001Good afternoon everyone. Welcome. This is the study session of the Jordan School District Board of Education. It is Tuesday, May 13th. We are gathered at the Jordan Academy for Technology and Careers South Campus. Uh joining us today, President Nikki George is on her way. She will be resuming her duties momentarily, but she's asked that we go ahead and begin. Uh, present with us today are all other board members. Uh, Daryl Robinson is joining us electronically. We are joined by our superintendent, our associate superintendent and business administrator as well as legal counsel. Welcome everyone. We hope you're having a wonderful May. We will begin with uh our um our first agenda item, a comprehensive guidance report. We turn the time over to the beloved Stacy Woreren who we very much appreciate all that she does for
002Jordan School District. I for one have um 21-year-old daughter whose life her group probably saved. And so every time she comes, I feel like angels need to sing before we introduce her. So Stacy, take it away. Thank you so much. That was so kind of you. Thank you so much for letting me come and present my annual report on school counseling. As you know, it's required by our state Utah State Board of Education that I come and report to all of you every year and speak to what we are accomplishing in Jordan School District with our school counseling program. Um, I would like to introduce you to my team. I am Stacy Woreren and I am counselor consultant and under me I have four specialists. Melissa Christ Jansen who is currently working towards her administrative
003uh degree here in Jordan School District. We have Hillary Emmer currently working towards her PhD, Amy Gibson, who has earned her CMHC, and Brandt Hobberman who is a nationally board certified school counselor. Uh very knowledgeable and um very uh willing to help in any way possible. They are over feeder systems. So, if you ever have any questions, you can reach out to me and I can let you know which specialist is over your feeder system. Uh, but it's a a great team that is accomplishing a lot of things uh very quickly. We're excited about that. What I want to show you today is our high school data projects. Every year we do data projects um and specifically we focus on our graduation rates. So in Jordan school district you can see like we're incrementally incrementally
004making a difference with our graduation rates. We started in 2018 at about 88% we are now up to about 90.4%. It looks small, but when you look at the number of lives that we're changing with graduation rates, you're talking hundreds of kids. Um, we've also been able to decrease our number of seniors with credit deficiencies by 96%. Since we've started, so that graph I want you to see where it says pre, it's a little bit confusing, but every year we take our uh our main group of students. So when it says pre that is our group of students who are starting their senior year credit deficient and then after quarter 1 when it says quarter 1 that is the number that have dropped in credit deficiencies quarter 2 quarter 3 quarter 4. So we've been
005able to decrease our credit deficiencies by 96% which is why our graduation rates continue to trend up. as you know with your portrait of a graduate that is one of your pillars. Um we we really want to um tie in what we're doing with your portrait of a graduate and the portrait of the graduate initiative and that is opportunities for all learners and that is the opportunity to graduate and we really focus on that. You're also one correction there. Yes. It's our portrait of a graduate. is it is it is honestly it's near and dear to counselor's hearts because everything we do fits in and ties in so nicely with the portrait of a graduate as I was reading through we everything we do ties in to the portrait of a graduate so you are
006correct it is ours um also what I would like to show you is everything that we're doing fits in with restorative MTSS so that's the little graph in the bottom and and you have to have really good eyes to be able to see it. But that center circle is um learning and everything that we do as school counselors is to try and help our students so that they can have successful academic experiences. We want them learning and growing. Um, and so in order for them to learn, there are sometimes we have to focus on prevention, response planning, um, teaching skills to to help enhance academic, behavioral, and social learning as well as emotional learning. So, when you see that, that's that's what we're referring to with our high school counselors. Um what I would like
007for you to see is every um every year we're increasing our contacts. So we started so if you look at this graph we have we started with 50,896 interactions total interactions with students and parents um by counselor by this year. And this is right now without quarter 3. So without quarter 3 this year, we're up to 93,748 contacts, which is phenomenal. Um, and if you break that down, the average high school interaction by counselors started at 1,60. Now we're up to 1,953. And that is also without uh quarter 3 or quarter 4. quarter four um data. Okay, so with the 160 and the 50,896, that's including quarter 4 data. It's pretty impressive. Can I ask a question on that one? Of course you can. I maybe I'm not understanding it correctly, but personally, I would
008hope to see that going the other direction that the students are becoming more self-sufficient and and learning life skills better where they don't need interactions. Help me understand why it's a good thing that it's going up instead of down. Sure. It's a good thing going up because first and foremost, we want to make sure that every student feels like they have the opportunity to have a trusted adult that they can come in into contact with and ask questions and um and seek opportunities for whatever they they might need in their lives. Um, we also want them, we really want the interactions to increase because we're focused on academic learning and so everything is tied to academics. So, we want them to have somebody that can come and talk to them about scholarships, about um you
009know, if they're struggling in a class, if they've they don't understand a concept in class and they've asked a teacher and maybe they just need somebody to go and advocate for them. So, we we want people in those buildings that they feel comfortable with having those conversations. Um if you if you think about your life when you have um difficult situations that you're coming across um think about people in your life that you want to go and have contact with. You don't want them you don't want to actually um have to deal with those life experiences by yourself. And so we we want people in the buildings where they feel comfortable, where they feel like they can actually um have someone safe that they can come into contact with and help. And and some of
010these are contacts with parents, too. Absolutely. And and Brian, the school community council meetings that I've been at at um the high school, there was a period of time when a lot of parents were wanting more contact from counselors to their students to help them figure out um academic pathways and scholarships. And so I I see it as a good thing also. And and the parents that I interacted with at the school community council meeting meetings because it was a long it went on for a couple years. They wanted more outreach from the counseling center for students. So yeah, and you can see also in there um that's parent contacts, parent emails, student emails. there's a lot of information um coming at our kiddos and so we really want to make sure that that they
011have access to all of that um at any given point. But I think I'd add that the end goal is to be um you know have a a student that's that's able to be self-sufficient that's able to know um I think this is just a touchbased opportunity for them to just make sure sometimes it's just making sure they're good or making them aware of resources that they may not have known but I agree that the end goal is to help them um you know become independent and uh it's it's not going to be too long before when they graduate that they're going to be on their own without a lot of that support but this is just a a touch base in many cases awareness and information and scheduling. Uh making sure that they're staying
012on track for graduation. So any contact that's dealing with with those uh we we see a lot of students for scheduling and making sure that they're on track for graduation, looking at career pathways, uh providing them uh opportunities for JATC programs for a college and career. So um concurrent enrollment AP opportunities. So, and can I also say in case anybody is wondering PCCR is what is the P? I know it's college and career readiness preparing preparing preparing for college and career readiness. I I can definitely see a value in having a a trusted authority figure, trusted counselor in a school that someone's comfortable that a student is comfortable approaching and asking questions, confiding in. I I'm just I'm just not sold yet on the fact that that that increasing number is what we want. If
013if it if it happens to be what we need now, great. But but I wouldn't want to continually see that go up and up. I would personally want to see it go up and then eventually start to come down because the system is working. that to me that's to me the system working is that number going down. I I guess I can see that point and I think the increased interaction is a reflection of the way that counselors are using their time initially. So it's a shift in making sure that time is spent with students. I also think that what we will see o over time is exactly what you've described. We have the interaction so that when they do encounter difficulty students have that pathway clearly established and the relationship is there. But we
014are we've only started with elementary counseling. And I think once you have a student who has come up through our whole system and has had a counselor a relationship with a counselor for all of their years in school rather than just a limited interaction 7 through 12. You may see that happen, but every interaction isn't necessarily a crisis interaction. It it may simply be building that relationship. And so I think it increases at first and then maybe it does become less necessary to have as many interactions if you know a student has been through that system. It's in it's similar to where in witten wisdom for example students have been dropped into wit and wisdom in fifth grade but they haven't had it from first grade all the way through or they haven't had the
015new reading programs all the way through. And once you've had that full system, then you have that once you've benefited from the system K12, then you have the level of support that we've put in place. So I I I see that point, but right now the need is for as much interaction as possible with counselors and students. Can I just ask a clarifying question on the two graphs? So the graphs on the right that talk about total interactions would be in the spread of the items on the pie chart. Yes. So just because they're having an interaction that could very well be a class change or academic advising or advice on scholarships. It could be academic as well as mental health service. Yeah. So if you look on the piraphph you can see the the
016orange is academic and career planning. So the the large majority of what we're doing in high schools is academic in nature and and that's why you want to have as many interactions with your school counselor as you possibly can because if you have questions about college technical opportunities with technical schools, you you want to be able to go to somebody who can help you find that information. So, you do want your you do want those interactions to be as much as you possibly can because if you're So, here's an example. My 17-year-old goes to Copper Hills High School. He was exploring a couple of different career options. Um, and so he went to his school counselor and it was academic in nature. He was asking how what are the programs to help him so he
017can be a commercial airline pilot. And we know now we now know that UVU has a great program. Utah State has a great program. Um, and the reason that we know is because our school counselor was able to provide him those resources. Um, and if he didn't feel comfortable going multiple times and asking those questions, we wouldn't have been able to figure out his correct career path. And so that's why you want those interactions to go up. We're trying to break the the mold of well, when I was in high school, I never saw my my guidance counselor. I never saw my school counselor. I didn't even know who they were. We want them to say, "I absolutely know who they were." They absolutely helped me every single time I went in and had a
018question about a class, a class change, careers, um which which um concurrent enrollment classes would best meet my career path. And and so that's why we're we're encouraging that trend to go up because we want our counselors in front of kids as much as possible. One more. Sure. What's a stakeholder consultation? That's anytime that a teacher comes down or an administrator um or it could even be a hall monitor where they see a student that might be struggling or they have questions and so they come down and and ask questions and work together to try and figure out um you might have a a teacher come down and say, "I don't know that this math class is the correct fit. Um, can you please work with parents to to find the correct placement? So, that's
019like a stakeholder consultation. That's a good question. Thank you. Can I ask um if these numbers represent just the number of interaction and so it could be the same student over and over again, the same parent over and over again? Yes. Okay, that is correct. That's actually a really good question. Now, in our middle school, you can see right now, um, we're on the same trend. So, you can see it's it's not it's not quite on level, but it will be once we put in that quarter 4. Um, you can see that uh with the quarter 4, once we add that, then they'll be on the trend once again for um trending up on interactions. uh you can see that right now 34% in the middle school of our interactions are academic in nature and
02036% are mental health in nature. So what what is a student contact that is the blue that is different than uh school-based mental health or academic and career advising or PCCR the little 2%. That's a great question. a student contact would that would be um an email to a student because we have the the virtual learningmies and so we wanted to be able to track how they're contacting their students and a lot of that is through email. You're welcome. This is Oh yes, Erin. So, um on the middle school counselors, we don't yet have quarter 4 numbers. Do you anticipate them staying the same or going up? I'm just curious. That's a That's a great question. I expect that quarter four we're going to see them trend up again. Yep. So that middle is with
021quarter four from last year. Yep. Stacey, I'm curious. The mental health piece in middle school is considerably larger than the mental health piece in high school. It is. Is that because they just need more or because the high school counselors find themselves doing so much more to prepare them for post high school plans? Talk to me a little bit about the 36% in middle school versus the 11% in high school because I would assume the needs of the high school students might actually outweigh the needs of the middle school students, but they're getting more interactions in middle school. That's actually a really great question. Um, and the answer is yes to both of what what you brought up. Um, in high school they're they're really focused on what can we do to help that child
022graduate from high school. Um, and a lot of times the high school counselors are also really struggling with um how how do we document this interaction? Um, as a high school counselor, a lot of times my academic meetings would start as academic and I'd mark it as academic, but then it would take a quick turn to, okay, they're they're struggling with something. There's there's a a bigger need that's underlying. And if you're a really skilled counselor, which in Jordan School District, we we have great school counselors who are really skilled in asking the right questions, and a lot of those meetings turn to mental health and nature. Um but a lot of times they document what they felt like the majority of that meeting started as. So does that make sense? But then also um
023in middle school we know as as we are human beings developing um there there's the in brain development middle school just their brains are developing at a lot faster rate and so a lot of those meetings turn into emotional regulation and social skills friendship skills um and so they become more mental health focused in nature. You're welcome. Okay, this is the really exciting piece. So, we were able to be fully staffed last year with elementary school counselors. Um, so you can see that we started at 2,640 on on average interactions and now we're up to 4,280. Um, and our total total interactions started at 44,887. Now that we are fully staffed, this is just through quarter 3, 184,61 interactions with students and parents. Can So that seems like a lot, a whole lot because the
024elementary schools only have one counselor usually, right? Yes. So, does that mean that are there groups that meet and they that counts as more than one or I mean it just seems like a lot for one counselor. Yes. And I love that you brought that up. In elementary school, we're working on prevention, right? So, we're doing a lot of preventative and so they're going in and doing classroom lessons. So the reason that they're getting more contacts is because they're actually going in by grade level based on the needs of the school and they are doing classroom presentations. For example, we have an amazing school counselor, her name is Natalie Bartholomew and she starts every year off with just teaching emotional regulation through deep breathing. So, Miss Natalie goes into every single class and teaches them
025how to emotionally regulate using a very simple tool, deep breathing. So, when they have test anxiety, when they're feeling stressed with their their choir concert, they go, "Okay, let's just do Miss Natalie's deep breathing technique." And it shows them a really quick, easy skill to help them. And it's a life skill, right? And so of course she's contacted every single student in that school because she's gone into every single classroom. Yeah. But they are running friendship groups. Uh they're running sixth grade girls groups. Um so so they're doing a lot more preventative versus um reactive. So if they were just doing reactive, we would see that number go down. So great question. Thank you. Ask Gwen too. I I would expect that as our gray increases, our parent contacts would increase with them. I notice
026specifically at the elementary level that does not seem proportionate. And is that because most of what they're doing is like full class, not one-on-one intervention, or why why are parents not involved in this loop? That's actually a great question. So, we actually took a look at this. Um 85% of that 94% is classroom lessons. 5,000 of those meetings and those interactions were individual counseling. 2,400 of those were parent contacts. So that means that with the 5,000 individual counseling, those parents were contacted, they got the consent for counseling, and then they were able to participate in their groups or their brisk with their individual counseling. Wonder if there's a way that we could indicate like large group instruction versus mental health services. those I think some constituents see that and go ah what is happening there
027actually is and I have that it's just really hard for me to give you every piece of of data so if you really wanted that piece of data I we have it and I'm more than happy to share it with you so okay this is also um fitting in with your portrait of a graduate Um, our Oh, our our thank you for our portrait of a graduate. Um, we are really working to make sure that our school counselors are trained and knowledgeable when they're coming into contact with our students. And so I wanted to share with you how we train school counselors. We're probably one of the most highly trained um groups uh because of how often we are in trainings. Um we do a quarterly inservice. So all school counselors are trained four times
028a year. Um five if we include our summer training. Uh with our monthly district-wide school counselor PLC's, we host that on the second Friday of each month. So those range between five and seven times a year based on the the school calendar year. Our elementaryaries add an additional PLC on the fourth Friday. So our elementary school counselors are getting that additional training because they're so new to Jordan School District. So they're added training, added support. Um and so that that second also is four to five times per year depending on the school calendar. We also with our new counselors give them support. They also are trained four times a year on top of that the training that they're already getting. Um and we're going to increase that at their request because they liked the new
029counselor training so much they asked for an additional day of training. Um so that will start um the 2526 school year. And then our steering committee is our secondary school counselor leadership and we meet with them five times annually to make sure that they're getting um the updates and we're training them on everything that is um you know timely and occurring within our community and the needs of our students. Sorry, so many questions for you. Great. So, it seems like especially our high school counselors are spending a lot of time helping our students connect with options that are available to them. How do our counselors learn about the many pathways that students can be taking? That's actually a really great question. And as a former school counselor, um, one thing that we know about school
030counseling, it is it's ever changing. It's it's constantly changing. there's always new information come coming out and so that's why we provide all of the training that you're seeing but also um we encourage them has a training every year we encourage them to attend that um every university has a training opportunity so we encourage them to attend those as well um we and we encourage our counselors to pause and research and reach out. So, that's why we have our specialists because our specialists are extremely knowledgeable and can also do research as well. Um, what we're learning too is by the time that it does get to the specialists or my level, um, we've found that the high school counselors have given the correct answer, but the parents are reaching out because they want to be
031reassured that they've been given the right answer. So, I think that it's just really um working to make sure that we have good relationships with our parents so that they trust that we are providing them the correct information or allowing us the opportunity to take the time to get back to them so that we can give them the correct information. Does that make sense? So in none of the training that I'm seeing here, they they need to go above this find time, seek out other training opportunities like going to a university training for example outside of what's on this slide. They can and do, but this is showing you that we're also bringing them in and training them to this as well. But these none of these are like academic. Oh, absolutely. They are their
032academic, their mental health, their e everything that that they need to know for the whole student. So, it is academics, it's collegiate, it's scholarships. Um, but also we do encourage them to seek outside if possible and if it's important. Yep. You're welcome. Can I ask you talked about specialists? Um, where are these specialists? Are they your like the team leads you talked about that are over the feeder systems or is there somebody else that's below them? Who are the specialists that are helping them? The specialists are my team that I showed you pictures of who are over the feeder systems. Yep. And they are out in the schools often. Um the only time that they're really at the district office is on Mondays for my meeting. Um, but most often they are out in schools
033so that they can be readily available to to help with school counseling and answer questions and make sure that um that our school counselors are getting the support that they need. And I I just want to say I really like that model of the pause, research, reach out. I feel like it models the whole resilient lifelong learners pattern to the students because nobody can know every single thing about every career and every college and scholarship. And so I feel like that kind of um practice can model that, you know, like even though here I am a counselor, I too need to pause for a second and learn some more and then I'll let you know. So, yep. I appreciate you saying that because there there's so much that a school counselor is required to know
034that there are times when you do have to stop and say, you know, I I know the answer, but I just want to double check to make sure that I'm giving you the correct information. And you're right, scholarships also are ever changing. um you know what what we knew to be the scholarships offered through the state last year are different this year. And so it's it's really important to trust your school counselor and and allow them the opportunity to make sure that they're giving you the correct information. More question. I'm curious um if like during the PLC's and other trainings if middle school counselors and high school counselors ever interact so that our ninth graders can be on a good path for once they do get into high school and they're interacting with what's their
035pathway that we could start now in nth grade so that they are secure for the rest of their high school career. Do they interact at all? So the answer is yes. Our secondary PLC's are are our middle school and high school counselors. And so they're receiving that same information. And during PLC's, we also allow them um opportunity and uh focus time where they get together as feeders to make sure that they're providing um the correct information continuously up through the feeder systems. So what West Hills and Sunset Sunset Ridge counselors are the information they're providing for their ninth graders is the same that's going to the Copper Hills um 10th 11th and 12th graders. Right. So yes, that happens all the time. Yeah, great question. I'm curious about principles. They've got this very, very knowledgeable
036counselor and a high school principal. What's the connection here? We've got two brand new principles coming on. I'm just walk me through how those two will come to know all the resources available in the counseling center. That's a great question. Um, they're going to Do you want to answer? Well, I would just say they've worked a lot with counselors as assistant principles, right? So it won't be new but they do have to establish okay how do we how do we interact now when this type of question comes up that's something for you to to work through and when an exception needs to be made along these lines let's talk about that but there also need to be regular meetings that's something we have really established uh as an expectation for all of our principles it
037was a little bit of a new concept at the elementary level because there wasn't actually a team to meet with for a long time. But now that there's a school psychologist and a counselor, an instructional coach, an assistant principal, we ask for there to be regular meetings. So, there's kind of a landing strip for ideas and needs and you know, you're right there and you know, oh, I'm I'm going to see we're all going to be together at this time and we can talk. Um, there are also meetings and teams about health and wellness of employees and students where they will be interacting. So there will be regular interactions that they're used to as an assistant principal, but then they'll also need to put their own stamp on how do we interact and make sure
038that we're aligned in meeting student needs. Sorry, I didn't mean to jump in there, but no, I I saw you leaning in and you really wanted to answer that question. Um, also in my experience, uh, I I worked handinhand with my principal and my assistant principles to make sure that every time that I was interacting or making decisions that we were communicating and really talking through what was best for each student. So, um, that's where the MTSS comes into play because if you have your your weekly at risk meeting and you're talking about students and students needs um, and assigning out, you know, who's going to be working to address those needs, um, you're having those ongoing conversations weekly, but then you're also working as well handinand with your APS and your your principal. Um
039the other the other way that we work hand inand is you know making decisions we're talking about okay which concurrent enrollment classes do we want to offer? Um scholarships have changed a little bit right and so um when we're we're talking about certain scholarships sometimes the concurrent enrollment class that's required for that particular scholarship has has changed. And so it's making sure that we're saying we're going to our administrator and saying okay this has changed a little bit. um you know, how do we want to offer these concurrent enrollment classes? Do we want to offer these AP classes? We want to make sure that we have these particular CTE classes so that we can complete a pathway um through through our feeder system. It's everything that a school counselor does is intertwined. And if an
040administrator um works very closely with their counseling team, um the MTSS and the opportunities that they're they're going to be able to provide for the success of students is is going to be amazing. So you mentioned MTSS. Can you speak a little bit more to that maybe either with examples on the academic or behavioral sides or provide some more details on the role of the counselor? Um a short a short brief answer. Yes, I know that's a big ask just high level. Yes, high level. Okay. When we talk about MTSS, it's a tiered level of supports and it can be academic, behavioral, um, and it can and it can be mental health supports, right? And so, [Music] um, tier one all so counselors are crucial because counselors have access to every student, right? And so
041when we're looking at tier one supports um academically, right, we want to make sure that we're providing the same thing for every single student. So let's say that we're looking at the the preparing for college and career readiness meetings. Uh a tier one support for eighth grade is that every eighth grade student gets a one-on-one academic meeting with their school counselor. That's a tier one support, right? Tier 2 support is going to look like, okay, this student u maybe wants to be a chef. So, they want to be they want to look at the culinary arts program. So, a tier two would be, okay, I'm going to meet with you one- on-one and we're going to do a four-year plan. We're going to chart out and every time I'm going to meet with you, we're
042going to be talking about how do we help you reach that goal. So, we're going to look at um the pathway um any any other opportunities to make sure that that your four-year plan gets you every single class that that is offered in your feeder system for culinary arts program, right? And then a tier three support academically might be like, okay, we're looking at your grades. We can see you're struggling in math. So maybe we're going to um find the math tutors in our school so that we can give you that support. That's a tier three focused for that one particular student. Does that make sense? That helps. Thank you. You're welcome. And then it just goes it goes from there with every single area. Um but counselors kind of touch all three tiers, but
043we work with all stakeholders and it's really important to them to to make sure that you guys understand that. That's why we work with our stakeholders. We're talking to teachers. Um, we're talking to parents. Um, we're making sure that parents are involved in that four-year planning with the PCCR. We're inviting them to come in. Um, we're inviting them to to have one-on-one meetings with us as parents and students to make sure that they're reaching that goal. Um, and and just really working for what's best for every single student. What I like about what you described is you are connecting all of the dots for the student or with the student so that we're not siloed and things are getting missed. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. All right. Now, with our portrait of a
044graduate, you can see that everything that we do ties into all five of your pillars. Isn't that amazing? And so, um, we're we're extremely excited as, um, the group, the school counseling group, to be able to show that everything that we do ties in with your our mission and our portrait of a graduate. And we will continue to work to make sure that every student is provided opportunities to be successful in Jordan School District. Any questions? You had a lot along the way. I have one more. Okay. We have we have three students here today in the back. Do I just have one question for you? If if you if you've had a meaningful experience with your counselor at school in this school year, just raise your hand. Okay. So, two. So, we've got 66%
045just of I know it's a very small Yes. uh sample size. Yes. But yeah, that's good. Yes. And and that's why I want that number to increase because my goal my goal is that our school counselors and and my school counselors know this. I want four meetings in my secondaries a year with every single one of their students. Um because I think that it's really important that as that student is coming to you at the end of graduation and and I experienced this as I worked with those kids when they come to me at the end of the graduation day and I'm handing them their certificate I know them by name and I can hand them by name their their diploma. So it's it's an amazing it's an amazing career. It's amazing opportunity. So, so
046if I could add a little bit more, it wasn't clear to me that this wasn't always parent or student initiated, but what I heard you say is that you are initiating contacts with students. So, for those who either aren't aware of the help, don't think they need help, etc., you can create an opportunity to say, "Here, let's lift you up this way. Mhm. Um this can be easier or we can work together. Yes. And one of your pillars is opportunities for all. And we want all students, our ML students, our special ed students, our high achieving students to understand all of the opportunities that are available to them. So um you know, for for example, we have we have students that really don't understand that concurrent enrollment really is for them. And we've been working
047very closely um with teaching and learning and Chris Richards Kong to get in front of students and say, "Look, you have an A in this class. This concurrent enrollment class would be an amazing opportunity for you. I can't do it. I can't afford it. Guess what? We as school counselors have opportunity for you. You can do it. Let's get you into this class. Let's give you an amazing concurrent enrollment class opportunity where you can see that you can be successful and help you grow and learn from there. I didn't know in high school that I needed you. And I I could have benefited. So, thank you for helping our students. You're welcome. Thank you. I appreciate you guys taking the initiative to reach out to students to let them know what is available to them
048because I maybe could think of one time I had an interaction with my school counselor in the four years I had high school. So I really appreciate the initiative. Thank you. And that once again that speaks to that's why I want my numbers to go up because I want my counselors to look in my their students faces and say I know you. I see you. Let's help you reach your goals. I don't know who this question is directed to, so I'm looking at my fellow board members and the administration. I would be interested in some of the data Brian referenced or just how are we doing on this reaching every student four times. Can we gather the reasons why it's not occurring? Um, I would be curious either in a future meeting or next year
049when we discuss this to have a few more data points even trending year-over-year. I know there's a million ways we could go with data, but I'd be interested in more. Yep. I would love to show you what we have. Any other questions? Years ago when we had this meeting, we were hemorrhaging all over the district. The need was massive. We just didn't have the resources. And I asked the same thing every year. Have we put out all the fires that were urgent at that point? and now we're just kind of dealing with the normal or are there still major fires that you have not been able to put out because of lack of resources or for whatever reason? That's a great question and what I would tell you is that now that elementary principles have
050a school counselor, they know what our role is. They know how effective we can be. They now want the the same ratio that the middle schools and high schools have. They want that one to 350 ratio because now they see how successful uh school counselors can be in their buildings. Um and every time I walk into a building, the administrators like, "Oh, don't take my school counselor. Why would I?" That like like it's an amazing resource, right? So, and I tell everybody once I get the 1 to 350 ratio in elementary, then I'll retire. But that's my goal. So, if we want to keep you, you'll never get it. Keep you anyway. But that that is my my goal. Um to to be able to say in Jordan school district, we have a 1 to
051350 ratio K12. And so, thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you to Mr. Dunford for jumping in for me and opening this meeting. I apologize for my tardiness. Uh we'll now move on to agenda item B and invite Miss Kim Lloyd, director of special education, Miss Christy Whiteside, coordinator of the child development center to the table and um pass it off to them. and Dr. Anderson for a discussion on Frog Street Press preschool curriculum for the Jordan child development preschool classes and a possible district-wide curriculum adoption. We'll have Lisa join them at the table. She should have been on the agenda and we missed that. So, sorry Lisa. No, no problem. And I saw Dr. Anderson Anderson stepped out. Anyway, we appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Um, we're going to
052let Christy Whiteside do most of the talking. She is the program director director for preschool services specifically for our 3 to five well early intervention but 3 to five services that are offered in most quite a few of our elementary schools. So, we're not specifically talking about preschool programs that are offered in our high schools, but the special ed preschool programs that are offered in our elementary schools. Um just briefly, it became necessary for us to identify a new um primary curriculum for the three to five preschool services for the 2526 school year. So as part of DE501 and um working through and with the curriculum review committee, she was able to get the process started to do that. So, she's here to share with you sort of where they are in the process based
053on the policy, what's been done to this point, and what the proposed next steps would be, and get any direction from the board if if necessary, um any updates that you would like to have. and then we will continue to move forward with the hope that we can bring more information back at the next board meeting study session and perhaps either that night's um board meeting or the following one for approval. So, okay. So, I will turn the time over to Christie. I was stalling while we were getting that done. So, okay. Thank you. Um okay. So, um we did start this process um for um a new to look at curriculum. Um it was myself and I had three of my preschool teachers and two of my speech and language pathologist and two of
054our instructional coaches join me and we were able to there were six um six vendors that we reviewed. um three of them moved forward and we were able they presented um to us with specific questions we had um regarding the curriculum and then from there um Frog Street was selected. Um and here are some of the things we looked at for Frog Street. Um it's a comprehensive standalone program so it it encompasses all of our um state standards for early child early learning. Um, it also follows along with the letters um, strategies that we trained our staff in last year. Um, it's got a clear clearly defined scope and sequence. Um, there's weekly lesson plans. Um, and it also has strategies for our special populations. So, our ML kids, our special ed kids, and our
055um, kids that are, you know, higher learning. Um, and it's it is more comprehensive than what we're using at this point. Um, it has both physical and digital observation assessment tools and it also has a tool for us to track our data. Um, so we can have more effective PLC's. Um, and then um, it has at home family engagement. So there's things that we can send home and let the parents know what we're doing in this in the classrooms and what things they can do at home to support. Um so those were the big rocks. There were lots of other reasons that it was selected, but those were the big pieces. Um our next steps are to hold an open house. Um we're looking to do in person um and have the curriculum available as
056well as online access for those. and we're hoping to possibly come back on May 27th um to be able to move forward. Does anyone have any questions? Is this a replacement? It is existing one or okay. The existing one actually was one of the top three. Um but Frog Street was a was what was also one of the top three. It was the top one. It was the number one. Okay. So, I'm curious as far as process when you have an open house, is this for teachers or pair professionals as well as parents. Okay. So, the open house we actually um the open house will go out to all of our current families and then teachers and whoever in our staff that wants to come review it. Maybe I missed this piece, but what triggered
057this new curriculum that we needed to find new curriculum? We were at that point we had been we've used this for 10 years, I believe. Um, it's been here the whole five years I've been here. Um, and we were just to a point of needing something that maybe aligned better with our curriculum. Um, and it's part of policy. I think that we were needed to at least go through that process. So I understand that the makeup of these classes is a mixture of students with disabilities and typically developing peers. Are all of the teachers special educators? They are. Okay. So that's why only special educators were involved in this. Yep. They're preschool special ed early childhood special ed teachers. So, they're early childhood plus special ed. Anything else? Okay. Who will receive invitations to the
058open house? And how is does it have to be a currently enrolled family or how do you how do you know who could potentially be coming to a preschool? Well, we at least know who's coming next year because we've already done enrollment as far as our typical peers go, our typically developed peers, and then we know for special ed those kids as well. Um, so we'll send out an invitation for the open house to anyone currently enrolled for next year's program. Correct. And then it'll also Where are we talking? Um we have about 1,500 students right now. We've enrolled about 800 typical peers and then the rest are special ed. We have next year we'll have 36 preschools and 32 elementaryaries. So how will they be notified? Through um through email through well through parent
059square. So we'll know if I'm through parent square and email and they'll also have an online access to if they can't come in to just access the curriculum that way. So this is for all of our uh preschools. Sorry, let me find my bearings. It's for all like the the child development type preschools, not the high school ones you talked about where like the students are in there uh with the kids. Is that correct? Correct. It's all the ones in our elementary schools. Okay. And the ones that will also be housed at um our new center, the Jordan Learning Center eventually. Is that those are the same preschools? Right now, well, we won't have I right now we don't have a preschool class slotted for there. They're in the elementary schools. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
060Any other questions? All right. We appreciate you all coming out. We're excited to see you back next time. Thank you. Appreciate it. [Music] Up next, we'll have a review of our um administrative policy DP380 maternity and parent leave. We'll invite Miss Gayash and Mr. Bird to the table. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to be here um to discuss DP380. Um we are here discussing DP380 uh maternity and parent leave and potential revisions in order to comply with Utah code that's been revised. Uh, in board docs, we've included the Utah links to the Utah code, um, red line and clean copy versions of potential draft policies, as well as a presentation we've put together kind of comparing and contrasting our current policy and then what we're proposing as a revision. So, I'll hand it over
061to Brent Bur. Excellent. Thank you. It's great to be here. Um, as she mentioned, we do have the red line and the clean version of the policy, but I'd like to start with the the PowerPoint or the the handout first. And I felt felt it would be beneficial to show you kind of the impact up till now of of the type of leave that we're approving for educators, uh, for ESPs and for administrators. Uh it's actually been great uh because we were one of the front runners in providing maternity leave for employees and it's it's fun to see the other districts kind of scramble to figure out how they how they cover for that. Um and and now we're all forced to do that and so that's why we're we're aligning the policy that we
062had with the the new wording or the requirements from the the code. So if you look at the the PowerPoint, it's the usage report. It just gives you an indication of the number of days that have been approved uh in the 22 23 23 and 24 and the year to date. And so you'll notice that that's a much lower number because we still have a few months left uh and it sometimes get takes a bit for teachers to enter their leave. So that's why there's a difference there. So you can see it's a significant benefit to employees. uh the number of days that have been approved for maternity and parent leave. Um the the easiest way we felt to do it uh we've worked with Paul as well. We want to make sure that you
063see the comparison between the two. Our current policy and what the required code in indicates. So our current policy is maternity parent leave. It's required to be changed to postpartum recovery parental leave. uh we implemented our policy in August of 20 2020 and effective July 1st we have to make these changes uh going forward. Um their current policy only provided this benefit for birth of a child. Uh Utah code requires it for three different things now. One is birth of a child and they did put in a stipulation that it's at 20 weeks or greater gestation. uh it also now has to include adoption of a child and potential legal guardianship of a child or a disabled adult. And so those are the additions to the policy that we have to include. Um our policy
064currently provided uh up to six weeks of maternity leave for the for the mother and two weeks for parent leave for the father. Uh based on the the updated code, we are changing this to be three weeks of postpartum recovery and then an additional three weeks of parental leave that would be used consecutively. So it's basically the same thing that we have now. It's just different terms. Uh the one big increase or change is that the parental leave now is three weeks instead of two weeks. And so for the the father or the other parent, we would have to provide an additional week of leave time potentially. Um some of the other changes um the current uh maternity leave is consecutive. So from the date of birth through six weeks now it would be similar
065three weeks of postpartum and three weeks of parental leave for the mother. Um the current policy for parent leave is to be used within one year of the birth of the child. The new code indicates that it would at least be six months and so we are recommending that the parental leave be used within 6 months rather than a year. Obviously it's majority of it is used for the bonding and we felt within that first six months would be appropriate for that. Um the other thing that we're recommending a change is the current policy for parental leave allows them to use it intermittently. Uh so anytime within that first year they could use the full two weeks at any time at whatever they wanted they could use it within that year to ensure uh first
066of all the code basically says that it would be consecutively uh but also to provide some consistency for the school. It would be helpful in our view to say that okay, if you're going to use parent leave, you would start you would tell us when it's going to start and it would be 3 weeks consecutively rather than allowing them to pick and choose between that six month when they take it. We certainly can modify that if that's what the board chooses, but that would be our recommendation is to have them do that consecutively. Can I just ask I mean is the wording of the code must that it must be used consecutively? Yes. So do we actually have that latitude? There there's the policy reflects the language. There is one exception for intermittent. It has
067to be certified by uh um qualified healthcare provider. So that's what there may be an exception but it's not just um any exception. So if they use this in the beginning and then a qualified healthc care provider wrote us for the exception. Now they for the intermittent leave is that for intermittent leave would be an exception. Typically it would be consecutive. um they still would have access to um the other leaves um should they have a need for more um FMLA and other needs. But um I think I think it's the recommendation just and I think it makes sense because otherwise, you know, it becomes a hey, I want an extra long vacation this weekend. I'm going to save up my parent leave and you know or I'm not feeling well. Let's just call it
068parent leave. and it leaves schools difficulty and and it's the kids as you know it's the kids who suffer when their teachers are gone. So the only other major change is our current policy requires somebody to repay this leave if they leave prior to the end of the year. The law now changes that so that you you can't require repayments. So somebody could be hired today, take six weeks of maternity or postpartum and parent leave and then quit and the district is required to pay that. So that that's the only other major change to the policy. What incapacitated adult, a disabled adult who can't take care of themselves as and and a parent has to and Paul will jump in. So, so if I'm an employee of the district and my parent is incapacitated and
069comes and lives with me, is that what this? It would require a legal guardianship. They'd have to do it through the courts. So, it's not just mom and dad are moving in. There would there would have to be a legal designation. How would the the leave available in the blue section work if both parents are employees of the district? Um so both obviously the the mother would have access to the postpartum. The father still has access to the parental leave. So they would both have access to it's capped how much you get in a one year period. So they don't get to double dip. So a family would have to say we get three weeks between the two parents if they're both in place. They each Well, no, they would each get it. They would
070each get it. They'd each get what they get. Yeah. the mother could do the three weeks of postpartum and three weeks of parental and the dad could or the other parent could do three weeks also on top of that point. At least I had constituents reach out telling me that they had to split the time because they were both employees. So FMLA does not would require you to split the FMLA protected leave but the but but our policy would not restrict that based on the leave availability. And if in the unlikely chance that there would be the birth of a child and guardianship of an incapacitated adult in the home, is that two different events that would allow them to use this policy twice or is it limited to only one per contract year? Do
071we know? I believe that it allows for both. However, it would restrict them from having a child and then immediately having another child within 12 months. You couldn't double dip on that. So, there is some limit on that. But I think Paul, correct me, but I think you could have both a child and a legal guardianship and I think it would qualify. But I'm I don't know that it specifies that. Under the policy and under the law, um, a qualified employee may not use more than three consecutive work weeks of parental leave within a contract year or a single 12-month period. So, you can't just keep stacking. Okay, just to clarify, um, in the time frame for usage, um, the parental leave used within six months of the qualifying event. That's within Utah code, correct?
072That's not us picking that six months, correct? It Ours used to be a year and and we're going to move it. We recommend moving it to the code six months. Okay, I understand. Thank you. We couldn't say they have to do it within three months. That would be more restrictive than the code. But we could keep it at a year if we chose to be more flexible than the code. Isn't that correct? More flexible just not more restrictive. If if we're going to change the policy to say that you have to use it consecutively, so once you start using it, I don't know that a one-year time frame is needed for somebody who has to use it within a certain time frame. I guess if they were waiting for a vacation one year from now
073and they wanted to use it, if we change policy that way. Other questions about the policy? just because it's you got me thinking on this now. So in theory, a mother could do the three weeks of recovery and then two months later do the three weeks of leave. No, all of that has to be consecutive. Okay. The other parent that has that, they can take those three weeks. Okay. Whenever as long as it's continuous. And just so everyone's aware, for for the policy specifically says if a teacher were to be off contract for a certain time frame, they may not be able to use the postpartum because the summer months, you know, two months worth of being off contract. And so what we've done is currently is if I'm unable to use the maternity leave,
074we then allow them to use the parent leave currently. So they still get a benefit when they return. But you couldn't go the entire summer and then use six weeks of postpartum and parent leave. And similar to a situation for a normal delivery, six weeks is generally the normal recovery period. Um that's why it would be consecutive so that it's that full six weeks. Now if they had say a C-section, they could then use their annual leave or other leave to pay for that additional time. But if they weren't consecutive, they could take three weeks and then all of this sick leave and then potentially more, which would make it much diff more more difficult to support the students. And I will mention that the board of education led out in Jordan on providing parent
075leave in support of families. That was so these this is really moving districts throughout the state in the same direction that Jordan had already led out on and some of the adjustments you hear are just based on what we've learned after putting that in place. So, I appreciate HR's work on on this. And I thought that we had changed the policy last year about no repayment necessary. Didn't we change that? some of the updates like we updated the policy where um a teacher would not have to come back um like if they chose not to come back to or an employee chose not to come back to work after their um currently called maternity leave it the policy was that they would have to do repayment but it seems like we changed we didn't change
076I don't remember whether we did but now we we because we had Now the law requires it. So the policy was still Oh, it's still Oh, okay. That's why we're making the change. I remember the discussion, but we must not have through and made the change. Look at that. I had thought we did. Okay. Thank you, state legislature. The great thing, like superintendent mentioned, is you, we've already been doing this and it's already been a great benefit to our employees. Now, everybody else is kind of catching up to us, but we still were the leaders. So well done. Board members have specific concerns that you would like to revisit this before a vote. Comfortable going straight to a business agenda. You cleaned it up. Not too much wiggle room there anyway. All right. Well, we
077appreciate you being here. Thanks for your work on this. We'll see you soon. I apologize. Paul brought forth there was a change to the intermittent that if there was a medical exception, um I guess it's not in policy, Paul. Yeah, we we had we had talked about this and worked it in and in the version that we sent to you to try to clean it up. Um D4 should say unless a healthc care provider certifies that intermittent leave is medically necessary due to a serious health condition of a child. That's code language and so we'll fix that. Um just reviewing it here. That stuff happens but specifically to the child, not one of the parents. Oh, okay. All right. We'll watch for that on the next version. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move into
078a presentation on administrative policy AA419 student conduct, dress and appearance. And we will turn it over to Dr. Anderson. Thank you, President George. Uh this is intended to be information and background on the policy as well as a conversation um that we can have about any questions you might have on on this policy. Every policy most policies I should say have has a story has a backstory. Um interestingly enough this policy came to be in 1974. Um of course that the nation was still grappling with the impacts of the Vietnam Wargate scandal. there was uh you know social uh social unrest. There was a lot of u you know the upper rise of of self-expression. So it's no no surprise that a school board felt at that point to have to uh begin a a
079policy that addressed uh student dress and appearance as well as conduct. So um we've it has been revised several times since. Most recently, um we we revised the policy in fall of 2021, but the process began back in um early 2020. Um that was a long time scale, but if you recall in the middle of that, in the spring of 2020, things were uh p pushed uh pause uh pause was pushed, I should say, um due to the pandemic. But during that time, we still met with uh the stakeholder groups that developed the policy. It included principles and district administrators from various levels uh and departments who represented the people that they worked for in their schools, represented their um uh students. Uh there was a lot of policies that reviewed from districts along the
080Wasatch front to see who um the way things were worded, what they were doing in other um other areas. And then uh we we looked at several articles and materials pertaining to this. So it was a lengthy process. Uh the purpose itself um we realized that some of the policy just needed clarifying and and updating. Um there was a an emphasis to shift from a zero tolerance uh rules approach to a focus on expectations and really ultimately a focus on student learning uh to reduce outofclass time spent in managing and enforcing a a rule. um you know that's uh there were gender and culturally um terms in there that were not neutral uh when it came to gender and and culture norms. Um we needed to update and clarify policy and ter or word uh
081verbiage and terminology that was outdated and and a little bit ambiguous. And of course during this time we we realized the need to address both inperson and virtual learning. And so we also did that with this uh within the scope of this policy. So my um the zero tolerance rules are are you saying that prior to the 2020 change it was it was more rule-based and if you break this rule you're sent sent home kind of a thing. Yeah. There was more of an that approach or that that mindset. some of the the the language in the policy itself um was pretty binary like hats for example we removed um hats from the dress code policy before it was you know zero tolerance approach to hats you couldn't wear them at all um approaches like
082that and really but more of an emphasis on on learning and emphasizing what was going on in the classroom um and and making sure students were in class rather than being you know uh pulled out more than they ought to So during this process, we did gather a lot of stakeholder input from parents um focus on uh school community councils. Uh we as a staff met with every secondary school community council and reviewed a a summary video. We did we received feedback from them. We set up a a website and an email and wherein they could uh give their their feedback, questions, concerns that they had. We asked each elementary school community council to also review the video. Email notices, numerous uh notices were sent to parents and employees about it. And we did hold
083a town hall in this in the fall of 2021 on this on this rule. Um along the way all changes um that were being proposed the multimedia presentations on the on the policy were put on our website and pushed out to parents as well. So they had an opportunity to know what was going on and uh be a part of the the process of feedback and input. Again, just the you I should have have this off the top, but how what does the bullet gender and culturally neutral mean? There were Yeah. So, we changed it so that it Okay. Yes. Okay. I was like I feel like with our graduation regalia, we specifically said you can represent a culture and that Okay. Thanks. You you are correct because part of this policy is graduation regalia
084and we made sure that we were compliant with with law. But when it comes to specifically student dress outside of graduation, we we removed language that was specific to genders and specific to to clothing worn by a certain gender or um hairstyle references that uh that were directed at more not as culturally sensitive and so forth. So, thank you. just thinking differently going what? Yeah. And to build on that, you know, we removed and or clarified language um the word immodest for example or specific types um of clothing or styles of clothing. As I said earlier, we removed hats, but rather than than make specific references to specific items of clothing or specific genders, it was broadened and it was more of an expectation-based approach. This was also I would add a very parent centric
085policy that reflects the the the input and the feedback that we received from the school community and uh we they were designed to give specific guidelines to students, parents and administrators. You'll notice in the policy itself has a has a link to um uh guidelines. This is a part of the that uh uh handout uh that can be accessed with the general expectations for dress code and u we we've been able to meet with principles recently uh to um meeting with middle school principles. Today I met with the high school principles and received feedback also from our middle or elementary school principles on how things are going, how are things are going in the schools, um what are they hearing in general? They first of all they feel that the new policy has been very
086helpful. Um uh it's been clearer helped them navigate a lot of the nuances and complexities of a dress code policy. Um they felt that it's balanced the need for enforcement which they have you know they say they when there's a violation especially an egregious one they are they are addressing it. Um but they also it helps them maintain the the balance of and the goal of keeping kids in class and trying to maintain the students dignity. Um they mentioned that there are things that there a couple of things that really um elicit confrontations which we try to avoid but one would be the removal or taking of a cell phone and the other would be uh addressing a dress code issue and because you want to keep the maintain the students dignity but it's an
087uncomfortable conversation when you deal with dress code issues especially as as it pertains um to gender dress issues. A lot of self-identity is tied up in the way students dress and and um express themselves. So trying to navigate those nuanced conversations about dress code violations and trying to avoid any u body shaming or focusing on a student's body is has been a balance for administration, but they have appreciated the policy overall. And then um it's always a challenge to address the uh current fashion trends. when I was, you know, back in back in the day, it was saggy, baggy jeans and pants that we were trying to enforce. And then it's evolved over the years and and and it's, you know, the we are at the mercy of somewhat of the fashion trends of the
088day as well in trying to address this. So with that, that's some of the feedback we've received. Happy to answer any questions or or address any feedback that the board has on the matter. So in graduation um D2 graduates are expected to wear the prescribed cap and gown without alterations. Um what what exact can you talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. That's language that probably needs to be updated to be very a little more clear because state code does say especially specifically to Native American regalia and cultural regalia that they can decorate their caps and gowns with with cultural um decorations. And so that's that's been a question of a little bit of ambiguity that we've addressed with the high school principles. And as long as it wasn't out of
089dress code in other areas of expression of of anything that was lewd or vulgar or you know insensitive, culturally insensitive otherwise that we we've been pretty pretty understanding with with students decorating their their caps and gowns that way. And and also with graduation the um where it says oh I where it talks about anything covering the face or obscuring identity that's in that is the goal for graduation also right just like any of the things that are in on the poster with the to here um are also for graduation. Yeah. Okay that's correct. I have seen some that have have come close to probably breaking the policy on that because they have so many lays on there that it covers their face a little bit, but it's uh you have to be recognizable while you're
090being recognized. Yes, that's a good rule of thumb. So, yes, thank you. Any other thoughts or feedback? Can I ask that same question about being recognizable with our regular everyday school wear? um how does how does that work? I know that we've got masks that that we need to consider and then sometimes we're hearing rumors of students who identify as animals that are wanting to cover their faces at school. Is that allowed? If Yeah. If it becomes a question of a non-medically necessary mask, then that's that's not part of the dress code policy. Um there was also that question as I went back and reviewed the minutes of these discussions um in 2020 and 2021 there was a question about hats and being recognizable um because if you were wearing a hat you might not
091be able to recognize a student's face say on a camera or whatever and we've we wondered about that and there were some concerns about that at the time. The feedback we received is that it's been virtually a non-issue. In fact, um, administrators have commented that those that wear hats are often easily identifiable in a crowd because they wear the same hat every day and so they can pick them out and they know that student is walking down the hall by their hats. And so that hasn't been the issue they thought it was. If there are other issues, regardless of the type of mask that's not medical, we would address that. And I have another question and you might not remember this but I am interested in how many people participated in the town hall or
092open house about the dress code policy back in 2021. Do you have an estimate? Was it super well attended standing room only? It was not standing room only. I know because it was next door and um right in the in the room next door. It was it was attended by several, but I wouldn't call it a an an overwhelming crowd. I would also say that we took a year and by we I mean Dr. Anderson and other members of cabinet took a year to meet with every school community council at the secondary level and to there was someone personally from cabinet that met with each I remember those community council. Yeah. uh elementary, I think we had a video and a presentation that was shown, but someone was in person at all the secondary meetings
093over the course of a year because of the very personal nature of changing dress code policy, the importance of making parents a big part of that discussion and ultimately of the policy and the big change from 50 years ago. So, so the district brought the town hall to the people, right, at the school community council to elected to elected people and any other attendees. Yeah. At each school. Yes. And there were some school there was some great feedback there. And yes, to your point, we did bring it to to the councils and got some good feedback there. I will add just in um maybe in closing just the administrators that we talked with each one of them acknowledged the complexity of enforcement with dress code. It's it's hard to to address every single issue during
094this process. We've used an analogy and and we've recently talked about it is, you know, there on any given time if you drive on a highway, I-15, Bangader, what have you, there are going to be uh drivers that are on the road not following the strict letter of the law in terms of speeding, 3 seconds of blinker, you know, lane changes, etc. And but the egregious offenders, the ones that are speeding at at a high rate or changing lanes dangerously, they're going to get pulled over. They're going to be addressed at some point. Um and the administrators say, "Look, when we see especially an egregious violation, something that's just obvious, we're going to we're going to do that. we probably miss some and and we we also don't want to maintain or or want to
095maintain a good flow uh of the school day and the learning environment. We want to focus on students being in class and learning. Um just like on the highway, if you were to pull over every single speeder at any given moment, it would cause chaos. It would cause gridlock in the highways and it would just it would not function. And so they have to, you know, they have a tough job. It's a nuanced job, one that requires a careful approach with how um how you approach it with students and their parents. Um many of their parents are well aware of the attire that their students leave the house with. And we have to we have to recognize that often times uh this policy and and the dress and and the attire that the students choose
096to wear as a reflection of of what their parents support as well. So it's a difficult thing or what the parents have don't necessarily support but are preserving their own relationship with their children. That is a much better way to say it. And we also recognize that that especially in the month like May where you can be very chilly in the morning and warm in the afternoon that that dress styles and and articles of clothing can can be changed several times throughout the day. Is there a different expectation or understanding among the teachers and among the administrators as far as enforcement goes? Because you you've talked about administrators and enforcement. Do do the teachers feel a sense of obligation to enforce or is that just left completely up to the administrators? We talked about that
097today. Um in fact and and first of all most teachers are very understanding and appreciative of the policy as well. Um we try where we can and I think the expectations are in most schools that teachers are not the enforcers of the dress code policy or any other rules. That's why we have administrators. However, we also recognize that sometimes they're the front lines and rather than confront, we don't want teachers confronting students, but some some schools have created the system where they can text the administrators or send a message to the administrators so that it doesn't facilitate an in-class confrontation that the administrators and the hall monitors can help address that. Um teachers uh can get frustrated at times with with the perceived lack of enforcement, but it's also what they know and it may
098be what a student knows they can wear something to one class and not the next and even you know clothing styles can change from one class to the next. So but for the most part the feedback we received is that teachers are appreciative. They know that it's a complex job to enforce the the dress code and they appreciate the work the administrators have done and to the extent possible we really try to leave the enforcement to the administration. So do teachers not even mention it to a student like they just leave it up to hall monitors to catch or something? I think you'll find varying degrees of of approach to that. Some teachers are very um they'll be very vigilant about dress code and make sure that their their students in their classrooms are are
099being compliant with it. Others choose to leave that to the administration. Yet others are still, you know, they'll be there will be varying degrees of of approach to that. Teachers can can sometimes nudge a student, hey, you need to zip that back up because you can modify clothing throughout the day. Um when he was talking about clothing changing throughout the day, the fads may even change from oh no that's out. That was in first period but second period you're not supposed to wear that anymore. But you you kids will modify things throughout the day. So teacher may say why don't you zip that that jacket up or whatever. And it can range from that to calling a hall monitor saying I've got a violation and I need this student to meet within administration. So they're
100kind of the front line of identifying and they may refer at the end of class and then the student gets pulled down in the next class or so more frequently a teacher would identify or help the student modify what they're wearing but they would not necess I'm trying to think of something that rhymes but they would they would not necessarily um provide a consequence that would that would really be up to the the yeah rectify. There you go. I like that. Thank you, John. Um, so, so, so they may intervene, but they they if it's serious, something that can't just be changed right there, then they're going to refer that either at the end of class or call a hall monitor down. And I would add again just campus monitor, excuse me, for all of
101you campus monitors listening, right? I use the old term. I would just reemphasize that most schools have a system in place wherein teachers can notify the administration um so that they can go on about their instruction and and not disrupt it. That's the you know we don't that's what we want to focus on is student learning and let the campus monitors and the administration deal with that and and and I was also added depends on how you approach things. As a male teacher, I was a little hesitant sometimes to approach certain dress code issues. And I I I appreciated um campus monitors that could do that and uh female administrators that could could help approach things. And and so I'm going to go back to um D two where it says graduates are expected to
102wear the prescribed cap and gown without alterations. So are are we okay with al alterations to the cap. Some people like to decorate them and I I you did mention that um there are some culturally significant things people can do with their cap. Um, and but here it just says the cap. Should we look at changing this policy? If I I mean, so it matches with the practice because or does that just go along with the um allowed to wear recognized items of religious or cultural significance in a dignified manner? To me, applies to the cap also. Yes, I think so. But to your point, I think in talking with Mr. Sorenson and and some of the other principles. Um number two on that on that part of the policy that talks about the cap
103and gowns a little inconsistent with how it talks about allows later in the policy that they can they can um celebrate their culture. And so to me if we were to propose something right here on the fly it could be that we we modify number two on that policy so that it doesn't appear to be inconsistent or ambiguous about how why you know where's the line for that. I'm not trying to suggest we want to do that before graduation this year or whatever, but I'm I'm just if it's something that is not consistent, I will tell you or is it inconsistent or not? I Right. I think in in talking with our high school principles, we've addressed that already that we wanted to be we want to be flexible and and understanding. And so, we
104talked about bringing um that part of the policy back to the board after this graduation. We didn't want to make big changes or anything right now, but the message to principles has been be flexible and make sure that it's, you know, the cultural attire is great and we don't want there to be confusion about being able to decorate a a cap on that. I think it's a good time to be talking about it and we learn lessons every time we go through a graduation about what what's the result of changing the graduation policy to align with the law and is there any language that needs to be changed to be sure that there's as much clarity as possible so that the administration and teachers know how to effectively enforce the policy but also so parents
105and students can prepare so that enforcement is not necessary. So, I was reading that a little bit differently as in you can't shorten the sleeves on your gown. You can't like structurally change the cap. Are you thinking more adding to it rather than taking away from it? I I I wasn't thinking anything about the gown, but I would because I have Do people alter their g? Well, that's I took it quite literally in that sense. Yeah. I I was just thinking about and I haven't seen it a whole lot at graduations, but some people like to paint something or bedazzle the top of their cap. Everyone does. I mean, yeah, the idea a plain one. The idea is you wear the cap and gown as provided and if you want to add other things that
106you also wear, you can do that but that you don't like shred the gown or take away from it tape on top of the gown and there's a high level of creativity offline. I can tell you what I didall when I graduated from high school. It was pretty cool actually. I'll learn here in a month in a few weeks. Sorry. No, please go ahead. I was changing the subject. So, if you had more to add to that. And to to be honest, I I think that too, it might be a nice thing to allow individual high schools to decide to what level they are willing to allow those types of alterations. To that end, President George, I was just going to say if you're okay um with us bringing some proposed policy revisions after graduation
107to this body, that would be great. I was curious um in the document provided to us, it said revised doc. Um but I was hardressed to find what the changes were. Have you changed it or this is just our current policy? That what you This is the current. Okay. This is just as it stands. So we had asked for a presentation because we had changed from this zero tolerance approach to this more distraction and disruption approach and so it just seemed appropriate to follow up. Yeah. So right now no proposed changes. It sounds like you had a good conversation with principles and admin about what's happening. And so, um, I would just like to put out there that if parents or teachers see a need for some sort of shift that maybe that's something they
108take to school community council or their principal. And if we're seeing more and more of this at, you know, shift and like school community councils, they have more power than they know. If they want something to happen at their school and they bring it and they get support of the community and their school and their administration, they they could do that. Like I think if a school wanted to have uniforms and the school community council did, you know, they they could do something like that. But I mean, am I wrong? No. In fact, the AA419 has language in there that school community councils can address individual needs. And as President George just said, they could be a little more prescriptive, not maybe less than the policy stipulates, but more prescriptive if needed. So when I
109hear from my constituents regarding this dress code, one of the words I hear frequently is consistency. And we have really written a policy here that allows for a lot of inconsistency. Um, if I look at 2C1A1, when we talk about draws undue attention, distracts, disrupts, or interferes with a learning environment at school or a sponsored activity, I ask myself, what draws more undue attention? Pulling a student out or having a student stay when they're dressed outside of the standards of this policy and that feels like a heavy lift for administration. I'm I'm curious if that's something you're dealing with and how do you respond to that question of consistency? The consistency question is a difficult one because the same article of clothing on different kids will have different impacts and may meet the policy under
110on one child and not on another. And when we were developing the policy, Mr. Vancman spoke specifically to the high bar there is for distraction. And we used to treat distraction as anything that kind of stood out as opposed to something that actually disrupted learning and kept learning from happening. So, um it's really difficult to be so prescriptive that every um situation is already outlined in policy to the point that there's no judgment call required where it's simply oh yep it says it right there exactly what you're wearing and so now that has that now that's a violation. So there are a lot of judgment calls involved in that. I guess what I would say is as there are concerns that come up, let us use those individual concerns as a means of looking to
111as of exploring further. So we've had concerns about this particular uh employee or student or school and then let us dig deeper and see if there's a pattern or if the if or if if the issue is an anomaly. I don't know if Mr. Vancom wants to speak to the to the uh disruption um bar if that's of interest, but it's it's actually a high bar to to get to that level where you say this is a disruption, so that can't be allowed. The board can set restrictive policy. Somehow leggings turn to jeggings turn to some other article of clothing that somehow works around um language. no matter how specific you try to get. But that doesn't mean that we shrug our shoulders and throw our arms up. It when we describe the complexity, it
112doesn't mean that we allow the complexity to paralyze us from taking action either at a as a district or at the school level. It's just to demonstrate that consistency is difficult because it does take something of a judgment call. And if you I found that when I was no longer a principal or assistant principal and then you go to a school then you have to kind of recalibrate again and because when you're dealing with it all the time it's like that's a violation that's a violation. You you are if you're immersed in it you're able to to to spot that in a different way. But I don't know if you want to speak to the disruption. Um, yeah, 30 years ago, school districts wanted to fire employees for having a tattoo, right? I mean, you
113can see nowadays it's a perfectly acceptable part of society. Cabinet members have them, all sorts of people. Um, so it's difficult to, you know, one group of people may think something is disruptive to them. Um, but it's there are also free speech implications. There's there's all sorts of things. I feel like one cultural shift piggybacking on that is we have as a culture it seems shifted the responsibility of distraction is on you. If you're distracted by somebody's clothing, you should look the other way. It's not their job to make you comfortable. Um and that's those are things that I hear consistently. Another um another concern that I have received multiple times is when we post pictures of students on our social media accounts at schools who are not in compliance with dress code. In particular,
114it is often pointed out to me when students are being recognized like, "Oh, they got this award and here they are a clear violation of dress code and we're slapping it on our social media page as something to aspire to." Um I I wish that there was at least enough caution on the part of our um our leadership in schools to say let's have some creative cropping something that doesn't allow us to say let's broadcast this this is okay to be o disobedient here because here you're excelling. Um, those are probably my two most frequently uh pointed out complaints through my of my constituents with the dress code. And I I do receive fairly frequent concerns about this topic. And I would add a third. I think one of the biggest problems for me is
115the creep because they know we're only ticketing the most egregious violators. That means everything else becomes okay. Yeah. And then the next year, what was okay last year? Every year it just creeps and I just don't know how to reset. I don't know how. I mean, I understand the difficulty and I understand enforcement is difficult, but I don't think I've ever been to a high school without seeing a violation, multiple violations, and it's getting more and more frequent. And I just I feel like part of that is the creep that is allowed. we they know we're not going to ticket the minor or even the mediocre violations that the only people who are going to be called out are the egregious violators. So now all of a sudden the only thing that we enforce is
116the egregious violations and we don't enforce the minor or even mediocre violations and then pretty soon that becomes the standard. And as we creep more and more to the egregious, more and more becomes acceptable. I can't tell you how many tummies I've seen lately. Right. C can I add to that, Bryce? So, it's not just that. It's the uh violators every single day. They're just not getting talked to. Those are the ones I worry about. It's one day you wear something. I can maybe understand, you know, turning the other eyes, they'll correct it on their own. But the number of people that violate the duress code on a daily basis is getting way too big. And it just to me it's I would just like to know are we keeping track of the violations that
117we're talking to them? And I would love to have a number of how many people were actually even bringing this issue up to. It's it's gotten worse and worse in my estimation. and and I'd like to say I really appreciate the the policy and the way that it is enforced. Um I have not gotten um the the people I have not heard from my constituents um I haven't gotten any emails about dress code from any of my constituents personally. And so I feel like it is I I think that it's okay to talk to people when they are not following a rule um or a policy. Um but I I don't I don't want to move toward punitive. I feel like um I want students in class learning and anyway that I I'll leave it
118at that. I appreciate the policy and I appreciate the way that it is enforced um or not enforce the focus on keeping students in class and I I don't I don't need calls from patrons. I'm in the schools every single day. It's gotten worse and worse and worse. It's awful. But I mean then it sounds like it is bothering you as your own patron. It's not bothering me, but my patrons aren't in the classroom every single day. They're not in the schools every day. They do call me and say, "Hey, I saw this." But I'm seeing what I observe is we have a policy that is being ignored in my opinion and in my limited view. And it it I can see turning your eyes to a student that one day dresses bad, but I'm
119there's chronic people who are like Dr. Anderson said speeding every single day. And there's got to be a place where we have the courage to go to a student and says that is not appropriate. And what I would be interested to know is the number of times we're actually saying something to a student. Are we do we just have a policy that we're ignoring or are we actually enforcing it? And you can give me those numbers offline. I'm okay. But this is a concerning policy to me. I want to uh speak to something that you said. I I think there are thousands of conversations in every school every day. We do not document when you say, "I'd like to see a number of how many conversations we're having or how many times we're talking to
120a student. Like I was talking about with the example of a teacher asking a student to or to adjust what they're wearing. I think there are a lot of conversations, thousands of conversations that are happening. The documentation is going to come when there's a consequence. So a teacher that talks to a student and says you need to zip that up is not necessarily going to go into Skyward and enter that. So it is something that's difficult to track from that perspective. Um, I also don't think that anything we've said is intended to suggest that we are only addressing the most egregious cases. Um, there there are cases that are very obviously a vi violation. There are some cases that may be a bit of a gray area or weren't a violation in first period but
121are in second period. Um, I think that it's always going to be a difficult issue. High school dress code in particular used to be my e euphemism for the unsolvable problem because no matter how much you work to address it, students are clever about how they put themselves out there, so to speak. And it it so but again, that's not to shrug. And if there's direction the board wants us to take if if you want us to look at more prescriptive language um then that's something that we can can do in our conversations. I know that we had administrators of schools talk with principles individually this the principles that they supervise and then Mr. Anderson met with them again today and we collected data. We feel that there's enforcement happening out there. The latest policy
122allows for more flexibility in dress than the previous policy did. So there has been an adjustment. There has been a shift. So someone in schools before this policy and after this policy would see a change. Is creep and and shift over time a real thing? It's absolutely a real thing. And um so it's it's I I it was an important question for us to address with administrators and to re-emphasize and it's something that we'll do again in our August meetings because that's when that's when things start up again. We have had even very recent and severe conflicts with parents when we have enforced we have given a consequence and the parent insists that what their child is wearing is appropriate and they insist that I've bought this for my child and I want my child
123to wear this and I support it. So we are at loggerheads sometimes with parents in enforcement and to me the sign that we are enforcing it is that I do have those come to me sometimes where we're enforcing and we are you know courage was mentioned we do have people taking a bold stance but I could probably walk into every secondary school in a class break and find a violation but I would not view that as a sign that the administration or teachers are taking it lightly either. And I know that may sound contradictory, but having dealt with a lot of dress code in a different era with different names for the clothing, it um it's a difficult issue. I also do view it as an important issue. I view this as an opportunity for
124students to see, okay, when I'm coming to a setting where I'm supposed to be learning or working, how should I be dressed? How should I address others? How should I interact? And it's something we lost during CO when we were all wearing pajamas for a solid year and we're still trying to rebuild there. So none of this has meant as an excuse or a suggestion that we aren't fully enforcing or are ignoring a policy, but it is a real problem. It's also a problem that's been with us for a long time and we want to be doing a good job of that. So, if there are specific changes to policy or procedure that you would like us to consider or talk about further or change, we're very open to that. And the questions that have
125come from the board and through patrons um to the board are important and and like we've talked about with other policies, it's important for us like the cell phone policy and the way we've revisited that and it's important for us to revisit these and say how's this going? What's this doing? Family leave policy earlier, the parent leave policy. Okay, we've had this in place. The laws changed, but how's it going? What have we seen? So, I think this is an important discussion. We'll have it again in August. We'll get information out to parents over the summer as they're buying clothing for their students as a reminder. Um, and so anyway, I appreciate the discussion and and the board's work on this. I could add and I I don't have any answer today for the dilemma.
126What I do observe is in our policy it references avoiding extremes and then we have an image which is not extreme and when you walk the halls I do have to calibrate because it is eyeopening to me what I see is it considered an extreme in that environment and does it disrupt learning I don't know. But I don't know that our image and the guidelines are totally consistent with the words we have in our policy. The image in the guideline. Mhm. Okay. I'm not It's not a criticism. It's simply, you know, I could read this and say appropriate dress and appearance avoids extremes. And then we have an image and there's still some room before you get extreme. And I'm not sure that those who are breaking the dress code that we have established are
127extreme. I don't know that they've reached the definition of extreme in their behavior or in their dress. Yeah. They're just such words, right? Like what is extreme and what is disruptive and Yes. And would a reasonable student be disrupted by what they see? All of these are things I don't know how to answer today. Some of my most memorable interactions with students, I could I could tell you several interactions from 25 years ago that I had with a student with various students over dress code just because it's a very personal thing and a very, you know, there may be one student of 2500 who's wearing a certain thing on a certain day and you need to have a conversation with them about that. Um, it's an important conversation. And if it's done well, the the
128learning environment is improved, policy is enforced, and the relationship with the student is enhanced, and there's a greater understanding. That's what we strive for. And if we have good documents to back that up, to your point, then I think we can do that more and more consistently. So, we'll we'll take a look at that. Um, and you've described the ideal. And if I'm one of 50 people speeding and the cop decides to pull me over and not the other 49, I'm going to have a problem with that and admit I was doing something wrong. So the conundrum is real. How do you choose the one when almost everybody seems to be doing it? What I'm wondering is, is there a an additional approach we can take? I'll throw this out there, not for decision, and
129I'm sure there are other things to consider, but can we create a culture? Our student body officers, can they set the example? Are they following the dress code? Because to me, that could be a good place to start to shifting cultures um by that group of people who are set up as leaders amongst their peers. So, what are we doing with that? you know, maybe getting creative on how to to address this, but I feel I feel for the enforcers. And I will say as a parent, I have a I have children at every level and I don't think I've seen this little drawing in years. Yes. I don't think I've seen it in any of our schools. I just proctored an AP test last Thursday and that is what I was staring at for
130like two hours. Three hours. Three hours. You saw it was this poster on a wall. Yeah. As a parent, I haven't seen it. and walking around schools. I don't see it. So, that's a point about our communication this summer. That's something we can send out in June. When do parents shop for clothes? I've not been involved in clo back to school shopping. I'm not part of that team. Also, it's usually August. Is it August? But I just wonder how many cases if parents were more alerted. Yeah. That that's one wave that would help. Yeah. to say, "Hey, you can't wear that to school. That's against dress code." I think taking a look at the guideline document to see whether the images and the language can be uh can give greater clarity and sending that out
131early enough for parents. Actually, as I think about it, for some reason, after July 24th, we start getting questions. parents start thinking about like the summer starts to feel like it's ending after the the the 24th holiday. So, we'll send dress code reminder through parent square after the 24th. Does that sound like good timing? I'd like to see that. Okay, we'll do that. And I would I just say the timing ought to be actually now because it's worse now than it has been all year. So, the timing of this discussion is kind of interesting, but I'm not saying you need to send something out, but springtime is much worse than the fall. Warmer weather uh it it's the reason for the fall is just because new clothes are being purchased for the coming school year.
132And I I support that. Yeah, that's that's a step we can take and and we're happy to explore other other modifications, adjustments, and updates as directed by the board. So, you you talk it sounds like this is an ongoing conversation as seasons change uh with administrators. Is there ever a discussion on the creep that we're seeing among teachers with becoming maybe a little more casual than they ought to be for their professional environment? Is that just is that even on the radar? That's a very separate issue and I I haven't looked at policy recently, but I think there's reference to professional dress appropriate to the workplace, something like that. But we don't activities of the day. Activities of the day. There's the phrase. But we don't we don't have a more prescriptive policy for employees.
133But that's not something that you're hearing surface in these conversations. Um on occasion I've heard concerns over that, but that's rare. Very rare for me to hear that. I am hearing and noticing myself that there is just a little bit of a slip there with the way that we're speaking with students, the way that we are dressing. We're closing this gap. And I think I would like to see that gap increase, right? You're an authority figure. And that should be obvious. When I walk in the room, I should be like, "There's the teacher." But sometimes it's hard to tell. And I'm not talking about their age. So that's another concern that in my mind comes together when we talk about dress code and asking students to dress in a manner that is respectful of the
134privilege of being educated. I hope that that is being modeled by the adults in the building and the student body. I love that point of elected student officers have an expectation of modeling. We meet uh on a regular basis most months with student body presidents and that's something we can talk about in the fall with our newest batch of student body presidents. And in terms of employees, that's that's something that the board would need to explore as a policy. I think um there are expectations at the school level sometimes in the implementation of that phrase in policy but if you wanted something more uh if you want to bring greater clarity to that that would be through policy I would be in favor of looking at that oh look at that in the effort to
135make a culture not just a checklist policies we have it is it does not give a lot of boundaries oh look at that and bring it back to the board. And I would love to hear language included there. I it it is infuriating to me when I hear a teacher swear at my child. Shouldn't happen. I had a I had a question here. Um it it looks like in the policy there's kind of two broad categories. One of them has to do with whether or not the clothing adheres to the picture, the model. And one of them deals with whether there's writing images or symbols or insignias that are and there's a list of seven or eight things. LWD, obscene, uh promote racism, infringe on the rights of others, pornographic or sexually uh suggestive. I'm
136I'm guessing now correct me if I'm wrong. And I'm guessing that that second set writings or insignias that are that those those items probably don't go un enforced as much as the first category is that so Brian when I was a classroom aid I would if I saw anybody wearing a shirt that advertised beer or marble hat a student that was the thing that I would like quietly say hey did you know your shirt is not dress code because it's advertising alcohol or tobacco? And they'd be like, what? And I'd say, so you can make a choice to not wear it again if you want to. Just like that. And and frequently they would say, I did not even know. But anything else, I would never address it just because I feel like that can
137be more distracting to students to think, does my peer smoke? is my peer drinking vodka? You know, that kind of thing. Personally, and Mr. Barnett, I think I think what you described, Zach, I think both are enforced. I think both are one is far less subjective. When you've got a shirt depicting drugs or alcohol on it, that it is or it isn't. And it's easy to say that's not that definitely is a violation of it. Others are more subjective when it comes to either, you know, we talked about the the bellies that are revealing some. It depends on the on the age of the student, depend on whether they're standing up, whether they're stretching. That that's that's a more subjective um approach and it requires a little more nuance um than it does if you're
138wearing a Budweiser t-shirt. Yeah. I was just I I was wondering this second set on of drugs or alcohol advertising or other similar things that are listed. It it it it seems like that's an easier enforcement for a teacher or administrator to say, "Hey, you can't wear that or you can't have that insignia on your hat." And uh as opposed to I'm guessing that some of the things that um that Daryl was mentioning that that that were that were slipping and that and that he walks through the halls and he's around students every day. All the things that Daryl and Daryl maybe you can chime in here. All the things that Daryl is saying and that most of us are seeing in in schools are violations of the first category. Yes, I think that's fair
139to say. And I have a question too. So like at an awards ceremony that is not the the dress code is not necessarily for that when it's after school in the evening or is it I guess it depends on the awards ceremony. I think uh like if it's a school sponsored in an auditorium, right? Um because is is it I think the language in the policy suggests that they should dress anytime on campus befeitting the day's activities and it's you know in an afterchool setting or an off-campus setting it's a little different than during the school day. I'm not suggesting that uh you should be go wild, right? I can read the policy words if that would be helpful. It says expected of all students at school or school sponsored activity. Think that when you
140talk about prom I I we have a different set of standards but we did add that to our policy. We made international headlines for enforcing dress code at prom in the past. So, and for sleeping on corduroy pillows. Syracuse high school the last 20 minutes. No international headlines. Oh, appropriate behavior. Wow. Wow. We could probably talk about this for months and we have before, but this has been a good introduction and we appreciate you taking this feedback and bringing something back. Maybe. Thank you. We appreciate your support and appreciate this is a to a person each administrator also said this is where they are when they're dealing with dress code issues at their very peak right now. This is the time of year in which you know spring is here and students can see the
141end in sight and it's an especially difficult time. So thanks you to all of the administrators and teachers and campus monitors that are dealing with this and parents of course that are dealing with this on a daily basis. Yeah. I just want to add in addition to prom sports. Yes, that is a school sponsored activity. So, keeping that in mind as well. Costumes. I there are so many things the micros. All right. So for those that are listening at home, the question was asked regarding language among students. Um, do you have any additions regarding I think that could be another another topic, you know, on a board agenda, but we don't I mean that's no, we can we can talk about things that aren't on the agenda, but I what I'm saying is it would
142be worthy of discussion from the board in a similar way if you'd like. Um, you know, in the hallways there may be language that would not be tolerated in a classroom or around an adult. I mean, it's it's really down to the specifics, but I don't think um language isn't should not be tolerated in class. Inappropriate language should not be tolerated in school. And I guess it's a question for the president whether this is something you want to discuss now or add to an agenda in the future. Uh I would be interested maybe in looking at this in the future board members. Is that something that you follow up on? I think so. Okay. Maybe. Okay. I have made some notes for future agenda items that we will circle back to employee dress and conduct,
143student language, and a review of this policy following graduation. The phrase inappropriate language appears once in the AA policies. Just once. Interesting. Interesting. I want to look at the law as well. I think there are some there are laws around that. And the reason I say let's put it on the agenda or consider whether to put it on the agenda is that I think it's worthy of something more than an ad hoc discussion. Yeah. Great. So, we will circle back to some of these topics in the future, but at this point, um, I feel like we could go ahead and adjourn for a short break. Perfect. We will come back at 6:25. Thank you. Me, too. Welcome back to the Jordan Board of Education study session. We are um now on agenda item E, a
144discussion on secondary boundaries within Midas Creek Elementary School boundaries. Mr. Deford, um I feel a little uncomfortable leading this discussion because Midas Creek falls in Mr. Barnett's um precinct, but they you heard from Morgan Bangader last time uh who overheard this board last fall talking about um pursuing boundaries. At what point um Mr. Robinson brought up Midas Creek, excuse me. And Morgan reached out to me because I'm she lives in my precinct and is on the PTA and said, "Hey, there's always been a considerable interest in unifying Midas Creek." And I said, "Well, I'd be happy to answer some questions. Mr. Barnett and I would be happy to answer questions." They had a little meeting at the school and I was very clear to point out the trends, the enrollments trends that if there was
145a ch change, it would most likely not be to one of the two crowded high schools. It would probably be the one with a declining enrollment and same with the middle school. So they had a lot of meetings. They did an inform formal survey based on their inform formal survey which is clearly not what we have the tools to do. There is an interest at changing the the middle school and high school boundaries within the elementary school so that all of the students at Midas Creek Elementary would go to the same middle school and the same high school. Currently, they go to three different middle schools and three different high schools. Now, that's on them. Let's be honest. During Mo Moab, they requested that they did not want to go to the same. They wanted
146to go to three different It's very difficult for the high for the middle or the elementary school. Um, it's a difficult situation because they have, you know, when a a high school wants to come in and make a presentation, they're dealing with three different high schools. It is a complicated issue. There's a lot of reasons for and a lot of reasons against. Um, I went to several meetings and answered questions and was very clear. Look, I'm just one board member. I can't speak for the board, but I can answer some trends that we've seen. I can give you some enrollment data. Um, I for one would prefer this situation, but again, I'm only one. So, I guess what I'm asking the board is, is there any interest on the board at picking up this issue
147and doing some more formal surveying that we have the tools to do? We can we can ask um in such a way that we can narrow it down to specific groups. Um, I think what we're going to find is that every group wants to unify the boundaries, but they want to unify the boundaries in their favor. So, the ones that live in Riverton want to go to Riverton. The ones that live in Haramman say, "Hey, let's all go to Haramman." I think the reality is we can't do that. that looking at the boundaries, the growth at Haramman, the growth at Mountain Ridge, Mountain Ridge would suggest that if we do make this change, we unify all of the middle school boundaries to Ochre Hills and to Riverton. Those I would be those would be the
148schools I would recommend. So, I suggest that we pick it up and at least survey um with that result, not an open question. Would you like to unify and what school would you like to go to? I would recommend we survey that and ask would you be interested in unifying the elementary the middle school and high school boundaries within the elementary boundaries and reroute them to all of the students go to Ochre Hills and all of the students students go to Riverton and you're basing on that on enrollment trends that recommendation. Yes. I showed them the growth at Mountain Ridge. I showed them the growth at all of the middle schools and all of the high schools, and it's pretty clear that one of the three has a lot more room than the other two
149at both levels. So, would you be interested in at least taking it to the next level and surveying those people officially using the tools that we have to ask if there is interest in moving forward? If they come back and say they're not interested, then maybe we're done. But I would propose that we at least survey the parents, teachers, students like we normally do regarding the middle school and high school boundaries. Can I ask a couple more questions on that? So I'm curious if there are any other considerations we should make in addition to the constituents point of view. for example, um busing and the impact. Would we increase expenses or decrease expenses with that proposal and any other considerations the administration might have us ponder? But would you make those changes if the parents
150weren't interested? Well, I mean, let's say it's going to I mean, I'm going to exaggerate here, but let's say it's going to cost a half million dollars more. Even if the parents are we're interested, we have other things to consider. So, my concern would be we survey them, they want it or it's mediocre, we got to go one way or the other and we don't do it. Um, I would like to feel confident that if we survey them and they want it, that we're willing to go for it. other than otherwise we're saying thanks but no thanks for telling us how you feel. Uh I would need a little more information as well. I'd like to know how this helps the the bigger problems of the district. Are we balancing school enrollments? Are we reducing
151bus routes? Um, I I think that it's great to have the conversation, but I'm not ready to survey without that data. And and I have a question, too. Are there is Midas Creek the only elementary school in the district that goes to three different high schools? Yes, they are. Three, but there are other I think they're the only elementary that goes to three different middle schools and three different high schools. Yeah, that's correct. But there are others who divide into two. There's two is common, three is rare. Yeah. So, could we as a as an alternative consider two middle schools and two high schools instead of just one? I guess that's some I just want to vet it I think a little bit further before we survey. What does that mean? Like I said, what
152what would be the impact on our budget or busing routes? What would be the impact to do one high school, one middle school versus two? Those kinds of things. What Nikki mentioned before we survey? It's just what what Miss Wood said. I would be uncomfortable surveying something that wouldn't be a consideration by the board. Can I chime in? Sure. So, I think the timing is bad. We're currently looking as a facility committee to propose several changes uh for buses, for locations. We have uh in my area uh we kind of left the whole community um on the edge, didn't make any moves. So, there's a lot of different moving parts that um what I wouldn't want to do is move this group to a school and then find out that we really should have moved
153them to a different school. I think naturally they would have come up in in the discussion. Bryce mentioned an area that ought to go to Bingham. Um I think we ought to explore that same group of people. Um there's several people that we need to take a look at and I'm hesitant to there's not a rush here. I think if we did it in the s late summer, early fall, I think that that would be fine because we wouldn't be making that change for this year. But uh we have a lot of things to do to um kind of sh up our boundary policy let alone be taking individual moves without looking at a global picture. Yeah. I last Friday and and last month Daryl mentioned just just now that we've been talking about this
154issue in facilities committee and I think it might be it might be too hasty to take an isolated incident outside of the context of a of a of a larger boundary change because there are smaller needs for boundary changes for a variety of other reasons. that that we would probably be better served to address everything at once rather than rather than one isolated incident at a time. So that's the very thing I'm trying to avoid is everything at once. I think it's pretty clear that moving students out of Mountain Ridge and out of Haramman and into Riverton is a good thing. I think that's that's obvious and I think it's obvious it's also to say moving students out of Copper Mountain and out of South Hills and into Ochre Hills is a very good thing.
155Both of those are very very good things that I think are going to be done anyway. And what I'm very much trying to avoid is the all at once. I would much rather look at one area at a time and say, "Okay, what's the right thing in this area?" We have a chance to preemptively before a crisis hits remove some students from two very crowded high schools and move them to a not so crowded high school. Could you help me understand your aversion to all at once? We've done that before and it was a disaster. It wasn't a disaster. We did what we had to do, but doing it all at once meant everyone was focused on theirs and not each others. I couldn't help you with yours. I couldn't jump in and inform myself
156to the degree that I should because I'm dealing with so many right here. Got it. And and and we made mistakes because board members trusted not trusted but limited the choices because we weren't involved in each others. It was too much. It was too many. And I worry that we're headed in that same direction. But we have an opportunity to say, "Wait a minute. Why not make a change that we are most likely going to change anyway now that there's a public interest? But but Bryce, you just said that you wanted to survey these people formally and if they don't want to do it, then we're not we'll just drop it there. This is a group has to go. Well, you did say that. Go back and listen to your words. I say that we
157we aren't going to drop it. That's what I understood that you said, but this is an area that has to go. The question is if they go out to ochre, we have other things that probably are going to take students to ochre. And so we can't even look at the student capacity until we look at the other decisions that we're looking as a facility committee, let alone what student services has to say. And so I don't mind a community or board member bringing boundary changes to um us as a board, but we've got to look at a global picture when we're doing it. And that's the problem with doing one at a time. I'm not saying that we need to do a gigantic MOAB again, but I do think that there's some trickling effect to
158making a border change and we just got to be careful with making sure that we're making a global border. um decision and not just an isolated neighborhood one. Can I just remind board members that when this was brought up before the board agreed that we would like to pursue looking at feeder system boundary adjustments. We've already as a board said that that is our intention and I think we've been waiting for a proposal from facilities. Um, so I feel like what we're debating right now, we already at one point have determined the course of action and I'm curious if that determination has changed for for board members. Excuse me. I I agree with what Brian and what Daryl have said and personally I would um like to make these kinds of decisions um to survey
159about boundary changes after the next um like in October the forecast meeting and the enrollment and schools to watch. I I feel like we say that every year and every we wait three months and then we're like we better wait for the next forecast. I as long as we're really committed to taking action and and we did take some action but then we No, I'm saying it feels like we wait for that number and then you don't do it and then we don't act on it and then we wait for the number the next year. We did act on it though with as far as surveying people at all those elementary schools and working on boundary changes and then we came to a conclusion. So I don't know exactly what kind of action you're talking
160about because we went you know we did the the surveying and the notification and did different options return to this on a broader scale. Yeah. Yeah. And so done that but I mean so I would like to return to it on a broader scale. So in October and and well just because I I want to see a more global picture like Daryl said. I think there can be unintended consequences for just a boundary change that affects one school without taking into account the other. So Nikki, I don't I don't think it needs to happen in October. I think actually the problem is is when you do it in October, then you're into the Christmas season, holiday season, and it's just hard to communicate with people. Um, we said as a board when we uh put
161my community on hold that we would take it up in the spring and spring is over. We didn't take it up. I just think um going into May is a horrible time to survey people and consider a boundary change when you're going into the summer. So, I would propose that we the facilities continue to work at the pockets that they're looking at. Maybe work with student services, see what other needs there are. Many of these changes need to happen regardless of what October counts say. I I'm specifically interested in the area that Bryce mentioned earlier that needs to go to Bingham. So, some of this stuff doesn't have to wait till October, but I do think going into the summer is a bad time to to do it. I support, by the way, I support
162Minus Creek being unified in one area or another, but they need to understand that they're going to lose their busing to their favorite school and we're going to reboundry that area. Um cuz when I communicated with them, they think that we're going to just provide the busing, let the kids continue to go to the school of their choice. And that's never happened. I was very clear on that. Well, that's what they told me. And it was after your meeting. So, as long as they know that. So, I was very clear on that. I think we should be careful about saying what will happen before there's been board action because I I don't know that we know who's going to move where. We we may not move them to Oakre. We may choose to move to
163South Hills. I mean, we have a lots of options. We have to look at all of them. So, we can't promise them anything. But I I'm I'm committed to look at it. I just think it's a bad time. And I would counter that. Normally, yeah, it would be a bad time to hit them cold. But this community has been having these conversations for months now. And if we don't address it now, we lose the risk of losing the steam that they've started. They're talking about it. They're having meetings. They've already started those conversations. This is not going to come to us as a surprise to any one of them. I'm just asking, do we pick up where they have they've gone as far as they could go? Do we then pick it up now? Do
164we pick it up later? Because there is considerable there is considerable movement happening now. Can I ask if the facilities committee has a time frame in which you think you will have your recommendations to the board for boundary changes? We have a document still in draft form. um that Dr. Anderson and his team have put together. We've reviewed it in our last two meetings. I think we're we're about we're there, aren't we, Mike? Aren't we basically I I mean I I could envision at our next board meeting giving a presentation on that document. Yeah, I think that's possible. I think uh the biggest questions that remain are the comfort level the board and and particularly the facilities committee has with the number of portables that are acceptable for you know um for a school to
165have to for calculation of correct enrollment. Yeah, that was the key question that there was some there was been some back and forth on. So I think we're waiting on on uh that we can bring it to the board for further discussion at any point. So assuming that conversation goes swimmingly, there is a window of opportunity to survey the Midas Creek Elementary School parents fairly soon. May or may but it may it may not happen but it may happen. So I'm in favor of waiting to hear your report especially if it happens in two weeks and deciding from there. Yeah. One of I I can understand Mr. Dunford's passion and and this community's passion for getting it done now. My my hesitancy is that one of the one of the former boards created it or
166helped ask staff to create a document listing the priorities for uh boundary changes. These are the things we should consider when we're talking about boundary changes. One of them is aligning feeder systems. That's one of the list. And so I I hesitate to move forward on one of the list even though it might seem apparent to all of us that this is what's going to happen. Riverton High School and Ochre Hills Middle School. that that's a risk I think in assuming that the that that that one thing feeder system is going to trump all the other things that we've asked staff to consider when we're talking about boundary changes. That's my main hesitancy. And so I I have a a question too. So, has facilities committee um been looking at moving students west to low
167enrollment schools like um Riverton and West Jordan. Well, I shouldn't say low, but ones without as much growth like West Jordan High School and Riverton High School. Is that part of what this document is? You want to speak to that, Mike? Yeah. The document would be just uh at what point do we trigger a discussion about a school that needs to be addressed for either declining enrollment or growth. And then from there we you know given direction from the board we could start to create boundary changes. But the document itself is just like here are the considerations here are the points at which we would either trigger a conversation with the board regarding boundaries for low-enrolled schools or growing uh rapidly growing schools. If it's not a recommendation schools that we need to consider, the
168recommendation from that document would be that and that's what we as staff have put forth to the facilities committee is that we for years and years we've used um as an acceptable threshold six portables at a school. That's the question and that's our that's the only recommendation that really is in that document is that we like the six portable threshold. that allows for flexibility and growth and there's been the discussion around that and we're happy to to move forward in any direction the board wants regarding that. That was the only specific recommendation we had in there. Oh, no numbers. The there's a sorry if the numbers would come as a result of a ratio. There's there's a formula that we would use that that takes into account uh growth um and the the uh the
169capacity of the school and the numbers would come out of that. So there would be numbers but in the document itself there's not a specific number that 2500 for middle schools or 3,000 whatever. Um there's a formula inside the document that would calculate those numbers. main the main um metric used in the document to raise a discussion among the entire board for a boundary change is based solely on enrollment. whether it's above capacity or below a a certain threshold. It it doesn't have anything to do with if if we have a school that that goes to three different middle schools and three different high schools, then we're going to talk about it as a board. If we have a school um if if we have a community who wants to change their boundaries, then we're
170going to talk about it. The only metric that the document talks about is enrollment because that's historically been the in fact in in in our very first facilities committee meeting I asked the question and these three gentlemen were in the meeting. I said I or or or I I I asked is there is there ever a situation where we would consider a boundary change outside of enrollment and no one had any anything any other options. It's always based on enrollment. Now there might be some exceptions. Maybe we could find an exception to that. But but but that was the main thing whether it's underenrolled or overenrolled or going to be in the near future. I think that was the that was the thrust of the document itself. But to your point there there would be
171there's a situation that's just been outlined with Midas Creek that they're not necessarily in an enrollment problem. It's a it's a feeder system issue. And um by the way, I think it's just worth noting that any survey that's done on that, we would want to really we're not talking about a boundary change for Midas Creek. We would be talking about a boundary change for the middle schools and high schools. And so we would be notifying the middle schools and high schools. Ironically enough, not notifying, not needing to notify Midas Creek. We would of course let them know, but the actual and I would push back because what I would propose is not a boundary change for them. It's just that the sixth graders coming out of Midas Creek go to one middle school. Everyone else
172stays in their school and then three years later those same middle school students go to one high school. I don't think we necessarily pull people out of the middle schools they're attending. Okay. That that would be Yeah, that's a nuance there. That's a nuance that's different because what we're not doing is we're not proposing that you leave your middle school. What we're proposing is the entire sixth grade goes to one school. So the boundaries would be phased in. You'd have a sixth grade boundary. You'd have a seventh and eighth grade. Then the next year you'd have a seventh and sixth grade boundary and an or no, a seventh and an eighth grade and a ninth grade separate. And then the third year you'd have a unified boundary. The complexity of that is that you'd be
173running buses to every single school. It's an interesting neighborhood because if you go sit in that neighborhood and calculate the distance to every school, they're in the bus route for every single one, even Haramman because of the Mountain View corridor policy that we have. And so the problem that we would have is that you're then running a bus for two families to do two different middle schools or elementaryaries and so forth. So the bus situation would be very confusing. Something that makes me a little hesitant there is making a plan for a board that doesn't exist. I can't tell a board in three years what boundary change they will be making. And I also as I look at Midas Creek's numbers, they're fairly stable and we have urgent needs in other schools. Why are we
174focusing here? Because I've asked and we listen. I have had many, many, many requests at Sunset Ridge. So, if we're going based on people have asked, let me represent them better. Great. Can I ask far as three years out, don't we have a practice where we change a boundary and allow some to get a waiver and continue to go to where they've been going? How would this be different than that? We've we have done that over the years and we've said um sixth graders can stay, you know, you can we've made a boundary change, but if you're in fifth grade and you're moving into sixth, you can finish out your time, but we did not necessarily provide transportation for that. So, it was a question of where you're able to attend as a boundary student
175versus where you receive transportation. And I think, you know, important questions are being asked and sometimes we may have addressed them before, but we still have to knock it around because this is a this is a really impactful decision. Obviously, to your earlier point, Mr. Barnett, we we generally as a staff are going to recommend boundary changes because of enrollment only because we generally make boundary changes only when we have to. It's a very disruptive want to minimize it. Exactly. But when the board says we'd like I've heard from constituents and we would like to have an aligned feeder. Okay. That's something else that we would consider, but that comes from parents and it comes from the board. It wouldn't come from staff. From staff are going to say, uh, there's a need. We can't
176fit the kids anymore or we have so few kids that we can't offer enough teachers at in every grade level or in every subject. So, we need to consider what that impact is. And as a result, that's that's when we would bring that we would bring it forward for enrollment. But the board may bring it forward for other situations. Um the the other thing I would say is that to an earlier point I I think before we survey whether we do it now or whether we do it later if if if we're agnostic on that for the for the sense for the for the purpose of discussion. We just have to be, I think, very precise in the questions that we ask and in the information that we gather first because I don't think we
177want to there's already momentum in more than one area. You don't want to ask questions that you can't back up with action. And you can you can structure the questions to say, would you want to align feeder systems, for example, if it meant you had to change schools? There might be enough people who say, I only want to align if it's to my school because I think my school makes the most sense. Then it could give you an idea of how to how to address it. So I think it's a question of what what are the issues that we want to make sure we address and on what timeline do we want to do that and then what information do we need before we go out to the to the public. And some of that
178depends on what you've heard from the public, the pressure that you're receiving or the the the requests that you're getting because we respond to the numbers and what we see every October and schools to watch list and and concerns about being able to continue to house students. But the board has the responsibility of saying, "Hey, parents are asking for this change that isn't absolutely necessary to house students, but is of interest for these various safety reasons because they don't want to be crossing this road or they they feel that um they they want to be going to one feeder or whatever that may be. if that so we are ready to facilitate it at one what other t at whatever timeline at whatever point you want us to do that um as directed by the
179full board or the facilities committee but I do think knowing what we want to do when and what information you need before we survey so that we can go out and gather that for you. So, can facilities committee come prepared with a presentation of that document in the next board meeting? Yeah, we plan on that. Is that a comfortable next step for everyone? Rice, does that Sure. at least show some movement. Okay. It seems like that's a a natural next step and we can continue the discussion based on the adoption of those procedures. sound okay. Superintendent made a good point though in differentiating when staff brings a boundary change request and when the board brings a boundary change. Mr. Dunford was a perfect example of that today. He he he he had reason outside of
180enrollment to bring a a change a boundary change and and there might be other issues like parents are concerned about safety or feeder system or I live within walking distance of a of another school but I'm being busted to a you know there's there's other reasons and I think another question is what is what is the procedure when we're receiving feedback from a constituent because or from a group of constituents because as I have received that feedback, I've brought it to facilities committee as others have received it that it's come to an agenda item and it it would be great if we could rally around a procedure just so that one doesn't get more gravity than the other. Mhm. I mean, so either it comes directly to the board or it goes first to facilities.
181What's our process? Right. Right. I could support that. Are there any immediate feelings on that? What's the the right way? Does the whole board need to be alerted to a community's needs? I've got a question or possible answer to your question. Um, so being on facilities, thinking about this document we're making, thinking about these other uh trigger points where community members bring it, board members bring it. Um perhaps in this document because I feel like the document we are currently working on is for staff to bring to the board and it does not include these other nuances of communities and SEC's and board members bringing things. So, I'm wondering if we can lay out uh a road map of sorts for these other avenues of bringing boundary changes from community members. How much work are
182we willing to put in to or how much work are we willing to ask staff to do in order to look at these requests and which direction do we go with that? So let me try and clarify. Um so if the community brought it and then we have decided that okay this community is interested we need to check these boxes you know uh is it a feeder system problem is it a numbers problem and then we need to run it through transportation say hey does this look legitimate is this going to work or is this not going to work and and we have these steps that we can take um but How much is too much for a request? I guess is what I'm asking. So, I think that's a good question. I am comfortable,
183if I were to get a request for a boundary change, let's say for one of my schools, I would feel comfortable looping in the chair of the facilities committee to vet it, to bring it up in your committee updates during these meetings to say, "We've gotten this request. We've gotten that request. here's what we're doing about it. And then if a board member thinks it's not getting the attention they want it to, we can bring it up at that point and say, can you take another look or have you considered this? Um, I like it going through the facilities committee. Anybody want to persuade me otherwise? The biggest tension we've had in the past is the facilities company is made the facilities committee is made up of three board members and may or may not
184include the passionate board member. We the biggest problem I had when I was facilities chair is we were making a major change at a school and that board member was not represented on the facilities committee. When you say that board member, the the boundary, the one the board member over that boundary, the school involved. And so we were having conversations about a school that a board member represented that wasn't on facilities. And it it's been our it's been our practice in the past to have someone step out and have that board member join. And what what happened is I stepped out every single time so that that board member could come in. Every single meeting for the next however many meetings I stepped out so that the that board member could come in. And I
185I walked away saying this should have gone maybe to the board. the the the the challenge with sending it to a committee is you don't have the the seven board members there and you don't have the voice of the board member who might actually be the most interested. And so there's the breakdown. When does it come to a board so you can get the voice of all seven board members and when does it go to a committee where you only have three voice voices? I'm curious if one approach could be we present a concern and and we know as we interact with our constituents when we're hearing enough that we say, "Wow, that holds water." So, you bring it to the board and if the board feels that it's the appropriate time to pursue a
186boundary change, we create an ad hoc. with that I think that would or we just at that point we assign it to facilities but that's after the board has weighed in. We don't go to facilities and wait for facilities to bring it to the board. I think our mistake was we started taking action before we involved the board. We should have taken it to the board, received an assignment from the board, but given the circumstances and the nature of those changes, we didn't feel like we could take it to the board. Right. I think Oh, go ahead. But I think it would have turned out better if the board had weighed in on that decision and then we started moving forward. I'm wondering if like if the board member brings a boundary concern then we
187could say okay facilities just give us the facts and they can go through that checklist and then they can bring that back and say this is what we found this is how it will affect this and this and this and then the board could have a discussion and decide whether or not they agree to to move forward or to change it up and so that facilities these stays more neutral and just fact-based and they don't have to have all these nuanced discussions and bring other context that I getting the request may not have. So when it when it comes to the board, it's in the context of the facilities committee. I can then opine as it's brought but everything goes through facilities and then we can decide as a board do we want to move
188forward and ask them to do more that's kind of I'm I'm with Aaron and my thought process but Dr. What were you going to add? My question is um do we really want to write this into policy where board members and community members are looking at boundaries and requesting those? This is not something we've done in the past. Lots of times we have to make those decisions because that's where people fit, not what people want. And I'm not I'm not opposed to people like Midas Creek bringing this up because it ultimately has to get done anyways. we would have probably done this anyways, but I'm hesitant in writing something into the policy that we spend now all of our time. Um, I mean, there's there's boundaries I don't like in my area. Do you really
189want me to stir people up and and talk about that? Cuz I have people that live across the street from an elementary school that can't go there. You know, I mean, there's a lot of boundaries in our area that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but we did it because we run our schools pretty full, and we put people where they can fit. Not where they want to go, but where they fit. So, I'm not opposed to having a board member or a community um bringing up something to our attention, but I don't really feel comfortable in creating a policy that allows that to happen on a regular basis. And I would point out that we've always been a district where we were cramped for space and we are no longer that district. There
190are areas where we are very very open. And I think we need to shift our thinking away from we do boundary changes only when we're cramped because that's who we've been. I admit that's who we've been. But that is not who we are and who we're going to be. It's not only who we are. So yes, I would love to hear you as a board member come back and say now that we have room in our schools, can we fix this? A decision we made when we were cramped and we're no longer cramped. I think it's time to start fixing those things. I'm not against fixing those things. I'm against writing it directly in the policy and I'm and I'm kind of against, as I mentioned, kind of against doing them one at a time.
191just unless we're like almost 100% certain that the changes that we make for this situation are not going to impair us from fixing. Let's say we have five areas that we want to change, but we don't want to do it all at once because doing things all at once is a problem. Are we guaranteed or somewhat guaranteed that the changes we make in this in number one are not going to prevent us from doing the changes in 2, three, four, and five? That's what I'm a little concerned about. But we have high schools that are approaching 50% enrollment. We've never been in that situation. And now all of a sudden, we have the luxury to say we have plenty of room in some of our high schools. We have two high schools that within 10
192years will be approaching 50% enrollment and two high schools, three high schools that are hovering in the 90%. So yeah, I have a lot of confidence that if we move one, we'll still be able to move two, three, four, and five. I'm okay at the high school level. I just worry about the elementary schools. Well, and the middle school that that's a concern I have. I've got a question. When you say write it into policy, Darl, um I did not view these documents as policy, are they considered policy? This these considerations, right? So that's they probably don't define the word policy, but they're if they're their active procedures, I think what that's that's why I'm saying, do you really want to solicit these changes for a group to come and bringing it to us? I'm
193fine. But if you put it into our procedures, you're going to have lots of requests. Like Nikki said, she's had that request for Sunset Ridge many times over the years. And what's the danger in that? The danger in that is we can't provide it for everybody. But we can listen, can't we? I'm not saying we can't listen. I'm just saying, do we really want to actively go out there and ask people, hey, do you want you want to move your your school? I I don't see it that way. I don't see us actively soliciting the other schools saying, "Yes, bring us your problems." uh guidelines for future boards to say if a community comes to you, you can do these steps, see if it's going to work logistically and and then present that to your
194community. I didn't see it as us actively soliciting the the community saying bring us your problems. It's just one of the the things to consider for boards in the future. We need to create a pathway so we know what to do with it. fair pathway. I agree. Well, and just to be clarified on this situation, I don't even think we can do it. Like the timetable of is it 90 or 120 days and we're going to take a month and a half off of schoolboard meetings. I just think it's a horrible time to bring this up. Let's bring it up in August or September. Let's notify them appropriately. Or was this not one of the schools included in the notice? This was not a notice school. So, we're starting at scratch. Anderson's going to look
195up what that timeline is. I I I think you're asking an important question about what's the procedure because it hasn't been clear and it's happened two different ways. If I may, I think it's a broader question. The broader question is, can things be assigned directly from an individual board member to a committee or do committee assignments need to come through the full board? And that's a genuine question. because I think there have been some snags in the past and there are pros and cons no matter which one you choose. So I think that's the overarching question for any committee is can they take something on that has not been assigned to them by the full board and may and maybe they if they can then that makes things faster and it makes things makes the
196committee a bit more responsive but let's ask that question of the board. I think that's the question. Can an individual board member make a committee assignment? I'd say no. I'd say no. I would say no. Okay, then that's the answer. Well, let me ask you this though. Is by informing Brian that I have a constituent making a request, giving him an assignment or is it informing him so he can bring everybody's to the board for an assignment? So instead of you presenting your own, me presenting mine, Bry's presenting his, we all just say, "Hey, would you as a chair say that our schools want something?" And then he bring it as head. Is that what you're talking about? And he can give it context. We got this request for Midas Creek Elementary to fix their
197feeder system. By the way, we also have these considerations we committed to do and these how and then he poses the question to the board. How would you like facilities committee to proceed knowing all this information not just Midas Creek? That's kind of how I'm envision envisioning this. So to me it feels like step one is bring it to the board, assign it to a committee and then step two would be the committee comes back with the information that you just suggested. So in order to bring it to the board, I have to have three board members agree to bring it to the board. So is that our filtering out plus two? So me plus two. What if it doesn't get past that? Then we just accept it's not going to go to facil nobody
198will be aware of it. So question then is this an agenda item or is this a board member comment? Is it part of committee reports? Yeah. Well, committee reports once it's been assigned to a committee. I think I would hate to stifle a board member saying you can't talk about anything personally unless it got on the agenda. I do I don't think that's our right as a board to say you can't talk about anything unless you put it on the agenda. I think a board member can bring up whatever that board member wants to bring up in board reports or in board member comments. Yeah. Yeah. I think board member comments makes more sense actually. Okay. And whether the board wants to pursue it from there is up to the the body, right? Okay. Yeah.
199The assignment to a committee is a board decision, but any individual can bring it to the board. So So that's a good clarification. So it comes So you've heard from someone, hey, I I'd really like to align this and you go to school community council and you hear that again. So then you say in board comments, does the board have any appetite to continue with this? We I would love for the facilities committee to take a look at this and bring this back. How do you guys feel about that? And and then they say, well, no, we're going to be doing a broader thing. I think we ought to wait until then, but let's keep a note. Or that makes sense. That's so isolated. It's so specific. everybody then that that gives access to to
200let people bring something forward without the formality of getting it on the agenda but it also is adequately transparent I think so I okay that that makes sense to me I'm comfortable with that does anyone feel uncomfortable with that okay great so then can I make an official motion that we assign facilities committee um the task of informing the board about among other things aligning Midas Creek Elementary School and and getting those facts saying, "Hey, this is what it'll look like. These are what the numbers are going to end up looking like. This is what the busing route's going to look like." Just getting those facts. I'll second that if you need a motion. So, we have a motion by Mr. Dunford, a second by Dr. Robinson that facilities committee will take the assignment of
201um analyzing a potential alignment to the feeder system for Midas Creek students. Yep. Very good. Okay. I don't Is this a motion? Yeah. Yes. We need it. Oh, no. Please go ahead. No, this was another This was another discussion. This was another Well, actually, I guess it is related. Dr. Anderson looked it up. It's a 30-day notice for a boundary change and 60-day notice for school closure. Okay. Which is surprisingly short compared. It's evolved a couple of times. So, this was a fallout of the split bill that came out. They just wanted to I think facilitate the new school boards that could be so to the to the discussion. Will the facilities committee be bringing to the board the Midas Creek Elementary in the context of the other boundary changes we would like to make
202or just on Midas Creek? question was in the context of bigger picture with recommendations to the board. Okay. Facilities committee next meeting is scheduled for June 24th. I have a question. I have a question on it. Does um student services weigh in on this also? Is it student services right to really bring those boundary changes? I would assume that's a tool of the facilities committee. Sorry, I I missed that. Darl, what was that? I I was just wondering if uh the facilities committee then would be required to work with student services, transportation, and administration for that boundary change proposal. also or would we bring back certain boundaries proposals? I I think we can look at feasibilities but student services that really should be bringing those proposals to the board. So could I I don't want
203to be aggressive and say anything like call the question, but maybe we could vote on the motion that's on the table and then if there are any other further motions to be made. Should I call the question? You have every right in the world. Okay. I move that we call the question. Okay. So, call the question is a roll call. Well, and then you then it doesn't even mean it doesn't need a second. It doesn't. Okay. It doesn't need a second. It just means you're asking the president to move forward with a vote. she or he she could choose not to but some this is beside it but sometimes it seems like at JLC they vote on calling the question. Yeah at the delegate assembly I feel like they do often too but we are
204going to call the question. So, all those in favor of the motion to assign facilities committee to um begin gathering data and return with a report and recommendation on moving or considering the Midas Creek feeder system. Say I. I. I. And any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. Sorry, I'm coughing. Excuse me. Okay. All right. President George, may I just clarify for next meeting with the board like us to have ready the proposal for considerations for growth and decline and other boundary considerations for the board as a whole to look at? Yes, please. Yeah. And I am curious if there was any uh impression that did did you want facilities to come back with specific schools as well as that document? Was that something you had in mind or not? So I think when we talk
205about that document where we're we're looking at next board meeting a presentation with that document. I think that would be a very heavy ask if we asked facilities to come back at the next meeting in two weeks with a full proposal and all the they won't even meet between now and then and and Miss Barl this the the the considerations for this document are just are you good with us moving forward using this formula that we've got in there and and if you are then then it's just plugging in you know I know a few people that have very good friends that are Excel spreadsheets they they uh they can plug those numbers in and we can have them at a at another board meeting after that. We just need to make sure that the
206board is comfortable with our threshold and our and our calculations. Thank you for that clarification. I don't I don't want to wait until June 24th to get started on this. So, is it okay with the board if I talk to staff prior to that and get get the ball rolling on this? Is that okay with everyone? Okay, sounds great. Okay. Um, anything else on this specific item? I'll wait for board member comments to bring mine up. Okay. Let's move on to agenda item F, a review of potential revisions to board policy GP 104, board officers and appendix procedures for the election of board officers. This is a continued discussion. We will turn it to Mr. Larson. Thank you, President. Uh on board docs is the redline version of the policy uh GP 104. This is
207the same as last board meeting. It hasn't changed where we're removing the language from the policy itself due to a tie and what would happen there. Instead the that direction would be moved to the appendix where it also had information on what to do in the case of a tie but it was a little contradictory. So the whole effort or impetus for this was to try and clarify that in digging into this and at the board last board meeting um Mr. Vancman uh brought up a section of the code that talks about how the first board meeting of the year the board needs to elect their officers. So this now has been changed to reflect that so that the board can't just postpone it if somebody's on vacation or ill or something. So uh that
208those changes have been incorporated in here. I don't last time I went over many of the other changes where we removed majority and uh just went with four votes so that no matter who's in attendance, we just require four votes. I will come down to section five of the appendix which is completely redlinined out at this point uh because of the information Mr. Vancman brought up and what we did then is uh created a new section five that talks about if there is a um a tie due to any reason at all. This is what occurs um given the minds of an accountant and a lawyer. Uh we talked about That's scary. Uh, what happens if there's a two-way tie or a three or more tie? What do you do? And so, we came up
209with some procedures in the appendix that always had the tossing of a coin. Should there be a two-way tie? But if there's a three-way tie, uh, Mr. Vancman suggested, and I liked very much, that it just be a name drawn out of a hat. And you may think it's a little silly to talk about uh how often the piece of paper should be folded and stuff, but there is a real strategy on if your name is to be drawn, how to fold it, how to tear it, and put it in a different angle so that you get picked. So the whole idea is origami allowed. Yeah. So this that's why it indicates here identical pieces of paper and folded ones. It just makes sure it's it's similar. I I won a new computer 20 years
210ago when I really needed one by folding my paper a certain way. Yeah. And my name was drawn out. I'd like this training before the next USBA conference, please. Awesome. I like how it says the candidates names will be written on identical pieces of paper. It doesn't say the candidates will write their names because then the same person can write all of them and fold all of them like somebody with nothing in the game. Yeah. I mean, can I ask I just noticed this, but it reads board officers shall be elected at the first board of education meeting in January. We usually do it every other year, right? Not every January. What section are you referring to? I am looking at the appendix draft that you sent us. Which section? Uh it is the second
211Well, it's before any sections. It's right under reference. Uh accordance with board officers shall be elected at the first board of education meeting in January. Um following an election. Following an election. that works for me. I I I think I think it's fine, but I in the procedures, it doesn't say following an election, but the procedures don't come into play until the policy. So, I think that's what Miss George is, President George is talking about. That's what I'm saying. What if somebody resigns in July? Thank you. There's a section for resignation. Okay. Okay. Yeah. C office shall be filled by an election for that office by the board members. So would the board like following an election added to the appendix at the top? Yes, please. I I if we're going to put it in
212the procedures, maybe following an election or a need to elect new officer, you know, resignation, they move, they die. Sorry. Yeah, the lawyers and the accountants are talking now. I will add language there. Um, do you want to see that language again or bring it to business meeting next time for a vote? What would be your desire from here? I'm comfortable with a vote. Same. Yeah, I think that we've talked about this. This isn't the first time we've seen this. I think it's fine for a vote. I'm a little confused on what you were going to add. Uh shall be elected at the first board of education meeting in January following an election or what did you say Mr. Van Gomen? He was talking about if there was a resignation or a resignation of a
213since you raised it as a board these would be the policies to follow if there's a need to fill a vacancy. But then I'm confused because then it says January. So what if they, you know, February, there's the res. He's talking about two different two different reason reasons. Okay. I think there's an or in there following following an election or uh to fill a vacancy of Okay, I understand. Thank you. I'm fine voting on this next time or whatever. I don't need to see it again. Thank you. Thank you for your work on this. Who knew there would be so much to do? It's great stuff. Quick and easy. All right, moving on to agenda item G. A discussion on proposed changes to administrative policies, AS67, discipline of students, AA418, discipline of students staff responsibilities
214and DP378 employee code of conduct. There were two changes s Thank you. Sorry. There were two two changes suggested last time that we've incorporated. The first is into the draft of AA418. We've added the phrase in accordance with Utah code with the reference nothing in this section prohibits a school employee from using less intrusive means including a physical escort to address circumstances described in subsection two. In other words, we explained that this isn't all that's available to you. You can do something less invasive as well. And then the other change was to AS67 where uh on vandalism where we included under L vandalism willingly willfully defacing, cutting, marring, injuring, damaging or losing school staff or any individual's personal property. So it just covers all property that might be vandalized. Other than that, the other changes
215charging port per Tik Tok. Exactly. Um, so all of that, those two were the additional changes beyond what we discussed last time. And we would bring that back to a vote in two weeks if the board is comfortable with this. And the question is, do you want it in study session a third time or shall we just bring it for the vote? I'm fine either way. Me too. Me too. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's move into board member committee and superintendent reports and comments. I I don't mind starting. Um or do we want to go in the order because sometimes it seems like we don't go in the order. you you called first so you start and I don't have I am chomping at the bit at your report so
216please start thank you yeah it was um first I want to say it was such a privilege to be in the room with all the teachers there is such a great like vibe or energy that comes from a large gathering of people who who invest their time and effort in educating the rising generation. So, it was a real privilege. Oh my goodness, I'm really tired. I might cry. But um okay, so I'm going to start with some of the issues that teachers are still seeing and then I'm going to go on to some of the positive things. I'm going to talk about a couple of um things that I thought were interesting and then possible action items. So in elementary school um at the elementary school level they're at one school in particular mentioned that
217they're having problems on buses from school with cell phones where students are using their phones to kind of bully other students and so it's a problem um on the buses. Another thing is students, you know, they're allowed to keep their little gab watch on, but they are using the calculators to cheat on math tests. And so, and then another one is um and I found this very interesting. there was an actual emergency situation where um students needed to receive instruction and the cell phones were very distracting and added to the anxiety of the situation. Students could not follow instructions and I thought that is a very I I had an idea where they're not allowed to have cell phones during the emergency they were using their cell phones. I don't know the exact timeline but
218and I I can't put my finger on every detail but I do remember thinking we have this experience of this teacher. It was the emergency. It turned out to not be a real danger. But people had to go into one of those emergency statuses where they were supposed to be quiet and follow instructions and yet they were um a couple of students I guess had can you I remember yeah they they pulled out their phones and they were on them so they pulled them out of their backpacks or whatever to like no you put that away and they weren't listening. Yeah. So they added to confusion if that makes any sense. So, it's not like they were using their phones throughout the day, but they did like somehow get a hold of them. And then
219at the secondary level, um students are using hotspots from their phones to get a different type of internet than JSD internet on their Chromebooks. And the distraction has moved from cell phones to Chromebooks. Um there are still some issues with searches on Chromebooks if that makes any sense where and and then I sorry can I understand that more which bypassing the district filters like certain words are blocked or certain sites are blocked and they still if they're using a school Chromebook on any network we still have monitoring and filtering systems. Yeah. iboss will block things regardless of your internet source. The the anecdotal experiences of teachers are not to be diminished because it's what individual teachers experienced. But each of those stories does not necessarily suggest that throughout the district there's a problem like the
220one described. Is that a fair? Yeah, that is a very fair point. And so I'm not trying to say that any of these things are widespread. These are just trying to understand the situation because they should still like the teacher should still have whatever. I know it's not all land school, but that's what I'm familiar with where they can take over a Chromebook or turn off their access no matter whose internet they're on. Nikki, I wish that I well, I don't even care. I don't want to use brain power for this, but if I were more well-versed in technology, I might be better able to explain how these things are happening. To do that, I'm asking the question. Yeah. And and maybe they did intervene. They saw it and they intervened. And I want to
221tell you something about this, too, because there are students who can find ways to bypass things to get to certain games. And there are I am really impressed with this um I don't know if it was administrations or teachers administrators they have gotten some of them have found secret agents among these very adept like intelligent students at bypassing things and they treat them as their secret agent to find out what the other kids are doing so and how to address that. and I thought, "Oh, that's very clever." Um, another big issue is earbuds. And that I feel like that is um very widespread. The earbud situation is in class in class. And um another thing that secondary teachers brought up is um consistency and they would like a little more support and direction from their
222administrators. And um then one teacher talked about and I think this was after I visited with some uh teachers and this is just an interesting thing and I this is not for any direction or whatever but um they did a contract where students made a contract to put their phone away for the whole year or the whole semester into a pocket every every single day. And part of the contract was if they had their phone away from them for the whole class period, they didn't have to do certain types of um assignments because it was assumed that without their cell phone anywhere near them, they were engaging during class time. And I I thought that's an interesting thing. And I'm not suggesting anything. I just it's one of the things I heard that I like.
223Okay. Some of the positives that teachers brought up is they expected push back from parents but that did not occur. Um, oh actually I didn't tell the number one problem is parents calling and texting their students while they're at school. That is the big thing is parents. Um I think we have two groups with addictions that we need to talk about. Yeah. And and so one group that we don't get to I I know we don't get to make policy for parents. So another positive thing that um some teachers brought up is a decrease in fights and conflicts and most if not all of the teachers at the LEA and I don't know if I said it. This is a committee report for the licensed educator um what is the a advisory committee. Um that's
224what this committee report is about. Most if not all of the teachers were happy that the policy that the board moved forward with making this policy. And so they said, sorry I feel like I I keep not finishing a thought. So they said there was reduced fights and then they were thankful for the policy. Did I did I miss? So they're decrease in fights. Okay. And they were they were um happy that the board had moved forward with making a cell phone policy and they noticed that more students were more engaged during class time. Um uh they teachers also mentioned LAN school and go guardian and it seems like go guardian is the preferable um Chromebook nanny uh is it called software or what and so that's the first part now possible action items that
225I got out of this that I wanted to bring back to the board is ways to help like find ways to help parents buy into the cell phone policy more like maybe a fun video about um I put that on one of our agenda thingies. Yeah. And then another um action item possible action item is find ways to help educate parents about how to monitor and control their students cell phone usage. Um another possible action item is to review the electronic devices and school policy AA453 this summer. Um, and in that maybe find a place to put something about cell phone use on elementary school buses and possibly looking at making um it a bell-to-bell ban at the middle school level. Um, another thing is find ways to maintain the momentum that starts at the
226beginning of the year and maintain consistency throughout the year. And I I think that that's something we could figure out or staff could figure out how to do that. And I think a real um important action item for us as a board, a possible action item is the way we talk about this cell phone policy that because we I I know I have talked about it a lot as um like for teachers to be able to teach and I think that we need to frame it as this is for students. We want students to have the best learning environment. This is not about teachers. This is about the students in our district. We want them to learn to focus. We want them to learn to engage with each other and with curriculum. We want them
227to learn how to not be controlled by notifications. So I think instead of looking at it as a restrictive policy, it is an empowering policy that we are empowering our students to to learn and to focus and to really engage with the world. So those are that's what I have to say. I don't know if anybody wants to discuss any of these possible action items or if we should move on. So, seeing as we have now heard from a parent group and an employee group, is there interest in a future agenda item on cell phones? Yes. Got one. Yes. Yes. What was the question? Put it on an agenda for further discussion. Yes. Thank you. And and as a matter of fact, I said, "Well, this is a young policy. It's only about a year
228old. I don't know if we should look at it." And they're like, "We beg to differ. You should look at it." And just because it's uncomfortable for you. Is half a year old. It is two semesters old. Yeah. But anyway, I thought, you know, that's true. We don't have to be bound by a time frame. I would like to discuss it whenever. Okay. So that's for Can you add? I'd like to go back. We talked about a next step being a pilot. Someone piloting a a bell to bell. We talked about a ne next step being a volunteer school who would pilot and we said if they came to us we'd fund it. And I did tell them that. I said, you know, if you get your school community together and you get a plan
229and bring it to the board, we will listen to that plan. And I don't know exactly what action the board would take, but we would be interested in hearing your plan. And um we the board might be willing to help you implement whatever type of plan. Yeah, I I remember that as not just a maybe, it was a promise. If you can get a school community who is willing, bring us the plan. We just haven't seen one yet. Okay. So, we'll add that to a future agenda item. Sorry, Darl. Did I just cut you off? Yeah, I was just going to agree with you. I I don't mind it being a future agenda, but I really would like to see administration it uh bring it if uh somebody was interested in piling in it. Middle
230school total lockdown, I'd support with that. I'm a little uneasy bringing it back to the board so quickly unless there's a problem. Uh some of the problems that were outlined by the LEAK discussion seem to be more of enforcement instead of policy. And uh that's a big difference. You're going to have enforcement either way. And and the the peop the teachers there, they they majority of them want expressed a desire to have a belltobell cell phone ban at all levels. And so that would be a policy thing. and and most of the people that I talked to, the teachers, they um they they didn't even care if it had pouches or not. They just felt like the policy would be enough. So, that's not what I'm hearing. So, maybe we should survey all of our
231teachers, not Leak, but all of our teachers and see if they want a bell to bail. They want if they truly want a bell to bail, then I'm supportive of that. But I don't think that's not what I'm hearing. It's definitely not what we heard in JPAC. I'd like to hear from administration and administrators. We've heard from parents. We've heard from teachers. I would love to hear the administrators, principles, um our administrator. I'd like to hear from the people who usually in, you know, not just the teacher level, but the school level. I'd really like to hear from supportive as well as maybe a a cross-section of principles. I'd like to hear what they had to say. And also Aaron was at this meeting and if you have anything to add, I I would love
232to hear did I miss any of the I feel like you summarized it very well and and it was really great to be in that room with all of our educators and hearing their feedback. I really enjoyed it. What I'm hearing you say is there was a large number of the teachers there that are asking for a bell to bell. Well, and and they they would they would like a bell to bell and they would like us to look at the um actually they want a lot of teachers want another LEAK meeting expressed desire for another LEAK meeting before the end of the school year. But I don't I like I Yeah, that see I can't even talk about it. So it was it was a very good meeting. But um yeah. No, go ahead.
233No. And so I think that um they would like us to look at the policy this summer and I mean the teachers who were there at this leak meeting and I looked at the the sign-in sheet and it looks like there were we were only missing about um fewer than 10 maybe like seven teachers. I'm sorry I interrupted you Dr. Godfrey. Oh, we're good. I can give an update from facilities. We met Friday. Two main uh items on our agenda. uh Paul Bgera, the director of transportation uh was present and he had been asked to provide some examples, not not not a comprehensive district-wide um example of of of how boundary changes what could positively affect transportation. Um so so so he showed us a few examples where mainly where there are students who live
234within walking distance of a particular school but because of boundaries they're being busted to another school. and and and he showed us a few examples of that and how if we changed boundaries with only transportation in mind with reducing the number of bus routes or the number of bus stops uh and consequently the number of bus drivers how much how much money that would save the district. Um and did I hear that correctly? staff requested a boundary change that wasn't based on enrollment. No, we we asked him we asked Paul to provide he he was grateful to have a voice at the table basically. So that was the purpose of his presentation was it it was an assignment from the board if you remember right the board talked about this in open meeting. Okay. I
235just want to point out that there's another reason to do a boundary change from the perspective of SA staff other than enroll but this is cuz staff asked us they didn't come to us we went to them and said our board has asked the facilities to take a look at is there ways that we could reduce busing so this was an assignment from the board to facilities to ask the staff the staff didn't come to us did he give you an He did, but it was just based on a very small portion of the district. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. There were just two or three examples that he shared. He he didn't go across the the entire district where where transportation uh costs could be saved. I would like to move this discussion forward potentially for
236an agenda item to evaluate our busing and cost savings. That was Go ahead, Lisa. Did Did we approve a bid last board meeting for the software to help optimize? Okay. Yeah. I I just want to make sure I remember things correctly. Yeah. So, part of part of the I mean, this that's a good point, Bryce. part of part of the uh motivation for having this is is that's uh that's one of the five or six priorities that that the board wants included when we're considering boundary changes. And I I got the impression that that Paul hadn't been involved or hadn't had a seat at the table. Is that right, Mike? uh transportation really hadn't been involved in we we changes in I would say that transportation has been involved in the discussions but the primary
237if I may driver has not been um has not been transportation costs so it's not that there hasn't been a discussion but the the discussion hasn't centered on the most efficient routes and this is as Mr. Dunford described earlier with the fle added flexibility of lower enrollment. Can we make some shifts that make sense? Um that you know to to reduce busing now now that we're able to house everyone. Can we can we now look at that that focus? And the board said is this a way we can save money? And transportation is enthusiastic about doing that because they save money, but they also have more efficiency and so they have more driver availability and bus availability. Hiring bus drivers is is a difficult task at the at at the current time. And so that
238was another I think we will add that we've added that to the trigger points document as potential ideas or things that can be brought uh for boundary considerations. I do think it's important to look at this in tandem with enrollment considerations and not just look at it through a um you know mono vision but just how how is it needed because there are also are there other things we can accomplish at the same time. Would we do this much like transportation would give us a wish list of what would be ideal for them enrollment would give us the ideal for them and then we see where they overlap or is there another method to this? My experience with boundary changes is limited, but from what I've seen in the past as a board, we're given
239a presentation after all that has already happened behind the scenes. Okay, but let's be clear, we've never had the luxury of being able to ask that very question. We've always been a cramped district and the only issue we can really deal with is where can we fit them? But now we can start to ask those questions. So we are charting new new territory and being able to ask that very question. Can we make can we save some money? So Brian, do you need any direction from the board on a next step or do is it clear to you what the next step is for this? I don't need any direction at this point from the board in the in the Can I make a comment? Go ahead, Darl. So what I would like to see
240is us to give transportation and student services the opportunity together to come up with future boundary changes to actually add them into the conversation on the front end so that they can have be having that discussion instead of having two separate entities working. But um we identified some pretty cool areas that could use some change. But they need to have now transportation now needs to be able to work directly with student services. I don't think they need to bring two proposals to us, but let them work with student services to bring a proposal to us. Yeah, that makes sense. I I was under the I I wasn't under the impression that that that required board approval for that. Is that am I mistaken? Does does the board need to approve that? No. Okay. No, we're
241already in discussions with transportation on that and working in tandem with them. Yeah. From the from the few limited examples that that Paul provided, I was kind of adding it up in my head because he had the the monetary amount and it was maybe a 100K annually. And as I extrapolated that across the whole district, just in my mind, I was thinking maybe maybe if if we aligned all the boundaries solely based on reducing transportation costs. We might save 500,000 a year, something like that on transportation costs. Just to give you kind of a ballpark estimate, that 100k was one was one feer. Was it? Was that okay? Well, mostly was your area. Yeah. We And so if we What you're saying is if we look throughout the whole district, we might be able to
242save five times that. Mhm. Can I can I express this message in the most negative way that a parent could possibly view it? So, what you're saying is you want to save money as a district by taking away busing I've grown accustomed to and making me provide my own transportation for my child to school, make them walk 1.4 miles because they now don't qualify and change and lose all their friends from the neighborhood that's just barely able to to bus to this other school. In many cases, we're taking them out of a bus route so they can walk across the street to school. Like, so these are some of the areas are areas that were very vocal. They wanted to stay in their own school. We made them move because we needed other schools full
243and we needed space in their school by their house. And so it it it makes a lot of sense for us as an organization. And I'm not arguing against it in the slightest. I'm just saying the argument will be you want to make it less convenient for me and more dangerous for my child because now they have to walk these cross these roads and walk these streets that I don't think they should have to walk. Well, I think what we'll say is now your kids don't have to get up 45 minutes earlier. There you go. To catch the bus. See, I like that. I like that. I think it's one consideration. It's not the consideration. Sure. Just be ready to hear it. Yeah, I think that's what Yeah, Dr. Godfrey saying. And it sure would
244be nice to need fewer bus drivers instead of always looking for more bus drivers. Anyway, sorry. The other item that we covered was um was a first look at summer projects for 2026. The uh Darl and Aaron and I all have a copy of that. Our our task is to order the next facilities meeting to look that over and familiarize ourselves with the 20 or so items that are on that list and come back with with what we think are the priorities and then we'll talk about it as a facilities committee. When we have that priority prioritized list, then we'll bring it to the to the board. That's That's the plan. Anything else, Darl or Aaron, that I missed? Nope. Sounds good to me. Did a great job. Thank you. I'd like to give an
245update on Jack. We have updated, when I say we, the committee has updated their name. Uh it will now be known as the Jordan Education Access Committee. The purpose, vision, and mission have nice keeping the same acronym have also been updated. The purpose is to successfully educate, support, advise, and empower the Jordan School District community and leadership. The vision is we embrace all members of our community and continually work to find solutions to allow our differences to become our strengths. And the mission is we will work to unify our community while celebrating our differences and collaborating to come together to empower everyone. Any questions about those updates? Can we get that updated on our agenda for future board meetings? Thanks. Okay. So, now I um I was so excited about my LEAK committee report, I
246forgot that um I'm also I have a couple other things to say. So, for the Jordan Education Foundation, the challenge run was on Saturday. It was amazing. The sponsors are great. It is so much fun. if if you don't do it. I didn't participate this time except for as a volunteer and it was just as fun as running the course because I love to hype runners anyway. So, um that's something to think about next year the Saturday before Mother's Day. Super fun. Um and for a good cause. Ever consider a date change? I think I have never made it one time because that's when I do my mom's gift. Oh, okay. Work in the yard all day. Yeah, I don't know what to say to that. Okay. So, then also at our next meeting, the
247outstanding um educational support professional awards will be um given which will be awesome. And then if you are interested, the 2025 Links to Schools Golf Classic is the 26th of June at Glenmore Golf Course. And um the last thing for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, um the the meeting is tomorrow and yeah, so I'm attending that tomorrow. I can go. So, portrait of a graduate um is well, they'll be attending our June meeting. So, you can look forward to hearing directly from education elements that month. But uh we have been asked to create a video from the board introducing portrait of a graduate um that will be played at the big meeting in August where all of the schools are going to be spending a good portion of the time rolling out
248portrait of a graduate and they'd like to kick it off with a video. Education Elements was kind enough to uh create kind of a skeleton script that we can use, alter whichever. In their recommendation, they talked about having the board president and vice president speak. Um I personally think it would be nice to hear from everyone, but I understand that that's a big ask. I would love to hear your interest in being able to participate in that project. If it's being made over the summer, I will probably be around to come participate. So, okay. Mind if you need? Well, we need to get making it, but I would sure love to wait till Mayber ends and then start making the video. Others have a preference one way or another. I'd be happy to participate. If
249I'm not around, I'd like to choose my stunt double and I'm happy to participate also. Okay, then let's we will expand that. I think it's really nice for our schools to see all of us. I don't. So, if you're willing to put in the time to come and give a quick blurb and then we'll have communications merge that into a message, I think that would be really nice. So, thanks for being willing to do that. Question on that. Are are are we as board members going to be create on the creative side of that or am I just going to be reading something that's Can I make a costume his ass? I So directed by Brian Barnett. Yeah, I'll have a credit at the end. That's fine. Brian, if you could spearhead that writing as
250long as I can be the grip. They did provide us with a script that they put together. In my opinion, we could expand on it a bit, but I have ideas brewing that I'll run past people who are actually witty. Communications that makes it really easy to film. And so, communications would head up the actual filming and you can participate. Communications can do as much as you want and you can do as much as you want and we can speaking of Mayber we can plan that in the June 10th board meeting if you'd like. I'd like communications to do the lion's share production. They will light you. They will have a teleprompter. You will be stunned at how good you look on film. And they choose the filter. They can do it all. I may
251want to propose that the superintendent just pretends to be each of us. in our role. That might be more entertaining. That would be funny for the five nerds who are watching this right now and know us. I can do an Anthony Godfrey. A very important point. I totally thought you were going to say I know which levers I went to pull. You have to say important because he always annunciates the important. I'll take that impression. I appreciate that. All right. Others that I missed. Okay. Since we have a new process, I'm going to throw out um I in attending school community council meetings and looking at the projected numbers for Sunset Ridge Middle School, I would really appreciate um being able to assign facilities to begin studying potential boundary change to alleviate their overcrowding. Can
252you tell me a little bit more if there's been specific suggestions made before or is that too much or is it just alleviate the numbers? I have my own set of suggestions. No, they're frustrated because we chose to increase their boundaries. Um, and now they're projected within the next 5-year projection to be over 1500, which is really, really tight. So, it's not the highest they've ever been, but it is definitely higher than most of our middle schools. Um, and there are, in my opinion, some really natural boundaries that would put us more in alignment with the priorities of not crossing major thorough affairs to get to schools. Um, that would be kind of lowhanging fruit. Um it does seem like West Hills has a little space to receive and um but I'm not I'm not
253here to prescribe what we would do specifically just to say they are looking to increase in number over the next little the next few years and they're feeling the pinch. They feel like they have been um passed over for boundary changes for a while. So like since 2018 that that was the last boundary change for them, right? No, because we recently brought the pocket busing from Joel P into Sunset Ridge, which still is not a huge influx of students, but they've got areas of growth in their school boundaries. There are a lot of contributing factors that are causing them to grow, but it would be um it would be very helpful for that community to know that we're actively looking for ways to help. Are they open to Sunset Ridge to West Hills, West Hills
254to Elkridge? Because Elrich has lots of not lots, but Elrich has considerable amount of room. Elkridge is an interesting idea. Um I haven't floated any specific boundary ideas past them at this point that the airport makes such an obstacle to going to west to east west Jordan coming into Elkridge. Elkridge will be at 900 students very quickly. And it are they open to that level of a domino? We take that souththeasternly line that goes to West Hills and move it to Oakidge. I see the facilities committee to look at that. I'll second Nikki's motion that that facilities look at this. I have a motion by me and a second by Miss Barrow that we uh assign facilities committee to begin looking at potential boundary changes to alleviate um overenrollment at Sunset Ridge Middle School. Is
255there other discussion? Darl, I felt like you had something to add. Yeah, I kind of do. So, do I have to make proposals on everything that I see like this? I I thought the assignment right now is to look at those changes anyways cuz I specifically have an idea also. So, do I have to bring that to the board or I'm just hoping staff will take a look at those things or I could call staff cuz um without with when we decided not to build a high school, we decided that we'd have to make some boundary changes. So to me, what you're asking for is what we've already stated we are going to do anyways. Um I I heard the statement that well are they open to it? I don't even know if we got
256to ask them if they're open to it. These things have to happen because we decided not to build new schools. And so there's areas in my area also that I would like to be considered in that boundary change. So, do I need to bring those to the board so we could study them or are these just going to automatically be studied by our student services, transportation, and perhaps Phil facilities? I don't think that we have any interest in limiting the recommendations that they bring to us. Um, but as a member of facilities, Darl, I think you're really well positioned to bring your ideas to that discussion. But I don't have to bring them here for us to hear them there. I don't. My sense is no, only because you'll already have a voice on the
257committee, whereas Nikki's suggestion might not have occurred to anyone if there's no trigger point other than her voicing it. Super good. Super good perspective. Thank you. I did have something I wanted to say on this one. Um Nikki, this one, this request has to do with enrollment. So let's let's think just as an assumption. What if what if we do a a cursory analysis of Sunset Ridge and it doesn't trigger our our enrollment triggers that Mike and his team have put together? Is that the feedback that you want that that that we've used our new formulas and our new enrollment triggers and Sunset Ridge isn't at that level yet? Yeah, I'm open to hearing that. Okay. Because I'm it seems like we talked about Sunset Ridge early on and and it didn't quite hit the
258trigger. Is that right? They were on our schools to watch at our forecast and they're projected at 1537 by 2029. I think I think uh next board meeting when we bring this it'll bring some clarity to what we'd be talking about. You can plug in different numbers if you'd like, but we actually use Sunset Ridge as an example. Um, spoiler alert, we're we're calling it more of a a list to be aware of, aware list, um, a potential action list rather than the schools to watch. But, uh, that's that's something we could look at. And Sunset Ridge would fall, um, using the example we've provided into the it'd be placed on the aware list. So, not not not on the list where we bring it to the board for a boundary change discussion. It did.
259It didn't trigger it, right? No, it would actually. It would trigger it. It would. Yeah. Say how does it What does that mean? What is your level? I want to talk about that ratio. If if that number doesn't trigger a concern. Okay. Well, and the question is, does it trigger it now or will it trigger it in the future? That change has to happen eventually unless we're going to build a school. So it it might not hit the trigger list right now, but it's going to have to hit it if we're not going to build schools. Well, and I think there are ways around fixing this problem without building schools as I look at surrounding schools. So and that's what we wanted to do as a board is we wanted to try to move boundaries
260instead of build schools. So room in our schools, right? And can I just point of clarification, are we open to changing boundaries when it's not triggered by enrollment? So So that's not exclusively the only reason, right? Okay. I just want to be clear, right? Because this is a domino. Like if you change one, it's going to change. the the the document does address that as a there are there's a third p a third part that just addresses additional boundary considerations um that that aren't necessarily part of the enrollment uh growth or decline. Okay. So we have a motion um and a second. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. And any opposed? All right. facilities. Got it. You guys are uh we're gonna have to give you I don't know overtime bubbly
261or whatever. Okay, great. Any other comments or reports? I have a report uh from Utah High School Activities Association. This is mostly for your information. I'm grateful to have at least one 6A principal in the room and a 6A superintendent. Um I am growing increasingly concerned that 6A is very under representative under under represented on the activities association. The way they are structured is they have a 6A board member a 5A board member and then they have one 6A 5A superintendent. Currently the 6A 5A superintendent comes from a district with not a single 6A school. Why? The superintendent that represents 5A and 6A comes from a district that doesn't have a single 6A school in it. The principal for 5A 6A is a 5A principal. So, as of right now, I am the only representative
262that represents 6A schools. And is it fair to say between the three of us in this room, I know the least about what's going on in 6A schools? That's a problem. Now, the 5A super 5A6A superintendent is leaving and is being replaced by Weber School District's superintendent, which currently has two 6A schools in it. That's an improvement. But the the the superintendent that represents Utah High School Activities Association has after this this new realignment one 6A school. The principal that represents 6A and 5A is a 5A principal. There are 17 6A schools. They embody more athletes. If you take 5A out, the 17 6A schools have more athletes than all the other schools combined and they're the least represented. That's crazy. How do we change it? So, I am I am working on a proposal
263to require that the superintendent come from a district that has both 6A and 5A schools in it. Are there others besides ours? Yes. Yes. But the the current the current five the current superintendent has zero 6A schools in them. So I the reason I bring that up is I need more from the 6A schools. I have reached out to every 6A school. I have reached out to the principles. I try to be on a, you know, um, a constant communication list. And so I just need you to know that 6A is under reppresented at the Utah Activities Association. And I'm sure every principal in our district could shout, "Yes, they are." And so I just wanted to make you aware of the uphill fight that we are facing. So speak up for 6A. You feel
264like there will be resistance to that? No, I think there'll be some offense, but I don't care. My job is to represent 6A. And I feel like I need to require that the superintendent at least if a superintendent is going to speak for 5A and 6A schools, they need to come from a district that has at least one of each. Anthony is barred because I'm on the board. Anthony cannot be on the board of trustees because I am on the board of trustees to get Anthony on. I I would have to step down. And so that that's another difficulty. The one the one superintendent that represents the highest majority of 6A schools cannot be on the board of trustees because the board member that represents 6A is coming from the same district. So just just
265raising an issue and making sure I need to hear from I need to hear from 6A schools as loudly and as passionately as possible. How can we support you with that? Ask them to email as you hear activity association as you come across activity association related issues. You need to make sure I know in all of your schools. Can I ask what schools in our district are 6A? All but West Jordan. Okay. All the high schools. All of the high schools but West Jordan. Would it be helpful for you to make this plea at our next public meeting if there are enough people still in attendance? Sure. Sure. I just wanted to make you aware that that is a growing concern that I have that 6A is under reppresented. is 4 a four and three
266are they combined two okay five and six four and three one and two every every classification gets a board member but two classifications have to share a superintendent and principal which is absolutely ridiculous because if you ask who understands what's going on in the school better the board member the superintendent or the principal there's no question so why we have a 5A and a 6A board member her and yet we have to share superintendent and principal is is beyond me. So, will your proposal be also for the one and two must have one from each and the Okay, great. Yep. Anyway, just wanted to report that. That's a growing concern of mine. And I have a question about UHSAA and it's out there, but I just found out that UHSAA no longer counts points for
267pull vault in high school track and field meets. And I'm just curious and I'm sure you don't have the answer, but I'm just curious when that happened and why. I will find out. Thank you. Welcome. That's all. I would like to point out that none uh no 6A competition conflicts with graduation this year. Great. Even with Granite ending a whole week with our graduations. I was gonna say they're they're done what at the end of this week or next this week we Yeah, that would be extraordinary before early. Yeah, they're before are they right before Memorial? I'd have to check. Yeah, I think they're before Memorial Day. They did the impossible. So, next week. Okay, great. Is this where we also talk about all the fun things we did or should I talk about that
268at the next one? We usually save those for a business meeting. That's what I thought. Do Do we need to move to like Does it need to be a general meeting to approve these bids? Uh, no. No, I think we're okay. But let's move into motions for bids. Can I combine these two? I move that we accept Well, somebody else should make the motion who knows what they're doing. But so wait, we already going to approve. I move that we approve uh bids A and B Riverton High School classroom furniture and student desks. I second. We have a motion by Miss Wood, a second by Miss Dean to approve bid items A and B for Riverton High School classroom furniture and student desks. Any discussion? Questions, too. We have the principal of Riverton. Did you
269want to say? Sure, please. I just had a couple questions. Um, I was just wondering what kind of furniture pieces the classroom furniture covers because then there's the separate student desks piece. So, what does the furniture cover? So, we are hoping to we have some tables as well. So, the science rooms, it's not a desk, it's a table. So, tables and desks and chairs. And how many like desks are we talking about? Um, I think it's around 15 just over 1500 desks if I remember correctly. Let me look it up for you. And um, I want to say around 78 tables and just over 2,000 chairs. Are they purple? No. Dang it. I know all my heart I wanted those, but no. In the letter, it talked about how you were shifting away from the
270desks that are connected to the chair. And so I'm curious um what the desks look like. Is it just the top part or they're like the elementary desks and they have like the wire basket underneath or Yeah. So it's similar to the elementary desk but without the wire basket underneath. Okay, cool. Thank you. Remind me what happens to the old equipment, the old furniture and desks. What how does that get surplused somehow and and and what's the process for someone who want who if a company wanted some tables or something? Yeah, those will go to the surplus warehouse and well, first the school determines if they have another use for them and then they if they don't, then they'll go to the surplus warehouse where other schools will have an opportunity to pick them up
271if they have a use for them. If none of our schools have a use for them, then they will be placed on a public auction website for the public to bid on and see. Uh we do have uh other entities that come and look at our surplus warehouse to see what we have and then we'll sell them for the best that we can get from that and uh then that money is just put back into the capital projects fund. The public is welcome at some point to bid on them. Public is surely welcome to bid on them and use them. We want to we want to get as much use out of them as we can. Um, if something's broken and dangerous, obviously we just we don't go through this process that for that. But
272if it has some use, we'll try and get what we can out of them and try to benefit the public at the same time. Questions? Seeing none, we'll call for a vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. And any oppose say nay. All right. That motion carries unanimously. Congrats on the new stuff. We're thrilled. You all hear shouts of joy. Thanks for coming. Okay. I will take a motion to adjourn to close session. I move that we go to close session to discuss character and competence of individuals, property negotiations, potential litigation, and security. A second. I have a motion by Miss Dean, second by Miss Wood to go into close session. Um, roll call vote. Mr. Barnett, yes. Mr. Deford, yes. Miss Barrow, yes. Dr. Robinson, yes. Miss Wood, yes. and Miss
273Dean. Yes. All right. And I am also a yes. So we are in close session. Granted, graduations are on the 27th and 28th of May.