001there we go wonderful all right well welcome everybody I'm going to call this meeting to order of the Harwood unified Union School District uh school boards Equity committee it is 610 um sorry we had some technical difficulties um but it's good to see you all uh first order of business is to approve the minutes from our last meeting I so move great and second or perhaps I will second but do we hear any objections is everybody good with what what was written good yeah awesome thank you again to the minute Taker and so those are approved um board members present I'm chairing this committee my name is life leros from ducksbury uh Victoria terella from Waterberry asley woods from Warren awesome I'm from B great so we have uh Tori and I's part of the
002official committee um our third member couldn't make it this evening um Ashley thank you for joining us as the chair and Mike as always we appreciate your insights um do we have members of the public I don't see any here on Zoom there's nobody nobody hiding okay no members of the public present okay so we're going to um move on then we won't have public comment this evening um which means we're going to get right into it we have a review um in the public agenda we had two links um one is sort of a a clean draft but the other one is probably the one that we want to operate off of it's it's the same as the clean draft but it just shows us what the changes have been yeah um I'll just
003remind us that based on the last meeting we looked at several themes we had some things we wanted to respond to from the um very helpful public comment um on a survey and so um we asked uh the chair which is me to take a crack at it and so I did that and um so we have a Revis draft in front of us as well as a kind of little table at the end of it that tries to detail like what um what kind of um revisions or responses we have to some of the specific themes so those two things together are what we're looking at even though that second part isn't part of the policy per se um so once we go through um look at this text then we can think about
004what we want to do with that table or or what other the things we want to communicate to the to the full board when we bring it for the first reading um which will be next week on the 20th so um I'll just mention that our our third board member was able to to review the document and um she had very uh positive things to say and one comment um that we con see in there which is about um uh how the stakeholders that form up the equity team will be determined so we can we can look at that when we get there but in the meantime Tori do you have uh do you have thoughts have you got a chance to look I have had a chance to look and I really like a
005lot of what you did I feel like it addresses it really well do we want to just put it up on the screen and go through your changes let me do that because what what Shannon always does for meetings is to lock down the current draft so that it can't be changed so I just made a copy of the current draft so we can edit it so let me share it and if you don't mind I'll I'll I'm happy to do the editing on that too all right right can you see my screen with the edited copy can um I don't think I I was thinking of showing the one with like the changes tracked okay if we can do that you know where you still have like all the little bubbles yep on this
006side I want to see that can you put it up yeah I think Mike's working on it I trouble multitasking right now oh you're good we just came out of a very long finance committee meeting yes all right can you see the this is the one with the notes yes that's perfect um life I really like that change where you took out inequities and put unequal opportunity and ongoing harm I think that's extremely helpful I think that addresses some of those comments of like what is inequity and what is equity and stuff so I think that's very helpful I like that change yeah somebody had that specific like you shouldn't use inequity in the definition of okay that makes sense yeah right um my thing next sorry Mike I'm so I apologize can I go
007through can we go through and I can what I can do while so we can go in order that's don't click that one yet because that's you can click that one yeah that second one is what I was talking about um I'm pointing at the screen like you can see it the top one the footnote so life you don't know this and that's totally not you know that's that's totally fine but um for footnotes on our policies from what I remember Mike is we have like a little table it doesn't go in like actual like footnotes like it goes at the very bottom of the screen it goes at the very very bottom of the policy so if we can just change that I think that's just something that Shannon can maybe work with of
008just moving it like it's usually just gets on like a table at the very bottom of the policy just to make it cohesive with the other ones um right not so they're they're end notes not footnotes is that what it is yeah um yeah it's not like MLA format footnotes it's like at the very end as if you're writing a book kind of footnotes MH kind of thing um yeah yeah end notes that's the word yeah what's that message excellent okay so that was thank you Mike um okay and then I mean and you can okay the footnote um but I just yeah okay where also like that that comment of like does not mean equal outcomes you know that I I really like that um M like Mike I don't know if you can
009okay that since you kind of swapped those but whatever um I can I can approve them as long as the committee is okay and life says go ahead to do that yeah and I just noticed that that that I put that similar thing there twice which we could you know just use one of them or both um but are you talking about that that no not necessarily equal yeah yeah I see it I'm okay with the redundancy that's great I mean that was a theme that came up a few times and I think it's a pretty common misconception too yeah I think clarifying that um I'm gonna okay that [Music] sorry mik now I'm just okaying things um all right uh love the grammar pickup um I just I like I mean I know we
010don't want this too lengthy or wordy but I do like you know you're right like there was a lot of feedback on a lot of this that I feel like adding a little bit more was necessary um although no okay and I I appreciate that you did all of this life that's huge um footes okay I'm moving down to implementation um I don't think this is necessarily a question that needs to be answered in the policy forming of the equity advisory team is more of a procedure thing but I just want confirmation that we are feeling confident that we can form that Equity advisory team I think we can yeah I think so what do you mean by stakeholders I mean to me that usually suggests you know something more than um you know just
011Educators yeah so and I and you know I thought about this one too and you know sometimes you'll see like specified like you know this happens a lot at the legislative level right like it'll be like one person from this group one person from this you know different sorts of representations um but I find that that you know you just said can we form this like yeah and when you get too specific then it becomes a little bit cumbersome and we don't want like all the energy being spent you know forming the group and then somebody drops out and now you got to get somebody else or so I think it it's could be broadly interpret as meaning something more than Educators so probably like Community member parents students Etc do we oh shoot I
012did not mean to do that hold on um how do we feel about like collaborators instead of stakeholders I don't know why I'm just not loving that word I can get over it but I'm just throwing out an option I think it's clear it's stakeholder I mean collaborator stakeholder implies that Equity matters to this person you know within their wheelhouse I'm not obviously open to you're fine I'm outvoted and I'm comfortable with it um uh you're such a hard ass guys I'm so much better when I actually like when it's mediation and I have to fight for these things but I trust all of you so excellent let's see life why did you take out the superintendent n design shall provide a lot of that verbage what were you thinking um well I think that
013um there was there were some people kind of you know wondering about this piece um be because you know people were saying like we need urgent action right what is actually going to happen um so rather than say implementation do some stuff and oh by the way also an advisory team it just to me it as a much more active process to say at the beginning of implementation hey we're going to make a team we're going to do start making the stuff and that will include things like this um so it just kind of moved it up yeah and it did clean up that language just a little some of it was a little redundant and um I think that also I think some of that language that you were that you took out also
014kind of went more like bordered on procedure wise too so like yeah that makes a lot of sense to me um and thank you for creating this chart kind of like addressing so that everybody can see that you know made comments that you know we did our best to address them but I mean I mean honestly overall I think you did an amazing job revising it I think we've put a work into this I really like it like my main my main thing is just making it match format wise with the other ones um but I yeah I think it looks great thank you so much life for for doing this work cool um I if I could thanks for for looking at over to and walking us through that um there there was one
015piece of um feedback that came up a couple times in different forms that I didn't include and I just wanted to see if this is addressed elsewhere or if we think it should be included um and that was people talking about the importance of um a diverse staff and in some cases people specifically mentioned like a Dei coordinator which I guess I'm kind of putting in that category of Staff what's that what's Dei some districts have have a paid position usually well often an administrative type position that's a diversity equity and inclusion coordinator so it's somebody who's basically in charge of equity type of stuff okay but it's not like trying to find teachers of color in a sea of white is it because these were two different I'm putting both I'm lumping them together
016because of Staffing but some people were talking about having a a coordinator which I don't think is something we would put in the policy so I guess I'm really asking about this question of of divers ifying the staff representation and I don't know if we have something elsewhere diversifying the staff ethnically um I think that that's usually how the feedback was put okay yeah in terms of race um but you know obviously our policy is broader than that right but this policy does Center mostly on the educational aspect towards the students not so much how we're providing that um I wonder if we have a policy about hiring where that might be better fit yeah that was part of what I was wondered do we have a policy and is that addressed somewhere it is
017not but that's also something that the board could address in the superintendent's goals that was a goal I had before not here uh but elsewhere and it's one of those areas that you can move the needle if you focus on it yeah even even a tough climate you can you can make some Headway but it has to be something that the board uh wants the superintendent to focus on because it does take time and effort right definitely especially maybe so maybe this shouldn't be the equity policy maybe it should be educational Equity policy unless we want to revise it to put in mentions of hiring I mean I I think um and you're thinking because educational Equity narrows it a little bit or yeah yeah I mean I think that that's I I mean you
018know I think I think it's definitely something so here's my thing I think it's definitely something worth focusing on and possibly creating maybe a second policy or looking at the hiring policy and seeing how we could incorporate it into the hiring policy but I think this just because I think this policy is really good and it centers on the educational Equity that is being provided to the students and I feel like it's almost two separate topics I mean there's definitely crossover of like obviously they're going to have more of a a diverse and welcoming you know educational experience if they have a more diverse you know teaching staff around them but I feel like it would be two separate procedures that would be you know we wouldn't I just I feel like trying to lump
019them in one is going to get maybe unnecessarily messy when we could just have two that focus and put a lot of specific attention to make sure that the goal actually gets met I think that's fair like you know the third sentence of this says you know district will strive to incorporate principles of equity within all applicable policies programs operations practices resource out so it's like this policy kind of like says like yeah and when when there's other points of intersection like you know go for it so that would suggest that like looking at the hiring policy um is certainly within the prview yeah for the board or superintendent or maybe it's something that that Equity team will bring up probably ultimately for the whole board though to discuss to talk about the their you
020know to bring the group together on that yeah I think I I mean especially because I have I have heard from people as well about a Dei coordinator um and I also know we maybe are not super excited about creating and hiring another person considering the budget constraints that we're operating under but um it is a discussion that I think maybe should be addressed well as have this slotted in for the for a first reading next week so that would be a really good point I think to raise with the board yep great timing too yeah um well so what would people think about just adding a line to that table that said something like you know um feedback about um Staffing in terms of you know more increasing diversity or hiring specific positions and
021then for the response just saying that this is something that um will be come out in either other policies or in implementation of this one or something like that so it's just like we don't need to like necessarily stake a solve that right now yeah yeah that's good yeah I would use and instead of or but otherwise agreed because this is this is like you said you know that third sentence it definitely you know encourages us to make those calls and stuff but um yeah I think I think it needs to be addressed separately okay um I can add a line there um and then the other other I did have one other note I remembered that that um little piece of definition we had from inclus about inclusive or inclusion that um we pulled
022that language from the eqs so we can add that as a footnote as well yeah I like that tomor for adding footnotes so that the document can just self-update itself practically ad tomorrow I have a vsba um online meeting about the rowing rolling these out so some of this plus more changes so it'll be that will be an interesting fill in from that state from the bsba yeah the the eqs meeting yep sounds like you will yeah I'm gonna try to I might have to like catch the recording but I'm I'm signed up for that too yeah I signed up for that too I think yep um great um okay so I think we're ready so I guess the my other question for the group if if we feel okay okay about the content of
023this draft is um just around like do we want to you know have a little side memo for the board that you know just reminds them of the process and notes um the principles that we started with and maybe includes this little table so they can see what the um how we responded to feedback um I mean if you if you want to do that I say go for it but I don't know if it's necessarily necessary but I mean I'm thinking from my perspective as a board member it would be helpful because they certainly you know yeah I think you're right okay those are kind of the other things we've had floating around um and they you know we might have mentioned things like the process at certain points but it get kind of
024lost in the mix yeah overall thank you life you I think this is a really good product and you put I know you put a lot of effort into it to take all the feedback and come up with a better version than what we started with definitely yeah and I mean I think you know to me it kind of just attests I mean sure there was there was some feedback that wasn't super useful but you know some of these changes Maybe you know most of them came from folks who were you know not necessarily glowingly positive right they were they were they were thought for critiques you know that's what we want people like actually engaging with it so I also applaud you for the fact that um ours is not 15 pages long so
025thank you my go yes we didn't make or time bound goals that Elizabeth was really um interested in so um I think it was a really good committee too like I really appreciate all you're thinking Tori yeah no problem you had the list from Elizabeth did we get to all her comments as well yeah the only one was that that EQ that um stakeholder how we going to format thing and I think tor's right it's in the procedures and I yeah she seemed pretty happy so think she's going to be too caught up on that I think she's pretty happy now I pretty sure she's preoccupied with her own life tiny bit things are getting big for her right on yep all right if you're ready go ahead yeah well if I was gonna put
026together a little memo um when would you need that by Mike and Ashley to get to the full board well the we they had the the the item in so like we send the agenda out Friday but we can link anything extra by then it's not the memo is not the action item as long as we have the graph policy for first reading in the warning then we're fine yeah okay so wait do you need the memo by Friday or later if it's Friday we can put it in if it's later we can we can add it it out but uh it's not the it's not the action item it's just informational okay life if you wanna if you want I can you know if you want help I can look at it but um
027totally up to you I won't be offended if you decide to just go direct to them okay I'll see what I can do hopefully I'll have time to circulate it with this group before uh we attach it um all right it's possible I could get to it tomorrow we'll see awesome in theory I have another 26 minutes right now but um I'm really psyched life that you took this on thank you so much it like it feels like it um feels like for me that it was a thing that I could rely on you guys to do and you just did it and I I'm really grateful for that good that was not guaranteed because you know these are complex matters but it looks yeah and it reads better for me too and I'm kind
028of like a simple version you know and it reads better for me this time I like it a lot awesome well thanks everybody I think I think we're good and we'll keep stuff on the book so we'll try to bring this the first read and we'll keep our our other meeting on the books in case we get lots of um feedback from the board but we'll we'll we'll see what happens next week all right plan uh motion to adour Second let's do it I think this meeting is concluded thanks everybody all right thanks thanks Tor bye Mike take care okay now I really am done