School Board Meeting 08-02-22

001meeting in about 40 seconds i lost two board members [Music] and we are live are we live oh great good evening again so today is tuesday august 2nd and this is our first board meeting of a new school year how exciting is that so members present in the boardroom we have members wilson lessons holloman higgins donnelly and bellamy virtually we have member jacobs we also have uh dr bryant our new superintendent this is his first meeting as well um and we also we we have a new um administrative assistant in training tonight uh katie will be moving well just going next door still with the district but having a new experience and our new assistant is amanda foster so welcome amanda to your first board meeting of the year um i'd like to read our

002land acknowledgement at this time first we'll do the flags luke so please stand and join me in the flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i'm missing uh our student ellie ellie used usually does this for us but she's still on vacation on behalf of the anchorage school board i want to take a moment to recognize and offer gratitude for the sacred ancestral lands of the denia people we acknowledge and appreciate that our offices facilities and schools are on these sacred indigenous lands and we honor the traditional care that has been given to this land throughout the generations we are grateful for the opportunity to grow learn work and

003create educational communities on the sacred land we extend continued respect for the many cultures creativity and resilience of its indigenous peoples shannon so that moves us to item a3 uh first of all i do want to thank my uh the opening comments that i uh would like to just share again to welcome you and to thank you for attending and supporting the work of the anchorage school district and of this board we thank our students our parents teachers school business partners and the entire community for your investment in our district uh investing your time your talents and your tax dollars so welcome and that brings us to a very special uh part of our uh our agenda that is really uh not um that's really not uh on your uh that's not on your agenda

004because the board has to make a uh very significant recognition uh for about five minutes so we're going to do a recognition for in for about five minutes and then we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and resume our business so at this time uh the board should i'm going to ask the board to join me out front and bring your script [Music] we might need a couple of handheld so as i stated earlier tonight is kind of bittersweet and i hope this person is surprised uh but if uh if katie countryman grants if her family is in the house would you please come forward as well yes come [Music] so katie where are you [Music] it's okay so katie come on up guys come on i want

005you to join us [Music] so katie has served the board for over 11 years i have known katie for over 20 years she is a delight to work with and so to honor her [Music] thank you oh oh so and it was we did keep it a secret so thank you everybody for keeping it a secret oh yeah see they know how to do it so um we created a very special award for katie that we're going to give to her today and while we do it you can also check out the uh photos that kathy put together for us and i'm going to start first of all i took the wrong document give me yours so the award of excellence for the school board is given to individuals that demonstrate significant and outstanding service

006to the school board or the district katie countryman grant was born and raised in anchorage she is the daughter of legacy educator and local artist alice countryman kaye is a rogers park elementary alumni the family tradition continued when her daughters also attended rogers park elementary katie is an accomplished artist in her own right katie is the owner designer of wild alaska and state director of becca's closet a non-profit program that provides addresses and scholarships to high school students [Music] member jacobs are you able to read your part [Music] katie's excellence of service and public education began long before she accepted the position of executive assistant to the anchorage school board in 2011. this public service includes various physicians throughout the district directly supporting students and teachers in the classroom as well as hours of volunteering

007as a parent and business partner during her 11-year tenure as executive assistant katie has consistently supported the anchorage school board with project management budgets and calendar management public meeting transcription management correspondence lots of management here correspondence management logistics management and simultaneously providing other administrative support for each of the seven member governing board she's a master multitasker the [Music] the executive assistant position is responsible for a broad and complex set of challenging duties including facilitating meaningful engagement opportunities for the public coordinating dozens of board meetings annually and responding to hundreds of inquiries from individual board members katie has demonstrated unmatched professionalism dependability and grace in service to the school board and her community acting as the board's quasi parliamentarian and historian making herself available well outside of normal business hours on a consistent basis katie's unflappable

008kind nature and expansive knowledge of asd processes and operations was a valuable asset a valuable resource an asset during the school board search for a successor this was evidenced by katie's willingness to make herself available throughout the process and to facilitate a smooth transition it is with appreciation gratitude and many many things that the anchorage school board presents the award of excellence to katie countryman grant in recognition of her years of dedicated service to the board the board could not have achieved this crucial work without katie's guidance support resilience and flexibility we wish her the best as she begins the next chapter of public education service in the anchorage school district and so because we had a late start let's just take a very quick um 10 minute break come back and have some refreshments

009um yeah scooch in because we got to get pictures so please have some refreshments and we'll come back it uh in 10 minutes [Music] all right look at me [Music] please everyone including staff please have some requests that's hilarious [Music] no i like had no idea at all [Music] you okay you okay you so okay you um uh so um uh [Music] all righty i want to thank you so much for your patience and your indulgence that was very important and special for us [Music] so that brings us back to our agenda we on uh we are now at the approval a3 the approval of the agenda can i get a motion to approve the agenda move to approve the agenda as presented second moved in second to approve the agenda remember donnelly i moved

010a table the february 22 2022 regular session minutes to the august 16 2022 meeting for consideration second okay moved in second to pull the i'm sorry tell me again uh uh was it february february 22nd [Music] okay uh member member holliman second so it's been uh moved in second to uh table the february 22nd 2002 regular session minutes to table those until uh the next meeting which is august 16th is there any discussion regarding the motion regarding that motion all in favor of the motion the the amendment to the emotion can you please uh i don't do we have to vote i can just get a are there any oppositions there's point of order i don't see those minutes on the consent they're not on the consent oh right he was going to do it

011yeah but it is on your printed agenda okay all right all right is there any opposition to the motion all right seeing none to that uh and that's actually was an amendment to the motion right so now we are a a approving the actual agenda with that one uh change is there any opposition to approving the agenda with that one change not seen any the agenda is approved as amended thank you so that brings us to our um item b community reports and colonel dunn you and lieutenant colonel is it help me snip key snip key all right you guys welcome thank you and thank you for your patience and welcome all right good evening everybody thank you so much for having me um i'm colonel eric dunn i'm the mission support group commander just

012took command um back in june um over at joint base salmondorf richardson and and as miss bellamy noted uh lieutenant colonel chris schniebke is my deputy and ms adele daniels sitting right there she is our school liaison program coordinator and so we are here to to be your liaisons with the base especially adele she can help take care of any issues that you may have she is awesome as as well as holly her her teammate and partner in crime so make sure we know anything that you need and anything we can do for you and it doesn't have to be related to schools if you want to know more about the base know more about the mission come take a visit to the base let us know and and we're happy to help you with

013that i also want to thank you for just your leadership and transparency i know we had we had a lot of churn with the closing of ursa major but um that was laid completely flat with the base it was great communication and um and and it's really amazing how well that's come together to make sure our military kids are are getting to stay on base and just going to different schools so thank you so much for all the leadership and support on that um and i hope you all got to see our arctic thunder open house it was an awesome air show i know it was probably a lot of traffic to get in especially if you were coming late in the day but but it was absolutely amazing show um great show by the

014thunderbirds and and just uh great to see the community on the base and and getting to see a lot of the families um folks who normally don't get to come on the air force or the the joint base got to come and pay us a visit so thank you so much for that and and that's all i have for tonight are there any questions for us what's the size of our military student population this year oh you know that one adele i guess i'm on base in particular [Music] any other questions um yes remember wilson just just to comment i would like to take you take you up on your offer for a tour of the base i i'm sure other board members would like to join me so if we can uh request that

015through adele that'd be great yeah absolutely we actually have a um request already in form for no not for you alone uh but we heard from the new public information officer is that there's a pup a new public public affairs affairs office yeah um clay lancaster that's his name yeah but i think someone called on his behalf to set up so i think our uh community engagement folk are already working on that so uh we we will be doing something like that all right okay any other questions for colonel dunn c none colonel you are amazing thank you thank you man we appreciate the partnership all right all right [Music] our student representative is still vacationing so she's not here with us tonight uh so moving on to item c on our agenda we do

016not have a monitoring for uh our next monitoring goal monitoring will be in september so we do not have that uh tonight either and the monitoring calendar and all of our gold monitoring information you can find it online moving on now to our public comments section the board provides two opportunities um one at the beginning of our meeting and the other at the end of our meeting um in the event that we don't get through all the public comments uh in the beginning so um students do have take a priority uh we don't have any signed up tonight uh but we do have uh we do give our students an opportunity to testify no matter where they are in the queue so that they can get themselves home and in bed and ready for school

017the next day so um again we have set aside a one-hour slot at the beginning of the meeting for public comment anything in excess of the one hour will be heard at the second opportunity which is at the end of our meeting during public comment board members will not answer questions or engage in discussion with members of the public this is the public's time to speak and the board's time to listen the school board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings throughout through their comments however to be productive our meetings must be structured and civil as you entered the boardroom you would have uh we made available uh a blue and white form that kind of goes over what i'm going over right now so if you want to pick that up

018you may you may but the rules are very simple we conduct our meetings under robert's rules of order these rules require that the board and public be civil and respectful of each other's opinions and statements um we ask that uh that we do we ask that we do not attack uh board members uh employees or the speaker's motives uh no profanity or foul language we ask that we people we refrain from disturbing the meeting and that basically means well we just broke this rule because we cheered for katie but no cheering applause outburst or waving of signs or posters if you have handouts that you'd like to share with the board please give them to katie for her last meeting tonight so as a president of the board it is my duty to enforce the

019rules of civility and decorum as such and consistent with robert's rules of order i have the authority to rule on any speaker for violating these rules or who fail to conduct themselves in a civil manner additional details can be found on the handout that i referenced earlier so with that we are going to open our public comment it looks like the first one is telephonic first couple mr danielle kemp okay mr kemp is not online i'll check that what about bonnie diarman [Music] yep i'm here hi bonnie welcome you have uh please state your name and uh and then uh you have three minutes thank you okay thank you for your time tonight uh my name is bonnie diarman i'm an alumna of inlet view and my sons are current students at inleview elementary um

020i'm speaking you to you tonight to advocate for the school the school is dealing with a lot of issues it's a we have backing up toilets we have sewage on the playground um there was a time when our kids could not drink the water in the school um the roof is leaking and there's a lack of security that is pretty terrifying uh repairing the school one problem at a time is irresponsible use of money parents and teachers and neighbors have worked so hard on designing a new school and in the last school bond boat our neighborhood overwhelmingly supported in favor of the school we we want a new school so i'm just talking to you tonight uh in support of a new inlet view supporting the health and safety of our students and advocating using

021these appropriated funds from the legislative committee to replace the unsafe school that's all i have tonight thank you thank you bonnie [Music] next in person we have petra wilm yeah let my kids come up here sure they're not gonna speak you have three minutes but we'd love to see them hello guys for my exhibits hello my name is peter wilm and i'm a parent of these two tiny inlet view elementary kids my son is an alum and he was this tall when he started kindergarten at inlet view my daughter is starting her final year as a sixth grader she couldn't wait to start kindergarten and she pulled me to school the whole way on her first day i joined the pta when my daughter when my daughter started in libya and i've had several officer

022positions including president during the copic crisis i was asked by the former principal we have a new principle this year but i was asked by the former principal to participate in the building design on the building design committee when we started the process and got the funding to design the new school and to provide feedback to the architect the landscape architect and asd as they work through the new school design the design process has been going on for more than two years and the drawings are ready for permitting this project is poised to move forward quickly once construction funds are available you've probably heard through emails and from bonnie's testimony last and probably later this evening about many of the things that are wrong with inlet view but i thought i'd shake things up a

023little and tell you about a few critical things that are so so right about in the view in the view is located in a bustling neighborhood with a lot of turnover of younger families over the last decade there are many young kids who are poised to attend not even in kindergarten age yet but their parents are ready and waiting they will be able to walk and bike safely to the front door as many generations have and even more safely at the new replacement school the student body in the view is diverse and not just culturally inlet view kids come from a wide widely different economic backgrounds this mix at a school is becoming more rare and important as america becomes more divided by income levels and schools become increasingly specialized and specific [Music] many of

024the staff and teachers at in the view have had long tenures there they provide the backbone that fostered the international baccalaureate program which was finally certified last year after three years of applying and spending a lot of money sending teachers to be trained and being reviewed so that was a very exciting milestone for us this is the only international baccalaureate program for primary schools in the state of alaska the parent teacher association is alive and kicking since covid parents and staff have worked together to revive two successful fundraisers that were asleep during cobia our spring salmon run this year had one of its most successful years ever this is a critical moment for inlet view please keep this little workhorse of a public school at the front of your thoughts as you decide the wisest

025way to spend the state funds you cannot go wrong with an investment in inlet view thank you peter next we have barbara bundy [Music] welcome barbara [Music] you have three minutes hi thank you like bonnie diarman i am also an inlet view alumnus i graduated i'm aging myself in 1986 from sixth grade and my two children um my son just graduated from sixth grade and my my older son and my younger son is going into fifth and i just wanna add words of support for investing in inlet view i mean it's kind of like when your car gets super old and it's just costing more to fix it nobody likes to lay out the money but at some point you know it's going to cost you more in the long run if you don't and

026we're at the point now i mean when i was there in the early 80s it was too small and there weren't enough separate room you know you need a separate gym and a separate cafeteria or else there's just you just can't do all the things that an elementary school should do and you know now we've got the portables it's just in bad shape it's not safe and i think we're facing a choice between do we invest money now and have something that is safe and promotes all the activities and the learning that we want to have or do we spend money the same amount or more according to the studies over years and end up with something even worse that we then have to replace anyway i mean as the former owner of a 2003

027minivan i can tell you that that's at some point you have to bite the bullet and so i strongly support as just a good fiscal decision that we replace and love you the kids deserve it they work really hard there the teachers work hard the principles work hard it's a great school it's got a great diversity of community and and i think we should invest in it and then i do want to take 30 seconds to say that i i'm a little nervous with public speaking and the sign up process it's not something i would normally do to testify in public but you always get an email back from katie and she's always really helpful and it just makes you feel a little bit like okay i think i can do this so thank you

028hard work thank you [Music] deborah hansen welcome thank you you have three minutes [Music] thank you good evening president bellamy aboard and a special welcome to dr bryant we hope you enjoy our community in alaska and we're we hope you have a great life here so anyway my name is deborah hansen and i have lived for the last 40 years actually over 40 years now next to inlet view school and i oppose the secrecy in which asd has chosen to move inlet view school to the south end of the school yard and i'm asking you to stop the project in order to restore trust in the public process i handed out a list of the envision contracts since 2014 and all the amendments that have been made to it um [Music] it's the contract values

029increased from 55 000 to over 3 million all based on a eight-year-old rfp and when i was reading the amendments what it demonstrated to me is the anchorage school district decided before july 7 2020 to move the school to the south side because it stated in there in the proposal so that was around the time the bond passed for 2020. this was before there was any public comment or any intervention or you all went through the whole public process and had already decided to move the school to the south end of the school ground had i known that's what asd would have done i wouldn't have voted for the bond and i certainly would have made a fuss back in 2020 rather than a whole in september of 2021 when we found out about it

030anyway this was a major move asd did have meetings with school teachers with parents not with the immediate neighbors and they violated the state of alaska open meetings act which has been remedied sort of but anyway despite all this neighborhood opposition when we found out about it the school bond failing and the failure at the urban design commission the anchorage school district continues to push this design through the latest is the rumor which the previous people spoken to is about capturing some state money to fund um the school now how do you think voters will view the anchorage school district when you're magically finding money to pay for england view after they turned it down do you think this is going to help pass the next school bond we can't keep magically funding asd we

031need to pass some bonds that was a hundred over what how what was 110 million or something that was turned down we need the money to keep grooves from leaking the or some majors closed down they're moving kids to other schools anyway i'm asking you to pull inlet view from the urban design commission review go back to the drawing board propose an excellent building that the community supports we all own these schools and we need to keep them going we i asked you to restore the public trust and stop this project anyway thanks for listening to me and i know it's a complex path for you to manage the largest organization here in anchorage and finally i want to say katie got back to me sometimes on sunday nights she was fantastic and i hope

032you have a great life ahead of you because you've done wonderful work here thank you deborah next michael teo welcome you have three minutes good evening uh my name is michael teo i'm a parent of a five-year-old incoming kindergarten student at inlet view my family and i have lived in the area where in the view is the neighborhood school for uh for over 10 years um as you've already are aware and you've heard darts tonight um you probably know inland view is one of the oldest schools in the district it suffered from chronic maintenance issues for years the school district has already invested in into the planning for rebuild replacement of inlet view and i'm here to ask that you consider as you consider how to allocate state capital improvement funds to prioritize the rebuilding

033of inland view as a high priority i understand they'll always be competing demands for limited capital improvement funds i've been aware that inlet view has needed rebuild for quite a long time in the passing years other neighborhood schools have received capital improvement funds and the pieces are now in place for replacement of inlet view i think the timing is right i'm pragmatic i realize that some are opposed to rebuilding the school so i'd advocate prioritizing the learning environment the students both in the near term and the distant future would experience in a new building so i also worry as i read about devastating acts of violence perpetrated on students in other parts of the country that security interview falls very short i know that a rebuilding view a replacement would be a more secure place

034for students to learn than the outdated and secure building that stands there today as the parent of a five-year-old i have friends and acquaintances with similarly aged children in the neighborhood uh we talk weepball we we look forward with enthusiasm uh for uh sending our kids to the neighborhood school and we hope that it will be it will be rebuilt and renewed thank you very much elise huggins welcome we have three minutes thank you um my name is elise huggins and thank you all for being here and doing the service that you do i really do appreciate it i have a couple of acknowledgements i'd like to make one is acknowledging that we as a community need to acknowledge that this is one of the district's oldest schools this school was designed by ed crittenden

035he was known as the father of architecture in alaska i'm not here to say keep the school i'm just here to say we need to acknowledge that the school has a place in anchorage's history it is the only remaining example of a building of this type in anchorage and i say this with heartbreak because the fourth avenue theater is being demolished as we as i speak um i have worked for the school district the school district i own the firm of earthscape i have worked for the school district for the past 30 years the school district has made my livelihood i truly am thankful for that i have worked as a site planner and a landscape architect i come on this project because i think there are things that happened in the process here i

036also acknowledge the people who work so hard the community members who spent two years working on a process to make their school better to have a new school and to have it fit into the community however it was a flawed process it didn't involve the full community it didn't get full community input so as someone who's worked on over 70 anchorage school district site plans and that's doing master plans and site plans i worked at denali elementary school where there was objection to the relocation of that school we stopped the process the architecture firm that worked for it held workshops they worked with the community and it led to the current plan of the school which is an incredible school it's an incredible elementary school it the process was delayed for a little bit but

037we have a building that's going to be there for 50 years at denali elementary school that's not going to happen with the current inlet view elementary school design i worked on meers middle school we were in the process of redesigning the parking lot which is a lot of what i do is making school grounds safer for for everyone especially the children the process was stopped three quarters of the way through because we had a community member who was not happy with design we said we came up with the best possible design that we could come up with he argued he argued we had work sessions we invited more of the community members lo and behold he had a better idea than we did we went back to the drawing board we took his idea and

038we came back to the neighborhood we came back to the school district and said this is a better design we agree with it we worked um on um mere some years gerdwood south anchorage high school was opposed by the community we worked with neighbors i knocked on neighborhood neighbors doors to see what their opinion was to see what kind of landscaping they like to see what the fences they want to minimize objections to the school so this is the process that we have flawed with inlet view elementary school with covid and with um some of the things that have happened um the psychological term i'm sorry your time is up [Music] and and thank you for coming [Music] see there's one right here oh okay [Music] thank you elise next we have martin hanson [Music]

039welcome martin you have three dr minutes welcome to anchorage if you decide you would like to learn cross-country skiing i've been coaching 25 years be happy to help school board members it's good to see all of you again katie i'm sorry i'm not good to see you again but you've been wonderful and very helpful thank you [Music] well i'm martin hansen i coach cross-country skiing for elementary school kids i've done i think for 25 years for the last two years i've been a kindergarten teacher's aide at willa law school [Music] i've coached boys and girls club soccer at inlet musical i care about kids and i've lived next door to inlet view school for 36 years i voted for the school bond replace inlet view school on its existing site at the north end of

040the property and like every speaker here i want them at school to be a better school that's why i'm here um last fall september 21 asd revealed that in violation of the open meetings act and in violation of asd's guidelines for elementary school design that the new school would be built on the south end of the property in the highest earthquake risk zone in anchorage now my house is on that zone too and i'm willing to take that risk but i'm not willing to put that risk for the kids and staff the reason for this move was so that the students could stay in their old school while the new school was built and i don't think that will work and uh this is uh this is my exhibit um what you have is the

041existing school and the proposed school [Music] and there's about a 20-foot gap between the two i don't see how you're going to teach kids when you're going construction that close well you've got the dust you've got the noise you've got the risks associated with heavy equipment and you aren't going to have any playing grounds playing ground for them for every other school in anchorage when it's needed to be repaired when it's needed to be replaced anchored school district like ursa major experience has found a way to make it work and to make it work well i'm asking you um dr bryant and you know friends on the school board please make it work for inlet use school we can have a better school [Music] for our students for the public and for the future and

042i know that you can do i know you can do it and i hope you do it i thank you very much for your attention thank you mr hansen uh next we have pamela tesh keshi welcome [Music] thank you my name is pamela teschi and um i've been a resident of uh south edition um although i'm for um well since 1975. i had a child who went to um inlet view and she's 32 now and back then it was a rough school needing replacing so i'm all for i've always supported school bonds i support students and the legislation that is needed to support education and um but what i don't support is the site plan for this particular school um and also i didn't know anything about it be the uh the building being moved

043to the uh south end um and that just seems odd to me in terms of shadowing even though the architect has come up with all these uh official documents to say that's not an issue except in real life it is and uh and the fact that we just heard about it um as uh unless we were um specifically parents of the air uh of the school and the children and that that concerns me because i would have had uh input much earlier before three million um three million dollars had been spent and um i hope we can revisit um this uh plan with um people who are knowledgeable um such as miss huggins and other people who have been and architects in this process so that we can have better input than we have had

044previously thank you thank you very much miss tashi uh next anna uh boysen [Music] welcome [Music] good evening and thank you chair and um welcome to anchorage um this is my first time coming to the school board here um especially during covet and such and and to bring my daughter here but it's it's that important i'm an immediately adjacent neighbor of the inlet view elementary i'm here to ask you to appropriate funds to rebuild the school although voters and a couple outlying parts of the municipality voted against the bond nearly 70 percent of the voters from the inlet view area supported the bond and that was when it would have been 100 percent funded by homeowners and other local property taxpayers now that the state legislature has stepped up an appropriated funding i can only

045see support for these projects being higher as you know the inlet view building is falling apart failing plumbing failing heating sewage leaking onto the playground in april the school bond failed by a narrow margin i was angry and disappointed then less than a month later on my on may 24th the absolutely horrific shooting at robb elementary school in uvalde texas happened now i'm scared for teachers and families inland view lacks a safe entry vestibule which can reduce this risk of violence against our young children and our families and everyone who is participating on school grounds for before after care for activities such as skiing and for families and staff that spend many days of their lives there year after year please fund inlet view now the need of this project is at least as great

046if not greater than any of the other projects and taking care of the most expensive of the bond packages will make it much easier to pass a bond with other smaller projects spread across the city finally i recognize that every day every month of delay is damaging to inlet view parents are thinking about sending their kids elsewhere because they don't know if they're going to have a safe and functional building please get this problem fixed and appropriate the money for inlet view as intended by some of the key legislators who have fought legislators who have fought and won for this funding i am upset to hear that my neighbors don't support this for to me what seems to be superficial and visible concerns for shadowing or placement of the school and that safety and comfort

047and security should be at the top of everyone's minds after the uvalde shooting thank you [Music] thank you very much miss bozen [Music] next telephonically we have seth anderson seth can you hear star six to unmute there you go yeah this is seth america yes we can hear you you have three minutes sir great thank you this is uh seth anderson i am a parent of students at inlet viewing elementary school uh a stroke structural engineer locally um i'm calling in to talk about of course in my view elementary school and the possibility to use funding from the state of alaska to [Music] replace the nwu school so so far there's been over two and a half million dollars um spent on design and permitting uh for an in-review school replacement so it's well underway

048um i have a concern that if there's no plans for a placement to the school there's also no plans for maintenance or safety improvements to the school there's nothing on the current capital improvement budget or in the six year capital improvement plan for things like improving the poor pedestrian visibility and safety addressing the hvac systems that are a distraction to teaching and learning or the inadequate fire and life safety systems that are needed for a safe school asd and their professional consultants have determined in the past that the cost effective and fiscally responsible solution to managing inlet view is to replace the school repair and renovation looked at in the long term is not the most economical use of asd funds that was determined by asd and their consultants inlet view replacements been on the

049asd capital budget and six year capital improvement plan for maybe more than 10 years i'm a past member of the anchorage planning the zoning commission um and it's been several years since i was on it but even when when i was on it then it was always on the six-year capital improvement plan to to replace them with useful so if there is money available in asd's capital improvement accounts from the state legislature i think that it should be used to finally replace them with you thank you thank you mr anderson next we have david hansen welcome you have three minutes well thank you very much for having me it's i cannot believe july is over and we are in august that is wild i think everyone i know has gotten married i think and i

050don't think i was here for most of july which is a big shame um big uh welcome i guess to this school year that i appreciate really appreciate seeing all of you i'm here as i'm sure you could guess with my family to talk about uh the proposed inlet view school i'm really a proud graduate of asd it propelled me forward to be able to travel to school uh getting to school out east uh but i missed alaska and came back and worked as a carpenter before architecture school down in seattle finished up architecture school with my master's and you know i keep coming back i've had opportunities to be elsewhere i've gotten jobs elsewhere and i keep saying you know i need to be in anchorage um i grew up right next to inlet

051view elementary school i ended i grew up playing in that beautiful field um and i grew up supporting the school and you know as a result of the education i got asd i think i'm gonna end up as a successful architecture in town i don't intend to leave i want to be a community member forever until you know the great beyond comes um what i'm here to talk to you about is i think during covet a lot of rash decisions were made and a lot of haphazard decisions were made because we were panicked and i think the decision on asd's part and i don't know if this breaks robert's rules was a haphazard idea to keep a school open build a new school and then swap in it to me it kind of breaks down

052to one year of utility versus 50 years of life a school is not only a building but it's also a place outside to find for kids to learn about nature about running about being physical there's being being trapped in school all day as an elementary school a kid is like a no-go i would imagine um i have not had the benefit of being a kidney t ta like my father has um so i guess what i'm asking the school board here to do is to really listen to everyone here and see there's no difference the big supporters of inlet view whether it's replacement or repair and remodel big big feelings here but it's really just an issue of placement and it's an issue of how asd went about talking about a really expensive project so

053i'm really urging you to think uh that's a lovely bell uh to think about the fact that i as a big supporter of asd and a big supporter of education wasn't able to vote for the bond this year and that really bummed me out in like a serious way and i would love in the future to vote for every single bond i can um so thank you for your time i hope you all had a great summer i see some tans and i'll see you i guess in two weeks or so thanks thank you mr hanson amanda compton is she online yes she's there amanda starr six to unmute i i just star six can you hear me yes thank you welcome you have three minutes thank you my name is amanda compton i grew

054up in the south edition in the 80s and 90s and i purchased a residence there in 2009. my childhood was fantastic because there's wide streets in the south edition there's big trees there's slow moving vehicles and wonderful large areas of open space the parkship offers a section of the neighborhood to downtown and the inlet view open field offers unlimited opportunities i've spoken up against the proposed south side design many times now i've been told to stay objective pragmatic and stick to the facts but the reason i like this neighborhood has little to do with the statistics the groundwater levels and parking lot specs it has everything to do with the culture there were three of us girls on fulton p street about the same age we basically had three moms the neighborhood was buoyed by

055a strong sense of support and camaraderie the culture felt different then and i attribute that to making civil intentional decisions for the greater good of the neighborhood education isn't isolated to teaching billy and susie in their classrooms it's a component of community and neighborhood health you've already heard or will hear specific issues many residents have about the current proposed design on the south side there's no other school that's shoved against people's houses without a road buffer but these are poor design elements it's the design process that's perhaps the most disheartening get over it with what a neighbor told me get over a clandestine design process and i won't but will you guys people feel disenfranchised across the nation and this school design process highlights a contributing reason civility is under attack how we treat one

056another matters why push a design that's wrought with so much descent especially when there are alternatives that won't result in student busing supporting the current design for the new school will send a very clear signal to community organizers that transparency and public participation are not necessary components for large community projects they are however necessary components for a healthy and civil community thanks for your time thank you ms compton next we have lois epstein or is it epstein welcome [Music] okay thank you you have three minutes and welcome [Music] uh thank you and good evening uh congratulations superintendent brian and welcome to anchorage my name is lois epstein and i'm a licensed engineer in alaska and i live near but not adjacent to inlet view elementary school i'm a former member of anchorage's budget advisory commission

057i use the school grounds frequently as many of you know about which superintendent bryant might not the process for addressing inlet views needs has been horrendous asd and its architects did not include community members in design discussions until it was too late for those involved to make a difference and of course that leads us to wonder whether that was intentional the process also violated the state's open meetings act as an engineer and this is not a superficial set of reasons the south side design selected clearly will result in high not yet quantified costs to remedy the groundwater issues on that part of the grounds and what might affect uh houses nearby neighborhood traffic will significantly worsen as vehicles would be directed to a single often icy hill exit whereas now there are three exits from

058the neighborhood the south side building location has higher seismic risks than the existing school location and the green space our community treasures would be covered with visitor parking spots that are unnecessary in this neighborhood of wide streets and are we're being told it's just because that's what the code says in short the design selected is objectively terrible from an engineering and community standpoint because asd has a new superintendent a new chief operating officer and new inlet view elementary school principal and the school bond failed in april now is an excellent time to begin a more inclusive stakeholder process to address and libya's needs as a founder of friends of inlet view elementary school or fives our organization urges the anchorage school board to withdraw the pending major site plan review for inlet view elementary school

059replacement that is awaiting a decision at the september 14 2022 urban design commission meeting note that the urban design commission did not approve the current design at its march 9 2022 meeting and virtually no design changes have been made since therefore we ask for the withdrawal of the application the fives organization is confident that a new school design and location supported by the entire community can be developed expeditiously without going back to square one in the design process thank you very much for your thoughtful consideration of this request to withdraw the inlet view elementary school application to the urban design commission thank you miss epstein next we have sharon m medium sharon welcome [Music] you have three minutes good evening and welcome superintendent brad my name is sharon meacham and i am retired anchorage school

060district principal and was a late appointee to the inlet view building design committee last year you received testimony from myself and several other inlet views neighbors who voice their concerns about the accepted building proposal we continue our support for a new inlet view school we do not support the endorsed plan we repeatedly asked that the building be built in a location where the subsurface was drier and posing less seismic risk where the better traffic flow could occur where there was safer pedestrian access and where there was less playground shading during the winter months to date there has been no movement on any of these issues tonight it's the start of a new school year and i ask again that you reconsider the location of this building plan i have two key issues one is health

061safety and under that heading i would say the proposed issue as you've heard is in the highest seismic danger area and uh we know this fact by the charts that asd had shared to to the community the north end is viewed as less risky and the current inlet view structure has withstood two major earthquakes and gives great testimony to that to that vision this proposal also requires that the children do remain in the school where as you've heard raw sewage makes its way into the sinks the toilets and also appears on the playground the new plan also creates dangers for potential dangers for pedestrians who are accessing the school to enter the building because they need to cross a busy intersection they need to go through a parking lot and then cross through the drop

062off and pick up area just to get to the front door the second concern i have is one of cost the building before the building foundation can be poured we have to do extensive and expensive site work and the way i understand it the water table is only four feet below the current playground and that will ex that will create extensive water drainage issues next way i understand it also is that um we will have to then pull out several feet of underground peat and then replace it with new fill now we've asked if there was any kind of cost analysis between the left the north side and the south side regarding these issues but we were told nothing like that existed we have heard from the asd employees and experts that the north side

063is preferred we're starting a new year with a new administrative focus and i hope ask you to open the process to the people around the community and to develop a most cost effective and safe building for the inlet view community and the anchorage school district thank you thank you ms mitchum uh next we have our roslyn grady weiss [Music] okay i don't see her in the boardroom let's try zach fields welcome you have three minutes thank you chairwoman bellamy members of the board and superintendent bryant um my name is zach fields and i'm here to testify in support of using some of the money that the legislature appropriated to build inlet view i don't have a dog in the fight in terms of the design i know that kids need a new school building i

064wanted to let you know that anchorage area legislators watched closely when the school bond narrowly failed despite very strong support within neighborhoods that go into inlet view and when legislators saw that bond fail i think there was an understanding that there were some voters in anchorage who had reached a tipping point and after years of no school bond debt reimbursement no state matching funds we as a state had to step up and match funds and thankfully we were able to do that and that money survived the veto pin um i'm glad the legislature acted swiftly to appropriate the funding um an inlet view was on the minds of several of us um it was my my top priority for capital funding and um representative drummond who currently represents forest park um also identified it um

065as the only capital priority um so ever all of us and so did tom baggage so all of us who represented that area uh fought for that money and with the support of the capital budget coach here kelly merrick um we got it i know that over 100 million dollars from the state is not enough to address all your capital needs all your security needs and all the needs in terms of a fiscal cliff but i think if we use some of this money wisely we'll position ourselves for future bond success i would argue that appropriating funds for inlet view which is the largest obligation we face right now gives you the flexibility to go to either a one-year or two-year bond in the future which is important it's going to enable your next bond

066package to have the widest possible geographic spread and i think when we look at the returns from south anchorage and last bond that geographic spread of projects is going to be really important if the district and in addition to that looking at over 100 million dollars coming to the district that is enough money to rebuild inlet view to make other school um safe entry vestibule improvements and to appropriate money for the fiscal cliff i think i also we also have to acknowledge that um you know we as a state are going to have to step up and help you with that fiscal cliff and that's advocacy that i want to work on together we can't solve that problem tonight but we can advocate strongly going forward i want to be part of that finally i

067just want to acknowledge that there are very pressing safety issues at inlet view right now and rebuilding that school should be the district's highest capital priority there's not a safe entry vestibule it is very outdated it makes no sense to add a new safe entry vestibule to a building that's falling apart today there's fencing around the sewage leak outside on the playground that fencing has been there for months the bathrooms don't work the heating and plumbing systems are failing and the district zone analysis shows that will be more expensive to renovate than replace the school thank you for listening and for the board's previous support for inlet view thank you representative fields and that brings us back that is our last uh person to testify uh to provide comment do you have any anybody signed

068up okay so that brings us to our consent agenda item e [Music] madam president i move to approve or adopt the consent agenda as presented second moved uh moved in second to approve the agenda as presented is there any opposition to approving the agenda at the consent agenda as presented see none consent agenda is approved we have no action items so we're moving on now to item g non-action items remember lessons yeah i'd like to um pull memorandums 1 2 and 11 for discussion one two and i don't see a letter sorry uh down the bottom zero zero oh um it's memorandum one zero one one and it's item number eight eight okay all right thank you [Music] do we need a second too all right so now if we can if there are no

069other items being pulled uh can we have uh we we will uh remember lessons you pulled item one two and eight would you like to speak to your number one thank you for this opportunity madam president um this was a pretty lengthy memorandum and i fully believe in energy efficiency but what i don't understand is why this project is being proposed right now maybe i need to reread this more carefully i didn't see the mirrors project anywhere on the six-year cip that we recently approved um and i don't understand why this project would leap frog over the other items that the district has grappled with and and if there's a compelling reason then maybe i didn't get it or understand it but i just wanted to to raise that question of why this project um

070over three million dollars um right now right i've got the ryan i'm going to ask that acting chief operating officer rob holland respond thank you welcome didn't know you were going to speak tonight did you [Music] thank you through the president thank you members um just a brief overview and i'd like to act ask senior director of capital planning and construction tom fenisef to go into more detail so at at meers middle school we have an ongoing situation where in effect we've already opened up the exterior of the building and what we would call a concealed condition is that the siding needs replacement okay is the premise here not going into details of why the siding needs replacement know that when they begin to take that off we've discovered that there's no insulation under there

071and there should in fact be insulation under there in fact when we go up to the second level and also begin to look under the siding we find that there's no insulation that will have to be remedied and so that's the the generality of the concealed condition we're speaking of i i can ask mr fenestev to go into more detail there for you so through the president um so we did have mirrors project the roof was being done that project is completed um but in going through and evaluating especially after the earthquake we noticed that there were various portions of the exterior veneer which was a masonry type veneer was was falling off in areas it caused a [Music] safety risk uh so we we dug in deeper to that and that's when we found

072out that the insulation underneath that um was not up to standards and so therefore we we kind of were put into a position where we we had to move forward with it you have a question yes so just to paint a picture in my mind i thought that i read that there was thermographic imaging or you know sort of i'm imagining you're using a device to look through the building but what i think i heard you say is that it's already opened up if i were to drive by mirrors would i see walls opened up without insulation right now i mean is that small areas okay so small areas have been served up yes and which is how we discovered the problem which would be how it was elevated to a level of heightened concern

073yes ma'am and that we explore when thermal imaging gives us a reason to look for for hot or cold spots absolutely that's that's the procedure yes is that less is that less terrible than like leaky roofs with in schools with buckets right now well so as mr fantastic mentioned the roof was the first priority and that that pieces is done or nearly completed is that correct and then the second phase of that was to explore why some of this facade i called it siding which is an oversimplification why it was beginning to crack and or peel off of the building and that's that's when further analysis revealed that underneath we do have some moisture that's gotten in but we also have a lack of any insulating material that should have in fact been there okay

074thank you so your next item you guys might just stay right where you are this is a good team to have yes so um i was looking at the contract sheet the contract modifications um and it looks like costs on those items have increased anywhere from two percent to more than 11 that's clearly an upward trend and i'm just wondering if there are any areas um or types of cost increases that are more worrisome for the administration i mean any cost increase is worrisome but are there particular areas of i don't know school construction that like you're really raising the red flags that we should be aware of well i'll start and then i can always ask for more detail in general i would i would like uh the board to know that we are

075tracking these increases very carefully note that the increases on on the spreadsheet you're referring to are actually on the low end in what we are trending for new projects that we're asking for scope and bid on and so we're very concerned with material costs we're tracking material costs alone right now of up to 40 percent in some materials like glass all metal costs are up where in fact it's a curvilinear trend that we're tracking material cost increases right now we also have insurance and labor costs note that labor costs are generally part of of of a scope where a contractor will need to put in an added risk factor because all of these projects are a bit at risk from a contractor's perspective and there is now this whole added dynamic where there are delays

076perhaps not enough personnel to finish the jobs so we're seeing these cost escalations and uh it will have a material impact if there's no end in sight soon as to the the amount of work that can get done in some cases we're going back and revisiting itbs that that were originally let several months or a year ago to make sure our cost estimates are current before any work begins if you'd like any information in particular on any line items there i could certainly ask for mr mr fenestev to comment on that i was mostly just curious about what if you were most worried about but it sounds like you have many worries that's one way to put it yes ma'am yeah i i'd like to share um the latest alaska general contractors report they but

077they put out these inflation alerts and and honestly looking at some of these numbers that we've seen for change orders i'm really surprised they're as low as they are overall according to the agc report which was published in april the construct construction industry has seen an 18 increase in bid price it's just right off the bat steel has gone up 113 diesel fuel has gone up 237 percent which affects transportation of all these materials plywood over 100 copper 70 gypsum 29 [Music] uh aluminum 52 uh so not only do we have issues with the cost of the supplies but also in getting them here in in diesel or by ship which where most of our materials comes from so i'm actually kind of surprised these are as low as they are and i think that's

078due to the relationship we have with our contractors [Music] okay thank you and for item number eight remember lessons yeah this is this one had a smaller figure but um i guess this is related to my ongoing question about um is there an update for what our one-to-one initiative for technology is going to be looking like as we move forward it's my understanding that um these chromebooks are replacing ones that will be expired but then to what purpose to what end and that's probably a question uh for our tech yeah all right our cio uh mr fleckinson will answer yeah thank you thank you guys through the president to miss uh mrs lessons um so these devices actually are being that are being replaced are devices that have actually completely aged out and been removed

079from the system in july and so they're really old devices they're in the seven year plus range and google no longer supports them and so these are replacing infrastructure that currently exists as far as one to one we are going to have that discussion uh this year with instruction about uh what are what are the appropriate levels for one-to-one and how do we want to continue to maintain it right now we use uh grades three through twelve uh being one to one and uh the three through six really is not completely one-to-one uh yet at this point either there's lots of shared devices and carts at those levels and so we if you if you looked at elementary schools those are about two to one as opposed to one to one so secondary is all

080one-to-one and this point um is hoping to continue to be a one-to-one i think elementary there may be some additional discussion about what that model looks like this year okay you good all right so these items will come back before the board in two weeks all of them all of the non-action items i would think the couple would make it to consent agenda um but we will vote next week and this brings us to our second opportunity for public comment [Music] um okay we're trying working out a technical glitch mad president [Music] is anybody else warm it just seems really warm in here can somebody please turn down the heat thank you member donnelly i'm actually quite comfortable but i i've been where you are um and we can uh if that's possible we will

081let the staff uh try to do something [Music] yeah okay thank you sorry so maybe we can can that individual can we have the next speaker just call in and we hold the phone [Music] all right um we're still having a little technical glitch uh what i'd like to do is move forward and then if if they are able to connect we'll come back to them okay all right so let's go with the superintendent update your first one it's my first one so uh good evening everyone so i hope you'll indulge me in a couple minutes of remarks and then i'll get to the business um first off um i just want to thank the entire school board and the anchorage community for the opportunity to serve as your superintendent this marks my 33rd day

082in the role and needless to say there is a lot to learn about this incredible community and i look forward to it um i also feel immense gratitude and respect for my predecessor dr bishop who truly went above and beyond to make me feel welcome and prepared since i moved here in may the anchorage community is one that i want to be a part of for the long haul dozens of people have been kind enough to welcome me into their homes and show me all the fun spots to eat at and gather in town and i'm very grateful to feel that i have real friends and connections here and since moving here just a few months ago i had i've had the opportunity to even spend my birthday in gerdwood with new friends get up

083to flat top i saw my first whale not in anchorage to be clear i saw it um in juneau um and i got a nice pack rafting trip uh in portage creek and i am not too embarrassed to share um with the public that i got stuck in a tree in my first 10 minutes on my pack rafting trip um because what i wanted to share is that i got unstuck and that's what's important is getting unstuck from the tree and you know honestly getting stuck in a tree uh is a lot like being superintendent it's like you're trying to avoid the tree um and sometimes the current just comes and knocks in a different direction and you end up in the tree but you know what you have to get out of the tree

084because that's how our kids are going to get educated um so i'm going to keep on getting unstuck from trees um and then i also want to share that i've greatly enjoyed the opportunity to get a head start on my listening and learning tour across the district today i've already visited dozens of campuses observed numerous summer programs in action and i've had numerous one-on-one and small group conversations with principals asd team members which includes teachers and assistant principals and leaders of our employee associations we have a lot of great things already going on and people in place in asd and i look forward to supporting and growing that good work it was also a pleasure to begin meeting with our community leaders to discuss potential collaborations with the district for example um i enjoyed my

085time with our new uh chancellor parnell and are collected big hopes for a stronger partnership than ever before in continuing our incredible collaborations such as our middle college amcs um i also want to share that i look forward to planning for asd's future alongside the community um a number of people seem to be interested in what is my vision um in future uh for the district and the thing about um any future vision or direction is that it requires the input of the community it means that i need to get out there i need to listen to our employees and community and our staff and the great people of anchorage because together we collectively shape that future um to be clear anchorage is a special place and while we do need to make changes to

086get to where we need to be we need to implement those changes in a way that fits the unique needs of this community anchorage so as we gear up for back to school you can expect to see me out there in the community in our school buildings talking with staff seeing classrooms and listening to what you have to say about our schools and where you want to see the district go uh so but i will share that what i intend to be focused on is one are board goals and guardrails two ensuring that asd is on a path to long-term financial sustainability given our conversation earlier today and three uh retaining and attracting talented educators to choose asd for the long haul as a leader i like to keep it simple and laser focused on

087the quality of teaching in our classrooms and the quality of leadership in our schools and everything else needs to align and support that so with that said i'd like to share a few high level updates with the board one i'd like to start by giving an update on ursa major i first want to express immense gratitude for the irsa major staff and families and the entire jber community for trusting us to do what's needed to ensure the safety of our students in addition to what i've already shared in my written communication with the community and the board i'd like to add um that staff have been for rather staff have been informed of their placement school for the year and we're in the process of physically relocating items from ursa major to our other base

088campuses um we're still awaiting a final written report from the original engineering firm involved with ursa majors seismic evaluation and we are in the process of obtaining a second engineering firm opinion as well so that we are well prepared to evaluate our next steps uh for those of you who want lifetime updates you can check out our website at asdk12.org um relocation and you can also go on our main page and click on hot topics and it's right there so thank you to the many people in this room as well as our jber principals who have truly worked around the clock in recent days to make sure there is a safe and efficient plan in place for our ursa major students and families two i want to share a quick update on our summit so

089i'm pleased to share that all of our assistant principals and principals attended our leadership and learning summit this year at bartlett high school principals have the opportunity to convene in small group discussions with our leadership team to receive timely and important information on everything from teaching and learning to safety and security it was a much smaller event than it's been in past years because i have a very strong belief in engaging in two-way dialogue with principles that's very important and central to their leadership development because like i mentioned i envision a well-supported highly effective principle in every school i also want to share that we have 61 asd staff asd staff members who are either aps and principals who are new to their school or new to their role i want to repeat that 61

090people either new to their role um or new to the assistant principalship or principalship and that is really putting fire underneath to ensure that we emphasize their own professional development because i can tell you it's not easy to be a new guy um and it requires a lot of work to be prepared um and on that note i want to share um that i recently made a trip to juneau i enjoyed it it was my first time um i was there for the alaska superintendent association fly in similarly similarly to how we have so many new assistant principals and principals in anchorage we have dozens of new superintendents and people who are new to the superintendent position including myself and i love feeling that we're all in this together and asa is doing great work

091to keep us all connected and advocating for the right things for student at the state level i received a fantastic presentation on the reading bill from legislative staffers who were in the room as that bill was being drafted and i really feel optimistic that that bill is going to put asd as well as the state in the right direction so we'll be sure to report on board level updates as it relates to our planning for full implementation in the next school year and lastly regarding juno i had the opportunity to receive a warm welcome from our new acting commissioner of deed and i look forward to our continued partnership and collaboration a couple more updates on health and medical this one's important so we are going to continue to monitor the situation in anchorage as

092it relates to all communicable diseases which includes covid19 at this time we plan to adhere to the same infectious disease prevention protocols that the board was most recently briefed on our mitigation response will continue to be driven by data and in partnership with public health officials to learn more about the specifics of our plan you can go to our website at asd k 12 slash covid19 and the last thing that i want to brief the board on is back to school so first off needless to say we're super excited to welcome our students and staff back to school in the coming weeks um with that said though i do want to bring two particular issues to the attention of the board one is that staffing continues to be a major challenge and concern as we

093prepare to open our schools there are some bright spots um with regards to our acting active teaching vacancies it was as high as 88 um on 7 12. that number has decreased to about 44 as of late july and i hope that number continues to go down we are making progress but that said there are a number of vacancies in critical areas such as food service and bus drivers that we are looking at um as a leadership team this is on the forefront of our minds and we are exploring all of our options um to ensure minimal impact on student services to the best of our ability but to be clear we're down 71 bus drivers as of today uh 37 full-time custodians and numerous positions in student nutrition so we need to explore a

094lot of different options so one we're looking into ways to retain our current employees and also recruit new staff into these positions and we're preparing ourselves for the reality that we may need to streamline operations to minimize disruption in other words there's the real possibility we won't be fully staffed in these positions on the first day of school so we need to think through that scenario proactively while we're also thinking about bringing staff in and making sure that our current employees choose to stay in asd but to give you one example this is a very challenging employment landscape specifically with bus drivers we're in direct competition with the tourism industry among others for that specific group we're actively working with the appropriate stakeholders um to discuss hiring incentives and compensation so we can take some

095concrete big steps to tackle this issue and i anticipate that i'll have a positive update to share on that front um as soon as tomorrow uh lastly there's a lot more information to come um on this front but for the purpose of tonight i wanted you to know that this is at the forefront of our minds um and we won't leave any stone unturned um and then lastly i'm really excited to welcome our families back to school um i hope that many of you if not all of you received your mailer in the mail it's amazing uh you can learn a little bit more about me i'm on the front but more importantly you can learn about um lots of information related to registration vaccinations pre-enrollment our enrollment policies all sorts of stuff really important

096but in case you didn't get one you can access the information at asdk12.org back to school and it's also on our main page and you can also check out our adn insert um that has similar information but we're excited to get our kiddos back in our schools so that's all i have for tonight [Music] that's quite a update thank you for your first as well well we are absolutely delighted that you are here and we are um want to lend our full support as we move forward into a brand new year um and in 33 days you have been a busy person um and and uh as we try to um you know um acclimate you to not just i mean you moved from texas to here uh you've gotten the certification situation under contr

097you know out of the way i feel like you know the sky's the limit so thank you for that and we are we look forward to working in partnership with you as we continue uh um are there any questions on those items that the superintendent just um brought up so i see member lessons if on the items that he just talked about and then i thought i saw not mr donnelly yes i don't um i'm concerned that the you just said we could only ask questions based on the items he brought up um we've always been able to ask questions to the superintendent during this period of other things you can just remember donnelly you can you can in fairness to the new superintendent he may not have the depth of knowledge to answer anything

098beyond what he's presented tonight that is all i'm saying but you can ask what you want and i'm sure he'll figure out how to get you the answer remember thank you um thank you for a great update dr bryant i just wanted to clarify if well if the board is receiving a potential update on the bus situation tomorrow when would that information would you would that be available publicly tomorrow as well or at perhaps a slightly later time it will likely be made fully available to the public very soon but this is hot off the press so i need to get a little bit more information on that particular issue okay remember donald you had a question and then member higgins just to give a little background dr bryant as you know the bonds failed

099last april um i had in work sessions and in meetings comment periods suggested that we needed to get together as a board in april may and june and talk about where we're going from here because we have a six-year plan that now doesn't fit because of the failure of the bonds i was told we're going to be getting to that so i was a little surprised tonight to hear testimony that the asd was proceeding to seek approval of the design that was rejected by the voters before the urban design commission [Music] are we doing that and why are we proceeding with that at this time until the board's had a time to regroup and reconsider where we're at given the failure of the bonds i'd like to defer to the request for information process on

100that particular question because i'm not aware of anything that requires immediate board action related to that [Music] okay um remember donnelly i think i heard the same thing it doesn't make any sense to me either and i was going to ask some more information on that as well because uh we i don't know but uh it was mentioned here tonight so i'll i'll submit a request for information on our both behalf member higgins okay you good anybody else thank you so i'd like to now go back to our second item eight which is the public thank you dr bishop about the vision the b is right doc brian okay so uh public comment um in person we have mr corey angst and then we have one more telephonic person welcome to a new school year

101you have three minutes [Music] thank you uh i just wanted to take a moment and on behalf of all the educators welcome dr bryant uh i've only received positive feedback so far in the short time that he's been meeting and venturing out to our schools um i'm just really excited and in the time i've also uh gotten to talk with him very excited about our future and the the 22-23 school year and i'm really glad you got unstuck from the tree uh having been on the porch river myself so uh and then last lastly i just want to join dr bryant in a shout out to all the educators out at ursa major uh all all of them on base aurora orion and ursa miner who are working so hard to move classrooms this week

102i i've actually been really impressed to hear from educators uh the amount of time and energy they're putting into that and i really appreciate asd leadership in supporting them so thank you thank you very much next we have roslyn grady weish hit star six to unmute miss weish [Music] hello yes we can hear you you have three minutes welcome hey everyone so i wanted to say sorry i'm not in the building i really wanted to be there but due to some health concerns i'm not there um but my name is roblin for those that don't know i am the president and founder of the alaska coalition of bypark educators where we believe in equity equality and justice um i first and foremost want to say welcome to dr bryant i got to meet you already

103um a while back and i'm just super excited for what you're going to bring to the table i also want to say thank you to everyone at asd that participated in the back to school jam [Music] even though some weren't there some were there and those that were there brought you know that spunk they brought that asd splunk and i totally appreciated college carl jacobs and megan gall and a couple other people i just can't think of their names right now but i really wanted to say thank you i want to say thank you to sonia hunt and oh kelly lessons was there too and just everybody that was there everybody that um um there's another the special ed department of um miss harley shawn thank you guys all um bringing the supplies that were

104provided as well um we did over 1800 backpacks that's huge um whether it was our neighborhood there was a lot of faces there a lot and and they were super excited to get their backpacks get their hot dogs um extreme academy our charter school was there you know and so hopefully next year we'll be able to talk more sit at the table and bring on more of our charter schools and our programs so that they can just come and have a face i heard from their school principal that they actually obtained a student all from being at the backpack drive so that's huge that was one of my goals and visions for having a backpack drive to not only provide backpacks to students but also provide an asd space um and um and we have

105more work to do so i hope to be able to sit at more tables i appreciate those tables i have already been at and just looking forward to the work that we we need to accomplish i also want to give a shout out to the mountain view leadership at mountain view elementary school leadership team i'm super excited for what dr hill is bringing there's all types of changes going on at asd but i would have to shout out my school in particular and i'm just super excited because we are the number one school in alaska and i'm sure she's probably going to get slapped for that but i would never think of our school any less so i just hope that you guys come and visit us as well and um dr bryant i can't

106wait to see you over at mountain view elementary school so thank you and i appreciate you all and have a beautiful evening thank you miss weiss and that concludes our uh testament our public comment periods and so now we are at the uh item j school board and administration comments if there are any who closing comments uh let's start uh let's start okay we'll go remember lessons and we're gonna go counter clockwise come around this way um well great so if anybody wants to have a really great feeling i suggest that you read memorandum 7 8 9 and 10 on tonight's agenda i don't normally say this because they list all of these incredible community partners that have donated time and treasure in all sorts of incredible projects uh over the past year so it

107is just a little moment to lighten um like your spirits feel inspired and feel gratitude so seven eight nine and ten on tonight's agenda um i also wanted to have a quick announcement that uh the anchorage school district school board is commencing its work with the wellness committee and the board the committee will be seeking five parent and or guardian members of that advisory committee there is a new website on asdk12.org wellness where parents and guardians can apply it's my understanding that applications will be due by five o'clock pm on friday august 12th and we will have members appointed by the 16th um so again that's asdk12.org wellness and we have a finance committee august 10th at noon thank you member lessons remember holla um yes i do want to thank everyone that came from

108the inlet view community and of course most of them have gotten to go home by now um but we appreciate the support they showed in trying to pass the bond and of course a lot of the public does take the feeling that if they vote down a bond they said don't do that what they're really saying is don't finance it this way it doesn't change the need for it and uh i'm glad that they're they're still showing up to say that the need is urgent and um you know it'll be something that we look at in in the coming months um i do appreciate your forthrightness and being stuck if anybody in alaska says they haven't that just means they haven't been on a river um with the warning i'm sure corey can tell you

109not everybody gets unstuck but you don't have to worry about them anymore when they do but keep getting unstuck because that's the best way to go your message about supporting principals so they support their staffs will be very exciting to staff i suspect you will see that resonate in a big way especially having the two-way conversations and feedback uh to where people people feel included in that and lastly i have to say is someone that's um i've been involved with the board in a lot of different angles as a classroom teacher is the aea president as a board member um [Music] one of the remarkable you might went off i don't know who did that um gremlin we it's easy for us to forget that for a whole lot of the public she is the

110face of the board she is the person they contact and a lot of times they're upset a lot of times they're angry a lot of times they're they're nervous about testifying and whatnot i've never heard anyone complain in all this time even people that feel a lot of hostility towards us feel treated fairly in terms of getting the information they need to do to do what they are going what they want to convey to the board and that's not always easy to do a lot of them are calling and coming in a mood not to get along with folks but it makes our work a lot easier when they feel like at least they've been treated fairly uh a huge thank you for for doing that for so many years and so consistently over all

111that time so uh yeah the year is about to begin um as someone who used to spend about a month in a building before students came back i can tell you the day when the doors open and all the kids show up is such a magical change in the district and we're just two weeks from it so lots to look forward to thank you thank you member holloman all right here we go mr higgins well i've got three hauls in 45 minutes oh no you don't no no no no uh i i i guess i want to start off by just uh welcoming dr bryant i um i am very impressed with uh his analytical approach to the issues that we've got and the communications we've establishing a strong relationship between the staff and the

112administration management principles and uh of that group is critical the challenges he's got is just massive for for a superintendent coming in at a time where we have the financial crisis but we've got to address the academics so the combination of those two is is unfair but as they say that's the way the cards are dealt and we're going to have to deal with it not just dr bryant but every person on this board and hopefully with the involvement of the public the parents and the kids all have so much at stake that we have to do whatever it takes to do it and that's going to be a challenge but um i am glad to welcome dr bryant to the new role julianne um katie i guess i've worked with you longer than anyone

113else here and you've had to order my food when i don't and you've had to remind me to do things that i sometimes didn't do and sometimes i did uh but you were always staying on top of it and i have to tell you when i first started i remember how many people were in the admin area compared to what we went down to and you got thrown more and more things at you uh that was a those that's my first nine years in the board would cut administration every year and that didn't help you at all but it's the way we played it and i appreciate the job you've done all that time uh very professional great job and you you balanced out the things you had to do and the problems i added

114so i appreciate that um i appreciate dr jaya's comment on colby we don't know what's coming on we got all the other issues out there what's going to play out we we have this is not just it's over behind us uh we don't know what's ahead of us um i remember a study that said we still have a hunt of over a million different viruses that can be transitioned from animals to to other animals to people and then you got all the mutations with that and right now this one is not done so um i appreciate the fact that we're looking at that i hope that we have a lessons learned from how we did it last time how we could do it better this time so at least we focus on that a little

115bit that's important um you know balancing the finance and economics and academics what he mentioned um goals and guardrails i hope we get a careful review of that uh because there are a lot of issues there that there are so many goals we can come out with i remember when i first got on school boy we had a document about that thick but each one being a line of a different goal and how foolish they were at some point they had one that said we wanted to get the grade point average up for for math and the other one said we wanted to get the academic scores up and the academic scores went down the math goals went up and they said must be a success i had a little dispute with that uh but

116we changed our approach in there and i think we need to look again not so much that we didn't have gods and goals that are a pro or good but we have to say are they working for what we want to accomplish and are they accomplishing all the goals we want so i view that as important i just will make a comment on staffing you know i'm been in human resources for surprisingly more than five years comstown um and um uh i remember uh the superintendent the economist for the state came out here about six eight months ago i guess and gave a review and said there's 27 000 less adults working in alaska today than it was 10 years ago and that three groups of employees are being targeted for recruitment to to come

117up to alaska and get them to move to lower 48. truck drivers nurses and teachers we have enough challenges as is but we're very vulnerable and that regards our cost of living's higher salaries we haven't had the kind of increases in funding necessary to be competitive the way we would want to be and we can't afford to lose what we've got i dr jared i agree with you the the hr has saying the best way to recruit today don't lose what you got uh because the challenges of replacement so great so i i think we've got a massive problem in that regards um and we are going to have a hell of a challenge trying to maintain buses food service everything else you can't go to a fast food restaurant you can't go to a

118grocery store you can't go to a hardware place without help wanted sign i remember one place at lowe's i saw a help wanted sign that was bigger than that that two-story sign uh that says lowe's um it was help wanted and so i think we're in that market and how we respond and what we have to do is important but what we see is that people stay with a job they leave a job based upon how they feel about how they're managed as people as employees so if we don't focus on trying to make sure that we recognize and appreciate the employees we have that we don't respect them when there are issues coming up and we don't look at them carefully from a standpoint of what's fair and make sure that they understand we

119have that we're going to lose people we can't replace and that's what we're seeing throughout the whole country and we're going to see it in space here in anchorage and alaska so the challenge is there i appreciate it like i said welcome dr brian and katie we're going to miss you that's not directed negatively to the replacements of course but it i appreciate everything and i'm confident that we're going to make a good smooth transition with with this process thank you wow thank you remember donnelly thank you madam president uh prior to our july break um parents had brought up concerns to the board regarding the pronoun issue and the current administrative guidelines working with transgender and gender non-conforming students and employees and of specific concern uh was the language on page eight uh section

12014 b quote generally notification of a student parents student's parent about his or her gender identity expression or transition is unnecessary and i think parents are rightly concerned that the this policy would uh prohibit them or or prevent them from getting information that's very essential to their child's well-being and uh and their knowledge about what's happening in their own family um so i want to bring that back before the board as a concern i think it's been very legitimately raised by parents in the district uh when we talked about this before the july break the response from the superintendent that time was that there was some sort of glitch in a program the district had bought that didn't that didn't provide the proper notice to parents and we were going to do some reprogramming to

121fix that but it also appears in the guidelines the current guidelines and and i'm very concerned about that and i'm hoping that that can be re-examined by the administration because i think parents have a right to know what's happening with their children in school thank you member donnelly uh and and to clarify the trends the guidelines the transgendered gender non-conforming guidelines they didn't come up last time cue came up last time but that has come up in subsequent emails so uh dr bishop dr bishop dr bryant will do his due diligence to get back to us on that remember jacobs about to be yeah that's what i'm about to be thank you madam president just a couple quick notes um i had uh asked a question regarding the guidelines and they were phrased to me

122um as something that was new and i just my understanding is that those have been drafted um since 2015 or so most most recently revised in 2020 so i was hoping folks like remember donnelly might be able to shed some light as one of the longer term board members but um looking forward to more discussions on that uh with that said i wanted to thank those who came out to testify tonight um always appreciate those willing to take time out of their evening to share thoughts and prerogative with the board dr brian really appreciate your report uh was thoughtful thorough um couldn't be more excited to have you on board katie thank you so much for everything as a as a relatively new board member coming on and you know getting emails from you at

123eight at night while we got my access set up and um i got up to speed um i constantly admire your professionalism your availability um miss foster looking forward to working with you it sounds like you have big shoes to fill it's because you do but i'm sure you'll be up to the task um looking forward to a full throw discussion on how we can leverage one-time funds to promote healthy learning spaces for our students families and staff i think we have these one-time funds i'm looking forward to the finance committee meetings and subsequent board meetings to really carefully examine how we can promote safety in our buildings and leverage those one-time funds into something that might last uh past just one year so that's a lens i'm going to bring to the conversation for

124sure with us so i'll leave it there thank you madam president thank you very much remember wilson yes i appreciate our military partners coming to introduce themselves they are a very important part of our community and i just wanted to say thank you to adele daniels for your commitment and support to our military youth as well and the air show was mentioned and it is such a great family-friendly activity and event my example of that is my mother-in-law used to pack up all the grandkids and that was their day to she would take him to the air show and this past weekend i was out of town and my my daughter called who's now 22 and she said i'm i'm going to pack grandma up and take her to the air show so she packed

125grandma up with her walker took her to the air show and 20 years later they're still going to the air show which is which is pretty impressive though that was awesome um thank you to our staff that chose to work summer school this year i had the pleasure of attending the summer school graduation and a graduation ceremony and i just really appreciate the continued support of the staff and the continued work of our students that needed that little bit of extra time to complete their graduation and push through so congratulations to to our summer school graduates as well and welcome to dr bryant of course and thank you to our wonderful katie for your service and commitment to the board and i look forward to a great school year also the communications committee meeting is

126tomorrow at noon just a reminder there very good thank you and my comments will be very brief but i do want to welcome amanda uh and thank uh everybody that uh helped us to not just find her but get her interviewed get her hired get her onboarded uh these last couple of weeks have been uh furious um and i also and of course um i think more than any of the board members i've probably been the one to work to have more conversations uh with with dr b um and i have absolutely um enjoyed those conversations and i look forward to um a full partnership between the board and our new superintendent so we can um make fabulous things happen for our kids and then fine and then katie i don't even know what to

127say i've been in denial now for weeks um but at the same time you know you're very special and special things are very valuable and everybody wants them so jim [Music] i yeah yeah yeah i couldn't believe you did that to me i thought i was your friend anyway um you guys are going to have a great team and we look forward to building the same kind of team with amanda and for the staff that's worked all summer uh i mean dr stock you're still hanging in there with us thank you thank you thank you thank you uh all of you i hope you had some time to have some respite and some fun and some joy um but we are very excited to have you back and willing to walk these this journey with

128us on the on behalf of our kids so we thank you thank you thank you and with that dr b do you have any uh closing comments i do not you heard enough of my voice tonight thank you what about anybody over here anybody i know you guys want to get out of here all right i hear you move to adjourn uh accept it moving [Music] second i'm i moved to a darren oh you moved to germany [Music]