NBSD Board Meeting 8-26-21

001okay next next we'll have the roll call and i see how many board members one two three are we missing anybody all here okay all right thank you very much all right with that we will move on to item two agenda changes and approval of the agenda are there any recommended agenda changes i recommend that we table the critical race theory agenda okay that is you're recommending that we table item eight so is that a motion yes at the moment that's a second okay is there any uh debate on this topic before we proceed um i i think that's actually i mean a wonderful idea we need time to take into uh account all of the emails that we received today the hearing that we're gonna or the public comments that we're gonna hear tonight

002and i think there's some language in there that could be cleaned up it's a little slippery slope at this point but i think it would be good for all of us to sit down and really work together as a team because ultimately that's what we're here to do is work together to improve the lives of our children and i think that that's a wonderful plan yeah i agree i agree with that statement i would like to make a couple comments on this before we uh we move to a vote and uh i view this as an important topic for the new board to establish a policy on so the citizens parents teachers understand the new board's position i would like to state that the term critical race theory does not appear in the north bend

003school district curriculum documents i reviewed now that was primarily the high school and i've been informed by the director of curriculum that it is not there so but i would like to say that there was a training session conducted in the north bend school district for classified employees that included specific elements that were prohibited in the teaching of critical race theory and that included two three-hour consecutive training sessions for classified employees and those are teachers aids maintenance food service folks so with that is is there any further comment on this before we proceed to a vote your silence is okay all the a's none so it's this will be tabled and we will revisit this at the next board meeting okay all right next moving on we will have uh item three gary schultz of

004north bend donation of school supplies i guess that's just a thank you correct and then moving on to item four public participation i'm going to read the statement here the board welcomes comments and questions from the public uh if you wish to address the board i think a lot a number of you have signed up and uh gone ahead to make public statement uh we do ask that you limit your comments to three minutes uh if more than one person is addressing the same topic we may ask that you know we're gonna pick we're going to high grade what's here if there's multiple speakers on the same topic and speakers may offer objective criticism school operations and programs but the board will not hear comments regarding individual school personnel and board members may choose to

005ask follow-up questions or not so with that let me just have a quick look uh here okay so these are crt only multiple topics [Music] as he's getting that one we have just for our board we have a three minute timer you'll see it has a green light um when the three minutes will start and i guess for our audience as well um after you do your introduction in your name and where you're where you live we begin the timer as you begin your comments there's a three minute timer at 30 seconds it'll blink yellow and at the end of three minutes you'll see it blink red no buzzer or anything like that um so i just wanted to show you kind of we've been a new uh board management tool that we've incorporated okay

006uh let's so we have multiple we have 30 minutes maximum that'll probably be with with changing some folks that'll probably be about eight folks plus or minus uh let's go ahead and start off with mr dustin hood you did mr hood thank you sorry i showed up a little bit sounds like the topic [Laughter] yes yes please go ahead all right [Music] thanks for letting me uh have the opportunity to speak to you folks um i've been in this district for 20 years as a teacher of united states history and i do have some serious concerns about the critical race theory um uh document being presented i guess not tonight but maybe you're gonna have a conversation about that i'm glad to see that the document not to acknowledge that north bend school district has

007existing policies regarding harassment and non-discrimination but i am troubled by some of the language in the proposal there using the declaration of independence quote right off of that statement stated all men are created equal seems a bit disingenuous as that document was not referring to all men when it was created uh and there was no mention of women that did not change a decade later when the constitution was written um that said uh we the people uh and not all the people were represented in that statement since our founding we've tried to live up to the vision of these documents in order to create a more perfect union this has been hard work and work that continues and requires accuracy and a collective effort if i were to point out or ask students what uh

008uh you know we the people or all men are created equal um i fear that i might be visited uh saying i was teaching critical race certainly just by virtue of asking them to think critically about these documents um mr holt could you please um i don't know if it's hello but can you please remove your mask while you're speaking are you having trouble hearing me eating i'm i'm [Music] so we can hear you thank you dustin okay yeah you bet thank you uh let's see so um i fear i might be reprimanded if this resolution passes so my job is to teach historical accuracy and as you are well aware race does come up in united states history and the history of american democracy critical race theory is not pedagogy and it's simply not

009happening in our classrooms i've never been asked personally whether i teach critical race theory in my curriculum i do not in fact i only became aware of this theory during the spring when groups like the heritage foundation uh with the backing of political groups with deep pockets started using the term to refer to anything related to racial equity and swamping school board meetings across the nation to create chaos i have to say i think we as a community and as a school district are better than that um you know better than this attempt [Applause] better than this attempt to stir up emotions uh and tempers to score cheap political points the reality is that young people are curious they're going to want to talk about issues related to race and other identities as educators we

010need to equip them with the tools they need to think about all kinds of issues including race identity and democracy within historical context as my former teaching partner local historian and um active community uh member steve greif said uh this policy seems like a solution in search of a problem if this is something the board feels strongly about as apparently a few of you do perhaps setting up a committee in a long-term conversation would be a better approach it's this topic's far too hot um and beyond a single meeting with limited opportunity for discussion as many of you also know real progress that really hap that really matters happens slowly uh over time with discretion and restraint thank you thank you mr hood thank you for coming forward [Applause] so next up let's have michael

011brainard good evening uh my name is michael brainard i'm an alumni from the norfolk school district and i live in north bend tonight i'm speaking in support of resolution 21-10 and i'll go ahead and leave my comments off her 11th since she has tabled in the government there is a hierarchy the state executive branch goes the people or the voters and the governor kate brown cape brown represents what the people want or that's how the governor's position is supposed to work school boards you have the people who vote for the school board and they represent the interest of the voters and then the school board votes on what they would like to see happen with the schools and then the superintendent go ahead and execute what they're asking the state of oregon has been overreaching

012its authority for several years i applaud the norfolk school board and considering the adoption of 2021-10 if passed northland school board would be joining several counties sheriffs and school districts such as the redmond school district who last night voted to demand decision making be brought to the local level everyone should have a voice in local government the state is trying to silence the majority sixty percent of the people pulled in the northland school district don't want to wear masks before kate brown's restrictions this board was prepared to let people choose for themselves if they want to wear a mask or not at school or on school property so those who are strong on requiring mass they could wear a mask and those who are against it didn't have to instead kate brown made a mandate

013that skipped over the county's authority the city and the school board and also while tonight's meeting won't be talking about kate brown's recent mandate for employees volunteers and visitors of being massed for being vaccinated i feel this too is also also an overreach by kate brown which should be decided at a more local level i'd like to close with a historical story in the late 1940s the us government started action to withdraw recognition of some indian tribes my tribe the koos tribe had voted to strongly oppose termination however without their knowledge or consent they were included in the western oregon termination act of 1954. the blatant lack of participation in the process is most evident among the indians of the southwest oregon the koos never passed resolution in favor of termination they were adamantly opposed

014to it in 1948 the accused lord uncle sent 48 delegates to the celebs reservation to express her disapproval of termination but they were not allowed to make their case as they had been locked out of the meeting they were told the termination bill had nothing to affect them what cape brown is doing is locking people up decision making and the other and i think that i support resolution 21 because i think the local area should decide not k brown all right thank you michael brander [Applause] next up sammy pearson sami pearson north bend resident and parent i've already emailed in my more detailed comments on the individual agenda items but i would like to address the agenda in general it's sad to see a board agenda with no real substance and no value to the

015parents and students of this district instead of wasting time on agenda item seven an exemption exception the governor is not going to grant why isn't the school board spending time examining things like the summer program discussing whether it achieved the goals of getting kids on track for graduation recovering skills that they had lost assisting parents with their needs why isn't the board discussing whether this type of program needs to be added to district priorities why aren't we discussing relevant things why isn't facilities on the agenda the district spends a lot of money on that and has been doing a lot of work this seems like a great time to inform these parents what's going on instead of wasting time about talking about number eight which has been tabled it's a theory that does that appears

016in higher education not in k-12 it is a waste of time shouldn't the board be spend time discussing you know is the school district ready for this year do we have enough teachers do we have enough support staff these are the things parents want to know where is this information said we are wasting our time and just for an added bit just to add that little bit of explosiveness putting the right to life training on the agenda really way to add that extra layer of fireworks to this community shouldn't the board be concentrating on training such as budgetary process so they understand complicated school funding or how about training on what's happening in the legislature that affects school districts you know trainings on the actual school board roles and responsibilities this agenda is generally a

017waste of time and seems designed only to further upset people on all sides of all issues stop the grandstanding and concentrate on our students their families their needs our community is suffering enough right now and you are not helping thank you samantha next up julie king next up jimmy king julie kane north bend i would like to start off if you would like to join me please do but it's going to be the lord's prayer our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not in temptation but deliver us from evil for that is the kingdom the

018power and the glory forever amen that needs to be the center we need god back there is too much divide like she said it's creating divide between both sides there's too much hatred too much and it's affecting our kids the kids are being yo-yoed back and forth with these awful mask mandates i've pulled my kids they're now doing online because i refuse to have them masked even with the mask breaks that's ridiculous it needs to be done as far as the mandating of vaccinations for your support staff teachers that's wrong it's everybody's choice to do what they want to do if you want to get a vaccination get it if you don't don't shouldn't be bullied or pushed out of a job or worry about the threat of losing a license if you're in the

019position to lose a license and you're in the position to stand up and do what you're supposed to it is i'm sorry i'm getting very emotional pushing the teachers to do this is going to make them resign we need good educators you're going to be left down with the worst of the worst who don't care who are only in it for a paycheck even though it may not be that good i do want to let people know that they do have options with a vaccine if you go to clinicaltrials.gov and go down to the exclusions on this you can be excluded from it you just have to do your research if you've taken medication for the intent of preventing covid including zinc zpac vitamin c vitamin d the flu shot it is an exclusion so

020if you try to force that it's even on the fire on the vaccines exclusion list to not take that people need to read and look into that very seriously the last thing that i'm going to say is there was a ruling in the united states supreme court shortly after the civil war again 1866 which still stands to this day neither the legislator nor any executive or judicial officer may disagree the may disregard the provisions of the constitution in case of an emergency section 98 therefore anyone who declares the suspension of constitutional guaranteed rights to freely travel peacefully assemble earn a living freely worship or do or and or attempts to enforce such suspension within 50 independent sovereign continental united states of america is making war against our constitution and therefore we the people they violate

021their constitutional oath and thus immediately forfeit their office and authority and their proclamations may be disregarded with the impunity and many more even the governor or president and if you can't hold up to that then you need to step down and get out of your office thank you thank you julie [Applause] nandi segura kodak [Music] madam chairwoman and members of this board i stand before you today after reading resolution number 2021-11 and implore this import this board excuse me could you maybe move the microphone down toward your mouth a little bit thank you mr jordan i'm short i implore this board to allow me to explain how critical race theory may be being misinterpreted and how this can have a negative impact on our children and our community in their health and in education terms

022of health as a first responder myself a nurse and a teacher i have seen in oregon texas and in florida how there is but one biological race the human race and it is our own social constructs our own cultures and our own perceptions of history that shape the geopolitical boundaries and our own divisions but our interpretations of critical race theory can be understood through biology and health and if allowed i can help with this in a continued conversation i want you to understand and i ask this board why do you think there is such an emphasis of the holocaust in our schools but not much of a mention of the genocide happening to that white german people the firebombing of dresden orchestrated by the british why do you think you don't hear about your own

023genocides the european genocides against other white people these are not taught because the victors wrote the history books ask churchill himself these gaps in our history are preventing us for completely and totally loving and knowing one another completely without political correctness we can lift each other up with the tenets of critical race theory because as i have said there is only one human biological race and at its root you are correct it is socio-economic status that dictates the health and many of the social problems that we have in this community and be it the master the bosses or the slave trade labor exploitation is not good for any american not white nor black nor green or red i am from the south of this country i have experienced racism and i know that there is

024love here in this room and i know that if we work together to understand how children should know their history all of it the good the bad and the ugly we can find a way past it move forward make progress and love one another i thank you i thank you all of you i afford my time thank you next up dallas feeder brink that's petenbrink my bad that's all right i'm a north bend resident some of you guys know me so uh good evening thank you for letting me speak to you guys tonight so we've heard a lot of people talk i'm sure we'll hear more people talk about having critical race theory taught in north bend schools and i'll likely make some of the same points so i apologize if you have to hear

025it again but many of the points and many of the points are important and bear repeating so let me begin critical race theory and any other curricula like it is antithetical to the american experiment the idea of an independent america was initially improbable idea the idea that a colony could throw off an oppressive government the most powerful nation on earth at the time and form a nation where democracy and freedom was able to succeed was a political miracle we are now much like then an imperfect union but one that is dedicated to growing and becoming better but we will not be able to do that if the idea of america becomes watered down and ignored critical race theory does not intend to make us a more perfect union it does not teach us that we

026are all created equal it actively wants to replace our society with a marxist leninist one abraham lincoln said america will never be destroyed by from the outside if we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves critical race theory will destroy america critical race theory seeks to make each one of us either an oppressor or the oppressed in the minds of children this can only seek to spawn resentment blame guilt fear and silence the ultimate goal seems to be to further divide america along racial lines you can see this in places where this ideology is accepted and implemented and that racism and segregation are making a comeback graduation ceremonies become separated along color lines as do study spaces in atlanta they even had segregated classrooms how do children learn to interact

027with people who do not look like them if they did not spend time doing so i don't think the proponents of critical ranks theory care what i do know is that curriculu this curriculum intends to change the idea of america in the most vulnerable of us critical race theory will indoctrinate children to accept racial group equity and turn away from individual equal opportunity which is the basis of our constitution and our laws it will teach them that since our society was created by a majority white society then we are systematically or structurally racist which is just not true here's a quote from the 1776 report america's founding principles are true not because any generation including our own has lived them perfectly but because they are based upon the eternal truths of the human condition they

028are red they are rooted in our capacity for evil and our power for good our longing for truth and striving for justice our need for order and our love of freedom above all else these principles recognize the worth equality potential dignity and glory of each and every man and woman and child police do not impose this curriculum based on the order of a governor who doesn't even believe the students have the basic reading writing and arithmetic to graduate i would ask that you reject critical race theory for the good of our community our country and the children thank you mr peterborough [Applause] next up martha mcgregor hi thank you for the privilege of speaking today i'm a resident of north bend my name is martha greger and i also go by meg gregor um i'm

029a fourth grade teacher at hillcrest elementary and i also have a master's degree in american history i submitted written comment as well my verbal comments are different from but complementary to my written comments my written comments um put forth an explanation of institutional racism that i thought might be helpful i would like to discuss with my verbal comments now how to go about changing curriculum if there's an interest in that in our community positive change in the curriculum that enhances learning for students comes from involving teachers it could also involve parents staff and students and the school board this resolution resolution um 2021-11 is a molotov cocktail for our community really it's a mashup of conservative talking points that left me wondering who the audience for this resolution really is this this document is designed

030to get a reaction and it it has specifically it's designed to galvanize people in the worst possible way over vitriolic talking points that are not based in reality here's an example of how this document has no basis in reality critical race theory is grouped with white supremacy and anti-semitism as ills to our society white supremacy is an ideology that supported the enslavement and exploitation of millions of african-americans anti-semitism is an attitude that led to pogroms and the holocaust which exterminated millions of people critical race theory is an upper-level academic analysis of racism in laws and institutions it has not led to anyone's death it should not be included as a social ill along with anti-semitism and white supremacy one thing that distressed me in this resolution is that empathy is sort of described as a

031weakness for our students students it says should not feel guilt or anguish about their race but no one is saying that because of america's racist history white people should feel bad all the time we understand that the present and past with more has more nuance than that but our feelings also help us understand history in the written comments i submit i also include a couple of photographs that are from our time period of segregation in this country and one of the photographs i include is that of elizabeth eckford one of the little rock nine attending her first day of school she's a teenager being screamed at by a white mob over a thousand white residents of the town gathered to yell racial slurs at her and her classmates her black classmates an advocate they'd be

032advocate they'd be lynched so i want to include that and when i look at that photograph and i hope you have a copy of that too i do feel empathy for her and i also feel anguish and discomfort looking at that photograph and i think those are reasonable reactions to that photograph so our empathy we need to feel empathy when we see someone who's suffering and suffering because of institutionalized racism in this case so i think that our students are much braver than you give them credit for i think that they are hungry to know this information they're hungry to know these facts in a historical context and it's appropriate to talk about institutionalized racism racism that was enshrined in law such as segregation to high school students once again i really think that crafting

033curriculum for students that's effective for them needs to involve teachers it's a very nuanced and thoughtful process and it should be a much a longer process and involve much more community members and teachers this resolution is really the opposite of that thank you for your time yeah well we've got time for one more and we'll go with brian dugan [Music] okay well thank you for uh letting me speak my name is brian duggan i do live in coos bay oregon my daughter is a north bend high school senior for this year go bulldogs so today i'd like to speak about three issues uh i will dear to my time first is resolution 20 21 10 in regards to opposing the statewide mass mandate i do believe this is a short-sighted resolution and i think it

034belies the ideal ideology of maybe some members of the board i don't think it should be put forward during this time period we are facing the delta variant which is highly contagious we have more and more people in the hospitals so if i have uh i do have a heart condition so if i need to go to the hospital then that's a threat um let's see the drop you know as i said the delta variant is actually more um is more contagious but the mask had proven to keep down this virus when we needed to we were almost out of this but now we're facing another thing i am tired of wearing these masks i'm tired of the kova just like the rest of you and everyone else uh just before we were all standing

035saying i pledge allegiance to the flag that's what americans do right and what do americans do they come together as community but this rugged individualism of me first and uh you know screw the rest and screw the collective that's not americanism i don't know what's happened to the country that people no longer want to look out for their neighbor look out for their others wear a mask and do the appropriate thing until we can beat this finally and for sure i also want to speak on resolution 21 excuse me 2021 11 on the critical race theory when uh i read that resolution to me it was as if i was reading uh a knee-jerk reaction from someone someone coming from a place of fear someone who's willing to give away their power to to whomever

036they might be debating critical race theory like the lady before me had mentioned is a critical analysis of our institutions of our history in a way that we could root out and recognize and identify or by excuse me our bias and excuse me i also get nervous uh speaking publicly however so critical race theory uh i think this resolution is also short-sighted please i urge you to vote no on this i urge you obviously you tabled this and uh it'll be for more discussion i urge the board to potentially consider uh equity diversity inclusion training to learn more about this this is not a threat to our students it is not a threat to our community this is looking at uh history with the truth and the ability for reconciliation one final thing i would

037like to talk on is resolution or excuse me is uh the agenda item number 11. i'm not quite sure exactly what this is but it seems like the board is looking to take some sort of right to life training i'm at i'm at a loss exactly why this is on a school board agenda my daughter and her uterus is not your business do not get involved get your hands get your mind off the uterus her reproductive future is her own choice thank you thank you mr durgan i want to thank all the public for turning out we we got to hear eight uh public testimonies i'm thankful that the people had the courage to come out here and speak their mind so there's some we didn't get to but we're going to move on in

038the agenda so we can accomplish all the business we have before us this evening okay next up we have communications item and then 5a board reports and communication were there any board i do chair recognizes christina simpson oh julie sorry i don't know exactly where um any of this fits in sorry i'm new but um i have to make my voice heard as far as i was an elected board member by the community and i have things that i need to say about some of the things that have been brought up tonight um so as a representative of those who have voted for me um i have a responsibility to be their voice in the difficult times in the avenues and there have been many emails from doctors and nurses and teachers and parents and

039even people who do not live in our district um the wonderful thing about being an elected person by the people is an amazing way for our community to be heard and not drowned out by the state or anyone else the voters have spoken and have voiced their concerns to me and other members of the board and we have made these resolutions based on the community input that we have received and the desires of how our local schools are run um our schools belong to our community and our families and our students and not the state and not the people who have letters behind their names to think that they are more qualified to make these decisions based on their so-called education i have been placed into this position by the community and i plan to

040stand firm in my beliefs and my values and represent those who hold to those same truths and as far as it goes for the um for item number 11 with the oregon right to live training it's just a board opportunity for training that's all it is it's just an opportunity for training okay thank you any other board reports okay we will chair jordan i was just wondering um do we have any flexibility on the 30-minute time frame for people who came prepared with things tonight i'd like to give them an opportunity to also speak and i don't know how many people have prepared um to speak tonight but if we have some flexibility on that yeah is there a motion then to extend that time period we did eight and there's let me see how

041many more i'll make that motion to extend that time period second oh all in favor aye all right so we'll go ahead and extend 15 minutes we will go with can we actually get just a raise of hands of who else hasn't spoken tonight that is hoping to speak so three four okay the gentleman right there in the blue check shirt sitting in the front row there you go okay thank you good evening my name is jim yokom i live out north of town for more than four decades excuse me uh mr yelken can you bring the microphone a little closer to you so we can hear it thank you sir maybe thanks at any rate my children and now my grandchildren are going to district 13 north bend i asked the board chairman has

042the board discussed oregon senate bill yes or no i have not discussed it go ahead and tell us about it please that is the quietly passed legislation by the senate and then quietly signed by governor brown that lowers the standards and regulations for graduation from high school for the next three years as the board discussed that we have not answered yet you have not we have not do you plan to yes that's good because all my life i have never lowered standards regulations or expectations for either my children or my grandchildren and i don't expect that to be done at the high school thank you thank you [Applause] thank you sir the gentleman sitted seated behind him you rose you crazed your hand hey it's kind of you for letting me uh address everyone thank

043you my name is anthony collins i'm a north bend resident and being really transparent i'm a former board member uh i'm a tenured professor at southwestern and uh know most of the people in this room um and what i'd like you to do tonight is to vote down this resolution uh 2110. the the reasoning behind that is what i hope to add now um the the the biggest resource obviously in the district are the children and the families here uh maybe maybe the taxpayers you know like uh i'm kind of voted out like i have kids in the district 14 years um i had a coronavirus senior two years ago and then my daughter you know we watched her from the stands uh on the field this summer so yeah coronavirus sucks i get it

044i'm there i'm there with you um you know i haven't seen so many people at a board meeting until i took over when we were laying off 30 people because of the economic crisis in 2009. you know i'm not as old as graber but you know i've been around and the the thing i'm trying to get at why i want you to vote this down tonight is in order to focus on those taxpayers and to focus on those children and families probably that third most important resource an extraordinary resource in our district is our certified and classified staff now mr hood was here and you know everybody likes to say democracy i get that but we don't live in a democracy we live in a federated republic to the republic for which it stands it

045is enormously important if we want to exercise our rights as citizens that we do it with the bodies that control those regulations and that is at the state you can't make our certified and classified violate what they are supposed to do maybe you you don't like english language learners for whatever reason maybe you think special education is a hoax but you cannot resolve to change that that is federal law you have to go do the work there you can't make changes in something that is not governed by this group thanks for letting me speak everyone thank you for all of your work thank you mr collins [Applause] could i have a raise of hands of those speakers still remaining the young lady in the white thank you uh [Music] so on the topic of critical

046race theory oh yeah uh violet davis um i'm a recently graduated student of north bend high school um anyways i feel like there's a misconception that critical race theory is put in place to like make people feel ashamed for history but the thing is it's not all history i feel like it's something that if school doesn't teach us about it then life's going to teach us anyways because when i was in high school i um learned slurs and racist terminology from other students calling me them before i even took a history class um i don't know would it be appropriate to quote them probably not okay but yeah it was there was quite a lot of racism in the school whether people want to acknowledge it or not and the term critical race theory was

047not even commonly used in the media before fox news started slandering it and no one really cared about it until they were told to care about it and so i believe that being against learning about critical race theory is just another way to create a divide between americans and continue the culture war grip which dates back prior to the red scare in 1917 and we need to understand racism and over in order to overcome division um a primary complaint is that learning it makes rate seem more important than it is but you could really only make that argument if you don't know what race is the concept of whiteness was invented as a purity contest and you were you were considered impure if you were jewish italian irish black asian latino or anything else and

048whiteness was a measure in the past of like how good you were i think if you move closer to the bike we might get rid of that um so race was invented did it turn off um was invented to divide people and so you would be privileged to think that it doesn't still divide people even in our local schools so why is it that non-white students should have to learn about racism firsthand at school from other students but then those students don't have to understand what they're putting us through and why do why do they not get to understand you know and there are students from this school who are caught on video saying that they hate black people and they and it's like i feel like they could have known better if they had

049been taught about it okay thank you violet ma'am thank you they're all saying the same thing what yeah my name's charlotte hutt i'm a past parent here a grandparent of three four wonderful children that my daughter who went through north north bay elementary loved mr smith there was a fantastic teacher for her um she lives in thailand now and my four grandchildren have been in masks for 18 months and it's been absolutely wonderful they've been able to continue with school and they haven't had a major outbreak they've been blessed lucky with that and i see in reading what you're writing to with item number seven with masks here you're concerned about the physiology the psychology and the developmental impacts of masks i think we all are and we're also concerned about the physiology the psychology

050and the developmental impacts of not masking my kids my grandkids are extremely grateful and proud that they are serving their community and they tell me that on our zoom meetings and everybody is collaborating and it's not easy all the time and um the people there in chiang rai they just got the vaccination there my daughter and my son-in-law just finally were able to get vaccinated you asked about suicide prevention i think that we all are concerned about suicide prevention and we need our schools to stay open to help and i hope we have good suicide prevention teams here but i was just reading in the wall street journal three days ago that the schools and the districts that they're seeing closed most often don't have mask mandates right now so i hope as whoever makes

051this decision i you know i i i agree with uh the swac uh teacher here who says that it's a state decision to make they have experts they have more people in the medical field to help i was just looking at the co i'll just decide whose health and wellness just a couple of days ago published a graph that i have seen misused so much i'm a mathematics professor i did teach at swat care and i moved and went on to a different school but they produced it on a logarithmic scale do you know how many people can't understand a logarithmic scale so it flattens the numbers and it makes it look like it's not growing here as fast as it is i think we're all concerned and we want what's best for these kids

052and for our community and so whatever your decision about who's going to decide i hope you're using the best information i think i've mentioned yeah the wall street journal it is state law um and it is the governor's decision to make by law and i hope everybody does know that um i also don't want to see all this battle going on in the community just like everybody else i'd rather see it going on in salem thanks thank you hello my name is mikka levitt i'm a coos county resident thank you so much for allowing me to speak tonight i'm speaking today in opposition to proposed resolution 2021-11 which aims to prohibit teaching of critical race theory in the north bend school district so i know north bend school district is ethically obligated to follow professional

053codes of ethics this includes maintenance of a safe space for all individuals and realizes that knowledge empowers to emit critical race theory is to do our youth a disservice as it would promote a white supremacist culture that allows bullying and other discriminatory actions to take place against often stigmatized and oppressed youth our youth to prohibit teaching critical race theory is to reaffirm systemic racism by prohibiting educators from utilizing the crt framework in their lessons crt is not a policy that advocates discrimination it is a theoretical approach which focuses on the systemic inequalities of our social and economic institutions the proposed resolution ignores the actual definition of critical race theory and distracts us from what education should include critical thinking skills and ability to analyze issues from multiple perspectives as well as a validation of varying

054lived experiences this resolution as currently written is itself a racist policy that seeks to reinforce the educational system's marginalization of race in our history as well as contemporary life this passage would signal to our communities of color and allies that the district is not interested in addressing its own role in challenging systems of oppression and will instead preempt to preemptively act in order to maintain the status quo of racial oppression i just i know that's second backing up what a lot of other folks have said and i just um really want to affirm and as an individual say that i think that critical race theory is something for the higher academic institutions but should not be omitted from all education there should not be a prohibition of of any type of knowledge that is being

055presented especially when it's based in critical thinking skills and i also agree with the mask mandates that have been said it's a state a state decision and we are a community and we need to think about each other not just ourselves it is a right to dress how we want to dress but this is a safety concern and so wearing a mask protects not only myself but others that are around me and so i would encourage folks to mask as able because it it protects all of us from the delta variant and other government can you please clarify mask is able um i know that there are some folks who have sensory problems or challenges um or who have difficulty breathing so if you're not able to wear a mask there's face shields there's other

056protections i think that we need to be as protective as possible vaccines have been around for centuries and so this is nothing new to require a new vaccine and so i just think that we need to be inclusive when we're thinking about everybody and not just ourselves and our own comfort although i know some folks have limitations thank you cheryl davies [Applause] so we we've reached the end of our 15 minutes uh we have two more i have two more sheets does the board want to finish only if they're different than what has been already been said exactly uh chair can you clarify so we have more people that are wanting to speak tonight is there more people that wish to speak tonight and say something that hasn't been said negative all right thank you

057again for all the public commentary we had tonight thank you okay next up we have the north bend education association report presenter christina guyermann [Music] hi everybody um there's no way that we can set board policy and have all of our parents students and teachers agree with them but the two resolutions that we've set forth tonight one of them tabled have really served to polarize the district i mean my email box is full my phone's been ringing off the hook for the last several days as president of the north bend association i education association i am in a nonpartisan position i represent teachers who are liberals progressives and moderates thus i'll be limiting my comments to how your two policies will affect our teachers we last met in july i thought we were going to

058have a normal fall i was looking forward to teaching without a mask but the delta variant changed both our plans and governor brown's promise of local control over this issue your teachers did not create the pandemic nor the politics surrounding it up until last year most of us had never taught online and in general were just not as good at educating your kids online as we are in the classroom none of my colleagues are excited to be wearing masks again but we're willing to do it if our means our students have less risk of contacting coven and that we'll have greater chance of keeping our kids in the school buildings where we can teach them more effectively [Applause] superintendent bogatan's statement in conjunction with several other local superintendents asking parents to send their children to

059school wearing masks made us feel supported but your resolution has us worried we're legally required to enforce the mask mandate in our classroom and your resolution doesn't change that i had a couple of instances last spring of students who objected to wearing masks and whom i constantly had to monitor to keep them wearing the masks properly now a student could judge my efforts to keep my class mask find them wanting and have their parents report me to tspc to try and take away my license now that's not your fault this new rule comes from the oregon department of education and governor brown but we're worried that the only effect your mask resolution will have is to increase the number of non-compliant students that our teachers have to deal with in the classrooms putting our livelihood

060at risk your resolution now tabled to ban the teaching of critical race theory hurts us we are all professionals who encourage critical thinking in our classrooms nobody in the north bend school district has been teaching critical race theory we chose this course of action not because we're trying to advance any sort of political agenda but because we recognize this theory is too advanced and nuanced for the k-12 classroom your resolution to ban critical race theory has made many of my members wonder why you didn't trust them this includes our outstanding american history teacher i don't know if he's still here mr dustin hood did you guys know before covet he actually went to harvard to take place in their caves methods project and he learned from the best historians in america how to use well-documented

061case study narratives about historical events to encourage his students to think critically about the past i'm very proud that he's my colleague and you can trust him to do his job without advancing a political agenda and if any of our teachers step out of line and we say something in class that's construed as too liberal too conservative or just wrong we hear about it if a student a parent or in their parents find our content objectionable the principal talks with the teacher figures out what happens happen and works with the teacher to rectify the situation so we already have a checks and balances system in place that seems to be working we seek to educate your children not indoctrinate them please trust us to do our jobs your resolution to ban critical race theory is

062unnecessary and it's upset a great number of teachers please do not pass it i sincerely hope that at our next meeting we can focus on the urgent mission of how to steer our school district through the third year of the pandemic without getting sidetracked bipartisan politics [Applause] your two resolutions have had the same effect as if you declared the oregon state beavers the official college football team of the north bend school district some of us support you we do some of us are offended by you and many of us are just wondering why we're talking about this [Applause] thank you christina next up we have the superintendent report mr kevin bogata well thank you everyone i just want to announce today we welcome new teachers to the north bend school district yeah exciting day our

063district brings back our new teachers for orientation prior to the first day today was filled with a lot of introductions some nuts and bolts a little magic from the superintendent and from every department uh with also some beginning professional development tomorrow we welcome 17 new classified staff for orientation and both of our groups will be participating in some joint professional development including a program called darkness to light which is a training on child sexual abuse prevention on monday april august 30th all of our district staff are back in buildings as we work to prepare for the upcoming school year i'm excited to welcome and introduce our new community outreach and communications coordinator jason moore jcy wave there's jason jason is a familiar face to north bend as he has previously worked for us as an

064attendance advocate and is currently teaching a drama course with our third through fifth grade students at north bay um last week he also taught some k k2 group some drama so we he has been in our schools as part of our summer school programs jason comes to us from the little theater on the bay he's has over 20 years of experience in community outreach marketing and communications we're excited to have him join our team funding for jason's position is coming from the student investment account where a priority has been placed on engaging our community improving communications at all levels welcome jason i wanted to give you a a another update on enrollment yesterday i will just say i'll apologize for getting a little ahead of myself and getting maybe excited that we're a positive enrollment

065so yesterday i shared that our north bend high school enrollment numbers of 753 i found out today that that number is not completely accurate it still includes students who have not fully registered so we are currently at 647 which is 86 students below that projected number the high school is currently following up with each of those families and i expect that number to continue to change and grow over the next few weeks so our projected enrollment was 2127 students we currently have enrolled which i would say a pretty confirmed signed up 2044 which still is 83 students short of our projected it is also i would say at august 26th fairly early in this process even though i know school starts you know in a week and a half but we do get a lot

066of enrollments completed registrations all the things especially at the secondary level um in the last few weeks so hang with us i will give you updates as we go along on august 10th we had our district leadership team retreat we spent the morning conducting some building team building activities including an interactive computer program activity that was a lot of fun for our group the rest of our day we were joined by galen emanuel expert community facilitator in building culture his work with us has the goal of transforming the way teams and schools approach and establish culture and how humans perform together and impact each other at work his unique content was full of actionable tools to massively improve team dynamics communication and generated a high level of performance and engagement i'm excited to work on

067developing a cohesive inter intentional positive culture of high-level engagement that brings out the best in each one of us i'll be working with our administrative team this fall as we work to develop the north bend culture and begin to share and consistently implement those principles in the coming year our summer schools have come to a close i think today was the official last day of that and every report i've received has been nothing but positive that doesn't happen by accident i want to thank all of our staff teachers educational assistants cooks custodians maintenance bus drivers and all of our summer planning team for putting together really an amazing summer program for kids at all levels i know i've heard maybe some interest from the board to hear more about that summer learning and they would

068be happy to come and share some of the amazing things that occurred over the summer we also have plans of tracking those students progress so that we really know the impact of participating in these summer programs has maybe not into direct academic immediate outcome but do these kids show up more do they have better relationships do they are they graduating so we'll be looking at some other metrics and sharing that so really we can encourage more folks and more of our students to participate next summer i want to give you a brief update on our our charter school oregon virtual academy oregon uh their enrollment currently stands at 2096 students uh they have 171 new students and others that they are currently processing orbit was projected to be at 3092 which is 996 students fewer

069than their current enrollment i'm meeting with the orva's new executive director jamie styles next week and i will be included in there we'll get an update on their current enrollment as we get closer to the first day of school i'm pretty confident they're not going to reach they're in projection she told me uh through email today that they're expected to maybe hit around 2500 by the time they've completed all of their registration process we will make sure that we're working with them so that they get the funding for the kids that they have but we also don't overpay them because that becomes creates kind of lots of issues so we shouldn't have any issues with with oregon virtual i also want to give you an update um oregon's oregon virtual academy's contract expires at the

070end of february uh february 2022. so prior to orva hiring a new executive director we agreed to hold orva's public hearing regarding their renewal non-renewal that is required by state statute on september 30th 2021 so here just in another bottom month with a change in leadership and a desire by both parties to focus on the start of school we've mutually agreed to extend the timeline and have a meeting scheduled next week to outline a proposed timeline for renewal non-renewal i've indicated that the district would not object to extending our timeline beyond the end of the current contract so that february deadline so that we'd be okay we're going to be drafting an mou to kind of solidify that and bring that forward to this board the district has contracted with oregon school boards association to

071help support the district in our process of renewal and complete a full review and of the current operations and support us in negotiating a new contract that additional time will be helpful so that we can do a complete and full review and so i know that they won't be disappointed to hear that we're extending so again without unless there's any objection i will come back with an mou but we won't be holding a public hearing on september 30th good and finally i want to share just a little bit of sports today um after a challenging year with high school athletics we begin this school year with our first athletic competition of the year as our cross country team heads to roseburg for the umpqua opener north north bend is joined by 10 other cross-country teams

072from across the state as they race their first 5k of the season next tuesday our first crosstown rivalry game takes place as our boys soccer team squares off with marshfield this is an away game that starts at 6 30. our volleyball team also kicks off the season next tuesday night with an away game at churchill high school in eugene at 6 45 pm girls soccer begins its season on wednesday with their first home game against marshfield our turf field isn't quite ready for these early season contests so our home soccer matches are going to be held at southwestern oregon community college i want to send a huge thank you to swac for their support as we wait for our field to be completed in the coming weeks our soccer teams also play on thursday against

073sutherland and volleyball is on the road again at eagle point high school finally our football team kicks off their season with a home game on saturday at 2 p.m against crater high school again this game is being hosted by marshfield high school again because our turf project has had some unexpected delays due to the covet supply chain we do appreciate marshfield's hospitality for hosting our football team at this point i'll just we will have an update there was a comment i can't remember by who around facilities that's typically an agenda item that we have in september we have have done that each year that i've been here we will we are planning to have mark heckel our facilities supervisor come and update the board on all the projects going we probably will have a few

074people like mr forrester come and address some of the delays and give you a little update on when the field turf will be done i think we'll have a little bit more information i believe we are now on track i think the materials that we were waiting for are completed and so i think it's a little ahead of where we might be i'm not sure what impact that that will have on further scheduling of games but i know mike none of us want these kinds of delays to happen the same thing we had delays in just getting some materials for our modulars so we're gonna have a little bit of delay they aren't gonna be ready by this time school starts but we are we are nimble and flexible if anything the last year has

075taught us that we are flexible and can be pretty creative at a moment's notice so that's all i have to report tonight so i do want to acknowledge to our crowd we don't really get a huge audience for our board meetings so we do appreciate you joining us we do a lot of exciting work here at the board you're welcome to come to all of our meetings thank you kevin bogaton uh next on the agenda is item six action consent agenda items there's three the 6a board meeting minutes approval minutes from july 21st the new hires and then succeed the surplus is there a motion to approve the consent agenda or yeah i'll make a motion uh to approve the action consent agenda item is presented second second so eric gleason seconds uh all in

076favor say aye aye aye nays that's approved okay next up is uh item seven that is the resolution 2021-10 and that is i'm going to go ahead and read this and prior to reading it i just want to make it clear to the audience that we are going to follow the state regulations that are in place regarding indoor and outdoor masks this resolution is not against masks it is against masked mandates by the state so let me go ahead normally we don't read these resolutions a little tedious but it's a pretty important one and uh everyone here may not have read it or so a resolution of the north bend school board opposing statewide indoor k-12 mass mandate and demanding local control whereas a mandatory statewide k-12 indoor mass mandate was issued by governor kate

077brown on july 29 21 2021 just one month after issuing executive order number 21-15 ending the statewide mass mandate whereas the justification for the new mask mandate was based solely on cdc recommendation without regard to the physiological psychological and developmental impacts that masks have on our youth and whereas the coos county board of commissioners wrote a letter to governor brown on august 1 2021 stating the following in the first paragraph we are writing this letter to express our concerns about the mask mandate for k-12 schools for the 2021 2021 to 2022 school year we are strongly opposed to this one-size-fits-all approach to public health we believe that these decisions should be made at the local level taking into consideration the local issues and constraints in late june we were assured by your office that all

078future covet 19 restriction decisions would be made at the local level and whereas a majority of north bend school district parents responding to a survey made it known they desire to be back in school five days per week without masks whereas the covet infection fatality rates are extremely low for ages five to nine zero point zero zero one percent ages ten to fourteen zero point zero zero one percent and ages fifteen to eighteen zero point zero three percent suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 10 to 24 in the state of oregon in 2020 that was cdc national center for health statistics whereas a growing number of parents and school-aged children in the north bend school district have expressed their intention to seek other avenues of education for their children if the mask

079mandate isn't rescinded which will result in an irreparable budget shortfall for the 21 22 school year and whereas the north bend school board opposes the mask mandate and strongly believes that it is the parent's choice whether their student should wear a mask or not whereas the north bend school board directs the north bend superintendent to advocate for governor brown to return local decision making to local school districts and advocate for parents choice whether the student should wear a mask or not whereas the oregon department of education has issued enforcement of oar [Music] masking 333-079-1015 in schools dated august 2021 this document details punitive enforcements including fines for failure to enforce willful negligence and daily penalty for continued knight in compliance teachers face potential sanctions from a letter of reprimand to suspension or revocation of their

080licenses education is provided to our students by a team comprised of teachers administrators and the school board this enforcement document is very divisive to the team which is the purpose of this document and creates risk for teachers if the mask mandate is not followed therefore be it resolved that the north bend school board opposes the mask mandate and heavy-handed enforcement measures and we demand governor kate brown return local decision-making to local school districts i moved to approve the resolution of 2021-10 as it set forth above apartment i move to approve the resolution 2021-10 has set forth above okay uh cheerful we need to have some discussion before we start doing that okay [Music] chair recognizes uh julie thies making a motion to approve is there a second we're having discussion for that first i think

081it's after it's after the moment the discussion will occur after after the motion if anyone seconds it so what we did with the other resolution is we decided to have a i would like to like have a conversation with just the board uh specifically in a work session before we vote on this resolution i think that we need to have some conversation we haven't had a chance to meet and discuss this as well as the other resolution and i think it's important that we sit down and are able to talk about this to chair recognizes eric gleason thank you sir um i i would agree with christina wholeheartedly i think that we saw both of these resolutions the same time the community saw these resolutions when the agenda was put online that was the first

082time the board for the most part had seen these um i think in the case of this mask uh letter stating that we would like local control wanting local control and utilizing local control are two totally different things if we are going to tell the governor we want local control then i say we come together in a work session we some of these statistics wouldn't be accurate at this point anyway with delta and and some of the newer things but we come to the table we define what we believe is local control we say these are the metrics that we are going to follow these are our markers that are going to move us from one thing to the next this is how we're going to work with our health officials in the community and

083we set a precedence for school boards in the state that north bend takes local control seriously and this is how we're going to do it because if we don't we're just we're just making a super weird flex about i want local control so if we come at it with an approach that says this is how we're going to do it this is how the state should look at it this is how we would like to interpret our local control and then how we make this thing move forward then we look like we have a full thought when we send it to the governor i'm not against telling the governor we should have local control i think we should have a plan and we should submit that plan with our lender so i believe that a

084work group would make or work session would be would be meaningful in making that this whole thing something that would have some meat to it if that makes any sense okay is there a motion around a work session to have a work session around this resolution okay i should emphatically second that okay do we want to go ahead well any more discussion around that or do we want to take this time okay so we're done discussing that motion we're ready to vote on it so the the motion is to have a work session and go ahead and further develop this this document to include metrics that would govern essentially when masks can are not required if she were to give us local control we would already have a pre-established plan and a reasonable approach to

085what that would look like for us i don't think any other school board has even attempted that so why shouldn't we should be the leaders in this i think we should just discuss it simply to decide as the board just in general if we all agree with even bringing this to the table so i i think there's a lot to discuss surrounding this entire issue so i agree okay we're ready to vote on the motion to conduct a work session and revisit this this resolution all in favor say aye aye aye nays none okay that was that one okay moving on uh we'll i guess we'll we'll talk about later when uh we'll work out kevin and i'll discuss uh some timing issues around that we'll get with the okay item eight has been tabled

086we will move on to item nine ready school safe learners resiliency framework i think i'm going to talk about that tonight just just to give you an update on this isn't an action item i will not read the 20 page plan that we are put together for you today but i did want to just give you a quick um just a quick background on some things one is i have encouraged um and emphasized the devotion of time for students and staff to connect and build relationships one of the things that ode has come out is with a care and connect support from the state and again i think we're going to emphasize that as we bring students back into our classroom this plan outlines really that we encourage that and i'm going to when i

087meet with all of our teachers and staff next week encouraging that very premise so i wanted to make sure that that is included in this plan and so we want to make sure that they have creative opportunities to get meaningful engaging learning experiences that really connect with kids we have established safe and effective isolation quarantine protocols they're very similar to what we've developed in the past year we have unfortunately too much practice in this and so again we're prepared for isolation and quarantine that's outlined in this plan we are implementing health and safety strategies in compliance with state law including requirement for all staff students volunteers coaches to be amassed while indoors there is additional guidance for outdoor mask use that was really recently released i'd say there's some mixed we're still getting some mixed

088information about the impact that that's going to have specifically on schools i was on a call today with superintendents from across the state from colt gill as well as some of our attorneys representing and giving us some guidance so there's some some mix we're going to get more clarity i think in the coming weeks before we probably have a lot of events there is some talk that if you maintain six foot distance outdoor mask requirements um are optional and so is it's a more if we have a football game and you can't maintain the six foot then we would institute more of a required mass mandate so we're still working through some of those details we certainly will make sure our community and our schools are well aware of those as that gets a little

089teased out in the next bit of time we also are requiring all of our staff coaches volunteers to be fully vaccinated by october 18th it is or qualify for an exemption that's outlined by ode and oha that was just released today our staff should and staff volunteers visitors so again kind of to our community we'll get more additional information here in the coming days as we sort through and just make sure that we fully understand one of the things on the exemptions which i think is potentially i believe it's a bargaining issue and i know christina and i will be talking um with their membership if you have an exemption religious or medical it basically says that we're going to have that we're required to put in other measures to ensure that the individual that's

090not vaccinated and others so most of our kids that aren't vaccinated wouldn't wouldn't get um wouldn't be impacted and so they're asking for some kind of accommodations and we'll have to bargain that they gave examples of like testing so that could be weekly daily whatever we would agree on more fitted masks they're mentioning n95 fitted mass which is more of a medical kind of grade masking as well as providing if possible opportunities for folks to not be in around kids and so again so there might be some opportunities where there's a few folks in our district most of us have some interaction with kids at any given time so there's not a lot of people that will qualify for that so that they will be required to do some other requirements that may go a

091little bit above and beyond the mass requirement as we work that out so again we'll be working that out in the coming coming days we have purchased hepa air filters with federal esser funds for all classrooms and large meeting spaces the filter removes 99.99 of particles greater than 0.1 microns they're also good for spaces larger than a thousand square feet so those will all be in place on the first day of school they are sitting in our warehouse i know um our facilities folks can't wait for me to tell them where those go so they will be delivered next week to classrooms across the district um they're really one the ones we chose were specifically engineered i think partly for schools they can run at full blast which cycles basically the air four times per

092hour and they're and they're not very loud so i think our current hvac systems are louder than these systems so again that was really important i think as we look at air quality to not interrupt just the school experience i think maths are going to have you're you we're asking people to take off their mask as they as they speak when students kind of do um speaking in different things in a more of official capacity there is some allowance for some masking but i think there's also a concern and so having error the air quality and not having a bunch of other miscellaneous noise will also be important so that is part of our plan um and the fact the last part is you know we are going to be in full compliance around developing

093adaptations and alternatives to prevent and prevention strategies when serving people with disabilities and or students with academic social and emotional needs that require intervention and supports while maintaining efforts to protect all children and staff from covert 19. so we have a pretty robust plan i don't anticipate really any issues we have also i did include him in this a series of protocols i think at last count we have 10 and they include things like isolation quarantine protocol which are which are included in the plan that you can click on if you go to the online version of this we also have others including entry and exit visitor volunteer checking in what that process is um cohort logging so we kind of give guidance in a lot of variety of areas we also have masking requirement

094guidance again there is a little bit nuance to masking it it does kind of seem simple hey wear mask you're indoors but there was mass breaks we are trying to encourage that outdoors wanting to be very clear that we all know the rules so the protocols we have are available i will make sure that the board has access to those but i'll certainly take any questions i again i don't need to go over the plan there is a lot of details in that it is a way scaled back version from our ready safe learners plan that we had to submit last year which i believe was 60 pages long so this is a 20 page version again that fairly summarizes uh our approach to make sure that we have safe environments for kids and staff

095i don't know any questions around the plan or safe safety concerns that you have i know we we have we don't have the first day of school for a little bit of time so i'm certainly interested in your comments is there a training for the teachers just because there's so many things that revolve around this just to get everybody on the same page yeah so our first day of school uh first day for teachers is monday um in historically we've done a district-wide gathering we're not doing that this year um even if we were the first day was going to be for in buildings one i feel like our teachers and staff need to have their first experience and and connect with each other and connect with their building administrator so that is what's happening

096on monday and i i know our administrators are in the i can't really point them out they can wave i'm assuming our safety and protocols and these things are on your agenda as you return to school yes they're waving i see john yes top of the list and one of the things that i've asked each of them because i think one of the questions is coming up what are you going to do if kids don't wear masks i've asked each of our building principals to submit to me a plan specifically for their schools i think elementary might be combining so that they approach that in a similar way i received john davidson's plan today which again was a very respectful kid first approach to this one they're going to ask kids to have a mask

097as they enter the building so that's again kind of right out of the gate welcome but really requiring that so we're going to assume everyone's entering our building but he has a plan using our check-in checkout system and again with grace and care and compassion and we'll work with our students and families at the end of the day it's been very very clear that students cannot be in our schools unmasked and so again there'll be a small group that'll have some special education exemptions beyond that there isn't really much wiggle room there is no religious exemption for mask wearing so we'll have a small small group of people that we'll work through we have committed to providing an alternative educational option right now that is through our charter school through oregon virtual academy and we're

098not really seeing necessarily a huge outcry for online education and i'm not surprised it's it's not the choice that most want um i feel like again you've heard i think uh consensus i'm sure people aren't happy about a mass main date um i appreciate the opportunity to take my on so i can talk to you um and our and our kids are going to struggle a little bit with this and we're going to work to make that and hopefully we'll get out of this um and they want we want our local choice but we'll we'll work through this and it'll be positive and if everyone gets on board we're hopeful that we'll be out of that pretty quickly so i just want to definitely definitely touch on kind of the mask but we will have

099a plan that doesn't punish kids and it may not it may feel like punishment when we are moving you to an online education but again i think that that's basically outlined in state law kevin my understanding too is that we're going to have accommodations for children who are on ieps is that correct correct so yeah we'll be working with individual families and in many cases we were already doing that so anyone that was doing that was doing that last year so we had a mass requirement up until actually into our summer programs we had a full mass requirement indoors and outdoors so it was pretty at least again there is some reprieve for this under this guidance that says when you're outdoors you don't need to wear a mask so again i think our kids

100will really appreciate that as they're playing outside and again i think our teachers are one not only encouraged we're requiring them to get their kids outside take maybe a little bit of a different route to the office or different route to music so that they have a chance to get outside take a mask off so they're being creative around coming up with solutions that uh to do this i think they're also gonna read the room right and in in this case like we've been in this meeting for you know you've been sitting here an hour and a half two hours it's probably time right we should be reading that and go take a mass break and go outside and and just so that we can regroup and not have a huge issue so that'll be

101a part of our program and kevin you were going to put this online with after a few changes are made yeah so as soon as we're done with this today we're going to update it with our most recent vaccination requirements it will be posted online um certainly by the end of the week it's due to uh i have to submit it to the state on friday so it will be online i'll include it as a welcome back letter to our parents as we get ready for the school year i'll include where they can find that online as well thank you are you also going to include the ready safe schools yeah so that whole that whole 20-page guidance will be will be provided online and then i'll also reference where if they want to see

102our protocols again those are written mostly for our educators but if you want to see those again i'm willing to share that information to folks we we change them on an updated basis if they're not really working we change the process so it's really just more procedural kevin would you be able to talk a little bit about the isolation of students i just don't like the word isolate and i want to make sure that we're not segregating our you know yeah you can come across a little segregator yes so i wanna can you maybe describe what that looks like yeah so this is this is a student that would be coming in or exhibiting symptomatic um coveted symptoms um and again covid uh would be high fever coughing shortness of breath loss of taste or

103smell those are some really indicators of you potentially have cobit and we're required under under state law and this guidance is to is to put you in a private place so again it's still under the watchful monitoring of our district nurse or our school staff nursing and each of our locations has those individual spaces again it's it's it's definitely not uh you know lock you up and and make you feel bad for the most part if we have kids showing up like this they're not feeling good and they want to lay down and so we have a place where they can lay down at all of our levels again trying to away from each other its own ventilation it's not it's not segregated you know it's like it's separate um in some cases we have

104nice spaces visible windows others we've had to sort of make shift um with some visqueen and different things but again very visible again we know if these kids are feeling are sick we're trying to comfort care for them make make sure they really just want to go home so they're the isolation is really just waiting for their parents to be able to get off work and to make arrangements and come and come pick them up i i can see what she's saying though like if you just read this for what it is and you read that you might not consider isolation as defined as it is in communicable disease um for you know policies and procedures so you you think isolation you're probably going to think of it in the most negative term possible so

105yeah i don't know if there's a way to put a little negative word yeah by definition it is if you just keep the context of this is around a communicable disease plan right so this is around a highly contagious disease um for the most part again talk about measles mumps you would want us to do the same thing and we would do this the exact same thing a kid's exhibiting measles we all start to like the adults around there are the most panicked right it's like we just never wanted the children to feel like something's wrong with them yeah that when we are talking about isolating we have to make sure that we're also being compassionate and understanding with these children too you know yeah and i think again um this isn't going to go

106away i i certainly again might be if you're interested as a as a follow-up to have our school nurse team come we didn't really have them last year come talk to you i think maybe it's time that you meet our school nurse our school nurse assistants the work that they're doing probably can deserve a little kudos um tonight they were tracking down it's been like five kids in the last 72 hours impacted in one way or another by our summer programs i know kelly burnett our nurse here at the secondary level was in the in her office i know she's here tonight um but she was here prior to our meeting calling families who had potentially been exposed right as we've got a covet notification a positive covid of a student that attended summer school

107like literally an hour ago so that's kind of the work that they do they get called at 5 or 5 30 and they're here and they've been here last year until 9 00 you know 9 10 p.m calling families so that they didn't have to show up at school and be told that they're quarantined so we've been really trying to be trying to make this as painless as possible it is none of us like this we don't like sending kids home we don't like quarantining the rules have changed quite a bit i think you're going to see potentially less quarantining unless there is active spread within our school system and again what we're hearing kind of from the cdc i could probably look to our health department and like active spread is when we hit

108like kid number three um and so when kid number three in the same cohort or in the same same program we'll be shutting down probably those classes potentially and so and to put it into perspective in the month of august we've had 105 pediatric cases in the 18 and under population and we haven't started school yet so yeah yeah it's going to be interesting we're expecting to be impacted by this i don't i don't see how we're going to avoid it again i can say you know we're implementing a lot of other health safety things we're going to hope that we keep other other sickness flu colds some of that away so i'm going to keep my fingers crossed on that last year generally was a pretty healthy year for our staff for our students

109um again i think in many ways a lot of these these protocols and strategies help create a safer environment again it's not foolproof we will have some issues any further comments on the safe returns in person instruction and continuity of service plan template could you please clarify the last two bullet points on page three for me please of the plan yes please what'd you say on the last page page three the last two bullet points so the last one was prioritizing equity is that what you mean the last two yes prioritizing equity in innovate this is this is guidance directly coming from the oregon department of ed and again they're they're asking if you have seen um statistics in oregon and nationwide um this this uh kobe 19 is disproportionately impacting our students of color

110so black african-american american indian alaska native our latino x pacific island commuters um students with disability so all these groups are experiencing covid at a higher rate than um kind of the average person and and our typical and white students and speci and specifically so they're asking us to say hey make sure that that we're putting in these mitigation efforts again i think the things that we're doing aren't necessarily targeted to address this i think when we have good good policies good procedures they're implemented across our system without without thinking about specific groups and we do the best we can with all this we believe that we're accomplishing this so again we're going to pay close attention to this we also know that this means maybe we need to do some communication if there's vaccination

111opportunities required or opportunities for our students do we do some additional outreach we have not done a very good job in north bend about providing things in multiple languages i have been requested to provide as our ell population specifically our spanish-speaking students and kind of new new movements to our community to provide more opportunities for them to be communicated with on those opportunities so again i feel like we did a little bit of that there hasn't been a lot of vaccination opportunities for kids some for staff we're anticipating at some point we'll have a little bit of that so we'll make an effort to in terms of addressing that doing a little bit to make sure that we're getting that information out in multiple languages the last one is really again i think focus on

112a bit what i talked about this care and connection and innovate and really think about we have been many kids in many cases kids that have not stepped foot in our school for almost 18 months and so how do we make sure that we enter not from a place of deficit but they all have strengths they've learned things over the last 18 months may not be some things that you all want to acknowledge or that we appreciate as much some have probably gotten really good at some online gaming and different things but again i think there's a piece where we can acknowledge that and learning's still occurring there's some of the things that we measure and monitor we want good readers writers mathematicians kids doing science we know there's things that are happening in school

113so again i think we want to be innovative in our approach making sure that our teachers have the courage are supported to do things that may not look typical or that we're going to go back to days where you know hey we're doing some really engaging things there's a time for spelling there's a time for basic facts i expect that our teachers are teaching that i also know that that's not why kids come to school and so they come to school to dissect pigs they come to school to get out in the woods they come to school so that they can paint debate with their friends those are the things that we need to to make sure that we're encouraging and supporting and so again i think that that's what that bullet is addressing on

114the prioritized equity bullet point um is there any statistics with that what what you see was provided i there was there is statistics that i can provide um that was shared with me in the last couple days from um the oregon department of ed and so i can pass that along to you so i'll ask sherry just to remind me to send send some of that information that we have any further questions on this topic okay moving on to item 10 inner district transfers i think bruce martin is going to give a little update on that bye kathy well i think you've got the numbers in your packet of what we'd like to request at each grade level uh we can accommodate those kids without growing the class sizes to such a level where we're

115concerned about that actually in some grades it really does a good job of balancing our classes for us we've been in the process of checking with families most of those kids have submitted a tentative online registration already we're hoping that you'll approve those numbers so we can notify those folks tomorrow as soon as tomorrow that they would be in the district and we'd have a spot for them so that they feel a part of our community as well to bruce is this is usually the only agenda item we have for this meeting we don't typically necessarily meet in august as we kind of have a little reprieve for the board and we get full started in september so this is usually added to talk about this one item because we're kind of waiting to see

116where enrollment is so this is a fairly typical meeting and really almost solely to do this uh the state requires us again under um under some laws around inter-district transfers that we identify a specific number of kids that we're going to accept into the district so that's what you see [Music] dictated here we would have to accept them at north bay we always try to honor our residents students first where their choice is i can make a motion go ahead see the action requested as i move that the district will accept the following number of non-resident students who apply to the north bend district for the 20 21 to 22 school year up to the following numbers which satisfies all that applied as of 8 20 21 kindergarten 24 first grade eight second grade three

117third grade sixth fourth grade two fifth grade four so simultaneously okay uh vote all in favor say aye aye that's efficiency right there okay thank you bruce okay number 11 item 11 board training opportunity provided by oregon right to life for being a board member go ahead kevin yeah so let me just give you a quick um we have board policy bhb i apologize i didn't put a cover sheet ahead um and again that's kind of our typical way of doing this thing and then i apologize that we didn't have that ahead of time for this i basically outline bhb in this cover sheet and again one i guess the past practice for board training this policy outlines one that you encourage board members to go to training um in all in all in a

118variety of places so that's your your vote tonight on this is not about attending a training you're all encouraged to attend whatever training you can get your hands on and go to this policy says that participation in conferences workshops and training held by the state and national school boards association and other educational organizations we have interpreted interpreted this since my tenure and what i understand prior boards was if you're going to board association meetings conferences or other educational organizations as long as there's money and we kind of follow that and make sure that you're updated we don't do an action item if you would want if you want to attend something other than that then the interpretation is this requires board authorization and the authorization is not to attend the training the authorization is to

119allow reimbursement for travel expenses so that would be mileage and our per diem on kind of food if um for travel and the cost of the if the conference if that was it so that would be the the you're taking action not necessarily to approve the training i mean you kind of are at the end of the day as a board member you can attend the training this is going to be do does do we use district funds to reimburse or to pay for conference sign-ups etc is that that makes sense i mean again i think you need to know the nature of the training which is why it's on this agenda today and it because it didn't follow into those two categories association status international school board association or other other educational institutions just

120just out of curio is the osba is that a private institution or is that a state-funded institution i it is funded by by school boards from across the state include is it i think it's a non-profit okay it's so that i just want to give you that kind of where this was coming from why it's on this agenda a request to training typically we don't do you you have not voted this board has been on this board for two years they've attended all training i think sponsored either by osba or some other other training maybe in the district so again we haven't done a lot of this but i think this was that's why this is on the agenda for tonight so this training is not sponsored by osba i'm i guess i'm trying to

121understand that that's correct right and again i don't i don't have a lot of information and i think maybe julie can talk a little bit more about what the training is but yeah i was contacted by oregon right to life they had endorsed my candidacy um that they had member training for new board members and i um i told sherry that that was an offer for me and it seemed like it was okay to go ahead and take that training it's just board member training offered by the oregon right to life i think you should be able to take any training that you want i don't know that this is something that the board should pay for based on the fact that it doesn't really further the board's agenda in any particular way and has

122nothing to do with the youth of the kids the training is free but we're talking about reimbursement for like getting there back and like hotels and stuff like that there's no hotel so there's no reimbursement needed only travel and food it's a three-hour seminar that there's no cost involved some may want reimbursed for mileage and breakfast or lunch right so there's still a cost associated to the board right like is what we're is why it's on the agenda yes okay we didn't we didn't estimate the cost i think the training is in salem is that correct i don't know yeah and and i think you should have all every right to go to that i think that's if that's something that is important to you as a as a member of of any board it

123doesn't matter just you as a person you want to go to that go go ahead i have tickets to an asu game and i think that the football program might get some benefit of me learning a little bit about how the sidelines work [Laughter] i don't i'm not going to ask for reimbursement to go to the game um but i think you should go i just don't think that the school board should pay for it i know it's free i mean i'm talking about the reimbursement of the mileage and stuff does the school board pay for your attendance to any of your board trainings yes but that's to further the the students the right to life is is not a student it's not a school board issue it's a board training it's a very specific

124board training there is training for student education for us okay that really doesn't have anything to do with our school board and our curriculum or any of the things that we need to do with it is all i'm trying to say i think you should go to the training or i would not have asked oh wow that's fine so i would like to say that julie i will make a motion to have you i moved to authorized members of the board to attend board training conducted by oregon right to life and be it reimburse reasonable and necessary expenses but in requests maybe she can come back after the training and she can discuss with the fellow board members what she learned at her board training absolutely i second that [Music] so since now we're in

125some discussion so what about the pro-choice what about pro-choice stuff if somebody comes in with a with a pro-choice training so we should we should go and authorize that while we're at it i guess maybe some crt training yeah i mean if we're if we're doing pro pro-life stuff we should do pro-choice stuff i mean we're talking about equity and and a little bit before we tabled the discussion on the uh the issue of of the critical rates that's the kind of training that you would prefer to get go ahead but i'm not saying it it's not going to further for the for the children i mean osb i think we should do is attend osba trainings maybe once we've exhausted all of those resources then we talk about furthering other education it's not a

126taxpayer-funded uh training that needs to be taken i don't think so i think that this might be a conversation that we can have at a different point in time i wonder if we need to table this one as well and discuss it so we could we have a motion here and we seconded it's been second so let's vote is there further discussion on it is there further discussion no okay i think i spoke my piece yeah so the the motion is as i mentioned there was already a motion to vote on nobody stephen made the motion to table it that was that was the second motion the motion that's that's right now for voting is will the north bend school district reimburse travel and meal costs to attend new member board training at oregon right

127to life pack all in favor say aye aye aye how many how many eyes was that we may need a roll call so i see four eyes and nays three nays so the motion pass to reimburse uh wow travel costs and meals that's ridiculous wow okay item 12 board comments board comments this was a joke this this yeah it should not be it should not be this is a non-partisan i would have rather tabled it yeah i think ezra did once i think that we should have probably discussed it because as far as if you're talking about somebody who helped pay for your for for you to get elected and you want to go and support them and you want taxpayer dollars to pay for it there's nothing there's no charge for the training i'm

128but you're still getting it's still over it's still getting paid to drive there drive back for food i'm so grateful the media is here i mean i i think that that that is probably one of the most ridiculous things i've seen in a long time yeah yes it's not this isn't we're we're supposed to be doing this for the kids i believe the discussion that has that that's that i don't think you get to tell me that the discussion is over let's let's do this let's table this discussion for this with regard to the or the training provided there's new member board member training and then i'll make a motion to have further discussion okay let's take a vote to rescind all in favor rescinding all right okay and then i'll make a motion to

129um have a further conversation around appropriate board trainings i'll second that second vote on that motion any discussion on that no okay let's vote on all in favor hey okay any further board comments i just want to thank everyone who brought comments tonight i really enjoyed hearing from the public and our community members and our staff and some of our parents and i think that that's why we're doing the work that we're doing is to hear from you all and we appreciate all the feedback that you offered to us all right thank you i would i would second that i i've seen some some real disasters of board meetings lately disasters and i would be lying if i was not very nervous about how this was going to go based on how that president's been

130set in the state so far and it was really nice to see everybody come out here speak their piece give their opinion it was cordial it was informative and i thank every single person that had something to say because us as a board are supposed to be doing what we find best for the welfare of the children of the school district and i will do anything i can to work with any person up here to do exactly that because that is our job our job is to make sure the kids get what they need to become functioning humans in our society yep that's correct and i have to say i'm very proud of the community coming out you know showing their support informing us i mean this is great [Music] i appreciate it too whatever

131side you're on whatever topic thank you for coming out okay moving on to item 13 information only does this just get red kevin or do you want to go through that these are just updated just on on the information only first day of school grades one to six and nine september eighth first day of school grades seven eight ten eleven twelve september ninth first day of school of kindergarten september 10th next regular board meeting september 16th next board work session september 30th agenda to be determined and i don't any further comments on information we'll go ahead and move to adjourn i want to thank all the residents of north bend that came here and had your voice heard and came to listen thank you very much [Applause] [Music]