10-5-2020 School Board Meeting

001well hopefully it worked yes we're doing a mic check like check one two we get an audio from there okay thank you all right then we will return and hopefully everyone um who is not at greendale high school is able to join us online and hear the audio now we will continue with the agenda next on the agenda is approval of our regular board meeting minutes of our last board meeting minute on september 14th so any questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of the regular meeting minutes of september 14th as outlined in agenda item three second there's been a motion a second to approve the regular meeting minutes any further discussion can i call for a roll call vote kathy yes noel thor yes and i am yes motion

002carries next up on the agenda is our annual summer school report so this is an annual report that we hear um and miss owensberg is here to talk a little bit about the summer school this this past summer which looked a little bit different that's correct and mrs owensburg is here but the report has been submitted by the other administrators mr pollock's mr del ponte miss doe and miss owens i told them i'd come in tonight because they do all the heavy lifting with the data that went into the report so i said i would come in but duly give them credit for all the work that they've done so when we jumped into summer school last year as you know spring was a little different so we weren't sure were we going to try

003to come in person where we're going to do it online and we ended up switching to an all online setup about a month before summer school was going to start what was really amazing is how well the teachers that we had were able to make those changes in some of the pictures i have to give credit to eddie ringsby who was a former teacher at canterbury who ran our summer school program and he did a great job capturing some of the pictures of kids being engaged in things so those are art classes science classes that we were doing online music that continued um our elementary students were down quite a bit about 40 percent of what we've had other years it was a big adjustment people weren't sure what to make of the online summer

004school however the responses that we got after the fact were very favorable and we did have a number of students enrolled in credit recovery at the high school that continued so we revised the schedule and staffing to reflect that change we did a lot of things that actually helped us for this year as well we moved to a full google format which was really helpful for parents and as older siblings we're helping younger siblings even if they're in kindergarten in first grade using google classroom was a great common platform for everybody we used a little bit of zoom and google meat for the interactive lessons and what was fun was to see how the teachers took those class favorites and they fit them into the new structure we added some new classes at k through

0058 there was an introduction to cross country where kids got some coaching they got some ideas then they went out they did their runs and they were able to talk with the teacher about that amy bower who's a canterbury teacher did a graphic novel both reading and writing which created huge enthusiasm for reading and writing with our upper elementary kids we were able to continue orchestra and band lessons in a virtual environment and at k-8 it was synchronous or live lessons for a portion of the day every day so the kids had that time to interact with their teachers see their teacher ask questions but then we had independent work time built in and teachers could conference individually with kids so as we got more creative just a few things again these are our science

006experiments so we really wondered what science would look like in the virtual world but we sent home materials families had some of the things they the families did purchase a few things we supplied most of what they needed and then the kids would share what they were doing and part of it was for families who were home it was a really fun way for families to engage a lot of times siblings would get involved with their brothers and sisters on the graphic novels they were publishing their novels in different formats and sharing those with each other cooking class families enjoyed and they were able to have a number of treats and special delicacies that were created within the cooking class so these were our fifth and sixth graders and then some of the old favorites

007um even like our intro to k5 class and i'll be honest i was probably most worried about that these were our youngest learners they hadn't had a school experience other than some of them have been in 4k and nikki hansen who had taught kindergarten the year before was able to draw those kids in work with them and really created this interactive environment for all of them and i have to say she's also doing first grade virtual and doing an amazing job there so it was a great experience to get that are on track classes for reading and writing the teachers running that pulled in parents beforehand had meetings walked through what it would look like to sign on so a lot of parental support prior to the learning books and cooks is an old favorite

008so kids read stories related to different food items and then they create treats to go along with that so katie hartle was able to change that to a virtual environment rather than in person and again there's art where we had some little siblings joining in at the middle school they did a great job getting books into the hands of kids so they incorporated the book checkout and back door book pickup during summer school so kids could continue to read with books in their hands at the high school and they had some enrichment but it was mostly credit and credit initial credit and credit recovery and again they kind of utilized both formats synchronous and asynchronous to make sure that students were getting the information they needed teachers kept track of the expected work checked in

009with kids as students turned in their work or if they were falling behind teachers would reach out with them and they could do video conferences to check in so a variety of different things that they put in there with goal setting using the scavenger hunts for kids to try to interact with the personal fitness so this survey we surveyed students and their parents this summer in grades 6 through 12 for the students and most of the kids agreed with everything that they understood expectations they felt they could access what they needed teachers were helpful the work was correct communication was good and they felt they've learned something struggles this was interesting that almost 14 percent said taking care of their siblings kept them from fully engaging so some of our older students had younger siblings

010brothers and sisters at home that was a challenge for them or they didn't have anyone only five percent had internet challenges mr mitchell made sure that we had hot spots available if people did have those issues we tried to work with families to get that and then the one thing that was kind of sad is the high school students especially miss the personal aspect of summer learning and they and i think it was coming off of the spring where they were learning from home and then summer school was home learning and they struggled with that they talked about the fact that in fayette it's not as much fun when you don't have peers to interact with so one of the things we're looking at is if we did virtual again could they see do something

011where they could see each other interacting or taking part in those activities but really they could they miss the socialization of school parents and guardians kind of have those same reasons for attending class credit obviously at the upper levels but for the younger kids maintaining a schedule during the summer and enrichment opportunities the parents agreed also kids were able to do things procedures were clear went down to 60 to 65 percent about teacher responsiveness and workload expectations and i think that's something we're trying to find balance in in virtual because we don't see the kids doing the work so we're not sure how long it's taking them for them to complete those so that's something we'll continue communicating with students and families on and working through and the parents noted google classroom made it much

012more manageable so for next year interestingly majority of people so 75 percent of people were happy with what we did if it was the only option they'd do it some of them 37 percent would definitely choose that but 25 percent and that was more younger students really wish that we could have in person so for next year we have some good things happening we can return our littles back to canterbury which makes things a lot easier not having to move furniture back to the middle school for our little learners and we'll have the two different groups running we're going to keep those four sections which increases opportunity for families to sign up for classes that are favorites we are always looking to expand those enrichment opportunities with that new space but we're going to look

013at some hybrid options and some online and in-person classes so if there are families who would like to continue the online environment we'll be able to do that and then looking for opportunities for interaction in the classes because that did come out as something that was that was missed as far as the financial piece i'm going to let mr mitchell share that because he has that information for you thank you so um really appreciate the work that was done by the the team and the efforts to make that a really engaging experience for kids we anticipated that there would be a drop in participation in the number of minutes and so that's got financial impact to it we went from 86 full-time equivalency which is what gets used towards calculating our revenue limit we went

014from 86 to 53 because it's summer school it doesn't get counted the same way as it would during the school year but you're essentially trying to take the number of minutes that all the students were receiving instruction and trying to average that out like during a full school year they say that's 48 000 minutes how many full students does that create then they give you 40 percent of those minutes so that's the calculation so we added that into the report with that 40 percent calculation it comes to fte for revenue limit purposes and that's a decrease of 13 from the prior year so we had about 60 percent of the minutes that we had in 2019 this is going to have an approximate impact of 45 696 dollars on our revenue limit for this year

015so when we present that later in october it does have that financial impact but i think what you heard described was there was a lot of effort that went into it we we thought 50 of minutes was a pretty lofty goal originally and i think we're taking a look at that that we still got 60 of those revenues it's going to have an impact now but it's averaged over three years so everything that we did to continue to keep kids engaged in that work is going to have an impact for two more years i'm going forward so i'm i'm thankful for that overall um the the summer program um those three years average together overall that's still going to add 342 thousand dollars to our revenue limit after we factor that reduction and that'll still

016add three hundred forty two thousand seven hundred and twenty three dollars for our final revenue limit this year the forty five thousand dollar plus decrease that you mentioned was that included was that based on the three year average for this year or is that just on that's just what our impact will be for this year it's interesting when you look at the numbers the biggest impact was our band program that did not run when you look at our physical education program it looks like the the numbers actually maintained if not increased a little bit so yeah it it has a significant impact when you have a band of over 200 students per day that's engaging and you can count all of those minutes then when that's not available it makes a big change so that's

017that's been a plus in prior years for us is to be able to count all that time anything from either the students axel or paris any comments about the summer school program if or if you're aware of or heard of or participated in you had it um i personally did not do the summer school program i was pretty busy with work i worked almost full time i did get some feedback from students saying that it was a completely different format things like gym specifically a lot of them just bypassed the class i guess you could say because it was online so it was like harder to check if they're actually doing an assignment they simply filled out a google form and a lot of them said that they actually didn't do the work they just

018filled it out because there was no sense of like management towards the situation obviously it's more difficult with um more people in a class like gym class but that's all i've heard in that sense so paris axel any comments or [Music] or anything weren't too keen on doing the work for the class okay thanks for that feedback that's good feedback any other comments or questions from the board obviously there was a lot of audibles that had to be called last minute on the summer school and um then that led into calling audibles for the school year and and so on and so forth i was just kind of curious if you know across the board from the administration you know obviously miss owens things that we learned during summer school that are obviously helping us

019do what we're doing now better than we've ever thought we could do um that was the use of google classrooms was probably the biggest thing that we tried this summer because we were worried about how the younger kids would do with that and we found that to be very helpful and also the parent meetings monique holt and andrea goode did the students going into first and second grade who needed a little extra help and i was a part of her parent meetings those parent meetings beforehand to really talk through how the interactive the google meet would work we're using zoom then i just found so positive we used that to kick off all of our our learning this year in the whether they were digital or in person we had meetings with that the parents

020were a part of as well so that they would understand the process and the kids could practice that before their first day of school so that was one thing that was a big plus and putting together materials packets i know that with ms hanson doing that with her intro to k5 she's doing that with her first graders we had another materials pick up today so we learned that it's okay to drop off some packets safely and using you know the safety guidelines but i think picking up those materials and having those available are also really helpful for the younger kids and i think at the upper levels it was really just the fact that the kids do want to have some interaction even if it's on a video so knowing that if we were to

021all go digital at some point or those who are kids are missing that time together and we're seeing that with our digital learners you might have noticed that at home too they miss that time just to interact and play so should they be able to have 15 minutes during lunch have like a recess at the elementary where they're interacting and talking even if the teacher's not right there that's what kids were missing the mo that social part so i think we can get those educational pieces and the learning knowing that we have to work in all things that make school a positive experience and then based on our previous comments is there are there things that we're doing differently around let's say gym class and other things to ensure that students are actually getting those

022um classes and and those activities um i know in the summer they were supposed to be taking pictures of themselves and that was what some of the kids said they're like it's really hard because if i'm by myself but i have to find someone to take a videotape of me doing that so we're trying to work through some of those accountability pieces i can't speak for middle school and high school but at elementary we're giving them opportunities to participate and then check back in but that i i can't answer from those now one of the things that we discussed and did not have uh sufficient equipment to do was um similar to a fitbit or a watch we have activity monitors that we use during our physical education classes at school but we have an

023insufficient supply to send those home and it's quite a costly resource so to think about what capacity do we have to to use those fitness monitors so that there there's a digital collection of fitness that's there so we've talked about that possibility as being a way for to increase accountability for physical activity in our summer programming as we do during the school year when they're in person and we also um maggie olsen here we um took a lot of the things that we learned from summer school from the survey and also that point of accountability and added that into virtual for this year 4k through 12. whether that's having synchronous that means live instruction and pe for elementary and then also ensuring that in middle and high school that our virtual kids are getting um

024physical education and how that we're holding them accountable in a different way so kind of taking some of our learning from what happened in summer school and bringing that into our school and that included the survey data that they gave to families and kids all right any other comments or questions all right i think thank you very much i know this past summer looked very different than what um what we've anticipated but it sounds as if we've been able to uh transition it as best as possible and still make sure that the the course offerings were a variety of of classes that maintained their interest so thank you to to you carrie and the team as well thank you all right next item on the agenda is talking a little bit about the reviewing the

025cost of reopening schools this past year or this current year um so jonathan mitchell i'll be um talking about this agenda item this evening we talked at the september 14th board meeting i'm about an update and i said i would bring back updated numbers for the october meeting which is tonight as of september 30th in terms of just the costs related directly to reopening schools we've identified thousand eight 750 and fifty four dollars in additional costs and a hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars in savings for things that are operating differently the main drivers are health staffing and supplies substitutes for our classrooms technology costs and additional staffing in order to meet low cohort sizes for physical distancing so you can see it's a it's a significant dollar figure we're talking about three quarters of

026a million dollars in additional costs to bring back students we've talked prior about federal dollars through esser and so prior we've talked about that that there was approximately three hundred thousand dollars that was set aside for the greendale school district since we've talked about that in the springtime we've gotten further direction regarding private school allocations and our private schools in the community will receive of that three hundred thousand um right now they're projected to receive seventy four thousand four hundred and ninety six dollars so about twenty five percent of that so that leaves about 227 000 for the district there's still some more um that's happening in terms of clarifying that sr distribution but it'll be very close to those numbers so we know that that does not cover the entire cost to bring back

027students in a hybrid environment so it's important for us to come together and identify how we can balance the budget for the board to be able to set a tax levy at the end of the month at the october 26 board meeting we're going to utilize our two committees that have been discussing our budgetary process so we have our internal group made up of staff members and we're planning to bring them back together prior to october 26 to talk about budget reduction work that we had done in the springtime our anticipation at that point was that there could be significant changes at the state level to the state budget we've been thankful to hear that as of june 30th of 2020 that the state actually ran a surplus for the 1920 school year or 2019-20

028year and added additional dollars to fund balance in addition to that the governor has come out and said that there's been 300 million dollars identified as departmental level savings from state our state departments and so there's been proactive work at that state level to manage spending in a way that prepares the state financially for the fact that revenues are decreasing due to the pandemic it's unclear what if any impact it's going to have on the school district for our current 2021 school year so in preparation for that we want to try to identify cost-saving measures that could balance the budget to be able to set a tax levy before we understand any changes that may still be coming at that state level in addition to that internal committee we also have a citizen finance team

029that's been getting together and has talked through community presentations around budgeting and we had a school finance 101 presentation in the springtime they helped us to develop we'll also gather their input as we work to finalize the budget and identify some of the priorities and those budget saving items when we met in the springtime we identified about 1.8 million dollars in areas that we could reduce within the budget and so we believe that there's items that we can pull together in order to give a pathway of how we would balance the budget i've included in the report different announcements both at the state level as well as attachments showing that prior work that we had done to identify savings in the budget and also detailed costs on the the new cost for a hybrid reopening

030so with that i would be happy to answer any questions the board may have on our next steps i just had a question about the ppe um was that an addition that the state also did provide ppe is that right for the so is this number in addition to that yes so for example the state issued i think 11 infrared thermometers and we decided we would do scanning at the classroom level and so that meant we needed to carry 150 to 180 infrared thermometer so in addition to what the state provided we had to go out and buy an additional 170 infrared thermometers that may have cost 70 to 80 apiece so that could be an example of those items that would be built into that ppe line item but yes they provided 11 um

031for the infrared thermometers and they also provided two of the face coverings the reusable face coverings for each student and so we have a significant supply of that and still do for our students as we were going through the numbers so they're about 750 thousand dollars in additional costs there's about 130 129 000 in savings that we saw because of the switch and then there was the esser which ended up being around 225 so does that that puts us just under 400 if when that crosses over approximately an additional cost when those balance out is that correct i think that's one way to look at it what we know is that those esser funds are available both for this school year as well as next and we're we know that there's a substantial need to

032use those funds in this school year but that there may also be recovery that's still happening into next and so we need to think about um any dollars that we're leaving remaining for additional support we may even need into next year and i know there were some infrastructure costs if you will around systems and other things that were in place for those counted in the 750 or those additional costs infrastructure as example hvac systems other things of that nature that were for additional expenses or even increasing like furnace filters and all that stuff that we did yeah no those wouldn't even be items that we have here we've got our own maintenance and buildings and grounds budget and so at this point those items would all be identified through there so the other thing that

033i want to just ask a little bit about is so you talk a little bit about the new cost of 750 000 in new costs can you help me understand so so a number of these are based on staffing levels and teachers so we've made a commitment for what the first trimester for for how we're going to return to school do these costs assume that we will stay in the current state for the full year or these costs just associated with the current first trimester and that we would have additional costs if we stay here going forward i just want a little clarification on that if my question makes sense i understand your question um in looking at what we have here we've the staffing model is contingent upon the different learning environments so some

034of them are included here for the full year even as we transition we have some staff members that are on leave so we hired shorter term through that first trimester but some of them were full year positions depending on how we reallocate if the learning environment can shift so at the elementary level for example we have reading specialists and math interventionists that are currently in classrooms ideally we would like to return them to their regular positions in those intervention positions if we are able to do so to increase the cohort size which would then also still require some of those additional classroom positions so what you see here is the contracted positions for the full year and the additional expenses associated with that then there's other spaces where it is a first semester cost so

035for example you see this is kim amidsick um you see the cost for additional costs for virtual school expenses that is our outsourced payments for virtual school to other vendors and they are a semester cost so if we were to continue and have the same participation there could be an additional charge there so some of these have our costs that are incurred for the entire year and some of them are costs that are specific obviously we won't need to buy new thermometers again in january so those are a full year cost all right and then the other things so jonathan you mentioned a little bit about um the buildings and maintenance has their own budget that they might be looking to do things at our food services budget so at our last board meeting or

036last month we heard cindy talk a little bit about the loss that we had in 2019-2020 we could anticipate another loss there so that would be additional costs that are not reflected here i guess what i want to make sure of is this 750 000 is where we're at today we would expect that that could continue to increase um based on some other costs is that a fair assessment or yes and i think there's two there's two items there i think when it comes to some of those building and grounds costs as that frequency of filter replacement may increase that may become something that we identify then and add to this list to say now we're having to do that in more frequent fashion it's now separately identifiable i've tried to capture here instructional costs

037so what it takes to get students into the classroom we could look at both food service and park and recreation separately as well to talk about the challenges that both of those programs have financially in relation to the pandemic there's the cost for them to operate but there's also the tremendous losses that they're having in terms of access to the program if we have half half of our high school students able to come to school and of those there are a number that are taking virtual classes we may only have a pool of 40 percent or less of our high school students to serve meals to on a daily basis so that isn't an additional cost per say related to the pandemic but it's a constraint that makes it hard to make that program self-sufficient

038and so those are things that we're working on on a monthly basis with park and rec and food service because they're looking at substantial losses this year that we're trying to manage as best we can right thank you jonathan any other comments or questions it would be interesting to look at you know knowing that nothing is going to look the same from term to term but assuming things look the same next term and and and beyond when we talk about the trimesters or semester what would what would be our projections at the end of this year from total costs versus what we're seeing right now so kind of taking in those those costs to see this is what it could look like and putting some type of buffer on that because i do know that

039we want to we don't want to hold hostage if you will all of those funds that we earmarked but at the same time we don't want to obviously run into an issue from a budgetary perspective so i think being prudent and kind of looking at it from all different angles just to get an idea for what that would be would be important at least from you know my perspective just to kind of see if things stay the same so to speak what are we looking at at the end of this fiscally uh fiscal slash school year um and then i am you know i think the park and rec and we think about the fund 80 you know community fund you know programs park and rec obviously being when we just talked about and then

040food service i think we have an understanding that you know there's some things that are going on there and then we have the free uh meal plan that's currently going on and i don't know how long that lasts again off the top of my head but um what is that going to do for us and not do for us as we look into our budget moving forward for the end of the year so maybe just looking out as you know kind of getting a crystal ball of of activities to say if things stay the same here's where we think we might end up um so that we don't start reallocating any of those funds prematurely if you will right and then the other the the one more comment that i wanted to make is you

041know we look at the the savings uh the the budget saving ideas uh first of all i think it's great that we have this already prepared so you know kudos to you and the the teams both internally and externally that have kind of developed this this listing because now we're at a point where we can now kind of review this listing we're not uh spending time over the next couple of weeks creating this listing we can review it and see the one thing that i do want to call out is that when you look at the savings about a third of the savings would come from salary increases or benefit premium shares so a real impact to our staff and i know we may end up needing to use those line items but i guess

042i'd i'd want us to be sensitive to the fact that our staff are are working incredibly hard under some very incredible such um in a very incredible environment right now so to give them that workload and then to say we have to freeze salaries we're going to have to increase benefit premiums i i'm not sure that that's the message we want to give to them so i just would caution that we balance all that we may need to do something there but i just would like us to find creative ways and balancing it with that thank you all right any other comments or questions all right so then the idea would be that we would bring back a a budget and approve the tax levy at our fourth meeting in october uh with some of

043these ideas well we only have two meetings but the fourth monday yes six seven three city again fourth monday not the fourth meeting fourth monday in october second meeting in october thank you all right uh then continuing on with the agenda um next item on the agenda we're here to have an update on the greendale coalition for diversity equity and inclusion thank you so uh you heard in citizen comments tonight questions about um if the funds have been allocated and continue to be allocated and concerns about the potential of spending on um divisive separation of the community rather than bringing the community together so i'm going to update a little bit on the history of the plan in july on july 13th we did update the board on the progress that we had made on

044the plan and what goals we had accomplished in the report that is online you can link to that and see what that july 13th um update included but we've been talking about how to welcome diversity and support equity and inclusion in our schools since a long time but the community came into the conversation in april of 2019 we brought together a large community conversation in october of 2019 so about a year ago and in that identified activities or actions that we thought would improve the experience for our community members of color and in the july 13th report we increased i reported that we spent 21 000 in the 2019-2020 school year and as was highlighted at the annual meeting there is 25 000 allocated in the community fund to continue supporting programming around the welcoming

045diversity action plan uh in the next couple of months we have a couple of events that are scheduled one through the education team that i mentioned in communications today that we will have reggie jackson from nurturing diversity partners on october 15th it is a virtual streamed event we've talked with the public library and they will be streaming it in a location at the library so if family if community members would like to see or engage but don't have the technology resources they may participate at an in-person streaming of the event at the public library the programming team is offered events in august and september around solidarity through art and there is an upcoming november event focused on our students with disabilities and supporting students with disabilities and the practices team is currently working to recruit

046mentors of color so that there are more representative racial and ethnic backgrounds similar to our student population than we can support in our teaching staff and as they sign up they'll be able to share their unique experiences and perspectives with students working in a role model capacity so as we think about this the role of the school in this work is that we are we took the lead on bringing the community together to have the conversation and we have oversight of the community-based educational activities and the community teams are really advisory to administration so it is not an adopted goals by the board but administration is overseeing and working with the community to reflect what is needed what we've done internally in the school district is we've identified some of the actions within the welcoming

047diversity action plan for which the school is responsible and at the september 14th meeting you approved a district scorecard that included some of these goals those goals include adding high quality attracting high quality teachers of color and or staff of color to fill open positions so that they are more representative of our student population we are currently 97 faculty who identify as white and so to increase the diversity in our teaching staff as one of those goals to increase the number of texts that represent our student population and you see that not even through the welcoming diversity action plan but we've done so through grants offered by the greendale education foundation to really highlight um protagonists and characters in the text that students may choose to read who are characters of color from different ethnicities

048languages spoken and so representing them as in a positive light we are working on a capstone social studies course focused on u.s historical narratives from leaders and people of color and we are looking to have that in the new course editions and deletions next month and we'll continue to work with student equity teams so we have identified some of those goals that come out of the welcoming diversity action plan that we're responsible and for in the school district and move them to the scorecard and so we will continue the currently the budget that is allocated has a 25 thousand dollar community service fund and that's how we're funding some of the programming that's available to the community that fund 80 is not paying for programming that's for students specifically in the schools kim could you

049talk about it was brought up in citizen commons tonight as well how how the um the procedures for like allocating the money for the welcoming diversity could you just talk to that for a few minutes sure so um the business office has developed a form and that form of the one of the advisory teams is looking to offer a program and has discussion around that within the community then they would complete the form for review by the business office the business office is comparing it to what the stated goals are and what if it aligns with something that is in the welcoming diversity action plan and then approving that they're also making sure that the appropriate tax forms are filed and other pieces are there is there anything i'm missing in that jonathan no that's

050that that's thorough um we're we're doing that like you said the review that we have true alignment to those stated goals because in many cases there was an anticipated budget listed in that sub line item that we can roughly compare to thank you are the other funding sources and i believe the village has allocated some funds and then are there funds being raised also by the committee there are there is not a fundraising happening for the committee itself the village had committed to ten thousand dollars and that is allocated towards activities that are village specific so community education activities community programming activities those are coming out of the 25 000 that is levied as part of the community service fund 80. so in a similar fashion you know it's not our general operating funds just

051to clarify for everyone listening not familiar with fund 80s what fund 80 is that's a community based fund similar to where the park and rec and others are funded through any other questions go ahead paris yes um about this um reggie jackson event how will people be able to access it or is there a link being sent out to parents and people in the community so that has available accessibility to them i'll let maggie answer that we i just printed up some flyers earlier i ran to get them to um so they can be all around the community we also will be sending it out on weeklies and um starting out with our admin tomorrow so they have that so that can get into your hands as students and as community members and uh confirmed

052my conversation with you earlier today um so the public's aware that there it is not able to be recorded right to share correct and that that's mainly due to the speaker himself to like for crying it's essentially a copyright okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board with there's a couple questions that were regarding impact and then also just effectiveness of things are going on or even the communication cadence around things that are going on i'm just kind of curious i know this is not our we don't own this as a as a school district we're involved in it so how do you know how where when can we as a school district you know help make sure that things are being communicated across those areas or even you know celebrating the

053successes that are happening you know as they're happening um what does that look like you know where are we calling audibles like those types of things like how do people find out more about it versus just the greendale schools website which i think automatically makes everyone think that we're the only people that are involved in this yeah so the school board is hearing about it in public meeting we did a report on july 13th we have a report today and we have another report scheduled for the spring within your calendar of reports you are also i'm updating in communications at the board meeting but and then we have them on our website and then in terms of there's some facebook pages out there that are being used by various committees specifically education and programming have

054facebook pages where they're promoting information and we have flyers that are going up so um i don't know if you've noticed but there's been at least one communication on welcoming diversity at each board meeting so the community can monitor at least in that time frame i'm looking at maggie just to consider if there's anything else that yeah i'm just i'm not remembering no i think i think you covered it the other um because it isn't it's owned by the whole knowledge of greendale so um it's also thinking about how we are so that's something that the steering committee i think we could add to our agenda to talk about or um of how we are communicating what is happening because i think that's really important so it doesn't feel like it is something that is

055happening to you that you're part of it because it is supposed to be for the whole entire community about bringing everyone together to work towards a common goal where we all feel included and all of our voices are heard and we're all on the same page and we can work together as a community yeah i think that that's key you know i think we heard um some comments tonight is just you know making sure that it's a community-wide um opportunity to have these conversations um and that all are welcome and it's not a divisive uh or you know opportunity it's it's an inclusive opportunity and how do we what are we doing to recognize differences and celebrate different differences and make sure that everyone particularly our students you know feel safe and at equal opportunities

056anything else the only thing i was going to add was it's so important like the discomfort that sometimes comes in these conversations is normal and i know it can be really hard to hear things that are different from what you believe and i think that makes us stronger and that's why america is a great country because we have so many different views and i think it's important to honor those different views and listen and listen with your heart and your mind so that we can move forward so i really appreciate the differing views that are shared because it makes us stronger as a community it's a great father it's a great time of summarization so thank you maggie anything else all right continuing on next item on the agenda is a number of policies so

057thor and noel have been busy with some policy reviews that are outlined in agenda item seven i'm giving noel i just we looked over the one of the policies we looked at was teacher discipline and that came from the discussion on august 3rd about just cause and the handbook and we brought it forth to look at the policy to see if there was any language we could change we looked at past precedent we looked at a few other things and looking at it and talking with their legal counsel really doesn't work with the language that we have but we we tried and i think that right now we're at a point where we're not going to bring it forward it's just informational because we're not making any changes to the policy um i don't know

058what else to say to that but to let people know that we did did look at it did consider things we you know and looked at things that i would encourage you know i would encourage the administration and gea to look at the idea not the idea of just cause but to have a discussion about is there a way we can look for some common ground that might work other than just cause to be able to appreciate and move forward all right thanks noelle um should we take these policies in order so the first one there we have uh policy 130 school board legal status and organization uh just some some edits to the wording i don't think there's any substantial changes there but any questions about that yeah a lot of these were based

059on a wasb audit that came through this was outlined and so we were just doing a cleanup none of these were um major changes and a lot of these weren't major changes they were just modifying certain things that were caught in the audit that wasb did over policies and outline that we should be looking at as time permits so we spent a little extra time going through the 100 series and trying to get these all up to date nothing too major it was just cleaning up a couple different items so that it aligns with what we call ourself throughout our policies typically and um i don't think there's anything else that was really major we struck the bottom part just because the we don't have what's called a code of responsibility so we felt like

060that shouldn't be in our policy that we should abide by something that we don't have so that is no longer in our policy then and it's also noted in board member responsibilities which is policy 161 that you're looking at so it doesn't need to be cross-referenced there i just had a technical question about that one i noticed in under the board elections you changed the numbers to the written number like three two uh five and one i think um and then later in the document the times are like they're talking about 60 calendar days 10 calendar days 14 does it matter if that language is changed to be the same or what was the reason for it was actually duplicative so it said three and then in parentheses it said three number and we don't

061do that anywhere else in our policy so we just took out all out and just use the standard if it's less than 10 write it out if it's more than that i believe it's use the number okay i mean i find that when the number is actually there the numeric it's easier to it kind of pops a little more i don't know and it was i think part of it was if you go to the bottom of page one there's a paragraph that has lots and lots of numbers and only half of them are done that way and then it's not all the way through so we were going back and forth whether we should change it one way or the other then we looked at our other policies we didn't typically do both we

062just used either the numeric or the alpha depending on if it was less than 10. okay sounds like a good standard just to go forward with so yeah alrighty um so anything else about that policy all right so then the next policy is 142 is district legal council and there was a change in language so we switched from district administrator to superintendent and uh that's pretty much the change is to just be very clear in what we call it so there's no change to meeting it does add a sentence at the bottom that says the board may secure additional legal services as necessary so even if we have counsel an attorney that acts as our legal counsel that the board may choose to contract outside of that original legal counsel and the next policy 143.

063yep 143 was only adding in uh the annual financial audit we added in the annual financial audit into policy 143 since that's actually outlined in state legislation and obviously we do that every year so that way it's clear that in under consultants that is something that is expected and that we will be doing as a district policy 150 has some significant additions it was simply a paragraph before and this was advised in the wasb audit that we more clearly outline those responsibilities as they appear in law so what you can see is a list of six specific duties there's additional ones and then also establishing that you are an uh body corporate which sets up the ability to be to sue and be sued to contract and be contracted with to hold property et cetera

064so these are all things that the law affords us but wasb suggested that we highlight them very specifically in policy rather than just say yes we're a school board and have rules so most of that policy is bolded because it's almost all edition i think i think it's very clear and i like the layout of this so i think that was a good change i'm 161 has very few changes oh just some language changes 161 sorry 151 or 161 161 i think we're on 150 150. sorry i skipped 151. and we the one uh substantial i guess note that we struck out of here is the statement around it of reviewing policies at least on the biennium basis since we don't necessarily always review within the biennium and so we didn't want to be essentially

065in violation of our own policy because that's not common practice for us obviously if policy needs to change we review it in some cases we review it a couple times for the same policy and change it as necessary but it doesn't mean we look at every single policy every two years so the way it's going we we've been working off of a wasb audit right um how how close are we to like fulfilling that and then where do we go from there what you see right now is a very lengthy number so we start the wasb's policy audit provided us with three tables one is you better have this because it's missing or it's out of compliance with the law one was you need to make some adjustments urgently but not tomorrow and then we

066are now going through numerically so you what you're seeing is a ton of 100 series policies and looking at what was considered table 3 on that audit which is uh you there's some cleanup that needs to be done but get to it when you get to it so our process now is going to be that we'll be going numerically through the policies and touching on what cleanup needs to happen so this meeting and the next meeting you will see all the 100s and 200s and then after that we'll move into the 300s and make our way through in numerical order not saying um if if some matters come up that we feel are important to address those will work their way in as well that's correct which is why on tonight's agenda you see a

067review of 529 because there was a conversation that happened around that that asked to bring that forward at the next meeting you'll also see nursing policies and financial policies that have come up within the last year that we need to take a look at so we're trying to go numerically but we'll insert policies that have an urgent need in 161 under individual board member responsibilities there was some clarification around item number 13 with respect to legal responsibilities when carrying out other responsibilities specifically directed by the board so that's kind of the other duties as a signed notion to add into our responsibilities and then we also added in legal reference around the code of ethics since we did take out the code of responsibility that we couldn't find anywhere a reference to and wanted to

068make sure that that was highlighted and both were noted in the wasb audit i don't have them in front of me right now but we also have board norms do how do these um work do they work their way into here as well board norms are not policy okay so their expectations that we have of each other that we've written down but do not need to be codified in policy and then under the board compensation we added the note around pursuant to the powers of the annual meeting the board salary is reviewed in action on the district's annual meeting so that was a combination of wasb but also just a way to point back to if you happen to be a citizen who is reading our policies and get to this and you're curious how

069do you have a say in compensation of school board salaries it would tell you exactly where and how you can you can have that say which is at the district annual meeting so that was just one small addition and then the last was 1 81 and this one had a couple different things um so the since we have some things that are not directly in align with robert tools of order from our policy wasb essentially asked us to re-do the first sentence so that it says that we'll abide by our policy and when policy doesn't exist then we'll abide by robert tools of order essentially so it's kind of flipping it on its head versus saying we're going to do robert's rules of order and then we have some policies that are different i'm just

070making note that we'll abide our policy first and foremost and then use robot rules when we don't have policy and that was the end of our review i know we went through a couple that didn't have any so those yeah so one those policies that are listed there that we just talked through those are first readings so those will need to come back for a second reading if there's any changes and approved as policy revisions the next two are rules and so a rule does not require the board approval to make a change the policy committee can make that change and then what we're looking at is these two rules the revisions to the rules just informing the board that we have adjusted the rule and both of these rules we have adjusted in alignment

071with policy changes that happened over summer so when you look at rule 187 that's just aligning with the policy that we updated just to make sure that we looked at all of our um individuals presenting to the board and we had two different uh values of time that different groups had and we said it should just be all the same if you're someone presenting just keep that simple and then if you want to have multiple people presenting you can and that's how that would work and so this just aligns with that policy that we already changed and the agenda format was the same change to align with the policy change yep so does the policy need to include um the amount of not just the amount of time someone can speak but how long our

072actual time period is for public only the agenda format has it in there okay so if you go to the 171.2 that's where it lays out the time okay yeah that was exactly the same question i was asking just because i mean maybe i don't know is it so we cross-referenced it now so it's in there so you can see that that's where you should look for the time versus putting it in two different places okay but yeah that's like exactly the same question i think we all had when we were going through this so when you go to 170 1.2 the next one down that'll then clearly state the 30 minute time frame and then just cleans up the bottom part of the agenda to line with that as well and can i ask

073about the citizen comment time um so the 30 minute time frame is that each section of our or is it one 30 minute total we had it written as a total of 30 minutes and then um that allows for if there's time at the end for comments questions from visitors on the agenda or additional items but there's also part of our policy that you can speak once at a meeting right so we felt like either way it was this you know we usually there's very obviously very limited amount of times that we've ever hit our limit um and so we didn't feel like it was necessary and plus when looking at other policies i think we had the longest uh time frame out of any policy around here for amount of time we provide for

074citizen comments and so we didn't want to change that we want to keep it the same okay and then the remaining section of policies were reviewed but no changes are being recommended by the policy committee so we're just um sharing with the board that we review these items and no changes will be made but it'll be noted on the policy that they were reviewed at the policy committee meeting and shared with the board and the one that had come up for discussion was the one noelle mentioned at the beginning which is 529 employee discipline we are not recommending any changes and um i think that if noel shared a little bit thor i don't know if you want to share a little bit about policy committee discussion on that yeah um yeah i guess just

075to reiterate you know as we were talking through [Music] um 529 i think the big piece was we we know and and realized that we are greendale schools and that's in large part because we have the best teachers and staff around and we appreciate that and we want to continue that high strides but after looking at kind of that policy from all sides uh i personally didn't see how the benefit kind of outweighed the risks in that area and part of that's just because of um even in my short kind of tenure here on the board i think that ultimately we're going to save some headaches and some legal fees because of the fact that we're the way we're designed and i know that most of the conversation around moving to that just cause seemed

076to be around what-if scenarios and i think all of us here on the board uh don't we we're never gonna let those what-if scenarios happen at least i know i won't because we want to make sure we're treating our teachers and staff with the utmost respect and that they deserve as part of that process so by opening up and changing something that was only going to benefit the what-if scenarios for the potential of the unfortunate reality of people liking to sue people and opening us up to more risk and greendale schools and the district up to more potential costs and ultimately the taxpayers open more costs i couldn't move forward with presenting something that would change that so well and i think to add to that there was legal council of input on this policy

077and the best interest of the district i guess is what they're looking at yeah exactly so that was kind of my summation i mean we talked about it for quite some time and looked at it from a lot of different perspectives i know that i talked with numerous folks before that meeting as well that were interested in sharing their opinions and thoughts on it and i appreciate that and i hope that people will continue to kind of lean into all of us as they have questions or opinions on different things that's why we're here we want to hear from you you know whoever you are and whatever your opinions are so thank you for filling my inboxes and my uh my phone uh with your comments and and and opinions on this no well i'm

078needed just wanted to say thank you thor you said that's so much better than i did but that's exactly what i was trying to say before all right thank you thor noel you know as we look at the policies that we review tonight we certainly recognize the work that you guys put in to present these policies so it's good to hear that we're toward the end of the wasb audit that said here's some policies you want to review and that we're now going to be in a a regular cadence to review these policies and make changes accordingly how often is our policy committee meeting now is it uh once every other month six times a year six times a year so that's good and then thor just to echo i appreciate your feedback into all

079your feedback about the the staff discipline and i think you're right i think greendale schools has a an environment a culture however you want to call it that has mutual respect for staff and administration and and teachers in the community and i i think that's important and i don't think that's something that changes um regardless of who's in the superintendent's seat because i think it's bigger than just one person so thank you for sharing that and i would agree with the assessment that you guys uh made and presented tonight all right so then we will bring back these policies at our next board meeting to just the ones that were revised the ones that we revised and the ones that we reviewed the revisions that we reviewed tonight will be brought back for a second

080reading for our approval at our next board meeting all right thank you continuing on agenda item eight the work session so we've been reading the uh working towards success board and superintendent interactions um and we read chapters two through four and kim you shared a couple of questions or topics to discuss and think about i did so um in one of the in the one of the chapters i can't remember the chapter number the researchers measure trust and trust was something that we talked a lot about during my interview process and rebuilding trust with the community and the researchers in this text actually determined a way to measure trust indirectly through perceptions of four behavioral traits and since rebuilding trust is so important to us how can these behavioral traits be developed measured and monitored

081in greendale schools to continue building and maintaining trust so there's some thoughts or ideas on those traits and if we think that they're the right measure of trust i think some of this is represented in our scorecard the communication and probably even the decision making are something that's already kind of outlined and i i agree with these four they were integrity resilience communication and decision making um i'm not quite certain how you would measure integrity i don't know if that's is that measure i mean it's probably measurable but i don't know what scale you would use for that and resilience i think is important as well and i did like the way it said decision making processes should take into consideration the culture and the values of the community as well as the available data

082so that it's not just one or the other you're looking at but it's a combined kind of piggybacking off what kathy said i think one of the ways you could measure integrity is through the decision-making process i think there could be something within the decision-making process you could measure integrity with same with resilience but i do think i agree i agree with kathy we already do measure those two things but i think within those two things we could measure resilience and integrity it kind of reminded me of some work that we did i thought it worked out really well there's a book called the five dysfunctions of a team and they also start with looking at the bottom of the will of this pyramid and the absence of trust being essentially if you don't have

083that as a foundation at the end of the day you can't build those other components on top of it and there's some actually really good exercises in that in that book that might be useful to kind of leverage across different teams especially as teams come are coming together i even think about from an administration's perspective obviously there's a mixture now of of veterans that have been around the district for quite some time and also some folks that are newer to the district uh within the last couple years so you know that could be an opportunity to kind of kind of open up and bridge that gap and then i think even with this the board um you know i know that three of us are are fairly new all within our first term if you

084will on the school board so when you have kind of those things going on it might be a useful prioritization of time to kind of dive into that so that we can address any of those issues and make sure that that doesn't exist i don't see any of that at kind of the surface level but obviously it's better to kind of nip that in the bud before it becomes a real issue anyways versus waiting till it's a problem so i do also like the fact kim that you have several ways of communicating with us we've got the district update weekly you do your phone calls to each of us to check in and you're very responsive to messages at least that i've been sending you in in the in between time sometimes when things come

085up and i think that was one area they talked about that it's probably never going to seem like enough because there's always something to be communicated but i i think we do a pretty good job in greendale with with that communication track between the board members and the superintendent i think that was one of the things that stuck out to me as i was thinking about trust and and how i'm working on trust not only with the board but with the community and the staff and so not only frequency and and uh types of messaging which we do have a communications director kitty gave you a report on some of those ways that we're doing that but that it's also transparent so sometimes telling the whole story and making sure that all the information is

086out there the good and the bad so that people know so as we think about some of the things that we've done around covet that we have a dashboard out there and that we're updating that and communicating and when there's questions on it that we continue to communicate and share additional information on that and that that's shared with the board so that you have a sense of what's there so it was very interesting to me to see that communication was a trait associated with trust i like the fact that they broke it down and kind of looked at those different aspects versus just saying you know do you trust you know fill in the blank uh whoever that is with your different stakeholder groups to understand perhaps where the issue of trust was coming in

087um it also kind of brought me into something i think that greendale has already made a priority right if you think about the center of our attributes of a greendale graduate you have character in the center of that greendale graduate and a lot of the frameworks that you look at around character you know when they talk about an intellectual moral civic performance versus other things that tie into that that seemed to align pretty well with the four buckets that also were tied in here and we may want to talk about revision to the evaluation process to include these attributes or characteristics specifically and how these traits are happening so some of them are built into the scorecard but the board may want to consider as you're looking at evaluation tools talking about these aspects of

088trust yeah one other thing joe did you want to go go ahead one other thing i was going to mention um in the conclusion it just kind of talks about seeking unpleasant news from stakeholders and the importance of that and um i you know my tenure that i've been on the board for just a term and a half now um i think there have been some things that have come up that have been made you know feelings of uncomfortable but i feel that that is one way that we can get more feedback from the community to help move us forward too and i think so i do think it's important that we have that although it's not always the feel good kind of thing and you know maggie you touched on that before that some

089of these discussions we have sometimes can be very difficult but i think that's important that we we understand that there are going to be some things like that that we'll have to deal with at times and kind of building on that common kathy is when i looked at that the superintendent uh perception of strengths and weaknesses by trait you know resilience integrity decision making and communication what came to mind is our work with the citizen finance team and and i think it's again that's a great example of where you've been really working to reestablish that trust in our business uh office and with the community and and really getting those uh difference of opinions and and difference of perspectives and and being very transparent with what happened and what we're doing to um address the

090situation and move forward so you know i think thorin and kathy you both said you know engaging with our community and getting that feedback has always worked well and and i think in greendale we have a a citizenry that is anxious and eager to share their feedback uh jonathan i i would add on resilience that we've certainly had our fair share of opportunities to demonstrate resilience and so we're in a situation where we had a superintendent come in the day that we were closing schools for multiple weeks and so the the book talks about the community viewing that as kind of during times of challenge or times where there are failures that response and i think kim has done a tremendous job of being open and transparent in terms of some of the decision making

091and really the most important piece is being a listener because when you go through times of challenge you're thinking about that resiliency it's understanding that we're going to have differences of opinion on the pathway going forward and that individuals when you're in that process of building trust want to know that there's open communication and they have that ability to share opinions that are going to be different and we are truly in a time period where there's no playbook so it isn't like anyone has a bad idea we need to listen to everyone um but that that process has been very evident of trying to filter through that so everyone has input but then decisions have to be made for for students kind of interesting i was thinking about angela duckworth's work on grit where she

092talks about resilience plus passion you know and so i almost feel like we should change resilient with grit just because of the fact that there's that commitment that is kind of streaming across anyone you talk to in greendale schools around doing what's best for the kids that need uh that are coming through our system that are part of our community um you know that's kind of at the forefront so that might be my only change i would say is let's call it grit instead of resilience because i think that that's a at the forefront of what we do in that passion meeting resilience all right um you want to take us through the next yeah so just thinking about um professional development for the board it really talks on um content and delivery of professional

093development and so as you read through this was there something that really resonated with you or that you thought i really could use this and then the bigger question is how can i as the superintendent facilitate that desired professional development and growth for the board i just wanted to point out on page 28 where it talks about the importance of board professional development board professional development is an important opportunity to learn reflect and grow in a context created specifically for learning it can also cultivate a culture and encourage healthier relationships within board members and then on 32 where it talks about super superintendents and board members should seek out professional development opportunities that utilize available resources from state board associates associations and consultants if budgets allow um i think our school's doing a good job

094of trying to add more to what we are already trying to work on um we saw a need for diversity i personally saw a need for that knowing i am a minority at the school and our school took that into account and we hired a professional to work specifically for that aspect which is what i appreciate um so moving forward for like years to come are we thinking about doing more budgeting and if our school or district has a desire to move forward with professional development how seriously are we taking that into account and are we like looking at ways to budget put that in fit that um into our curriculum and our community so yeah thanks paris and i think i communicated um in the district update this week how much is allocated in

095the budget for board superintendent professional development uh which i believe was a total of well i'm going to speak out eternity but yeah 22 000 and 2000 i think is is where we were at and so that's how much is allocated in the budget for this group specifically and i think it was brought up tonight with with joe with his level with wasv and i think it's important to note that we are continuing to do uh professional work um all of us as a board i think that probably is something i have not seen with many other districts where the entire board is engaged in professional development and um i i personally enjoy it i think that it's something that makes me not only a better board member but a better person because it gives

096you the perspective you know of others around the state and what they're doing and so moving forward i think it is important that we continue to look at the opportunities that our own association is offering and continue to do those things yeah i think go ahead because i think we all saw that wasb is going to have their convention in january but this year it'll all be virtual yeah so it will be a little bit different but you're right the wsb certainly provides a number of opportunities and in that state convention that was always held in milwaukee was a good opportunity to hear examples from all the different school districts in wisconsin and just having an understanding of other districts that are the same as us but also other districts that are different to have

097that big picture i know we have our state representative here tonight but as decisions are being made in madison it really does need to take into account all of the districts and having an understanding that all students really need to be put first in the process so i just i think that wasb does a really good job at addressing those issues one of the things that's interesting is um paris talks about the the value of diversity and at the writing of this text one of the areas that they thought was low that board members indicated as a low priority was to issues of diversity among other things and i think that this board has rightfully so heard the voice of the community and been responsive to learning more about that and yet there's still room

098for for growth i think too but yeah and i think i want to thank you for sharing your personal um take on it as a student because that's really what it comes down to is you know how the students are benefiting from this so i mean we can do all the professional development in the world but if it's not benefiting the students then it's there's what's the purpose of it so i appreciate your input one of one of the thoughts that i had when i got to the the page 32 where it talks about the structures was kind of the practice what we preach um i know we've been putting a lot of time energy and one of our strategic priorities around project-based learning and as i was thinking about the the work in front

099of us with the fact that we are in 2020 and this is vision 2020 and so at the end of our strategic plan you know could we use a you know project-based approach to kind of reinvigorating and re-envisioning our next strategic plan you know so could we employ design thinking or a bunch of other methodologies i know you did a lot of work with the buckets too which is how pbl works and other things so i'm sure there's plenty of assets or resources that might be useful from not only a hey we have to get this done because it's in front of us and something that we should be doing as well but it's also going to help us kind of feel what the students are going through from our perspective as well so just

100a thought that kind of ties into how can we tie into our professional development through the things that we have to all also do as a board such as the strategic plan for the district i just had a quick question what exactly is the wsab wasb is the wisconsin association of school boards so it's a statewide organization that school boards can choose to be a member of and we are a member and so it works at this state level in and if i could add to that one of the sessions i attended last year at the state convention they actually have students that are involved now with the wasb so that might be something that we as a district i i think you maybe would be interested in that the work that the students are

101doing to have their voice heard um it's not something you know i thought about it as i sat there and we haven't we have student board members on our our panel here but you know to go go further into it i i think it's nice to know that there's a group out there that's actually looking at it from the student perspective so that i could probably get some more information for you for that so i'm hearing that the resources being provided through wasb are fulfilling our our learning needs so i'll continue to bring those forward and and keep track of them and i think the the book talks book discussions are a good way that the both the board and administrative team are learning different topics so i think this these have been helpful these

102past couple of years that we've been doing this okay the one one i guess word of caution i guess what i've put against that is you know just like anything if we're only looking at one source for professional development that's probably not the the best so it you know also bringing forward things that maybe are outside of wasb that could be applicable would be helpful as a caveat too yes we like that and okay well some of the work we're doing with the welcoming diversity is bringing in other professionals so i think you know you're right we do need to look at other avenues and so the final point of discussion is that there were some frameworks presented in terms of how boards operate was there a framework or a component of framework that really

103resonated with you and how can we use that framework to improve our communication or our decision making which is part of rebuilding trust i'll go first the communication layers model talks about um the different groups with which we interact and how that layers into hearing different voices within the community and so as we think about our channels for communication and our stakeholder groups with with with whom we communicate i think that will be helpful in the strategic planning process to have those different layers of communication within the community so individual conversations small group discussions political coalitions outside advocates and alliances so to have voice through those channels will be a thoughtful way for us to really understand and communicate and hear what our community has to say my gut reaction when i saw the two

104you know the communication versus decision matrix model was just that it seemed like the decision matrix model was easier um but ultimately probably less effective in the realities of the world that we live in but that was just my gut reaction after reading six pages so maybe maybe moral commons it gets unpacked but um communication model seemed to be one that was a little bit more holistic in its approach of trying to connect and engage people where and when people want to be engaged versus putting them into the process for a decision and the juxta question that kind of came up was just i think you know we always run the issue of as a school board you know we're individuals that have you know i guess no power in and of its ourselves but

105as a collective we have the responsibility and authority of the school board and so there's also the issue of quorums and all kinds of other things and so how can we be engaged and be involved um which becomes more problematic because we are a small board um and a small community in a small community so you know those are all things that i think you know how can if that's a model that we employ how can we make sure that we um address that in the front for the forefront so that it doesn't feel like we're not responding to people when we can't respond to people or we can't have formal discussion on something because it's against the law not because we don't want to uh in a in a group so those are things

106that you know how do we make sure that people are aware of that and understand that as part of the process i like the three hours that they outlined the reasons why individuals run for board and become superintendent the responsibilities that board members and superintendents face and the roles that board members and superintendents can play in in these interactions and i think it's important to keep those three r's at the forefront of all that we do so i found that framework or i don't know if that was really a framework so much as just you know points of focus for us as a board and as a superintendent sounds good so um i think that that will inform some of our practice as we continue to move forward and we'll be looking to revisit the

107text on november 2nd and last time i didn't communicate at the board meeting what we'd be reading i just communicated in writing late after the fact so while we're here next time we tackle we will be looking at chapters um five and six which is the remaining part of section two of the text five and six all right thank you thank you for leading through us through that kim then we are at the end of the agenda any additional comments from visitors yesterday good evening david gates 7448 hill valley court uh before i begin my comments i wanted mr misco and i'm sorry student representative i don't know your name your mics aren't picking up very well on your youtube transmission so just note that um and then also you if i repeat what might

108have been said in the comment section earlier i apologize but on youtube i was watching that was at a meeting over at the church and that whole period was real wonky and cut in and out so just so you know if i'm repeating myself all right so my three-minute start now good evening thank you for allowing the time for people to speak about matters within the purview of this board that concerned them two weeks ago the annual meeting of the school district took place down the hall in the auditorium my concern tonight is about the last few minutes of that meeting and how the board conducted itself during the time for comments two people spoke against the diversity equity inclusion items which came about which have come about after four years of hard work by

109various committees within the district and not just the last two years with paige and stuff the first gentleman spoke with anger about these agreements concluding his remarks by saying that the goal of this was to get our children to think in an approved way speak in an approved way and use the approved words the woman who spoke shortly after him said the term diversity was offensive to her my comments are not about these two people they are entitled to their opinion i do not share this opinion but it is their opinion the reason that i was disappointed was that not a single one of you countered these two comments president carpido offered to have a follow-up conversation after the meeting i don't know if the gentleman accepted the offer however these comments were made in

110a very public fashion and applauded by a fair number of folks in the room it called for a public response and you collectively offered none it could have been answered simply by one person with just a few words and i have three sentences or three statements that you could have easily offered one the goal of our equity agreement is to close the gaps of inequity by targeting improvements specifically to those who are most burdened with these inequities or two it is my belief that the more we acknowledge our diversity the stronger we become and it is our desire to have the best and strongest school district that we can or three our equity agreements came about after working hard for four years to listen to and include as many segments of our village population that

111we could we stand by these agreements and we stand by our desire to make greendale schools welcoming for all people not only would you the school board have been able to provide a healthy message and example but you also would have had the final word excuse me any educator will tell you that there are times when the day's lesson plan must go to the wayside when a teachable moment presents itself you all had a wonderful teachable moment present itself and you responded to it with silence the greatest social issue facing our country is racism to be silent in the face of racism is to be complicit with it and this is not helpful for our community thank you thank you for your comments any other comments this evening well big in number 60 58 oh

112mr bigenheimer we allow people to make one comment i just want to mention that people uh the initial comments were not recorded on youtube and i would ask the board to include written comments from the speakers at the beginning into the record all right we will make sure that they get it required into the um into the minutes thank you all right seeing no additional comments we are adjourned our next school board meeting is the fourth monday sorry i'm sorry i don't know who makes the board agendas thank you to whoever does um i did notice on the last agenda there was a spot for a student report at that moment in time i wasn't exactly sure what i was supposed to report knowing it was my first in-person meeting however i did think of

113some things to say and coming forward in future meetings or occurrences if you guys would like a student report i'm more than welcome to do that i'm sure axel as well to give bi-weekly reports when we meet i also think miss mindzik and i are planning on meeting the friday before that coming monday of the meeting just to see where you guys were we're at my job is to represent the students at our school and i think i can do that by getting a communication with the students which is what i did so if you guys didn't mind i'm just going to present two things that i worked on this week please report back with me with feedback if you would like them at every meeting some meetings rather not if you don't have time

114things like that um first thing was homecoming it's a recurring issue of interest and many people have been asking me about it i simply talked to administration briefly about it and it looks like we are moving forward with a spirit week coming involved with possible giveaways fun community activities a sphere king and queen music in the hallway and a food drive to help people in our local community probably with non-perishables um and then we're looking forward to may to hopefully making that a more traditional event and then we do have student academics last time i was here i talked about the first couple of days of school it's been a couple weeks we have a better picture now i went forward and asked students how they felt about it i took all their feedback and

115made a very large document with their feedback um mr lotus took many into account which i appreciate we talked about it on friday with mr menzik axel and i um and we took a lot of it we're mostly focusing on how to resolve confusing issues between differentiating groups so the a groups the b groups and then the c students that are all fully virtual assignments and communication and then those that are approved by mr lotus which was many of them will be talked about tomorrow during the staff meeting so yes thank you all right thank you very much paris all right then we are adjourned and we'll be meeting at next board meeting on monday october 26 which is the fourth monday of the month thank you