BOE Policy Committee Meeting - July 13, 2023

001excellent nice to see you all we are live and recording [Music] good evening today is Thursday July 13 2023. this is a special meeting of the Darian Board of Education policy committee next meeting of the darien policy committee is to be determined tonight's agenda we have a discussion on three different policies 4400 social media 6210 program instruction curriculum textbooks and other instructional materials 6220 challenges to instructional materials I'll turn over the board if there's any thought or consensus on how to proceed or take a look we have a board packet with different policies some that were drafted by our outside Council ship in a Goodman and some that were drafted uh by myself so I'll turn it over to see if there's a sense of how to proceed I'm gonna share what the differences were

002between your drafts and what shipment had presented uh I mean there's a number on a high level not the yeah I think at a high level um it was probably the level of specificity and also trying to structure in some accountability uh in terms of for instance say the program of instructional or excuse me I should say challenges to instructional materials I think we have a good shipment it talks about having a committee it looks at having sort of a broad Overlook at how things are happened whereas I was trying to focus in on accountability that responsibility sits with the superintendent versus a committee also specific tie backs to you know curricular instruction or why this book is no better than any other as well as certain timelines and other things like that that would

003exist plus ultimate ability for the board to step in whereas none of that really exists in the shipment policy so it was really just trying to be more specific put out some uh greater involvement and greater oversight by the board itself as well as making sure there's accountability in the policy so that's just a quick overview and again the same thing throughout just trying to very specific trying to tie back to specific goals to curriculum to be able to identify and again to make sure that we have accountability and are really focused on who's performing the actions and where those duties lie foreign do we want to speak to specific policies and go through what the differences are there I appreciate that the goal of being more specific but I think to be more specific

004perhaps we need to walk through why would I hope everyone prepared and read took a look at everything if there's specific questions I'm happy to address or generally I mean again this is one of the problems we've kind of struggled with Julie is what process should we use here and how should we look whether that's red lines or it's comparisons whether it's a discussion going line by line so I'm kind of open to whatever suggestion we have if there's any consensus but um I mean we could start reading them and kind of open up okay [Music] um and I'll start with saying I appreciate having an opportunity to see these drafts as written and I think it needs to be made clear to the public the packet included drafts of policies that were labeled drafts

005and then there were policies that did not say draft and those policies were the ones written by our committee chair just so there isn't any confusion about what those documents were um I had never seen these until we asked for them the June 27 meeting so I appreciate seeing them now and I'm glad that we're sort of back to process it's not our process of individual board or committee members do work excuse me do work and then ask that work be done on that work we work as a committee and as a board so um having not been a part of any of this I would not have expected it to go to the attorneys so here we are now as a committee looking at this and like I said I'm happy that that's the

006way we're approaching it today um specific to the social media uh policy I mean I'd say there were a few things there are a lot of word changes in Mr brownstraff versus shipment Goodwin's draft that didn't seem to have any significance to me um it it seemed that that Mr Brown wanted more platforms listed as far as what what vehicles um should be included in this policy which I think makes sense um the employee definition was removed I don't know why that is um there I did agree in the district sponsored social media activity Mr Brown took out the his her reference and changed it to there I think stylistically that's something we've been doing across the board um I think there was a change made in access to personal online accounts is drafted by

007our Council individuals were not to be expected to have to give access to personal online accounts that seems like a significant change to me in one draft year versus the other and there was privacy language included in here that I believe is covered in policy 5325 um I don't know if there is a need or reason or precedent for embedding existing policies in other policies so I think before we get a substance discussion you've identified a real flaw or sort of problem that has come up in this process which is we have the ability for any board member or any Community member or pretty much anyone to create or propose any new policy it's never been an instance where anyone is this has been contentious or that it's uh you know been questioned why anybody

008actually had the right to do that since we have explicitly stated another policy the other question as to why would somebody actually do work uh proposed work and then ask for the attorneys to look at it that was discussed numerous times uh why we would have that policy and why to make sense and I think if you look at the boardwork generally you'll find lots of individual members do contribute do do work there is work that's done by chairs at various committees and by the chair of the board itself that promotes that work it's never really contentious thing that's just normal willing to processing you're right we don't actually have specific processes that say you can or can't do anything but I think all of us come here and volunteer with different skill set and

009with a dedication so when somebody has a skill set to actually draft and does that work and repairs is looking for a very narrow Focus for the subject matter expert on School law to come in and do some refinements and have at least possible expense of attorneys seems like that was a pretty good process and we discussed with the vice chair and discuss with other members of the board and with other members of Dr antley staff that that all seem to make sense until we actually got down to trying to get it uh here so I likewise I'm glad it's here I look forward to trying to resolve any language changes or make refinements that we think would be useful I just think the difference is that you know you drafted these policies which well

010within your your your scope but then from my understanding you wanted this to go to shipment before it came here and that is that's a cost that we incur that the entire board did not ask for that cost to be incurred and I think that's where that that's that's where the web is and the question there and I appreciate that point but that was discussed that was brought up and that was a non-issue until we got here and remember we're looking at shipment and Goodwin they may cut in Paces from another policy this could be from Westport it could be somewhere else so maybe it's not a heavy lift from them but when we engage them to do this policy work it's de novo from scratch they're starting and creating these policies they may have

011resources that can fall back to here was just really a refinement and the specific gas is them to just make sure there was nothing in here that conflicted with Connecticut Law I'm not a subject matter expert I don't stay up to date on every new change and every Nuance in Connecticut Law so it's really a very fine focused question that was asked and I think of minimal expense would have been incurred in that work and it would have saved us at the policy level with the board level a lot of time in doing this work because we have had it we would have had it vetted instead of going through this process we've been going through it for a few weeks I will get into so then okay I think we're gonna agree to disagree

012on that so but you know I was just gonna say so what are we doing now are we going to look at them side by side social media first like how I agree to go through social like go through again so to Julie's point I mean I do see that there's there's a lot of similarities between Dave's draft and shipments draft um you know it just seems like there's some vocabulary changes um but I want to go to Roman numeral 3 where Dave took out um the knot so if the shipments as an employee may not be required to provide personal online account financials which I'm sorry which were 4 400 or uh 4400 Roman number three it's the last for the end of the policy is it Roman numeral three on Earth access to

013personal online accounts um the shipment draft has may not be required to provide personal online account info it's my understanding that's statutory um and that you that that can I get clarification on that and again that's one of those points if we send it to shipment and as a focused question they would have identified and they wouldn't be having this conversation it is statutory okay so this is again I will go back to I would like to rely on shipment's policies because their model policies because that is they know that they know that and and people ask that I don't necessarily agree with I think that we should be able to we can certainly question them yes and I think we should be able to make changes and ask them right but I would I

014think it makes more sense to start this is we're going to go through this whole thing but I think it's more it makes more sense to start with the one that we know that is up to Connecticut Law I completely agree with that instinctively intuitively because that was the process I tried to follow from the get-go to do the work send it over to Shipman let them tell me yay or nay and then present it to the policy committee said for whatever reason we had to look at these side by side and now we're going to spend a bunch of time going back to Seth Rollins that statutory is it not maybe Marge knows maybe we don't know I don't know and then we're going to spend in circles how do we just started with

015shipment's policy and gone through and ask questions and say I would like to ask questions about X Y or Z we wouldn't be here yet but let's just keep going I mean I think in in under three minutes I summarize the differences between Shipman's version and Dave's version and I think the conversation could have been had from Shipman's version without having to have a new draft of a slightly different version of the same document um and I don't agree that just sending it over to shipment is fine because if all nine of us just start sending things over to shipment that's going to be a pretty inefficient use of funds and irresponsible use of spending well I think asking targeted Focus questions from the chair of a committee versus having nine people I agree yeah

016that kind of makes sense so roommate sorry Roman numeral number seven survey restrictions this was not in shipments from my recognition I didn't see it maybe someone Point me out why did you include this in this social media policy what do surveys have to do with social media um so right at the very end of the policy Roman numeral seven oh sure it's it's in page 26 of the packet the store right there survey restrictions right thank you Michelle so I think the idea on the survey restrictions is also I think there was other policies as I mentioned in the email that probably need to be looked at and there's some cross references that we need to think about so the scope's a little bit more broadly I think as we look at surveys and

017other information that's taken we need to make sure that none of that information is posted online or somehow becomes available through any uh activity that takes place or social media somehow becomes known and so I think that's an important tie-in to make sure that if people are posting information on social media the type in character of that information is restricted so it's not any personally identifiable or it's not anything to expose anybody's uh ideas or thoughts to the broader I hear what you're saying I just don't know that this belongs in this policy like so now student will be obligated to partake in any activity like that has something do with social media in my mind Mike that was my question about policy 5325 does that cover this is this redundant or and maybe that's

018fine I don't know the answer but can we find out if we play I think we need to know I can't remember whose point what what the intent is to not I mean 5325 covers what surveys may be given and when parents get set right if you're talking specifically about posting the results on social media yeah so the reference is to 5325 5325 is student privacy uh just everyone's keeping up and so there are restrictions in there to personally identifiable information parents social beliefs things like that and so the idea is to make sure that none of that propagates out via social media accidentally so I would you know survey results may not be posted on the social media that's the intent yes um and I know we have this conversation we started the conversation

019at our previous meeting the idea of having the names specified a template for the name of each DPS authorized authorized account so is that something that should be spelled out in here like how how prescriptive should we do we should we be do we want to be um you know I think if it's if it's outlined it's very clear or does that belong in a administrative guideline attached to this I mean it doesn't it doesn't really matter but I do think that there's confusion because some administrators and teachers have a Twitter account Twitter handle that's you know at DPS and some don't but I'm not sure that that means it's their personal account right so if we require that anything that they use in the school related tweet or post have DPS on it I

020think that would clarify for employees what they can and can't do I think that would also be very clear that this is their work account the other one is their personal account and so if they post a picture of a student on their personal account they would need the required authorization that you say correct require if they do it on a district account we have the opt-out provision at the beginning of the year so it's sort of cleaner I think yes agreed and that's been one of the complaints I've heard from parents as things get posted on teachers or other admin social so what to make sure that's covered so I think that's personal language about that should be added into this I agree with that um my uh mentioned personally identifiable information yes and

021um I mean is that you know when when uh when a sports team tags you do not know you're not gonna be allowed to tag or link but like names you know John Smith class of 24 scored 14 goals does that count like so personal identification we have a definition in 5325 student parents first or last name homework physical address telephone number Social Security that's what we have outlined in our policy again when you start looking at these there's Crawford rep cross references and there's things that start implicating other areas so I don't I mean I'm just using prints if you have a team that wants to celebrate John Smith for making 14 goals how do you do that without using a name and again part of the question would come back that I would

022have asked for Council uh advice here is I mean pii is a very distinct definition in uh Graham leech bliley act which is what I'm used to seeing I don't know what the definition is and Connecticut school law I don't know if this is statutory if this guidance from Goodwin I don't know exactly where this came from so we have a policy with the definition look up the number but I think we've so that's the 53. yeah I'm only at that list so again right now is that exists it's student or parents first or last name so right so there's a conflict there right yeah like how do you how do you resolve that but then again social security number telephone number that makes sense so then yes you have to bifurcate the list and

023split card I mean do we say it's okay to use students names and and I think that's what we have to get to or at least come up with a mechanism in the administrator for X to address that right okay can we post your child's name something in the beginning where a parent can say yes or no on the staff have to have the staff have to do the staff have to do that you know the classroom teachers and anybody else has to do that in a sense of uh actually it's it's generally a parent outside of it yeah so they have to be aware of it so a similar thing for a coach to be aware of it is no probably not yeah it's curious that the media doesn't need I mean the media

024can certainly use student names if there's any sort of athletic or otherwise public event um so it'd be interesting but I don't think I would I would separate them between Athletics and no a good clubs or anything else I mean by other events you know somebody wins the model un award that goes in the paper too their name so or the social media was there an intent behind removing the definition of employee in your draft Dave uh I think I had worked on it prior to seeing shipment so I don't actually remember what that distinction was or why shouldn't had it so I don't know what the answer is to why they had it that way I can certainly go back and figure it out all right so we want to look at maybe pii

025maybe reducing that and thinking about how it's going to interplay with opt-in opt out and then we want to talk about maybe some refinements in terms of the GPS accounts going to look like versus a personal account and then we're going to think about um I guess some of the pii issues and the employee definition um I have another thing underlying underneath all the um ABCD fgf under eye the paragraph that starts additionally it says no school district social media shall post the link to another social media account correct should we should we clarify that and say unless it's another DPS account like I I don't want to limit so that was a follow-on from our last conversation we were looking to not have linking and make that explicit um I'm happy to start in

026saying none anything we'd like to have a carve out and maybe do that for GPS thought something about about they 've not account you know so and so I think starting and saying yeah no is a start and then except if you want to do this I think so I think except accept and accept and DPS authorized so it makes sense to me so this would be a DPS can link to another DPS or personal can link back to GPS okay got it could I ask for one more clarification because I'd like to check with shipment and Goodwin on the first page um right before 4400 uh 4400 yeah the paragraph that says furthermore it says employees may not involve students in any activity that discloses information regarding so I understand I think because this

027is from the survey the law on surveys I'm just wondering if a student's wearing uh political pen you know what I mean this is sort of broad so I'm worried for the employees about how we enforce this if they you know political beliefs so they weren't allowed to I thought there was no politics allowed on school and I'm just just from campaigning [Laughter] yeah and again I think that actually would be if we were to look at some of the definitions in privacy and the definition of piis is this now in 5325 I think that scope does need to be a little bit broader where if somebody was wearing a pin that said whatever you know Reagan Bush 84 like they may not want that out on social media so make it if I know

028that that's the intent is to get some leeway to employees who post something and inadvertently there's a bumper sticker or a pin let me see if they can refine that okay it's a good coach oh Mr chairman um the um just to give another example sort of speak that's where it potentially is restrictive potential like just there are many probably examples over and I'm thinking about one would be professional learning for staff if they're engaged in professional learning uh essentially hashtag in something um whether it's differentiate instruction by somebody or whether it's you know a resource or otherwise uh which may be okay uh or not um I don't know if it's fully embracing we're sort of precluding that from actually happening and for them to share that with even their own staff um so

029just I mean those are examples of I want to come up here that well I think there's more social me or you're talking about internal Communications between various teachers no I'm talking about talk to them using social media as a method of professional learning like some people on Twitter say I just went to this great conference at iste or whatever and they share that so and yeah there's there's examples of you know look at this great collaboration between person a and person B that happened at Royal today like somebody we started no and then you could have an exception for DPS to DPS and maybe we have one for I don't know how you would work how do you you said we said we weren't gonna allow tagging or linking does that just fall into

030this category and you just have to type out I went to the SD conference and not taga I think it makes it cleaner yep yep okay so if I guess what I would suggest I don't know if there's a term of art or a certainly you would phrase with that information would be shared would be then we could perhaps consider having that as an exception to the general no linking yeah um so I guess I'll ask human march to maybe have a think on how that should read thank you foreign social media are we good for now on 4400 anyone else have any thoughts at the moment so it sounds like we'll look at it again with answers to these questions I think so thank you awesome turning to 6210 so yeah your version of

0316210 get your draft is significantly different from shipments proposal correct so I think we need to talk about some major themes of this and whether this policies activity where where the four of us want to go on that so um so I think it's the highest level number two Roman or Roman numeral two procedures just looking at the opening there the idea was that the board will establish the subcommittee that's going to be responsible for the curriculum review whereas now we have it where we do a delegation down to staff and they actually have their own committee so that was a definite intention you want the curriculum subcommittee of the board to develop the curriculum and do all the provision correct and there may be delegation of certain of those tests the administration but in

032my thought that responsibility should be closer to the board by moving it to the curriculum subcommittee committee has to exist for Connecticut state so does that there needs to be a committee so it doesn't it could be the board it could be yeah it could be the board yeah no I think Mr Brown wants I mean you want the four of us to develop a curriculum develop the curriculum that's what that's what it's really that's how it's reading that's what it says develop recommend review and approve which is the language and the statute correct and of course you know whether that happens that all work must be performed at the subcommittee level or the subcommittee can delegate that's up to the subcommittee to determine where that level of work is going to sit where it's

033going to reside but I think right now we have a full delegation of all work going out to the administration curriculum committee I'd like to pull it back and then let the subcommittee of the board make the determination as to where that works are designed just a reminder that subcommittees don't prove things we don't vote on anything as subcommittees yeah it would be the board overreaching here already so I it sounds to me like the point is do you have more oversight sit with the board correct yeah and of course that obligation resides at the board level the board then performs a delegation so it is not that there must be an administrative subcommittee that does it it's that the board is responsible for it so the approval perhaps that doesn't belong in the subcommittee

034maybe there's a process where the board actually has to vote so you're right procedurally that may not be but since the board delegates already to the administrative subcommittee I don't understand why it's a delegation to the subcommittee level would not work because right now we already delegated down two levels from the court just other than maybe ownership but maybe it is ownership and I can't develop that's the answer uh is it is that the reason for the change or like what is the reason for the change because no I think it's really just making sure that you know we've had a progression here where the idea that was we had the curriculum work was done by the board as a whole and it was just a full delegation down to the administrative curriculum we've now

035made a change where you have a subcommittee and I guess now I'm looking to take this a further step and move the responsibility back fully into the subcommittee level and then we can figure out where the delegation and see I think it's accountability I think it's visibility and I think it's really making sure where the ownership lies and making sure that we don't have a committee that exists at the administration level that has full oversight I think some of that needs to come back to the subcommittee having involvement and I don't think it's Hands-On I don't think it's reading everything I don't think it's doing the full work that would be done at the administration level but I think the accountability needs to be more at the subcommittee level for curriculum can I ask the

036question of course and and if I'm misunderstanding but it sounds to me like what you're describing has the subcommittee overseeing the leadership curriculum committee of the district rather than that leadership curriculum committee reporting into the assistant superintendent of instruction I would think and Dr adley Who We oversee so I I'm seeing a different org chart than what you're describing so I think that org chart is not inconsistent either way I think it's just there would be more involvement in you know what the actual function of that looks like I don't know but the idea and the intent of this is really to create more accountability at the board level foreign what do you mean by more accountability at the fourth level like we have currently at the curriculum subcommittee we go through we have a

037scheduled reports of all the different departments including Elementary ELP all the different departments they report to us what's happening what's changing what they see in the future what more accountability do you need are you looking for please so I I think we're missing point I think it's about oversight not necessarily accountability right I think we're there's we've had many issues over the past year or so where we've had people challenging books and we've had people challenging curriculum and we've had and the board has zero oversight of any of that we we have no what do you what do you define overseas like what are you trying to do like you tear a worm you want to say I don't I take that book out like what are you looking for no no not me and

038but I think that for the board to constantly take the Heat and ownership of what is going on in the district but have no say is completely different right so so for instance let's take the book challenges right um book challenges and then it goes through you know the review process and then they decide inevitably in each instance that the book is appropriate and it stays right back in the board is not involved in that at all but we do hear all the complaints and the Community is looking at us saying where's your involvement what are you doing right so I think as so where like we look at one of the challenge pieces that at some point the board should be able to as nine people say yeah maybe this is not appropriate maybe

039this is not quality literature because I know that's used in here at one point right which I feel is super subjective um who is deciding what is quality literature and so that would be us in this scenario I think the board should have a say and yes but I think there should be guidelines right I think we should be it's not that each time something comes up we should be saying yay or nay that was the whole point of bringing this and talking about it is having some sort of guidelines what what is in quality literature right not just it's quality literature and then yeah and I think I whether it's oversight accountability whatever I think you're right that's the idea is having us involved because we do have the political accountability people do come

040to us and we're like not not maintenance you know somewhere and I think we get to 6220 challenges and Structural Materials we get to that a little more clearly in some of those steps and what the process is and where that responsibility resides it's open mentioning that instead of having a committee likewise in 6210 we actually have um in 6220 that specific goal would lie with the superintendent and then the superintendent in a non-delegable role is charged with doing a review giving a report and coming back to us and telling us why first I think it's helpful if we follow the agenda well I think I was drawing a contrast to illustrate 6210 so I don't know that we left but I'm happy to stay on it I I agree obviously acknowledge that we've had

041some challenges to curriculum and some instructional materials I don't think we've had an inordinate amount I don't think it's um not similar to what other districts around the country are looking at I do think we have to be super careful that we're not being very reactive with policy and overly restrictive with policy I would say that that this draft of Mr Brown's gets a little too into perhaps micromanaging um the the process a little bit um there will be challenges it's going to happen and I I went into this process with the understanding that we're clarifying how things work when things happen not that we were um looking to make sure that we're controlling uh or or overseeing um with a heavy hand the development of the curriculum and all of the materials well I

042would disagree I don't think this is overseen with a heavy hand I think this is oversight with a clear hand uh how can the administration be expected to follow our goals without you know to some sort of vacuous sense of well I think this is what they want by establishing clear rules clear guidelines and clear expectations it actually makes their job easier because they know what they're expected to deliver and it makes our job easier to measure the success of their implementation so what exactly would be happening under this policy 6200 that is not happening now like so what what would like what does this actually mean in practice the responsible for recommendation development review and approval just like what does that actually mean that's not happening so I think to miss worms Mrs Warren's

043point the um accountabilities with us but we can't really do anything we just ask the admin hey could you take a look and yeah we're it's all fine and people need to be seen and heard and you know feel safe to learn and the other just sort of canards that sweep everything under the rug but we only ability to change anything so I think that is if we have a lot of people are involved a lot of people are concerned we'd like to be able to pull some levers and make some changes and so the exact how that looks exactly and if there's policies around it I don't know but right now where it's simply the district curriculum committee that does the decision making and we can't actually get involved in those workings that we

044don't have any insight and where you don't have any you know sort of appellate review or ability to get in there and say yeah we think you got this one wrong we'd like you to do this I think this tries to make alignment there I have a I just have a really hard philosophical issue with nine members of the public who may or may not have educational expertise deciding which history lesson to be teaching which you know which is the best strategy to teach a fourth grader how to multiply like that's this is not I don't see this as the role of a board of education member I think it's fully the role of the board because we're elected we haven't been elected time we have oversight over the curriculum we approve all curriculum right

045but the level of detail I think that you're looking for I don't think is appropriate so one of the other communities is you know we want you to teach Howard we're not teaching Howard's in now does do we not do that because our community wants us to do that because we have an administrator who thinks that's not a good book like how do you make a decision like that I mean that's fully within our role believe it's in our role to individually choose that are that are with the experts I think we were discussing individually choosing we need to see these books I was responding to your question you know but if there is a community involvement or Community outcry or Community to do something or there's interest in going down a specific track we

046should have the ability to do that and respond with this amount of of control from the board I I would question why we have all of these incredibly experienced educated talented teachers administrators Etc I think we're probably wasting a lot of money we're going to do all that work instead of them I'm not on board this so I mean if Julie's on board with this I'm not on board with this it seems like we're an impasse so I don't know how what you know procedurally we're not going to solve any issues today in this about this policy right now because we are we there's not a sense of a meeting of what's going to happen so it's my understanding when that happens at us committee level we could get back up to the board is

047that correct uh yeah that's my understanding as well so I guess we'll kick 62. 2 10 back up so as a recommendation to take this to the board I mean I think we have to have the conversation assign people because the four of us with this subcommittee so foreign can I throw in a couple other points just to make sure we bring them to the full board thank you very much um from the the proposed draft from shipping and Goodwin I did like that the mission was stated yes um I felt like Mr Brown's version rewrote us a mission which was new and unfamiliar to me and I just wanted to clarify that the um we're talking in here about in-class instructional materials I don't think this covers library books or other classroom materials so

048I wasn't 100 certain I just want to make sure we clear that up um moving forward in any conversations upon this that's it thank you awesome sorry can we before we bring this back um so moving on further through Mr rounds draft do you have Roman numeral 3 transparency um why is that in here because this is basically policy 6930 which we just adopted on February 14th I think there's some tweaks to that so I can get your red line between them and then since we approved it on in February this yeah I mean okay that seems like a we just did this lesson six months ago um and I'm questioning why what what the difference is and I don't know why it's embedded into here when we already have a policy since 9 30.

049UM right I think the idea is to make sure that we surface so that there's accountability tied in explicitly to the curriculum so I do know we do address transparency but I think there should be some refinement I think it could reside here it may just be refined with any other policy I'm open to those ideas uh Sarah also questioning the legal basis I don't know what this statute is can you the very end is that it's a federal statute what is 20 years [Music] oh 20 USD yeah what is that 32h the transparency policy protection of the pupil rights okay um I don't think I've ever seen Federal stack shoot it's a little broader I agree I would have liked to have a Connecticut statute and if I'd been able to ship in a

050good one ahead of time we probably could have had a proper citation Connecticut state statute of policy covers for that that's one of the things I like about you just ever made just for for page two there could you clarify what that means because I've read it a couple times maybe I'm not picking it up just um what it says here other board action just in the middle there page two uh you go through some things about the board and it says this action would occur only in extraordinary circumstances right here yeah um in consultation with the superintendent and the superintendent determines that board action is necessary I'm not quite sure what that means or yeah I think again that was just trying to make sure that we had full accountability and full powers and

051make sure people understood where things stood uh with the subcommittee having the authority okay I just may be confused the way it's written yeah it's always room for improvement foreign [Music] doesn't recommend that but just okay right um I certainly have my concerns about this and I wouldn't be recommending this to the board whether they want to do this or not necessarily up organization but I'll just sure everything I wouldn't recommend you to be getting at this level can you talk to why uh I also slow down the process B uh I think the idea of like slack books and so on and so forth I don't assure you want to get into that but that's a decision you want to do and you have the questions selecting books and so on and so forth

052right um but that's interesting some words do in full disclosure right um so I'm not going to say that's not the case but do you have a I think the consultant came here and said you have a staff raging with conf aeration with expertise um and I'll tell you that you do and dependent on the professional judgment and the experience of the Educators I think I think that's what you want to do I think that is what we do um I would argue for the most part that is working and you might get bogged down here in processes that are not going to be advantageous for anyone so um you know I we've been talking about this for months and months now never at any point did Isaac I succeed we as a board should

053be selecting the books what I have said from the beginning is that we need guardrails and guidelines and should be more you know like I said or prescriptive than than just a subjective quality literature right I don't know what the standard is of quality literature and who's deciding of the quality of literature and for which age group and you know so the idea of getting bogged down I think we're we're unfortunately in disagreement of how much supervision the board should have and that that's what it comes down to does this give you the guardrails and guidelines that you're talking about this draft no we've never we've never gotten to the point I haven't gotten there yeah this is really our first time through that exercise and obviously the policies are going to be the highest

054level we can have and then we're going to have other regulations administrative and others that are going to drill down and give refinement and give work got guardrails of guidance so this is this is the top level uh to be further work to do so this would be the first opportunity that staff will probably have to have to see this publicly right um so I would expect that certainly my leadership staff and curriculum staff would have happened you didn't want to hear that yeah certainly yeah 6210 going once 62-20 changes challenges to instructional materials Sarah okay I'll start um you know I think your your draft of 6220 is significantly different again from from um what we have from shipment and Goodman that's a suggestion um okay you know I I don't think well actually

055I'll just start by going Roman number one yeah I think the publication of book lists is a is a dominant idea and I think parents and people should know what their what is in the classrooms I'm not sure how enforceable it is on a minute to minute day-to-day week to week um basis you know looking back to when I was in the classroom if I was in a bookstore saw a brand new book and I brought it in read it aloud the next day like you can't that's not going to be on this publishable book list so I'm I'm wary of having this be very prescriptive so I think that there's definitely going to be a timeline like nobody's gonna take inventory daily and you know so that's totally reasonable I didn't put in here

056but I did have a thought on the sort of recession process and how the books come in the classroom they donate it or they give in they come from Publishers to teachers buying the parents bring them in if that's something we want to talk about is to that methodology and how these things show up um I didn't put that in here but that may be something we would want to think is in addition either this or the shipments whichever way we want to go um just I think understanding where the books are coming from and what the sort of reason is it's just a gift if it's somebody whose favorite book or if there's you know another purpose or a curricular tide or something there so I think you're right we need to think about

057how Stuff shows up and I'm not quite sure how to handle that but I appreciate you bringing that okay I'm just not sure that it belongs and yeah the the library you know you can go into Destiny you can see anything that's in our school libraries one would argue that the books that are in our classrooms are not that different than what's in Destiny and I think the issue there is that you know I've certainly heard different questions from parents and we certainly had that foia request where things are getting put into classrooms that nobody really knew about um and where those were coming from and so I think the purpose there is to make sure that people can see what's in the library as well as what's in the classroom and have disability into

058that in a you know in the easy easy to handle way it's not no that's the word I'm looking for it's not realistic thank you yeah and you know you're not going to say The Giving Tree was given by John Smith but May 19 2017. like I just that level is about to say this specificity it's not realistic um I would add it's also not reasonable to have a process where the first level of complaint goes directly to the superintendent um which is Roman numeral two parental challenge procedure um that I I do you have a suggestion where it should go to the classroom teacher and then it should follow through the chain of communication okay um and if things can't be resolved at one level you go to the next level um I I'm

059still on board with where we were in November when we looked to the procedure for challenging instructional materials a strapped if I should have been a good one except for my continued issue with having three parents put on the committee um the the draft written by Dave I don't think there's anything in here that I would support um that's different from what was in the initial draft it's it's entirely on the superintendent I I wouldn't want that job being I mean of course everything is on the superintendent but in the day-to-day to call it a non-delegable excuse me you can't say the word non-delegable obligation of the superintendent that to me is um not reasonable the superintendent is the CEO of the district he can delegate things that CC's fit um it's still on him

060at the end of the day certainly but to do the day-to-day and to write the report now and also the removal of a book as soon as three challenges have been received not on the table for me for a second I could get three people to write a letter on any ridiculous topic that I want and then to have that book pulled for six months because of three letters um it's like Open Season to just start playing games with the process so I don't support that either so I think it's a non-delegable perfectly so you're good there no problem uh three issues spoke to a teacher what do I satisfy talking to the Future um in terms of the three I don't know whether three is the right number 12 or 62 I have no

061idea that was just kind of a placeholder it was set specifically load for people to focus in on that and prompt the discussion there so I don't actually know what the number is um in terms of your other thought about having the committee versus on the superintendent that was absolutely 100 intentional because of reviewing the shipment policy when I read that I felt that this idea of having another committee and some hand-picked people and a few people here really goes back to the process we've followed previously where the parents feel that there's a lack of accountability and a lack of real responsibility or real responsiveness that comes from the admin and so the idea was to flip that on its head and really have that something where we do have one person one person is

062going to own it they're responsible and that's it and so whether that is the superintendent whether it's the assistant superintendent I don't know I'm open to discussion there but I think the committee idea is a complete non-starter if I could respond please um with all due respect to our superintendent and superintendents everywhere I'm not sure that the superintendent is necessarily going to be the most expert in determining what's best for a kindergartener what's appropriate for an 11th grader you know what seventh grade girls are into these days or what's appropriate for them so I'm not I'm not comfortable with any one individual holding that responsibility and as this reads clearly at the end of the day the responsibility is coming again to the board because we're going to either accept or reject the recommendation um

063that comes out of the report but maybe at a higher level I think my biggest issue with this draft is this the philosophical approach that when an item is challenged it the the onus is put on the district to prove that it has academic Merit versus The Challenger to prove in the district to disprove that the that the particular instructional material is inappropriate in some way it says and here's something about couldn't it be replaced with something else and that's not the threshold sure anything could be replaced with something else pretty much but why is this not acceptable and I think that's the way this conversation should be framed and is not here so I think that I would note a small distinction you said that the board ultimately makes a decision I think we

064have a process where the board is able to make a decision and get involved uh if it feels that it's sort of an extreme case and wants to oversee the recreation of the superintendent otherwise the superintendent were to review under this policy and suggests that it's returned then it would automatically be returned absent special action report to not follow through on that recommendation so the board doesn't actually have to act every time it would follow a process and go back to your point about what shows up and why excuse me a to your point about you know the curricular purpose and whether there's anything better that's kind of what had me thinking on these you know how books come in and what the purpose is and whether that should be something of when new books

065come in we actually tie back to what the curricular purpose is I mean at the end of the day we shouldn't just have people bring in whatever there should be some curricular some academic purpose to it and I think that speaks to why the tie back is important um in that situation and I think that also so what I've heard from expressing Community is that we've had this committee that reviews and it was mentioned earlier everything's always approved everything's good everything's just fine we're going to let them all stand and this idea why not something better or why is this the only one that can teach this lesson you know I don't think that's an unreasonable question it should be an easy question I think if we actually had why it came in in the

066first place where the curriculum would tie in to that that's a very simple question to answer so I I'm gonna go back to this idea of a committee versus a single singular person deciding this and I hear that there were some members of the community that were frustrated with the recent challenges that the people making those decisions were the same people putting it into the classrooms right correct but the way that Shipment has presented this the committee is not the same as the people putting it in there is this isn't super superintendent there's a DEA designate there's three teachers there's administrative like it's not the same people and they're there's there are experts Jermaine to the age group that is uh that for whatever the process is the books being challenged or the materials being

067challenged so to me having more eyes and more expert opinion and I'm going to go back to we have experts that do this and we need to um not 100 trust what they're doing but rely heavily on their expertise and their experience say that group having more eyes on it will have a better understanding of why that is appropriate or why that is not appropriate so I don't disagree with having moreover more eyes more perspective I understand that I think what I questioned when I read shipment versus the actual experience we had is the people who are doing the review and as I understood the recommendation of who'd be doing the review in the shipment model would be the same people essentially so we'd be overlapping so I didn't actually see a broader group uh

068when I read it it seemed to me like it would just be the same people doing both jobs so that's it who's the current like if we were to who like Ariana's mermaid who looked at that right that was all the department chairs music department Chris Julie that that is correct that's that's who we're involved in it so that so that's different than what is being presented oh it's significantly different than expanded yes yes which is why this this shipments committee makes me much more confident in that committee so it's expanded but is it not the core at this no do you have teachers involved they're Educators there are Educators no right but it's still you're just expanding on the same core this was the way I read it I'd be if someone can explain

069it to me differently I'd be interested to understand that I think and I understand some of the things you're talking about the publishing the book list and all of that yes but I think the idea is that there's still no board supervision or board like to me that's to me that's what's missing here it's just that they're is no board oversight and I truthfully think if there was board oversight and parameters set forth that some of the decisions that are made I think it'll never end up towards the board because I think decisions will be made differently yeah and I guess you know when I saw a committee of three people picked I mean that took me back the old Buckley quote about three people out of the Boston phone book like I'd rather have

070random people than have the staff pick who's going to show it three parents like I don't know that should be on this committee I think that that's that's a quagmire that we don't want to get into so the other point I would make here is to keep in mind that there are lots of opinions out there and people have different points of views people like some stuff but not others and if we curate our entire library of books and all of our curricular materials to satisfy all of those opinions then you're ending up in a pretty difficult spot I I hate Dickens I'll say it I cannot stand reading Charles Dickens so if I'm going to get a bunch of people to write challenge letters to get rid of Dickens you we're being too controlling

071and restricted and we're setting ourselves up for very dangerous territory but are you going to argue you can say you don't like Dickens are you going to argue that it's not quality literature well I don't know but it's already gotten off the shelves for six months once I had three people write those letters so maybe it's three maybe it's more but the other you could only if if we have things standards set if you bring a challenge that goes totally against those then the challenge doesn't even happen because there's already these clear goals clear expectations everybody knows what the game is right everybody knows where we stand I think we're hanging a lot of Hope on what these clear goals are I feel like they have behind our clear goals I think we lay out

072clear goals for our Administration I don't know what we're talking about that's going to help us decide if one book is appropriate and the other one isn't in a way that's going to make us suddenly all agree quite honestly we keep talking about the experts the experts the experts and how as parents we're not the experts because we're not Educators right but we could flip that and look at the fact of what is going on currently in education where we are now taking away parents right they don't know we have Educators that don't have children yet they're teaching our kids about different genders and different things you know and that's acceptable because they're Educators they're not parents they're not the kids and it's not the discussion for here I just my point is we keep

073saying experts experts experts and we want to take the parents out of the equation completely all we're asking for is some guidelines on what's appropriate and what's considered and some more detail on what is quality literature and just to follow that up I mean we're we get elected by the parents we represent the parents we're accountable to the parents and you know the parents of the most elected by everybody well not the kids residents that are not parents we believe so no one's trying to um I would say we're not trying to alienate our parents have been certainly not uh trying to do that um they're in terms of equality literature we had a presentation from the language arts department chair on quarterly that uh what what qualifies as quality literature um and the guidelines

074around that that suggests and point to things be in quality literature we if we need to do something again we can certainly do that I will say that we still do have to depend on the professional trainer herself yes um that's what they do this look whether you have whether it's three parents on it or that was an effort to be inclusive to be honest with you right um whether it's uh some variation of what was presented through shipment here um this the one that we're currently looking at is like honestly I just word wants to get into selecting books I would not recommend that but that's up to the board right the full board that will be up to them as the way they they ultimately want to be and and I said over

075again I mean about the appeal process so the appeal process says that there right in terms of the idea of like I've been allowed to be able to pull a book for 90 days I'll have I won't even just library books pulled up I'll have classroom text pulled out I mean it appears to be a mess right um you can't just like somebody complains or three people complain or 20 people complain say okay we're taking that book out of circulation for 90 days like I mean don't be doing it like every week um just that then that's just not the way they don't want to be reading every book I do a version appeal um but the solely responsible I'm always solely responsible I'm not walking away from that responsibility but I have to depend

076on the professional expertise of our staff and and I understand that hopefully you'll expect that it just there's a trust Factor here a little bit that uh that and if there's not a trust Factor I'll just say the optic offer to to our staff will be a trust factor and you may say well that's okay that's that they just they just have to go with the flow with that okay um but I'm just sure I'm with you that that that's an outcome of this or that's what's a very important piece I mean we we want to have and attract the best people in that we can possibly get and if we are micromanaging that sends the message that nope we actually don't agree with what you're doing that is not the way to keep and

077attract stuff in my opinion I think well it's a way to attract staff who agree with what you're doing but but I think this goes both ways the reason we're here in the first place correct is because a lot of trust lost by a select number of people I don't think there is a huge mistrust by the vast majority of Darian parents so I I might make a suggestion here which is we're going to get further information 4400 6210 we're kicking back upstairs to the full board does anybody here want to take a look at 6220 and come with the counter proposal maybe we can look at that when we look at 4 400 and think of some refinements and do a little work on this individually are you willing to have a committee I'm

078sorry are you willing to have a committee that's in yes that's in shipments as opposed to I would would you relinquish taking away your idea of the of having the superintendent be the sole person for appeals so I don't know now I'd have to see what the counter proposal so my thought is like if you want to take these two Sarah and say hey I like this I like that we can take a what a merge thing could look like my problem with the counter proposal is I am not versed in Connecticut state law and I can't do that and again whatever we decide here it's all going to go to shipment at the end of the day before we promulgate it so I think that's fine I guess the questions we're talking about right

079now like mechanics is it six people is it 30 people is it committee is it a superintendent so I think things like that we can talk about and really focus so I I think I agree with what Shipment has presented minus the parents I've really I I am that's right that piece is stuck with me um I don't know what I would do as another dress I would I would remove the pants yeah from Shipman's policy and that that would be the end of it there's nothing as I said before from from your Draft date that I would take forward see I I would bring in that the board has final oversight that it should be able to come up to the board so I would remind us that there is a provision for an

080extraordinary circumstance where the board could get involved it which kind of exists anywhere I think right as far as any operations of the district um so I I think that does exist but it needs to be extraordinary service right and I think that's in response to a trigger whereas this is an ongoing oversight responsibility that exists so we're really sort of flipping the responsibility between that situation where the board has to affirmly take action or where the board is a third asserting its Authority on an ongoing basis and retaining that more clearly I would argue this whole policy is drafted as a response to a trigger um I mean it I never and I will say this flat out I never want to sit here at this table and vote on an individual instructional material

081ever I do not see that as my job um so I mean I I don't I don't want to include that in a policy so does anybody want to work on some edits and we can look at this again or should we just kick it upstairs I'm fine with 6220 as presented by shipment absent parents that's my semantics change yeah done um I'm not um so I trouble looking at it completely separate right so you want to take the challenge where it then doesn't go up to the full board as final say but then you also don't seem to want to you know be more prescriptive in what some of these very subjective words mean so it just puts us in basically the same situation that we're in where anything kind of goes and parents

082have no recourse as to what goes on plenty of free course it's laid out it's laid out I don't understand right yes the same point of view as the people who chose the books are different it's not no I realized I didn't say it was people I said it's the same point of view because they're Educators no no not because they're Educators because they all work for the same person and no one where we're asking people to step out of line Within a education system I think if you're a professional it's your job to do what you think is right because I don't think I I actually said like I don't know can I you sound like because I want something they won't put against it I can't understand you know I'm not saying I

083haven't heard teachers you know be uncomfortable with certain things but they're not going to say anything and listen when it comes down to it oh but that's what you mean though yeah like people are uncomfortable well being the one person you don't want to be the one rocking the boat and you may have quite an unusual organization that people are complete free Spirits are going to follow their heart and their truth and passion I mean it's pretty unusual in most organizations now and people are going to toe the line and I think that's a reality and I think the board exists because we're here to take the heat from the parents and if we're going to do that we need to be able to have direction we need to have say so now things happen

084and we'll be accountable for it I don't expect teachers to have to step up and be accountable with their jobs at risk the only thing I would say to you is that at least I'd like to reiterate whether it's believed or not is different the process for this which by the way three books we're talking about all the books that were supported were talking about three books here um which is understandable but I will tell you um that Committee of people are charged with looking at this objectively I don't influence that group out the door but if you're saying well your tendency is whatever well I don't know I can't speak to that though but you purposely I'm saying that people who work with it yeah any any business any it has nothing to do

085specifically with you or this school district it's just people's behavior that is my my point I have people don't understand that disagree with me all the time I I have to I have to respond to this idea of how we take the heat also I I don't think 25 emails in an inbox about a particular book is taking a significant amount of heat I mean that's what we're here to do is to hear the good the bad to hear what people want like and don't like and I also I'm just going to be very blunt about it I don't see what kind of guidelines we're going to draft where we're suddenly all going to agree on what is porn and what isn't and what's explicit and what isn't there are tremendous differences of opinions on

086these things and we I don't think that we can Define our way out of it to avoid getting angry emails every now and then and I think that 25 emails isn't taking the heat I agree with that point but the fact of the matter is we do get input we do get critique and then we can't do anything about it how how are we the top organization in the support of Education in this school district if we can't affect policy if we can't change policy if we can't direct things to happen it's a point of having us you just have Dr Hadley so I completely disagree with that intake what we do is we direct Dr adley to review what has been brought to the table so we established policies with clear prescriptive objective standards

087to be able to do that work make sure they take this look you can certainly take this with some modifications and if you want to ask the board at the end of the day whether they want to uh have the final say in it uh that's the last step that's certainly up to the board tribes that consideration I personally wouldn't recommend it but that's that's neither here nor there right um if the board wants to do that as an extra step then that's a decision that they can make again my proposal is I would take this back 6220 of each of us individually we're not going to be experts in Connecticut Law none of us will be but you know hey I'd like to see it work this way I'd like to see it work

088that way we can sit here when we look at 4 400 as a board a subcommittee in review notes and see if there's any commonality if not we'll kick it back upstairs I mean I've already said I'm there's nothing for me to rewrite it's up to take out e about the parents may ask Marge would it be worth asking chip in a Goodwin if there is a version they would consider that provides greater a greater role to the board and how this process plays out so this this is a policy that another District developed to be be more inclusive in the challenge of materials shipment and good would embedded it they're not endorsing it if you want the board to be the final appeal the board can be the final appeal you can see there

089are no legal references at the bottom so there's no law I do think that at the retreat next week we're going to get an update from shipment about whether you can remove the book or not during the process that was my spoiler alert a little bit but um and I'm not really sure what that is but you can do whatever you want you know reason and shipment a good one may draft help us draft the language well you're not ordering illegal work are you hi you're either ordering legal work from Shipping right now no we typically do is reviewer policy from shipment and Goodwin and ask for revisions or ask questions what's in the policy that's for the last year and a half as we've sat on this committee together that's how it's operated okay

090so is there any consensus on 6210 seems like we're deadlocked I mean to 6220 my bet I think so maybe we should table this for now let's hear what Shipman and Goodwin says and then maybe we will discuss putting this back on we discussed 4 400. but again um other than maybe removing the books but we'll know that on Wednesday so let's say we should get together some further information unless someone's opposed I don't know what that means what further information are we Gathering how's it being shared I don't know I just got a spoiler I don't know all the information yet part of the legislative update so may we use that to inform how we'd like to proceed anyone else at this okay if anyone in public would like to comment please raise your

091hand we'll start with in person you have up to three minutes to comment please state your name and address for the records hi I'm Krista Carnes I'm at 45th Avenue um a lot I want to say I agree that the over prescription is I think it creates an environment that invites opens the door and invites harassment of our teachers curricular disruption in terms of like challenging books and it could you know are we how do we protect the teachers from continuing with their work if we're going to be removing the books that they have planned to use um but regarding the social media policy specifically um I'm not disparaging Shipman and Goodman at all but I notice that they do not have a Communications or media practice area in their firm and I think that

092as written their policy actually has a whole bunch of dead platforms on it but there's again and I've said this I've shared this before that it's like there's so much that could be considered at the end I have some challenges so or questions so the social media policy with regard to parents and closed groups and things like that I how are we going to police the parent behavior on these on these sites what if there is some harassment that happens on Madden what if a teacher is harassed on their personal uh social media account by a parent and then blocks the certain person what is the blocking procedure and policy as part of this are you allowed to block someone what what con what would generate that do you need to have a meeting to

093determine if somebody has crossed a line can you put and what if um what if a student has more than one instagram account which they do um and how are we going to make sure if we're going to invite parents to be part of a closed group then what about policies like you know I had to upload my custody agreement uh to my Middlesex uh you know my parent portal so that they could make sure that there was no estrangement or you know like really a problematic uh parenting situation are we expecting the teacher or the advisor that's administering these social media accounts to have to go through the process of vetting these parents um I come from I think that anything that gets posted on social media should be the same thing that you

094would post on a billboard on 95. the more public the more open the safer everybody is and then you can monitor the engagement but really limiting all this stuff you can't possibly take into account everything you can't take into account the individual algorithms for each of these platforms if you tag some if somebody personally tags someone else it could show up in a feed it's it's just this big Pandora's Box and I think we're setting ourselves up for a lot of challenges uh Communications uh public relations issues I think without a Communications person on the board or on the in the districts on the District staff that that kind of person could help guide this and until if that person was in place that would that would fall into this I do think that the

095director of mental health should be consulted on the social media policy and I also worry about the curricular um disadvantage of being so restricted with social media because in this day thank you so much really you're gonna let me let me finish my sentence um I just think that there are some benefits to social media as a modern marketing and publication tool that we need to empower our kids to learn thank you thank you anyone else in person if anyone online would like to participate in public comment please use the raised hand icon there are no raised hands at this time and with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn see one from this was worm any other one two three that is unanimous meaning adjourned thank you