastly that we must uh outline the requirements of reporting violations of nrs so uh this policy then of course directs the superintendent to develop or the superintendent doesn't need to develop a regulation before we go into the regulation are there any questions or comments on the policy itself just to clarify there are no changes from the policy this year correct stacy do you have a question don lupe okay then in taking a look at our regulation um i just figured we'll kind of do a walkthrough of this at a high level because there are no again suggested changes

159but a on this is a definition a legal definition of what bullying means i won't read that to you you can read that letter b is the definition of cyber bullying letter c talks about the education and training as you can see this outlines or this regulation just goes more in detail than what the policy states so the one thing i do want to state for the training because i thought you would be interested is that we have provided married trainings throughout the past few years for our staff for instance safe talk our school social workers counselors and nurses receive that training and administrators in safe talk participants learn to notice and respond to situations where suicide thought thoughts may be present recognize that invitations for help are often overlooked move beyond common tendency to

160miss dismiss and avoid suicide apply the talk steps so that's tell ask listen and keep safe and no community resources so we trained um those those groups of workers and safe talk we also provided protected class sensitivity and diversity training to all certified classified staff we do provide signs of suicide training to staff at all sites and secondary students and then every year we have met uh training and mandatory reporting uh another uh training called you can protect our children we train in students in transition bullying and cyber bullying snap snapshots of dyslexia suicide prevention so those are all done in our e-learning suite that we send out in the fall in the sp in the spring in addition all of our schools coordinate week of respect activities for their sites the week of respect

161is always the first week in october so that's coming up for our schools real soon and in the week of respect what the schools do is they put together activities to teach students about methods to prevent identify and report incidents of bullying and cyber bullying methods to facilitate positive human relations among students and methods to facilitate positive human relationships among students by eliminating bullying and cyber bullying for families if they're interested we do provide information informational pamphlets on resolving incidents of bullying and cyber bullying at our schools in both english and in spanish and then specifically for our administrators we do have monthly community of practice meetings and within those cop meetings we do we have developed a bullying cyber bullying manual for administrators so this goes specifically into the steps that administrators must take

162to investigate and report and resolve issues of bullying and then we also work on developing restorative practices so that is the training and education that we're providing to our students and staff at this point in time so in moving on to d d specifically again governs the reporting confidentiality investigation notification interview process timeline for investigations written reports follow-up that must be done actions that must be taken by administrators potential discipline that may be administered or given to students and then exceptions and record keeping so again what that really boils down to for our staff because that's more about directing the work of our disciplinarians within the schools is really the coordination and the development of this manual for them so we've developed so that uh there's continuity amongst our schools we've developed processes and forms

163that are used to help our our school administrators make sure that they're meeting the requirements in our regulation and also i mean obviously nrs any questions or concerns about the regulation stacy um not about the regulations and stuff but how is safe voice working do you have the calls increased i don't know that we have specific data on numbers of calls i can tell you that mr stokes and myself are included on all safe voice reports that are made in the district so just from a personal perspective we really have not seen an increase in safe voice reports we do get them on occasion i know many schools when it first came out some schools struggled with being inundated if you will by reports some false reports etcetera we're very fortunate in our community i

164think our parents and our students take it very seriously so that has not been a concern for our site staff and being able to keep up with it we have a wonderful partnership with the sheriff's department so we work very closely with them i'm responding to some of the reports and then our school social workers also um work within the region to cover like summer calls so i think we've really got a good uh process in place for our families and um it's helpful in our cases we do develop really good relationships with families a lot of times students are reporting and parents are reporting not utilizing safe voice they just come directly to the school sites and report to school administration but once when families or students are not feeling um comfortable coming directly

165to the school then they can do it anonymously through safe voice so it does give that that extra added ability to do that um again i can't give you very hard date i apologize but i can tell you um last year i don't know mr stokes i think probably i can count maybe for sure single digits that came across my desk and i can add just a little bit to that because last year was so unique we didn't have the same volume of calls as we had the year before and oftentimes you know the safe boy voice call is generally student to student sometimes it's student or adult to student and so as we received those calls and as we had a chance to work through the details two years ago the volume was much

166different than it was just last year based on the fact that we were on a hybrid schedule i think our our training and stuff is working because i looked at the data on nevada report card and our numbers have constantly consistently gone down in the last three years that we we have data so kudos to you guys for all that you do to to train the staff and and open that up to let people know that it's okay to report it too so thank you absolutely i can tell you again just from an anecdotal perspective i've been very um intrigued uh to see the type of reports that folks make on safevoice and and i mean that in a an open and interested way because our families have um used it not to simply focus

167on bullying and cyber bullying we've had um reports for instance of you know a parent who may be through a conversation with their child is has realized that another child doesn't seem to be bringing lunch to school and there's a concern or you know certain things like that so i think in that case it's been a very positive tool again because in each case that a report is made site administration as well as school counselors and school social workers are tasked with reviewing those those um incident reports when they come in the system works very well so again from my personal perspective what occurs is i get an email that says a report was made to trigger me to go in and to look and so i i go in and i look and i

168make sure that the sites are going in and addressing it and when our sites investigate a report that's made through safevoice then they actually put a resolution in the system so you can see that it's been addressed you can see how it's been addressed and again it's always being monitored so even if a report is made in the middle of the night or on a saturday or sunday there's someone who's monitoring that and checking those reports so it's not something that has to wait until school hours dawn hello okay i just have one quick question on the two day limit you have for investigating issues of bullying and yeah i know there's a provision there for one extra day but for generally can that be completed that timely that investigation it can but i will

169tell you it is extra added stress on our school staffs when it comes to specifically our vice principals in the elementary and typically our deans in the secondary schools there is this takes precedence over everything so when a report of bullying or cyber bullying comes in whatever else is on their their agenda for that day gets dropped and this gets addressed so sometimes that means you know that classroom referral that a teacher made for you know i don't know a student you know getting out of line in class might not be addressed in as timely manner as it would be normally because this has to take precedence so it does and our our site administrators are very well aware of that and um it is very timely bullying investigations are really time intensive because you

170have to of course interview the alleged victim the alleged aggressor as well as any and all potential witnesses you have to get statement i mean it is very very time intensive and then of course reporting to the parents and to the families what's going on and of course we have the timelines to adhere to luckily our families are really um have worked really well with us so we haven't had a problem for instance with being able to communicate to families to say here's where we're at in our investigation we would like to have this additional day that's not really been a problem that's been reported to me but it is very very time intensive and i think sometimes when you look at the increase in administrative staff per se people might say well you know

171why 10 years ago we didn't have that many deans at the high school for instance right or at the middle school what's different now well here's a prime example of what's different now all right we didn't investigate um these things like we do now and so uh it just takes manpower laurel that was one of the things i was going to ask is that do we have enough staff because i remember a few years ago when it seemed like the legislature was changing the bullying statute and requirements every time they met and that seemed to be a real strain on our staff and i think we added a couple additional dean positions to help our is our staff and i i'm guessing last year isn't the best example of it but um do we have

172enough staff to handle this are they able to um keep up with everything this way so i think it would depend on whose opinion you were asking on that one um i i the nice thing for eagle valley is this is the um they do have a dean of students for the first time because of the balancing of the two schools but that means carson middle lost their second dean and the second team was moved over to eagle valley so both middle schools have a principal vice principal and adina students carson high school has two dina students but they also have 2 300 students so i'm not sure that two dean of students necessarily is enough to really address it as well as we would want to what it means is that your other administrators

173are picking up a lot of the other duties i don't know yeah i i don't know that's a hard question to answer because we can always do things better and if we had more staff we could do be a little bit more timely maybe do things a little bit more thoroughly and i'm not talking about bullying because this takes precedence overall i mean maybe making additional attendance phone calls maybe you know doing those types of things i do always feel bad for our deans because since they're administrators we do have them supervise and evaluate teachers we usually give them only a few because it's a entry-level administrative position so you might give a dean of students maybe five or six teachers where your vice principal and principal might have 28. you know what i mean

174but still they'll have you know observations set up and this hits and then they have to reach out to the teacher and say i'm sorry i know i meant to be coming and observing you but i have to i have to put that on the back burner to do this so it is what it is we make do with the resources that we have but um extra help is always helpful a dawn glide just thought of something obviously i i've talked to some of the principals and that is a a concern about the time as far as the time-consuming function here and i was concerned if uh if we're seeing increases in this cyber bullying especially i think what we're seeing some believe it or not as a as i think as uh trustee wilkie

175said we're actually seeing slight declines in some ways and that's because when as trustee crossman said there were so many changes constantly part of what we do as educators is we have to teach kids the difference between someone just being mean and somebody bullying right and that became a very unclear line for a while original definition of bullying was that it had to be pervasive recurring and or really so intense that it was there was no question but the the law kind of changed along the way to make to make it a little bit more no it doesn't have to necessarily be like pervasive etc um so that became a okay how do we teach the kids the difference between this is bullying because somebody's intending to make you feel bad on a continual basis

176right versus especially in a middle school environment sometimes it's more difficult someone gave you a dirty look who actually might have been giving the person behind you a dirty look and it not being you but you perceived it you know and so doing investigations like that so i think as as time has passed we've been able to do some training with students so that that has helped and then also with social emotional learning and the tenants that we teach kids with problem solving and and how to get along and and how to ask for support and help from their counselors or social workers we're able to help our students work through some of those and i think we've been able to teach kids some some coping skills when it comes to well what do i

177do when i encounter this so all those things have been very positive but they again are time intensive so especially as restorative practices you've heard a lot about that versus suspensions that's another thing that takes a lot more time on behalf of our school administrators to actually write restorative plans for behavior versus you're suspended for three days it's the right thing to do because we want to teach appropriate behavior and appropriate replacement behaviors we do know that suspensions are ineffective sending a kid home especially when you have parents at work and the kids than sitting at home by themselves watching tv doing whatever in some cases right is not necessarily the most effective thing we do know i can tell you from being a professional kids hate more than anything is sitting in in-school suspension

178right you take them out of the classroom and say no but you're going to come to school still and you're going to sit in this room and you're going to do so you know just finding other ways to work with kids and re-teach positive behaviors or positive replacement behaviors but again time intensive so as as we as we continue to to build our skills around that we have continued to build some staffing and again that's the reason why we have social workers um through state legislation action is is to help us to address some of those issues but um i don't know it's ever evolving one thing i do want to do um this evening is i just wanted to show you on our school website where families can find safe voice and information about

179safeways so it is on our website and many many places but um first off this is just our our front page so save voices here you can click on that and i'll show you what that looks like when you get there but i want to show you how many other place it is it's on each one of our dashboards so if you go into each of these dashboards they're that same icon in addition to that if you went up here to parents this is actually what i wanted to show you we have our web page called how to be and stay safe we specifically titled it how to be and stay safe and it's also on the student tab too because not everyone knows what safe voice is so we said okay we haven't listed

180a safe voice but we also need to have it listed somewhere else that might trigger someone to go okay i'm going to look there for information so this is how our how to be and stay safe page which gives you information about bullying and cyber bullying what it is what the definition is etc and then this also has the safe voice button when you go to safe voice it actually has um right here this i'm not going to play it for you but this if you clicked on it and it's taking a while to load but that's an actual video tutorial on how to make a report so it's not just here you go here it is and here's all this everything in writing it's you can actually click on that and see a video

181of how to fill out the report they're quite simple um that's the feedback we get from parents and students it's not a difficult process but there is several resources to show our our community members how to use that any other questions that you might have from your own safe voice no i'm seeing none so i'd just like to thank you for the presentation i thought it was a good presentation a lot of good information so thank you thank you we'll move we'll move on to the next item number 13. discussion on proposed changes to ccsd policy superintendent of schools and this is the first reading and it is for discussion only and we have mr stokes thank you mr vice president members of the board for the record richard stokes we are reviewing item number

18213 which is uh proposed changes to board policy 303 at our last school board meeting this document was brought to the board for some review and discussion and from that review and discussion there were only a few changes made one is represented by restating the [Music] reference to the school board of trustees there was some existing language and to try and bring this particular policy up to date with other policies that have been modified recently we tried to follow the naming convention that has been used so far and then the only other change was in item number five where we inserted the strategic plan as part of the expectations of any superintendent to carry out the decisions actions and policies of the board so there's not a lot of recommended changes this particular document is

183in its first reading only which indicates there's still one more time when this document will be available to the board for formal action and changes are there any questions go ahead i don't i don't have any questions i i like the changes that are made i just noticed something though we've got the board of trustees capitalized assistant superintendent and directors capitalized and it seems to me for consistency we'd want to capitalize chief executive officer when we use that term since that is a title right i mean superintendent or is that not title it just seems like if we're saying associate superintendent in capitalization the superintendent position is should also be i don't know maybe it's not well i i think for what it's worth when we refer to the superintendent or the associate superintendent we're

184referring to actual individuals the chief executive officer is more a title or a description of duties saying that the superintendent will be serving in that that role i'm looking to you do you have a question don lupe does does the word serve need to be capitalized um that's what throws you off because it's a heading and so sometimes when you do headings you capitalize um the verbs and the things which is why i want to capitalize chief executive officer in that heading but then it makes me think we need to capitalize in the next sentence too but if we're not going to capitalize it then we would lower case serve i think any suggestions as long as you have consistent use i agree let's let's lower case the serve since we're doing sentences and we're

185not doing it i just had a thought but i don't know i know that it's included here you manage and present a budget but i wonder for the new superintendent if we want to put something there that they advocate for increased funding maybe at the legislature something like that because i think that's what's going to have to happen for the next several sessions if not continuing sessions of the legislature and i would just like to see that being a duty of the superintendent mr vice president do you want to limit it to only budgetary discussions or do you want to increase the verbiage to include all educationally related conditions i like the legislature yeah i i mean i do but i also don't want it to be where that takes away the primary duties so

186i i i'm thinking about how do we use it but how do we how do we say because i think i think that's what you do in the role as they advocate but clearly district prior you know what's happening that day in the district takes priority of going i think that verbiage would be better used in like the superintendent's goals more than it would be in their actual position requirement that may that may be an expectation but maybe not an assigned responsibility whatever the desire of the board is yeah thank you from the peanut gallery thank you any other ideas maybe just for the record it was stated that uh that what tasha fuson from the back row um stated that we could tie advocating to the strategic plan there you go i don't see

187any more questions this will be the last draft of this that comes before the board so if there's any changes at all you guys want to make suggest now's the time you do actually have one more meeting to make recommendations and then it can okay the final motion can be to include any changes okay so we have one more then okay thank you mr stokes okay we're down to item number 14 approval of the consent agenda i move that the carson city school district board of trustees approved the consent agenda as submitted second we have a motion by stacy a second by lupe any board discussion any discussion from the public seeing none i'll go ahead and call for the vote all in favor say aye aye opposition say no a nay sorry see and

188then the motion carriers let me change page here i wonder if i missed something here okay uh just item number 15 for informational items uh for discussion only no action will be taken let's see here it lists the activities and events of upcoming uh i think everybody has in front of them i don't know if i need to read them and then the next we'll move on to item number 16 which is request for future agenda topics i wrote this down because usually later in the night i forget um so i think a future agenda topic should be whether or not to hire a third party um to help with the superintendent search any other suggestions for agenda items i have none either but i agree with you now we're down to item number this

189is adjournment at 9 00 9 24. thank you guys kevin thank you for staying throughout the meeting that was [Music] [Applause] so [Music] you