Urbandale CSD School Board Meeting 11.22.21

001okay you all right let's give this another try i'm ready to begin so again um welcoming everyone to the meeting and i have called a meeting to order roll call mrs mitchell ashley anderson here judy downs here catherine houser here rachel kent claire jenny pair jason mankey here brianna sayers okay motion to approve the agenda with one exception you're ahead of me we want to move uh the superintendent's report 7a to one of the december meetings in the interest of keeping the meeting short so without exception please motion recruitment agenda less item 7a i'll second all in favor all right opposing sign okay and the lovely mrs julie mitchell will be our secretary pro tem tonight because our board secretary is our female so you have a motion so moved second okay so what i'm

002going to do is um with the masks it is it is really difficult to see who is making the motion hopefully we're making eye contact but it would be very helpful if you gave maybe your last name before you make that motion and that way i think it would also be good for the the audience at home so okay i appreciate your patience thank all in favor aye opposing sign um mr bill harger is here to give us a facilities update of stall construction so like said bill hardware installed construction so i'll give update on both your new buildings finishing processes of homestead and then the hilarious report i shouldn't say hilarious because i don't know if that's the true name of that for now so urbandale number one homestead learning stairs on those i

003don't know if anybody's been there they look really good they're doing the trims now through about tuesday that's where all this works at and then they'll start that sanding finishing one side at the times uh landscaping if you've been by there it's really really close they're waiting on a little more sod to get delivered and then he's got to do the dormant seating just waiting for that temperature to stay down so it doesn't germinate uh composite fence is finally sitting in des moines so that's a good thing uh installation they got locates called in so go get that started probably friday's what are you shooting for right now so uh area a and d i misspoke last time they were not quite down there so the still some open items the painter's been in there

004the last two weeks working at nights so that's getting down to not much we got 50 of the missing light fixtures came in last week put them in saturday nothing you really notice it's the here's in there some of them had part problems and a little bit of the lighting control stuff that was missed from order issues uh dlr and mike foreign on friday last week i haven't seen it yet but when i do we'll get that out right now i'm planning on working on wednesday friday this week and then mr farnsworth's gonna start doing nights to help out with whatever he can over there so we get this thing buttoned up for urbandale number two uh site demolitions all done except for 90th street off of boston which we're going to leave that in

005place and use it for access till next summer earthwork building pads complete it was complete at the last meeting north parking lot is that great it passed test today so we're going to get that lined up plan on hornet december first long weather holes for that time slot and then the remaining sites pretty much ever upgrade they're cleaning up where that retaining wall goes that'll go in this corner yet but overall looks pretty good utilities site storm sewer insulation ongoing except for and this will be an except for on a few of these items but the stuff that runs up 90th street since roads aren't coming out this year that'll go in next year water main is also ongoing except for that same stretch that runs up through the two joining houses on 90th street

006uh and then hinges who's doing that work they're gonna plan to complete everything except those items like christmas so he's pretty much on track with that should be good for that building where stone tiers were completed contractors moved off-site uh they're doing concrete footings in the gym right now plumbing electrical or on-site doing sleeves or whether you get through those footings masonry pre-installation is scheduled for december 1st so next week and then we'll have enough footings in by mid-december to get him going so they'll start laying master balls uh and then i guess the other thing is it's on your agenda it's received for the three missing packages so elevator fire suppression and fencing so depending on what happens with those tonight and that whole project will be under contract any questions thank you thanks

007okay and we'll move into the superintendent's report dr deca yeah thank you for allowing me to move the introduction of my team i want to make sure that we get lost in our in our meeting and we do have a quite a few items on our agenda so i also thank my team for being flexible and having the date changed on you and a short notice um the first thing i wanted to do is a quick facilities update um this is really to let the new board members who um are on our on our team now as well as some of the people that are in the community that may not know or may not remember um as mr harger was just talking about elementary school one and two one is olmsted um two was

008on the malaria site just to remind you in 2018 in february we had the bond referendum and over 72 percent of our community which that is unheard of an amazing testament to the support that the community has for our district voted in favor of that 59 million dollar referendum and that was to build the two new elementary schools and the high school fitness center the timeline that goes with that in 2020 we opened the fitness center homestead of course opened this august elementary 2 construction has been moved up so the construction period is estimated to be for two years until 2023 at that time we want to move rolling green into the karen acres building which will be vacated by karen acres merging with um valerius and then in 2023 opening that building there's there's

009a lot of questions i think still in the community as to what's going to happen um we wanted to remind you of this because the next step in december we're going to be bringing to you a naming proposal and boundary planning has to start having conversations and then we have to talk about what we're going to do with the empty buildings which will be jensen and rolling green with the possibility of an ao administrative office in the future as well those decisions have not been made there are still a lot of conversations but i felt like and talking with dina in communications it was important to bring everybody kind of back to where we were in 2018 and let you know that right now we can tell you rolling green will move into karen acres

010but beyond that these are still some unanswered questions that we'll collaborate with um the board the city and community to figure out what to do from there so those are some quick reminders and then again next month we will talk about the naming process the next thing that i wanted to do we've also we all watch the news we all get to see what is going on in the world and we know right now osha the occupational safety and health administration has filed an emergency temporary standard on covet 19 vaccination we've had a lot of questions about does that apply to us ucsd what about schools can they force that and mr decryif has sent out probably two weeks ago maybe a letter email heads up kind of to the staff letting them know yes

011it's gonna apply but at the time we didn't know what that means um the fact that we have over a hundred employees is what makes that apply to the school district that means that a vaccination would be required it's mandatory there are testing criteria every seven days if not vaccinated as well as being required to wear a face covering there will be proof of vaccine that is required that will come from health care a covid card medical records etc there's a number of different ways that employees can provide that documentation the policy was to be in effect immediately upon osha's publication and we would have had 30 days to apply um the uh everything but the testing piece and as you know on november 5th governor reynolds and 10 other states joined in a appeal

012a protest of a file to suit against osha and president biden seeking to vacate the rule and then friday november 12th the panel for united states court of appeals in the fifth circuit issued a decision temporarily halting that osha requirement at this point it is kind of off the table temporarily we don't know what's going to happen but in the meantime we've been advised that we should come up with a policy iasb which is the iowa association of school boards as well as our legal counsel have provided us with a number of templates that mr decrypt is working on in his team so we will be prepared to have to take action when we're told to take action so i wanted to update you so that you knew yes it applies and we're just sitting

013waiting to find out what the courts say and what we're going to do from there but we do plan to be in compliance so i don't have any worries that the district will be able to avoid those i believe 15 000 fines for each incident of non-compliance we will be fully compliant the other place i wanted to update to is the mask update right now we have a mass requirement in urbandale community school district and that is in effect until we find out otherwise and we know that last week we found out it's the decisions in the 8th circuit court they're waiting for a decision against the governor's challenge so that could be any day now as soon as we find that information out regardless if the mask mandate is lifted we would still encourage

014people to wear masks until our numbers get to where they're appropriate right now they happen to be unfortunately going in the wrong direction so we want to be conscious of that and we will keep people updated if the community will watch our website that's where you'll see the most recent information so that's where we stand on those pieces okay so we will move into the public comments this is claire are you reading the names okay so yeah i want to point out to everyone who has signed up because there's 12 of you we are limiting to five minutes of peace and um mrs mitchell will be keeping the timer so so if you have arranged to speak during public comment this evening your name will be called and you will have five minutes to share

015your comments please state your name and address we would like to invite jake chapman um [Music] this does have graphic graphic content hi my name is dennis murphy and i live at 2859 berkshire parkway and clyde i have a son in urbandale high school and a daughter that graduated last year i'm here to bring to your attention that there's pornographic and vulgar content the urbandale middle school classrooms and libraries behind me is a sampling five books we believe rise to the level of pornographic content under iowa code 728.2 explicit material that should be labeled as such checked out as such this includes all boys aren't blue gender queer envoy aikido an absolute true diary of a part-time indian we don't believe these these are the only boats in the urbandale middle school in high school

016that contain such content but are the most critical at this point to be considered and evaluated three years ago i retired from the military after 21 years of service having spent time in one of the most diverse organizations in the country i recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion with good policy well-thought-out procedures and equity however what i've experienced recently related to this issue i'm going to talk about illustrate some major policy and procedure breakdowns polarization and value shape that has shattered my beliefs in the school district not just the books in question but the way the administration's handled it three weeks ago i opened my stunned book bag and found a book entitled hey kiddo i opened the book to the page you see behind me and i was shocked i found 33 other

017pages with similar sexual and vulgar content i asked my son why he selected the book for a sports writing class he selected one of the pictures because it looked easy i asked him if he looked closely at it he said he did not i went to review it with him and he was surprised and embarrassed because he had no idea this content was in the book he then sent something that shook me to my core he said dad what's the big deal teachers use the same language in school it dawned on me immediately the danger of this sensition desensitization of the type of material does to kids and adults making them believe it is okay to talk like that act like this and do this because hey the school allowed it and it's allowed under

018trusted adults i immediately emailed his teacher his her response was that this is one of many diverse books in her classroom for kids and with diverse backgrounds i also escalated us to the principal who said they provided diversity of books for students that talk different they were unable to answer my questions as to how this book was vetted as the appropriate book for her classroom instead i was pointed to an instructional policy right here last updated in 2012. i also became aware of even more graphic books that were also in our libraries and classrooms i contacted the superintendent dr dhaka to meet one-on-one i was told the policy stated she could not meet with me about the instructional material issue i then began filing a reconsideration request as i began to review the policy became

019apparent this had not been updated in ten years i found numerous gaps as began to try to determine how this process worked the superintendent and dr carlisle appointed to lead this reconsideration committee and numerous times have tried to place roadblocks to impede this request to include attempting to reduce my speaking time telling me i cannot question the teacher a librarian or principal in an open forum cannot have witnesses speak or introduce exhibits and i have no say in how the committee is selected or who was selected so i sit here you sit here today in front of you upset and i'm saddened that in addition to having you talk to my son about vulgar books and working to have these books reviewed for content violation iowa code i am at the mercy of a policy

020that is outdated not clear and not consistent the process to vet content in this district is either antiquated or not being followed values matter keeping kids safe matters learning in a non-confrontational non-agenda way matters parents trusting that content proctored by administrators teachers librarian matters and when the school's involved in something that impacts a student individually that is graphic in nature apologizing and working through this issue directly it matters district policy has not cut up kept up with the influx and type of content principles teachers and librarians cannot blindly sign a book purchase order stick the books on the shelf and call that a betting process and then act surprised when somebody is not happy that there's pornographic and graphic content this content behind me was written on a t-shirt said to a teacher administrator or

021distributed reminder not the library that would be grounds for school discipline and at very least could be considered a criminal act but because it isn't in our classroom in libraries under one of the trusted instructional professionals is okay it's not okay at all this is pornographic the content it's grooming it's it's manipulating kids based on outside agendas if this content we're in a science math social studies book they would be thrown out because this is under the guise of diversity inclusion is protected values matters folks as a school board you have the responsibility to ensure that what is taught in the workplace a healthy relationship that was in five minutes yes that was five minutes yes okay appreciate it please take your uh items you can leave it up for no i think i think

022just for mine yeah for mine yeah i think it'll be good for you guys to look at that yes okay okay thank you um so i am senator chapman jake chapman and first of all thank you for holding this meeting and allowing uh some public input um i want to talk just briefly about this photo and i don't intend to take the full five minutes but i want to give you just 15 seconds to look at the photo just take 15 seconds and look at this picture please the reality is not one media outlet can publish this or broadcast this on the five o'clock news not one media outlet it's not channel 8 not channel 13 if they're here i'd ask them can you publish this can you broadcast this on your 5 o'clock news

023and the answer is no they cannot because they would be fined by the fcc if you go to the fcc's website they talk about the first amendment on their website and when it comes to indecent material this is what they say not what i'm saying what the fcc says indecent material does have protections under the first amendment however it may be restricted in order to avoid its broadcast when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m when there is the greatest likelihood that children may be watching airing indecent material is prohib prohibited under fcc rules broadcasters are required to schedule the programming accordingly or face enforcement actions similarly the commission has stated that profane material is prohibited between 6 am and 10

024pm finally the courts have ruled that obscene material is not protected by the first amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time if this can't be shown on the five o'clock news why is it okay for our children to have access to it in the safest environment that they should be in public schools [Music] i'm proud that my kids go to public school i think we've got some of the greatest public schools i'm telling you this is not acceptable let common sense prevail you probably have heard comments about what i want to do legislatively and yes i do want to do stuff legislatively but what common sense prevail as a father of a daughter i would not be okay with this as a father of four boys i'm not okay with it nor should you

025nor should any decent person think that this is okay thank you for your time i appreciate it and uh let common sense prevail sheriff can you tell us yes it's 1743 madison court adele thank you mr williamson kimberly kimberly gleason can you give us your name and your address yeah it's kimberly gleason 2401 northeast 10th court congrats friends yeah i wish the pictures were still here because i think you guys need to look at them a little bit longer to see how completely inappropriate and disgusting they are i'm here as a mom i'm here also as somebody who was sexually abused as a child growing up and i was actually shown explicit images such as these and worse as a kid i know what this does firsthand to somebody and to think that a teacher

026could think that it's okay to give it to a child is absolutely disgusting and i would not allow my child in the classroom with any one of them i don't care if we will quite frankly i would do anything in my power to keep my kids away from you this is grooming and i will say too i also do i speak at trainings for law enforcement prosecutors victim services here across the state other states that's what i do that's what i know um grooming is the systematic eroding of a child's boundaries and it is systematic there are predators in your district i guarantee it there's predators in every district there's predators everywhere from the victims that i've met and spoke with there are ceos there's mayors there's i mean youth pastors teachers guidance counselors they're

027everywhere they're hidden this is how it starts they erode your boundaries they enjoy seeing kids be uncomfortable with it so when i hear the comments about like oh it's important for kids to have uncomfortable conversations not with people that are supposed to be trusted adults the fact that people discuss this in the classroom is completely inappropriate and i don't care what agenda or what group it comes in if it's if it's supposed to be some new movement or some kind of thing that's fine but if it were a civil war book that had these images in it too not appropriate it does not matter what content or what your intent is of what you think you're teaching it's not okay it is not okay and for and to think i've heard the comments of thinking

028that a kid has an option to say that they feel uncomfortable with it if that's your thinking that a kid can voluntarily say they feel uncomfortable with it you need to re-educate yourself on how child sex abuse disclosure works because that's not how it works to think that a kid and to think that this is going to somehow motivate a child to come forward about their sex abuse at home again you need to re-educate yourself that's not how it works when an adult that's supposed to be trusted gives you explicit material that does not foster an environment where i feel safe to tell you what's going on at home and some of these images for those of you who saw the back of it it's blow jobs it's masturbation it's not using language such as

029vagina penis erection ejaculation it's dick i mean it is absolutely disgusting and i will say i showed the images to other survivors that i know myself personally and they were completely appalled there are triggers in them as well so if you're showing kids this in the classroom you don't know what you're doing with it i mean you don't know what you're doing to them and kids are not i i'm sorry they are not going to be like hey teacher guess what dad's doing this at home i didn't tell anybody for 20 years until working on legislation this past spring to remove the statute of limitations so it's just it's not how it works like i said so that brings up another thing if that's the backing and that's what you think you're doing you're somehow

030providing children this opportunity to come forward and have this great environment to do so again re-educate yourself it's not how it works um i don't know like i said i mean i spoke at johnson a couple weeks ago and people like seem to think it's great to have these committees for reconsideration i think it's disgusting that it takes how many adults truly how many adults does it take to see a blow job in a book for children to understand it's inappropriate and for those of you that are mandatory reporters do your job and as a board that's leading the teachers in the district do your job first and foremost i don't care what content you think you're teaching your kids whether it's i don't even i don't even know all of it but it doesn't

031matter when it comes to that material you can find another way and again with the idea that oh it's teaching critical thinking and i don't know what other garbage they said at johnston it's not it's not find a different subject matter it's just it's not necessary it's triggering the children it's inappropriate and like i said as mandatory reporters i will be there backing any legislation to make this a crime 100 because it should be having lived through it having known the damages still as an adult that's what it is thank you thank you thank you should i launch him tell us your address peter sand 4509 76th street members of the board i've spoken several times urging a return to normal from what i see as pandemic overreaction a forever mask mandate is pointless and

032harmful to children there has yet to be a proper scientific study to show that masked mandates especially on children do anything to stem the spread of covet and the evidence of constantly masking kids being a harm to them the only study purporting to show a benefit to masking is that widely reported arizona study from a couple of months ago that everyone cites in support of masking kids forever i analyzed that in a separate writing that i sent to the board earlier today the degree to which the rest of the world is moved on from masking outside of the school building kind of makes masking in the school a joke at this point always remember this virus has a survival rate in excess of 99.5 and the survival rate among those under 50 is higher still

033this is a disease that affects the old outside of extraordinary circumstances it does not affect the young no school should be significantly altering its procedures due to cover 19 at this point you may look at me and say pete the election is over and your side lost why are you taking up our time the reason is simple when something is important enough and after an election is won by the other side of the argument one's job becomes to make record for the next election it's important for the parents of this district to know where board members stand and i intend to make an effort to provide them a clear record going forward you may say i'm being an alarmist no one is saying masks are forever but this board has completely delegated the governance of

034this district to the federal cdc and that cdc is now saying that even if kids are vaccinated they must keep masking in addition recent cdc recommendations for masking in schools have also started to mention on the website what a great thing masking is to prevent the spread of colds colds i tell this board has imposed a mask mandate already that is indefinite in nature and there is little difference between indefinite and forever when the masked mandate was imposed i asked the board at least describe its criteria for lifting it and the board did that the board decided the criteria would be the transmission rate as measured by the cdc that sounds good until you investigate that statistic and find out that it is indeed forever to meet the transmission criteria chosen by the board you

035only need about 230 or 240 positive covet tests in all of polk county in a given week and since every person who goes to a hospital or clinic for care gets tested for covid there's no end in sight this board must come to grips with when it will be willing to join reality and move to an endnote response to colin treating it the same as we do other endemic conditions that are not significantly threatening like colds and flu but meanwhile the cdc appears to be laying the foundation to go in the exact opposite direction and push all of american society towards being on a permanent war footing against all endemic conditions i see no justification for such a fundamental change in our society and i intend to do what i can to try and head

036that off as a result i propose 303 resolutions to the board and i sent them to you earlier today i ask any like-minded member of the board to propose them for a board vote and tell your district where you stand in these resolutions first i propose that this board resolve as follows that if health conditions are the same next august 1st as they are now or better masks will not be mandated for students or staff at the beginning of the 22-23 school year the purpose of that resolution is to find out whether this board will put any criteria on when we are in an endemic phase rather than a pandemic phase regarding coping second i propose this board resolve as follows that it pledges to the parents of this district it will not mandate mass

037for students or staff on an indefinite basis and that any mandate will either be renewed or automatically expire on a monthly basis and any renewable will be accompanied by a written explanation your students have to wear a mask every single day of school you can take the time to put your vote out there at least once a month and tell them why they have to keep doing that and third i propose that the board resolves that because of the lack of general harm posed to youth by covet 19 this district will not impose any mandate on its students or staff to get vaccinated against this disease the board will however enforce vaccination mandates placed on it by law and will not expend district resources to litigate or fight either for or against a vaccine mandate

038urbandale taxpayers and parents deserve to have this board on the record if neither of the first two resolutions is voted on and passed i intend to tell people that this board intends to mask urbandale kids forever and will never allow a return to normal if you won't pass the third one then people should know that this board is looking for a way to impose a vaccine mandate thank you good evening i'm miriam woods i'm a proud homeowner at 3502 ashwood drive urbandale i was a science teacher at hooper high school for 20 years now a university supervisor for student teachers and substitute teacher at johnston milwaukee des moines and of course urbandale hey there tomorrow i love working in schools that have a diverse student population this diversity helps our students become kinder more empathetic

039understanding and accepting of others this will assure all of us a better world that is why i am so concerned about a small group of people demanding that certain books be banned people who want to ban books seem to feel they need to protect all children from something that offends their own political religious or moral views but those who challenge certain books pose a threat to freedom of speech and choice freedoms that we americans hold dear and should value and are worth protecting kids crave relatable books young people find a character or a storyline that speaks directly to them and what they're going through this is a powerful experience that helps readers sort out issues like divorce bullying prejudice racism sadness depression thoughts of suicide sexual assault and sexual identity schools have a responsibility to

040serve every student who depends on us not just kids from one cultural background or religion and not just kids whose lives follow a certain pattern and not just kids whose parents show up at school board meetings but all of them when we remove certain books we're denying a young person from seeing someone who looks like them or shares their same situation the readers who live with the reader who lives with an addict or misses a parent who's incarcerated continues to feel invisible and alone such as in the book hey kiddo we're removing the lifeline turning off the lights and leaving our students who are struggling alone in the dark just as importantly these books can help turn students into lifelong learners and readers data shows that when books are written for and about them they

041are more eager to read studies also show that kids that have never picked up a book find a book they can relate to and they read three to four a month they need to be able to read think critically and understand the world around them those are all important skills we know they need to be they need to have to be successful books can offer valuable of start valuable conversations students have a wide range of age and maturity levels what is appropriate for one might not be for another if parent and guardians can find a way to discuss these complex issues instead of banning them they might find a deep and powerful path to honest communication with their kids parents do have the right and responsibility to monitor what their children watches or reads but

042not to make decisions for all students and parents how can a small group of voices dictate or control what my children or grandchildren are reading that's up to me from the time books have been printed people have argued over them and tried to limit their leadership but the public discomfort with certain topics has rapidly increased in the 90s the american public i'm sorry the american library association ala started keeping a database of challenged books and they found that reasons were pretty straightforward language too much sense but now the focus is on issues of diversity people of color those who are lgbt or few or those belonging to a religious or cultural minority group interestingly the all says they don't get many challenges from those marginalized fruits it's as if inclusion of these diverse groups in

043literature is a source of fear this shift seems to be because of a demographic change in the country and the political fear-mongering that comes with those changes we must realize that our library books are not chosen casually much research thought and work goes into selecting them many are award-winning bits books hey kiddo is on the iowa teen awards list for 2021 finally taking books off the shelf punishes their kids they will be less likely to read to think to ask questions to find their own true path so i ask you whose ideas and opinions do you value where does censorship end don't let the minority dictate for the majority protect all our children they're depending on us to provide a safe accepting and respectful community for them again thank you thank you i won't take

044uh much of your time but this is a subject that i feel pretty important about some of those attending tonight will draw upon their lesser instincts to try and shock you into removing certain books from our district's librarians they will use obscene language taken out of context to try and prove their point they will just they will dismiss the very difficult and real themes these books wrestle with including resilience overcoming adversity and the challenges of cultural discrimination do not be mistaken their argument isn't with the stories it's with the storytellers there are countless books on library and church shelves with language and concepts that may seem offensive when taken out of context you won't see books on their list using similar language that tells the stories of straight or white students or students from supportive

045households it's the families struggling with addiction black gay mexican-american and indigenous voices they don't want our children to heal this is unacceptable in a school district that claims to teach all and reach all these stories resonate with and reflect the lives of many students in our district and the daily struggle they face in their lives at school at home and in their community these children our children know that life isn't always pretty perfect nice or just or described by pleasant language in honest literature children can find a path forward through the discrimination and challenges they face in their lives a book even those with strong language that address difficult concepts can be a lifeline do not take that lifeline away from our most marginalized students do not allow those drawing from bias and the lesser

046human instincts to dictate which books are on our library shelves school boards should not be voting on books censorship of diverse voices has no place in the school district in a pluralistic democracy thank you thank you kill me hello my name is jill niece i live at 39 29 82nd street in urbandale i have children at rolling green ums uhs and uhs i am also a veteran educator of 20 years i've been struggling a lot with how to frame my thoughts around the current call to the anne or censor books i found this letter written by a local educator matt cruise from waukee to one of our senators mr chapman who previously spoke and i saw permission to share it here this letter states my sentiments in a much more concise way than i can

047at this time my hope is that all present here and watching will listen to these words and really understand what can happen if this movement takes full and books are to be removed from our schools i encourage you where the letter says senator to put your own name instead as i read dear senator chapman i would be open to meeting with you other english teachers and librarians to help explain why those excellent books are worthy of being on the shelves and in the hands of kids at our schools if that doesn't happen i offer this for your perusal please know then to provide some background in context i've been teaching english for nearly 30 years since 2006 at waukee high school my master's degree research was centered on using young adult literature as a classic

048way to teach english in the early 2000s i offered my students a number of titles including rat saga and slave day by rob thomas chinese handcuffs and staying back for sarah burns by chris crutcher and catch her in the right classic after all by jd salinder these books are include profanity sex abuse drugs alcohol declines of authority racism theft attempted rape and so on yes i communicated with parents prior to beginning our study about the content out of the hundreds of students no one asked for alternatives which i provided the anonymous surveys i employed as part of my research showed that not only did kids love the books but the books led them to realize they were books written for and about them thus they were moved to continue reading kids who before had never

049read an entire novel were now reading three or four in one month and then checking out more after this part of our semester concluded for comparison currently half of american adults read less than four books a year ultimately around middle school if not before then in the midst of our digital world many students stop reading books especially by choice and yet reading may be the most important thing students should do they'll do it in almost any area in which they are called to serve given that teachers are called to get books in their hands they will actually read so they improve their fluency comprehension and stamina but it's not just reading more teachers want students to reflect on their reading to question it wonder about it make predictions and arguments about it make connections to

050their life and the world be challenged by ideas challenge the thinking of others we don't want to tell them what to think we want to tell them to tell us what they think and we want them to tell us why we're not there to tell them what to think we are there to encourage them to do it it seems like those are skills you'd want them to utilize and skills you utilize in your calling as a senator the teachers in our schools want kids to become lifelong readers and learners they know the ways to help make that happen and employ them as a means to also help improve literacy and strengthen students in all areas moving forward it's important to trust teachers to do that important work and give them the tools to do so

051this includes ensuring books that look like students sound like them and matter that to them exist on the shelves in our schools taking books off the shelves or punishing teachers who put great books in the hands of kids punishes kids they will be less have to read less apt to think plus i have to find their own way and less apt to improve in an area deemed so important by educational professionals and society as a whole i have been called to teach fulfilling that calling means helping kids become better people who live happier lives as they grow as students when the opportunity presents itself i'm going to give them books to help do that if you're interested my research is only about 90 pages long it's about 15 years old but there's plenty that is

052more recent further in addition to the aforementioned titles i'll offer more confident that you have read at least one in this list without negative impact deadline my sister's keeper knight looking for alaska king dork eleanor park new kid monster a prayer for owen meaning the perks of being a wallflower ender's game flowers for algernon the cider has rules the kite runner the messenger the twilight divergent hunger games the dragon percy jackson and harry potter series the bible and plastics like to kill a mockingbird people the great gatsby the adventures of huckleberry finn a raisin in the sun the crucible that should do about nothing romeo and juliet of mice and men 1984 the outsiders the scarlet letter florida applies animal farm the english patient and on and on great books and indeed some books but

053some might find sensitive yet how will we ever grow and learn should we just stop writing and reading should we live in a bubble surrounded by only text and ideas that align with our thinking i hope you will read with an open mind the hate you give and the absolute true diary of a part-time indian because senator along with many others i wonder whose ideas are okay who's can be published where to censorship in should teachers actually toss out good pedagogical ideas along with their books to avoid being punished as weight really criminals what do you truly believe these are questions are serious ones and i do welcome the conversation to discuss them and the art of teaching but first it means to have you have some reading to give thank you free my name

054is linda lonko and i'm a sophomore at urbandale high school today i'd like to speak to the board about the potential decisions surrounding banning certain books at uhs and or schools in the other district i understand that as adults they call business district you are you feel a strong responsibility to protect students from what it seems to be scary to be hurtful to be appropriate i applaud the care that you protect us however there is something missing in this shilling there is an inherent privilege of helping out these scary things are something you as children will never be witness or experience but at the district we need to take off the rose lenses some of our children haven't had the privileges of being protected from these things some of our children do not have the

055resources to be protected some of our children lack the access to the protection that the parents in the district need to be inappropriate some of us have already been through heartfelt and experienced very things you want censored think about this every parent try to protect each other from every bad book you they were reading your city and percentage of the world is perf there's a perfect place for everyone a place where everyone loves each other everyone is friends everyone has equal access equal opportunities equal rights equal justice but that but unfortunately that is not the world we live in if we only focus on the protection and the announcement then what are we setting our children up for are we seeing that we only encounter some of our students the students that never have the

056experience some of the horrors presented in these texts if parents are the slow carpenter in the child's characterization and development oftentimes students will be able to think for themselves and isn't one urbandale community school district pride themselves on create a transformative space that is more relevant meaningful and inspires all learners at least that's what the website says see the thing is is that censorship starts with banning books and book frame we see this throughout history we are not a district that goes backwards we must be a district that looks forward a district that is inclusive of all identities experiences and ethnicities and if we fail to do so we are feeling our children our students our future the question i want to end is with this is this truly about the students or is this

057about you are you taking books away for your benefit or the benefit of the few students who are completely shielded from the current realities of the world we live in i think the word for allowing students to be brought to the table for this conversation the youth are going to a tv show because our futures are at stake and we refuse to sit by and watch adults ruin it thank you thank you thank you bailey bonds okay hi my name is haley bonds and i'm a sophomore at urbano high school when i first started driving my mom taught me to never reach down for my registration papers immediately getting after pulled over it was scary being told that someone who was trusted by the law to bear arms might be the color of my skin

058as oppressed even though it's scary it is a necessary conversation because what if she hadn't told me other students may not be fortunate enough to have someone to educate them about racial inequalities and premature assumptions a large part of our education system is the access we have to resources that represent who we are literacy is liberation limiting our access to certain resources like books is limiting students ability to be educated aware and understanding of some of our students lived experiences just because you don't want to talk about some of these important issues or have your child read about some of these issues doesn't mean the issues don't exist those who choose to ignore the topics that have been in national enrollment news have no right to take the resources from the people who need to

059learn about them and who have already experienced them it amazes me how far society has come to be as culturally inclusive and as represented as we are today however a decision like this can only hurt the progress we've made the first thing you see when you go to the urbanelle schools website is a picture of our 2021 homecoming court next to the words empowering students to have greater ownership and voice than their learning it's embarrassing to me to even consider entertaining the conversation abandoning these books today not only would you be taking away students voices and the resources they have access to but you'd be taking away their identities and their experiences you have regional teaching law at the signature of every district communication every newsletter every email signature on the poster in every building

060and even in classrooms if this is truly the case if we really need reaching all teaching all then how and why is this conversation even happening today in 2021 and if we are truly entertaining this idea or engaging in the business of silencing students how can we possibly have this as our district motto if we are truly a district that wants to reach out and teach all i beg you not to even consider the idea of silencing students experiences identities and our voices we are the future and i'm here to tell you we've all been silenced thank you for your time thank you good evening i'm dina clare communications manager for urbandale schools and i will be reading statements from five individuals that submitted public comments this evening the first is jane robinette 4302 131st

061circle urbandale i am an urbanelle resident and alum of urbandale high school i urge the review committee and the school board not to remove books from the high school library based on an opinion of offensiveness i trust librarians to select books that are worthwhile for literary and social reasons the books recently listed as objectionable have won awards address contemporary issues and are often memoirs or based in reality i hear the book at issue today is hey kiddo which explores the author's experience of growing up with an addicted mother and absent father living with grandparents and finding a creative outlet to help deal with it all the author has a story to tell one that will most likely resonate with other youth at least some of them in my experience young people are looking for connection

062especially when aspects of their identity like gender race ethnicity class family etc are out of favor or outside of perceived community norms for one of those youths seeing oneself in a book's character even though the specific experiences may differ can be of great comfort you learn you are not alone you may learn to accept yourself you may learn to accept others these books can be a literal lifeline for struggling and searching you just today i read a study showing that acceptance of a transgender or non-binary youth expressed by any adult school professional or parents reduce the odds of suicide attempts by 33 to 43 percent but each time we question the humanity of hide the existence of or silence trans you there are others out of favor we send a message of unworthiness non-acceptance invisibility

063to those who are offended by the language or the stories in any of these books you don't have to read them and if you feel you must you don't have to let your child read them but don't remove them from the library don't remove a lifeline for children who may be looking for one for that one connection that one example of acceptance thank you for your consideration the next statement is um from angela braggs as the parent of an urbandale high school junior i do not support the censorship or banning of the following books all boys aren't blue the absolute true diary of a part-time indian lawn boy hey kiddo genderqueer a school library should have stories that are inclusive to all students and those they love parents have every right to monitor what their

064students are reading and talk to them about the content in those books however a vocal minority should not have the right to tell my child what stories are relevant or worthy of him reading or experiencing and limiting what content he is given access to in a public school library silencing or shaming literature as inappropriate silences and shames those students who see themselves and those they love in those stories urbandale schools and their teachers probably declare their goal of teaching while reaching all they cannot meet this challenge in the face of censorship i respectfully submit my comments for the board to consider thank you statement number three emily garcia 4233 70th street i'd first like to thank those who brought these titles to attention because i was unfamiliar with them when i saw they were to

065be considered for for removal from the library i wanted to learn more and attempted to check them out in the criminal library both the library and the library app had extensive waitlists for all titles leading me to believe they were highly sought after books i was able to borrow them from a neighboring library and purchase the ones not available and was able to read all five books up for debates i like many tend to be drawn to books by people who look like me about people who look like me this does little to expand my knowledge and understanding of others i have made a conscious effort as of late to seek out books that offer an alternate perspective books that aren't really intended for me as their audience this has afforded me the amazing benefit

066of gaining an insight to how others interpret and experience the world as i reviewed these titles over the weekend there was content that pushed me to consider how my behavior may make things easier or more difficult for others it allowed me to think deeply about how things that don't seem significant to me can be monumental for others my children are not yet in high school but i hope that these types of books would be available to them especially if they are searching to find out and understand where they fit representation is critical and while these books may not represent me or you they represent children in our schools and it is important that they are able to see themselves in print george m johnson said it best you sometimes don't know you exist until you

067realize someone like you insisted before navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn't really living at all it's existing we all deserve more than just the ability to exist from all boys aren't blue i recommend keeping all of these titles available to students at urbandale high school thank you the fourth statement tonight my name is alyssa heasley and i have two children in the district one in middle school and one at valeria i speak to you tonight not only as a parent and a community member but also as a mental health therapist approximately 40 of my practice is adolescence to say i have a vested interest in our youth would be an understatement when you have the privilege of being allowed into the inner world of a child you realize the magnitude with which

068their daily interactions can either empower or disenfranchise perhaps the most valuable therapeutic intervention my clients can experience is the gift of validation of being seen heard understood and accepted at times i will even employ bibliotherapy using literature to support mental health if you have ever read something that showed you your experience is not unique to you alone then you know the value literature brings to our world i'm concerned about the recent discussion in our district regarding books that include themes related to race gender identity and sexuality and substance abuse and here's why suicide is the leading cause of death in young people even more alarming is the fact that lgbtq youth are four times more likely to seriously consider make a plan for and attempt suicide over 40 percent of non-binary youth will attempt suicide

069more than half of all trans male youth and over 20 percent of trans female youth will attempt suicide those rates are staggering major contributors to those rates include family rejection bullying and harassment and feeling unsafe being who they are in terms of substance abuse we would be naive to believe that our students are not living in homes where substance abuse occurs one in ten children live in households with at least one parent who has or has had an alcohol use disorder 1 in 35 live in a home where a parent has or has had a substance use disorder other than alcohol representation is one of the most powerful things you can give to a child to see who you are and what you experience around you in books greatly decreases the distress leading to depression

070and anxiety in addition to seeing themselves in the books they read students can develop a greater understanding of each other one reader of one voice states that the book is an experiment in empathy here we find one of the most valuable experiences any person walking through our halls can have empathy the ability to understand the feelings of others i assure you this does not happen without exposure i also assure you that if more students in our buildings were treated with empathy my caseload would decline and nothing would make me happier the books in question have been called obscene by those bringing complaints to the district to call these books i've seen is to call the lived experience of our students have seen how dare you talking about sex talking about substance abuse and talking about

071sexuality does not damage or change your child in addition i encourage you not to shelter your children from the world around them you do them a great disservice in their ability to navigate the world outside your home when you sow greatly with their exposure talk to your children teach them what you believe is important but do not shelter them to the point that they are not able to safely negotiate the world beyond home finally i leave you with one more consideration there's an incredibly popular book a long time bestseller that discusses sex incest rape murder decapitation and dismemberment it's found in many households that book is the bible and it's widely used to teach just as books are intended thank you the final statement tonight my name is jennifer perry i live at 105.05 hickory

072dive in urbandale my daughter is a student at the high school i'm writing regarding the request to remove books from the library to be transparent i have not read the books up for discussion and researching the books i saw most if not all were memoirs or personal narratives about underrepresented populations having these folks and others like them is important so students can see themselves represented i recently heard a survivor of childhood sexual abuse say they thought they were the only ones who had this happen to them until they read maya angelou after that she understood she wasn't the only one books such as the ones up for discussion may help students find acceptance be able to speak their truth and help them be their authentic selves good literature should help the reader grow and develop

073this may mean being uncomfortable sometimes a book can help you learn about people places ideas or things that are different than what you're used to language or parts of the story need to be understood within the context of the entire book not pulled out to make a point or be judged if the book makes a parent uncomfortable maybe it's an opportunity to talk with your student and learn together as a parent i know i've always been given the option to opt my student out if i was uncomfortable with content with an alternative with an alternative provided education is supposed to let students learn to think critically and books are part of this process i was recently reminded of the district's mission statement teaching all and reaching all if we truly believe this and support the

074mission then these books should be kept on the shelves thank you thank you to uh all the public comment comment uh presenters i would like to point out that one reason we are dictated by chapter 21 especially 21.7 so this is never a discussion that's why we don't respond we take these comments under consideration and in the interest of you know doing our official business we do have to limit and be consistent to all speakers so i do appreciate everyone being patient and listening carefully to everyone i've had a request for like a three minutes you want a break oh before we go to close session oh okay not okay so good so we'll move on to the new action items the first item is approving the replacement of the bleachers now i have a

075motion motion by making a second staircase all in favor aye opposed sign okay the next item is to approve the three items that didn't get jets that were in the public hearing at the beginning of the meeting may i have a motion anderson um uh our person who works with us very uh helpfully with our bonding is going to give a brief presentation about some of our planning that we as we go forward and possibly refinancing some of the bonds and working toward being able to finish it was due to tim and his efforts and mary beth that we were able to move up the new school so we appreciate your help glad to be here thanks for your time uh we'll walk through this and then i think i'm scheduled to come back in

076a month or so and do a more deep dive on some casual things questions come up that you forget tonight alter them through to mary beth or so um we're talking about the sales tax um and uh you will need to borrow some money to complete projects from the sales tax and so i thought i'd start by sharing a few just kind of key wallet points about the tax remembrance distributive for students and the revenue for the current euro using the department's estimate is eleven hundred and sixteen dollars a student [Laughter] and for the current year um i think it'll bring in for the district just to hear over four million in cash uh and you use um you use about a million seven or so of that to pay for bonds that you issued

077to renovate the middle school and those bonds go through 2029 after which point they they will have been paid off so um you can issue debt against the sales tax and the process requires that you set a date and then hold public hearing and there's a step in there where we put notice in the newspaper so the action item for tonight is to approve a resolution to uh set a date and time for hearing that date would be the next meeting in december and you'd hold the hearing at that point at that point the public can come and speak and when we move on with the process i don't think you necessarily need to borrow money in december or january we'll work mary beth and i with you we'll report back as to a strategy

078and timing what i wanted to get out of the way is the public hearing process so the public has the opportunity to speak and so that you know that funding is in place for the second elementary school in short order so um to point out the obvious every dollar you borrow now is a dollar that's not available for future maintenance capital and so you just keep that in the back of your mind as you as you think about how much school we actually borrow what projects will we actually fight off doing okay so far okay the next page thank you um so remember safe bonds are not paid from property taxes they're not general obligations they're only paid from the sales tax and the sales tax is distributed using the same formula to every school

079in the state it's your enrollment as a percentage of the total public school enrollment in the state and then that over the total sales tax collections one penny of total retail sales basically now to wander into the leads for just a second the numbers a little high this year because remember how we do budgets we count uh enrollment in october of the year before and then we base our budget after that enrollment and so if you think about well october of 20 we had enrollments statewide that were kind of down and october of 21 i believe we will see enrollments that are kind of up maybe not offsetting but kind of up and so the revenues will be skewed a bit in 22 and 23 because of those factors that make sense okay um that

080said your enrollments have been you know have had a nice slight upward trend to them and i don't anticipate that uh changing um but uh investors will will lend you money uh based on the expected revenues that are available at the time so if you were borrowing right now we would base a loan off of your revenues of about 4 million and then what we do is calculate such that you had at least a dollar 30 of revenue for every dollar of debt you have going out maybe a simpler way to think of it as i'm borrowing against 70 of the tax it's not quite mathematically correct but it's close enough right so you're not anywhere near that leveraged the middle school that is not even consuming half of the india so you do have

081room to take on some additional debt but the point i was trying to make earlier um every dollar we spend you know is a dollar you don't have available you spend on debt is the dollar you're gonna have available for maintenance and facility upgrades and technology so we do need to be cognizant of the impact on the overall district budget okay so i did a calculation of the maximum capacity that you could borrow and i made several assumptions that you would sell bonds in 23 uh that you would use the current revenue per student the current enrollment um and i factored in bond expenses and reserve funds and things like that and when you were all said and done you could borrow 39.7 million or you could do a project of 39.7 million now that's

082way more money than you actually need and so that's purely to give you hey what's the top top line from here what we'll do is then work on real more realistic numbers and so the bottom table there i give you uh 10 15 and 20 year options and yes we can do 12 17 and 22. you know that it's just algebra it's real very very easy algebra um and there's two ways to look at it one is what we call wrap around where we pay we start payments on the new bonds after the old bonds have been paid off so in and that has tends to make the annual payments lower that's positive but it tends to have a higher interest cost because the loan is outstanding for a longer period of time so that's

083a negative so what i did is i built six different options of uh based on a seven million dollar project which i think is about what we need to borrow to complete elementary number two and um principal and interest between now and principal and interest after 2030 um average interest rate and then about the middle of that chart you'll see surplus save 24 to 29 and then 20 30 and thereafter and that's those are kind of the numbers i want you to be thinking about as you look at this the good news is you don't need to decide tonight this is a just general topic but if we for example if we did a 10-year loan level principal in interest the surplus saved in 24 through 29 would be about a million six so after

084we paid the elementary and after we pay the middle school there's a million six annually left over after 2030 that number bench bounces up to 3.2 million because remember the middle school's gone that one has the lowest interest cost of the options at a million 256 also leaves you the least amount of spendable proceeds annually of any of the options because it very aggressively pays this bond off as fast well not as fast as possible but but fairly fast doing okay so far so then the next option i i ran uh you know 15 years and then i ran at 20 years next to it and each of them gives you a little bit incrementally lower bond payments and thus incrementally higher of the annual surplus but it also gives you an incrementally higher overtime

085interest cost to it so the balancing act is what's the most important and then when we do the wraparounds the payment the surpluses get even larger over two million in each of the three wraparound options and um as well the interest cost is the highest with with the wraparound options so um what i would say is all six work from a market perspective that we wouldn't have in today's market we would not have trouble selling any one of these options to investors the question really now comes down to um which one of these or some other deviation of this makes sense for the district's long-term budget and for that we need to spend a little more time so what's the timeline so i put in a kind of a dummy timeline which is all blank

086so it's very useless almost but it is there um so the the key things i want to get done or get the hearing out of the way and start talking about well what borrowing options makes sense you have i think quite a bit of cash available for the projects that are going on so you are not a under the gun to get the bonds sold however interest rates are reasonably attractive and i and i guess i think the longer we wait around the more risk we take in terms of just being able to access the markets and so i would want to move with reasonable uh to try and get a get the process going you get the bond sold in my head i think that's probably march february something like that that gives us

087a hearing done and a few meetings to talk about scenarios and answer your questions so and then we would wrap up probably 30 45 days after that so get this fiscal year can i answer any questions so what i'm hearing you say is we're just beginning this process now with the public and then when mary beth is back and we will try to structure this discussion a little more yes so there's two votes today one then the engagement letter and then one to set the hearing right so did you want me to address the engagement letter sure go ahead so we're required by our regulator to give you certain disclosures about risks and fees and things like that and we're required to do that at the first instance where we start working on a project

088and via a written contract well you don't really know what you want to do yet and so it's kind of hard for me to show up and hand you a contract that's you know specifies fees and things anyway our regulator allows us to give you a non-binding agreement which meets the definition of disclosures doesn't tie your hands we're grateful you've invited us here but you're not under any obligation keep us surrounded if you want to prove it tonight and then fire us next week you can um and importantly that there's no expense in the agreement it just is there to allow us to give you the requirements i would move to approve the engagement letter um in item c with piper sandler 90 seconds all in favor all right okay now we will also need

089a motion then to set the public hearing anderson moved to approve public hearing dates for sales on uh sales tax fund on december 13 2021. all in favor post saying sign your work here is done thank you thank you for being patient okay so we had discussed the substitute shortage plan well this is the new plan okay so um just to bring everyone up to speed remember last board meeting we talked about a temporary strategy to pay teachers to sub when they had to give up their planning period this strategy that we're bringing to you today is a three-pronged strategy that we hope to be more of a permanent solution um first i'd like uh to thank the committee if you're in the audience and you're on the committee if you could just stand for

090a second i want to recognize i know a lot of people were not able to make it tonight i want to recognize the work that these people have put in for the last six weeks they've given up every wednesday to come here and to have conversation and work through the difficult task of figuring out how we can bring more substitutes to urbandale community school again we thank the uea for their support and bringing us to the table to have this conversation and to have those hard conversations during that process we call rounding where we get feedback from the people that work on our teams um denise wood thank you for facilitating the whole process our team members in case they're not here i just want to recognize kelly otto lawler from the high school janine

091hauser from the middle school janelle kerr from olmstead tiffany vasquez-deween from rolling green tim carver from the high school cheryl modlin from the middle school brandon shrout from webster elementary and michelle cole from valerius the ad hoc team members included myself coltenhammer lubert from olmsted patrick babcock from the middle school lauren decryif and kate johnson from human resources and dr carlisle from curriculum and instruction this was a very productive time i feel that we we spent and i i think again it shows you what you can do if you come to the table and have those conversations um on the slides we just have a couple pictures of some of the work that we did denise really made us work we did not go in there and sit down and just chat there was some

092very focused concentrated work that we put together so that we could come up with what we found to be i believe to be a viable solution the slide with the substitute data i showed you last time to enhance what we found to be the problem and i circled the percent of filled absences again for this school year you can see it was as low in the end of september is 42.2 percent and it was as high as what is our highest 66.2 at the beginning of september substitutes fill on a evan a flow but typically in a regular year and i don't you know mr decrypt can correct me that's pretty early to be that low you there are times of the year that we're not surprised we don't like it but we're not surprised

093this was this is a tough year this has been a very tough year so in our efforts what we have come up with again just to remind you what the urgent problem is if you take a look at the substitute pay i believe i showed this slide as well last time urbandale is fifth in the metro area as far as pay so that means that anybody who is a substitute i know we have the sub in the audience who can attest to this you can go to ankeny des moines west des moines dallas center grimes johnson and waukee and make more money than you can to come here to urbandale although that's a respectable salary the reality is that the substitutes have the choices so in order to bring substitutes to our district what we're

094recommending in strategy number one again this is a three-pronged strategy is that we are raising we want to ask the board to approve raising our subpay from 135 a day to 165 a day in addition to that adding a loyalty bonus for substitutes once they hit 50 days it does not have to be 50 days in a row but 50 days subbing in the urbandale community school district for the remainder of that year your pay would go up to 185 dollars a day we all have the exact amount of subbing time that our subs have put in this year and are willing to give retroactive credit for any days that were put in already this school year to help get them to that 50 day the days would not carry over so if you do

09545 days this year you don't start next year with 45 but we felt that that loyalty bonus would give us some incentive to offer for people to sub within our district on a more permanent basis that's prong number one strategy or prong number two is to increase the number of full-time substitutes last um spring i believe before i joined the district they came to you to request 10 full-time subs we are asking this year to go up to 15. um we would bring up i assume we would continue to bring that back annually to determine the need but for the remainder of the year make an attempt to hire five additional substitutes um and then again we would see in april where we stood as far as the need for continuing those but we believe

096that that would be appropriate right now we do have 10 but we have had a number of um areas where people have been on a long term leave or they're in positions that have not been filled and the reality is we're deploying maybe three on a good day the rest of them are in a permanent classroom so they're employed and these these wonderful people are working but they're not being deployed across the district because of that high need we have to fill those spaces where we don't have a full-time teacher and strategy three um this is for our associates there's something called substitute authorization that they have to seek to be able to sum in a class now we would not pull an associate if they're with a full-time one-on-one student and that student is

097in the building we're not looking to rob peter to pay paul but we do have a number of subs who do have a para educator certificate who would be eligible to become uh sub-authorized so if their student wasn't there or maybe they only worked half-time and they wanted to work the rest of the time to fill in where we needed subs we would offer to pay that cost for them we recognize this doesn't look like a lot of money but often people do not have the funds to put that out and we don't want that to be a barrier for the subs that we have that are eligible to move forward what we do notice in this is that we have to revisit this regularly so the committee has made it um clear that our

098our success rate would be of course 100 percent of our open positions are filled we don't have any anybody that doesn't have a sub no teachers have to cover that would be the the best thing we're going to monitor that through a daily run chart through kate johnson and lauren's office they run that every day so we would just be looking at that the committee would be monitoring it to see are those numbers going up are they going down are they staying the same because then if we need to get back together to discuss some possible alternatives to our plan then we would need to look at long-term numbers to do that and then finally how do we pay for this we work very closely with mary beth who is our cfo and we took

099a look at our existing sub budget as well as our general fund and we are able to fund this without um any difficulty through those two accounts so we are here to ask the board if they for their consideration of this and we would of course keep the board up to date as well on what those numbers do and we're hoping they go way off if we get these subs then we would be able to eventually if we can fill our regular substitutes we can tell our teachers again if you need to leave the class for our training you can actually do that right now we've kind of put a halt on that because we don't think it's fair to pull teachers out it's stressing them because there's nobody covering their class and then it

100just it just creates a long-term problem so we'd love to get back to being able to offer them that opportunity can i double check so we're still going to be giving if we do have to pull teachers we're still going to be paying them for that yeah yeah we'll do that through the end of the year that's that's the very short term ideally we'll have so many subs they wouldn't need to do that but we recognize it's going to take some time we're going to have to we talked about publicizing it advertising it make sure that the subs who do work in our district know making sure that people who might want to work in our district know so anyone watching this that wants to be a substitute come on down and i think i'm

101sorry and we think the five extra steps will like considerably healthy we're not just going to end up having to plug them into the same location that we did the first time that's always a risk i think that we have to be realistic about that i think i'm i i hope that by providing a salary that is higher than other surrounding districts might give the incentive this is a good district this is a good place to come and sub so hopefully that will bring people in but the reality is if we have positions that don't have a teacher we we have to get them covered so that's where our long-term people have gone first i always mostly just wondering if that would like because it seems like we have a huge issue if that's enough

102it's just making sure that we're not too safe um i don't have any questions but just some real quick short feedback the comprehensive nature of this and the like time period for which in which you turn this around is is truly one of the best i think responses to a problem that i've seen uh in my four years on the board so just kudos to you and your team and dr daca who goes to your leadership because this is truly the direct nature with which you took to this problem um i'm i'm very very impressed with that we have a good team of people is this something that we'll be able to sustain um right you know keeping that rate higher so for next year and following it's not like we'll have to pedal backwards

103at some point we'll be able to sustain this financially okay and also just to clarify so for the full-time subs they will also then get that pay increase as well um they're full-time employees so they have other benefits correct so their salary that is we remain constant what is it right now there's a 200 oh okay okay and would we um uh pay back associates who have done the um secure substitute authorization previous to this or is it just associates moving forward it's just moving forward and we do have a little bit of work because we we want to make sure that we retain those people too so there's going to be a little bit of an agreement we have to work out so that we are able to keep them in the district okay

104i don't know how many that entails but i'm sure there's some that have okay as it relates to strategy two and the compensation for the full-time subs my assumption is that when we compare ourselves to other districts we are where we need to be with that yeah i believe we are okay so until it turns into a bidding war yeah absolutely and that's what and the timing of this is that our hope with summer grads that will give us some additional applications um because there's just there's severe shortage on people not only teaching degrees or this is what we're seeing but also self-authorization i guess my last question is um as far as associates right like i'm a little concerned that if the soap are getting paid more than the associates then maybe we will

105start losing associates is that a concern or is that uh we talked about that i think that's always a risk and we don't like i said want to rob peter to pay paul and if an associate is subbing because their student is not here for example they will receive the sub pay so they could kind of have the best of both worlds but could we have associates that wanted to leave and be a sub we could like what percentage or how how big is your associate pool right now that is it's fairly small but is that one of the associates that would qualify either with the authorization currently or with a fair educator licensure uh so that that's something that we're going to work through and it's going to be on a case-by-case or a

106situational basis based on what the voa requires for substituting which is a good thing overall because it means that you have to have some level of training in order to before those classrooms but overall uh i don't know the exact percentage but it's a fairly small percentage of our associates that have either the para educator or sub-authorization right now and that's part of i think our monthly review of this data to identify if you have two people maybe that contact uh lawrence department about it and we reach out and find out from the rest of the associates this is what the barrier is it's something different then that's that's another adjustment that we need to take a look at just to get a sense of how many people are how many substitutes could possibly qualify

107for that 50 day do you have any sense of how many um how many of our current substitutes yeah i think it's also a probably a fairly small number right now um and i think we would say that only our pool has shrunk down some as well well the pool has shrunk but we also aren't at 90 days right yeah the semesters of the total base with that said though we have some very loyal substitutes in our district too well substitutes be held to the vaccine mandate if they are full-time employees of ours then yes we'll substitute some i believe yeah anybody that's an employee of the district that's not a vendor would be would fall underneath the umbrella i think the other two exemptions were people who work outside solely and people who basically

108work alone but again it's in the courts i wouldn't know what they would do to it they could still make it possible but change things i i don't know so going back to slide six i'm looking at all of these marketing ideas that are on the um word cloud so how are we going to get the word out in terms of what the new changes are and why you should to riverdale so we're working with dina on a plan to get it to market this as widely as we can um including social media and i believe based on how things travel within educational communities that the especially the subpay is going to travel very quickly based on some marketing because districts are going to be very in tune with a change by some of their

109neighbors to the pay rate but we're going to we're going to work together to make sure we've marketed appropriately we also i mean you've already started the process with our student teachers right we've got 20 student teachers and so we're kind of counting on that being our first like big way and the schools themselves as well communicating with laws or summer graphs okay good work everybody okay so we'll move into um item 10 future ready which we we covered extensively at the last meeting other comments clarifications if not may i have a motion guys for a second all in favor aye oppose the sign and we also covered at length the utilization of esser funds for the behavior uh associates we have a motion sign no yes okay okay um we are going to move

110into the closed session um i need to have a roll call vote oh here do we need to read it out after we do that we're moving to another room actually okay bring your computers and your jackets okay so closed session for iowa codes 21.51 i to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment hiring performance or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that person's individual's reputation and when that individual requests a closed session so we need a roll call we have to have two-thirds of the board advocate so we'll call ashley anderson yeah judy downs yes catherine hauser yes rachel kent yes jenny mead yes jason mayfield yes be honest there right yeah okay so we are moving to another room um if there are any

111students who need their papers signed because we will be gone for a while and then we will come back and do it oh okay [Music] i don't need them okay so on this personnel issue following the closed session um we will be answering voting yes or no on the recommendation from the district recommending the board accept the superintendent's recommendation to deny the resignation of maggie crane elp teacher valerius and jensen and rolling green and oh sorry hilarious in rowan green we will do this with the roll paul vote ashley anderson oh yeah we probably do i'm sorry emotions go back into open sorry oh shouldn't i go back in the open switch that one second all in favor all right same sign okay actually someone has to move the item okay the second bit okay

112yeah so so move down okay okay second okay ashley anderson is there a way to connect me to his answers right now i would leave that to the president that's okay to come back sounds yes browser yes yes me yes linky yes no anderson no yeah we started with you yes all right motion carries right dude great thank you okay this is very difficult [Music] okay um may i have a motion to report [Music] do we have any clarifications or questions on any of the items in consent agenda so all in favor of adopting consenting to all these items i i suppose same sign and we don't have any board reports there is a possibility of you if you went to the convention that you can consider a brief summary of maybe your most significant

113learning in december probably at the regular board meeting in december and hopefully we won't be too redundant but a lot of good learning this is probably the best conference that that i have been to at isb so um our upcoming meetings uh please just keep in mind there's a finance session at 5 45 on the 13th so you will need to be here a little bit early for the finance review yeah and we will be meeting on the sixth to uh have uh visits with the legal counsel and our responsibilities and um what's the other one oh assembly okay may i have a motion to adjourn mean second thank you all in favor opposing sign