001okay when that happens okay it's currently six o'clock and so um we will call this meeting which is a regular board meeting not a work session we'll call this to order and have roll call Anderson here Gutman Hauser here Kent yes me here thank you here Sarah geyser our district mission is to teach all and reach all our district vision is Urbandale will be a school district that brings learning to life for everyone our school board mission is to partner with stakeholders to teach all and reach all through governance of board policy and operating protocol so let me add a motion to approve the agenda so moved by Kent thank you need well second okay all in favor bye post no we will uh I've been given to understand we don't have any public comments
002tonight so we'll move into the consent agenda may I have a motion to bring that forward so moved Sarah geyser Meadville second thank you so do we have any clarifications please notice we do have some updates on personnel and open enrollment that will be included if you have any questions I I have a couple I had a question on the contracts for snow removal um I noticed on Valerius and Webster the sidewalks were separate and I just wondered why there was a difference in why those were bid out that way typically we do the sidewalks the company does the bigger parking areas but the Valerius and Webster sidewalks are so extensive that while they're there they have the bigger equipment so it's faster for them to get those pieces done so that's why we did
003that it's a logistical thing to get our snow removal equipment to those outer buildings with the size sidewalks okay okay and then I had a question on the same thing so hilarious uses the south parking lot at Walker Johnston for a drop off and pick up a lot and the city has said that they do not do snow removal on that sidewalk that connects the two will he be doing that is that'll be part of our we'll have to we've also Lauren's working with Zach in the city to determine whether or not they can't prioritize the parking lot which we knew when we built the school but they said they couldn't guarantee it you can park there but they can't guarantee it so we're trying to figure out if if we paid an extra amount
004for them to do it if they had the capacity and if not would they allow us to bring our people in to do it so we're not sure if that's worked out if it's not worked out then there's we're gonna have to be creative with pick up and drop off thank you one other question um could you clarify for us on the bills list why there were some zeros on the Amazon yes we had some duplicate entries and an add-on to a purchase order so in order for our accounts payable to not have the duplicate payments they zeroed out all those entries for that and just paid the two items that were add-ons to that so that and going forward we found another way that we can have that where those zeros don't show up
005on the they're going forward on our payable list great thank you anything else okay so we'll go ahead and quite a bit of money in here let's do a roll call Anderson yes Hauser yes Ken yes me yes Mickey yes so you guys are yes um [Music] so the financials are um are posted no yeah the financials are posted I'm trying to get to this spot your report yes the financials our post and we are happy to see that we are making improvements at a faster rate um under the superintendent report we have three items the first item is the policy 217 this is the first reading we attempted to review this in the last couple of board meetings and we ended up tabling it because there was some discussion on public comment so if
006you were to look on assembly you'll see that we did add and this is this was our interpretation of the board's feedback so if this is not accurate please let us know we added in there on the one two three four five pair fifth paragraph any person wishing to address the board at a board meeting on a particular subject must sign up by 12 noon than it the day of the meeting and follow the public comment instructions available on a meeting agenda so we took out the word regular the discussion was about special versus regular versus work sessions so we thought that would clarify it and then a couple paragraphs down the board of directors will generally take a subject raise during the public comment under advisement so we took out portion of the regular
007meeting that was our interpretation of the board's feedback so if that's not accurate please let us know otherwise this will be our first reading okay and of course the public if you have input on any of these policies feel free to go into assembly and add your comments the next one was five 549 this one was on student disclosure of identity and this was a policy also that was tabled and I think the conversation was more um around um I think it was around the specificity specific pieces I'm sure I'm not saying that word correctly so if you look the policy is in simply but I tried to also put an attachment to show you what was actually changed because this was a brand new policy that we were attempting to adopt straight from iasb
008and so the changes were to the second paragraph School in the bottom sentence the school administrator receiving the report shall then report the request to the student's parent Guardian as required by applicable laws and this policy shall be applied to all nicknames that was changed because for applicable laws there was some conversation around emancipated minors emancipated minors and since that wasn't an agreement and according to our legal advice they said that it does apply to that that would be a little bit more flexible should that advice change then we didn't have to come back and make a change and then at the last paragraph in the last sentence um superintendent will provide the opportunity for parents and Guardians to list in the students registration paperwork any and all names nicknames and or pronouns used for
009students we started that process this year I think we need to refine that for next year in PowerSchool to make sure but once that's in there we wouldn't I don't believe that we would be asking them to say it again correct from year to year so hopefully that process will be refined and that will be the case and again that was that was partly the interpretation that we got from the board as well as when I returned to legal to ask them if they would if there were any changes that they thought were applicable that wouldn't change the intent of the policy as suggested by aasb so just oh yeah these are both considered first reading so if there's anything that needs to be added in comments that people want to go again on assembly
010and that includes board members feel free to do that and we will bring those pieces back to the board for the second reading on October 9th okay see you okay okay the last one um if we go back to a couple board meetings ago the board requested that we bring information from the administration to the board for consideration and in order for us to continue implementation of Senate file 496. we felt like it would be important to start with some reasonable definitions this is an area where we don't feel the state has given us the clarity that we need so we thought we would clarify it ourselves an attempt to find out if the board agrees with that clarification so you should have there's about 11 pages worth of definitions and these are done by
011section from the components that are in Senate file 496 and the highlight yellow are the words that we attempted to Define Brandon and Stephanie worked very hard on this our coordinator for Equity inclusion and our director for curriculum and instruction so I don't know how you want to attack this do you want to go Section by section or do we want to assume that people read it and have the board ask questions that's up to you guys I'm going to assume that people unless I hear differently did read it so if you have questions um first off thank you for doing the work of the State Department of Education secondly where are these what are the sources for these definitions do you have I mean are they from a dictionary from legal papers where where
012does this come from a fair question uh so as we went through uh sections of the legislation and then uh looked for specific Parts where we felt like further Clarity um to identify those operating definitions we really Source from many sources and then we came kind of craft a definition that seemed reasonable and then we brought it to the cabinet for further review and you can see them cited for example age appropriate the last sentence comes from section 702 17. sure the first sentence comes from 279.50 that's on Page One Number Nine a so wherever they could find existing definitions we felt like that would stay in line more with what the state has defined okay I think also just maybe for the community I mean I know that we don't have to go through
013everything but would you mind just maybe highlighting just a few things so that the community who's listening would be um able to hear as well yeah absolutely so uh the first section uh that we worked to Define is really the opening uh of Senate file 496 and that includes terms like age-appropriate Multicultural gender Fair Global perspectives all levels and the educational program and again anytime the definition existed we tried to Source straight from this legislation or other pieces of code in order to define those additionally if we felt that there were other terms that related or potentially would relate to that section of the legislation we tried to make sure we laid them into the document alongside the intent with these definitions is to eventually be able to lift them up into how we go
014about our work and so those were only mere predictions of what we thought in an effort to be transparent because we haven't gone a step further from this because we wanted to get your feedback in section 16 uh I'm gonna let Stephanie speak that certainly so this section um is relating to uh gender identity and sexual orientation and so really defining those terms such as program curriculum test survey questionnaire promotion or instruction that our teachers certainly had a lot of questions about and wanted to make sure that we had common definitions for those items and then some additional operational definitions such as affirm and representation that we thought make them up and some of the guidance the next section walks through a piece of the legislation that is pertinent to the library program and so
015uh section 20 or 280 0.6 is reference so we put that in alongside for further Clarity and then in the legislation it outlines what age-appropriate is so again we place that here and then we also outlined 702.17 fully so that that's laid out as well and then went on to define those terms and then again there's a related operational definitions that potentially would relate section 14 is the section that most pertains to the last policy we just heard um and so making sure that we understand uh different terms regarding generate gender identity and transitioning to a gender gender that is different um accommodations affirmations and also understanding the role of the licensed practitioner within the school district in the final section that we included is section 15 and that section pertains to surveys analysis activities
016or evaluations and has very specific ideas as far as or specific items listed as far as what cannot be asked of students so trying to make sure there's that clarity as well around those definitions I think you know our intent was really uh you know for further clarification to have simple plain language definitions to better understand and then make you know policy procedure a line I think it's important to also point out and again I have to thank both of you and your team for doing this because I know the countless hours that went into this but also we've had the pleasure of getting feedback from staff and staff have a lot of questions and that helped us I think frame okay where are they going to be confused because we we know that they
017want some clarity they want to know if this then that and it's not as black and white as we had hoped so these definitions as Brandon indicated we're hoping that once the board can come to consensus and say yes those are reasonable interpretations for the district then the work can continue from there because the policy is the policy 496 is in effect July 1 and we have until January 1st to make sure that we're to the letter of staying out of trouble with the state so this is something we want to continue doing and we heard the board say that you wanted to be able to provide that feedback so we're hoping that if you have not had a chance to digest these that you do before the next meeting because we're going to be
018asking you to um vote on those for the next meeting so we can move forward um so as we can see Dan is not here um but he did send us an email with a couple of questions so I if you don't mind I'm just going to ask those um he was wondering um around the definition for age appropriateness it seems pretty open to interpretation do we have an idea yet of who's going to make that determination of what is age-appropriate yeah so I think um anything related to 702.17 is outlined in the legislation would automatically not be age-appropriate in terms of what precedes that uh that's the definition that was placed inside the legislation the other thing that I would add is the professionals inside of the school are always making those determinations um
019that's a lot of their work in terms of thinking about the topics the messages how they go about teaching the content is all part of that age-appropriate decision making that takes place in terms of uh you know more specific things I think there's precedent of how we've worked to negotiate or work through those pieces for example uh the community group that supported our health curriculum review they were making the local decisions on what um was age appropriate alongside the Educators and that is uh exactly kind of the spirit of how um our health curriculum is decided in Iowa is that there's bands but within those bands uh local control deems what happens in each age in terms of exact grade level I think you know it's hard to Define uh exactly because I would say
020the answer would be it depends on what the topic is and what the context is on how we go about deeming something age appropriate example of that would be technology technology use and the amount of time students are on a screen that we would lean into you know what does uh you know the American Academy of Pediatrics say along with what is widely held expectations around technology to help make those decisions so we would lean into the field uh to best identify that in terms of books we have had a process continue to have a process in selection and part of that is age-appropriateness related to the topic the message and how it's crafted um for my own personal question on page seven we have the definition for transition to a gender that is different
021can you explain um so we mentioned physical social and or legal aspects of their gender presentation can you explain the social aspects to me a little bit clearer um when looking at the social aspects I think that would fall into some of our um use of language around a gender transition Maybe what who a student is interacting with and so I think that is going to be part of where we look at the language pieces in the social and the interactions with others can you explain that a little bit more I'm not I'm not uh as firmly as I'd like to so um social is is the students engagement with others in in whether in the classroom or outside of the school and so what what might that look like with their gender presentation because
022I I feel like we have we have anti-social Behavior listed later and they Define that as uh violate social norms rules and rights of others so I'm wondering if the social norms that we're talking about if that's more than just how they interact with that also include like social norms include how we dress how we talk how our hair looks does that also include that's in in the um transitioning to another gender is that also what we're talking about I think that would fit very appropriately yes I feel like that becomes incredibly subjective and I worry specifically including that then really does it does it Define it better it actually leaves it too confusing sure because who's to say whether long hair is more feminine coded or pants are more male coated like I'm curious
023where those boundaries will be will be um the question where are these going to live once the board approves them and I asked simply because right it's now just a foreign document with definitions is it going to be tied to a specific policy is it going to be given its own policy name and then be accessible on the assembly site for the community it wasn't my intent to make it a policy but the board approving it would be it would live in simply and that would be something that Stephanie and Brandon's team would that's that's their playbook now because that's what the board had approved so I didn't intend it to be a policy though no and and and I I understood I'm just like but how does this fit in with a larger structure
024in terms of transparency with the community as always it will it will stay in in simply as a forever past document so it's board clarification that that was the intent besides um the board here has this been vetted with any other organizations or groups like I think of like Iowa safe schools or something like that has this been vetted with any other groups it hasn't been vetted with anyone except for the board at this point outside of the cabinet do we know our other districts attempting the same thing I would assume but not to my knowledge but I'll know more Wednesday when I have a I have a group meeting but I don't know another board that requested okay the oversight so I would unless you guys no update for me could we get an
025email update sent out to us um I had another question in regards to age appropriate um again it's defined as topics messages and teaching methods we Define messages as a piece of information instruction thought idea or expression that is intended to be communicated from a sender to a receiver that does not specify from like a teacher to a student so does that also include from student to student I think our intent was uh staff to student okay so we could definitely add that what page was and I'm sorry I was writing the other nonsense because I'm I'm assuming that um based on where this sort of Falls in age appropriateness we're talking about not discussing I want to make sure I'm quoting this appropriately sorry give me one sec to find it scrolling too fast
026hold on while you're doing that does anyone else want to ask something so tonight there's no further action Upon This is because we're not supposed to like there's supposed to be no discussion of sexual orientation but we have children with heterosexual parents we have children with homosexual parents we have children with bisexual parents they're going to talk at some point about their family structure but that would fall under the ideas and thoughts that would be communicated in a message from sender to receiver and I'm curious how that will be handled yeah I think um you're referring to section 16 of the legislation but I mean for defining age-appropriateness in general that's coming into the whole document so it's not just like they have it defined there but we're using it all over so I want
027to be very clear how will we interpret that when a student who is the sender of a message to a student who is a receiver of a message talks about their home life but their home life violates other definitions within this document the student is not in violation of this law this is guidance this is a law that governs what the adults in the building and what the school district do and so if a student shares information that's what a student has shared to another student it is not the school district so if it is but if it's in a discussion within a classroom that a teacher is leading how are we managing that situation to protect our staff when things are going people are going the kids are going to talk about their parents
028it's their family it's the mean adults they know so I'm curious how if the thought or idea has now become not age appropriate but it is age-appropriate for a certain child whose family fits that definition how does that how does that get handled within a classroom and I'm really excited that you bring that up because by defining these Concepts we are going to be able to move forward with answering those questions that teachers have been asking because we have not been able to really dig into that because we didn't have the language yet to do that we wanted to get that input from the board and so in order to answer those very specific questions this is the first step that we have to take because we want to be able to answer each and
029every one of those and I think we're I think it's going to be very difficult to cover every single single scenario too so like Stephanie said once these are agreed upon and then we can go back and start looking at those processes and how that how would we recommend if this came up to a teacher what you examples of what you would say we're never going to get every situation so it's going to be more of a guidance on these types of questions not necessarily this specific question and I think that's that's true in education as it is when 802 came in there there are questions that people kids are going to ask especially in some of your high school classes because they're more inquisitive and and we don't know what to expect to come
030out of a student's mind any given day so we just have to work the best we can I think my concern is that without guidance from the doe which we can all agree is lacking I understand that our teachers need supports from us but I worry that by over defining too many things we might go too far in the opposite direction of what would benefit our students certainly a consideration I I want to be very clear I want to support our teachers clearly we need more guidance I just I am concerned um I understand that everything's a working document um but we went too far already one time and had to walk it back and I don't want to do the same thing with this and then have to walk back once we do finally
031get guidance no I don't want to begin that whole process with the books was an internal process where we needed to work it was not a intended to be a public process it was our work that would have gotten where we are now had we been left to do it so I disagree a little bit there and I in full disclosure I think that that was the most difficult part in all of this is figuring out what is the plain language what does it mean and how to do it in a way that um balances on uh you know what is stated and how to make it workable or understandable too because despite the fact anytime someone communicates any legislation or any document it's always trying to interpret what was actually written and without definitions
032layered in the bill um we're left to try to interpret that um I want to just return back to the social gender presentation was that defined by us or was that defined some it's not listed and here's being defined by the law but I'm wondering where we got that definition and I'm wondering if it's necessary to be included um that would have been one of the we looked at multiple sources and created that and so that I mean that's an easy I just want to say thank you so much for all of this this is a lot to put together and I really appreciate it I think um I Dr doc I heard you say a really good point and and you guys mentioned we have a lot of wonderful Professionals in our buildings and
033so if if there is any feedback before the next meeting that we vote on this that um that we get from our teachers that that see how it might um impact them in the classroom um could that just be in our Friday update um making sure with the board at the meeting as well for public coverage thank you thank you for all the work that you've done and it's open the next time the legislators um address School anything that affects schools we'd be happy to be at the table with them to maybe try to avert these kind of things from happening so if they're if they're listening call us we'll be happy to participate foreign okay okay so we'll move into the action items for uh this meeting that were brought forward on the 11th
034so we did go into great details so unless there's further questions could I have a motion I was not able to be here tonight I don't think she yeah I moved to approve the oau plan wow I don't know toughest person I know thank you so this is a roll call no okay all in favor aye opposed no so that's unanimous we will also cover the affirmative action plan that was covered last meeting so if I may have a motion unless there's a question did we get an answer on yeah the that's why Ashley had asked why if it's a two-year plan why did we only approve 22 23 instead of 22 23 23 24 and the edits that we're making this is the update for the 23-24 so Stephanie will spend this year going
035back and getting that information that you asked about last time that's on that data oh yes yeah to update for any of the two years that are out there that we can get more information is it going to be voted on every year going forward then because just label I think when we bring the next one to you we can do it for two years but there's always the caveat if those errors or changes in Personnel are in there I'm not advocating to do it every two years I always just wanted Clarity based on our previous conversation so again emotion meet will move to approve the affirmative action plan thank you well second all in favor aye aye opposed no so that's unanimous we'll move into the new action plans a would be the special
036education supplement to the school budget review and I've asked Steve to kind of explain why we do this for last year this is a action that needs to be taken every year for us to gain our spending Authority back for our special ed deficit basically these are expenses that we did in the last fiscal year but we can gain the spending Authority back for that for fiscal year 24-25 so right now our special ed deficit is 2.188 250.57 and we must have action in order to get this um approved through the sbrc okay great is it just basically just give us the spending Authority back to um not the money not the money but just the spending additional Authority because of the deficit Yankee will move to approve Anderson will second okay okay um all
037in favor no this is a role all in favor aye aye aye opposed no and we'll move then into the similar it's very similar another sbrc or school budget Review Committee uh this is to allow us to get the same spending Authority for our limited English proficiency allocation money that we were over spent for this year that allows us the spending Authority for this next year also just similar to the special Edmund and then when I need action force because it's due on October 2nd okay Anderson will second okay all in favor aye aye opposed no so that appears to be unanimous we'll move into the Mediacom contract for Metro for Metro West and this is for um Josh whitford's team to get all of the internet Etc set up at the new MetroWest location
038they're going to start the pre-build meetings coming up in the next two weeks so he wants to get started to have Mediacom out there pulling wires and everything to get going is this a expense that's ours because we're the host or is this a divided expense they're all divided okay Anderson moved to approve thank you countable second and all in favor aye opposed no so that appears to be unanimous the next two will be roll call since they're uh pricing um first one is the new maintenance fan yep new maintenance vehicle um this is replacing a vehicle that is basically at its end of life um we've tried for a year or so to find the suitable replacement and Zach has finally found a two vehicles for replacement in our department that fit what their
039needs are and what they need for that for that area so we asked that the board approved purchase of a Titan Nissan Titan van or truck at the price of 34 or 787 and a van I guess I'm ahead of myself there sorry about that um tell them where that's coming from that is all coming from Pebble money which of course we have our voter Pebble coming up in election here in November that also allows us to help replace of vehicles and uh yeah and so forth and it was in the 10-year plan that's what I want reiterated but there is a plan year plan that comes to the board every year and that will be coming again at probably I'd say probably at the organizational meeting or maybe before that okay so may I
040have a motion on the van purchase first please Anderson moved to okay we'll do a roll call Hauser yes yes me yes anything yes say your Geiser yes Anderson yes motion Fair sixer okay and may I have a motion on the truck Bridges I moved to approve the truck purchase meet Anderson second and a roll call Kent yes need yes nanky yes senior Kaiser yes Anderson yes Hauser yes Junction and may I have a motion to a journey say your geyser will second all in favor aye opposed no thank you thanks for your attention tonight great meeting thank you