Urbandale CSD School Board Meeting 10.12.20

001you okay i can okay we are live streaming and ready to begin it is now 6 31 um we will call this meeting of the urbandale community school board to order and mary beth could you read the statement about why we're virtual yes the urbandale community school district school board is meeting virtually due to the cobin 19 pandemic this meeting is open to the public and the time is 6 32. [Music] okay may i have a roll call roll call mark smith here catherine hauser here brianna sarah geyser here stacy anderson here judy downs here ashley anderson here sarah schmitz here okay so everyone's here good job um may i have a motion for approval of the agenda smith anderson so moved second all in favor aye aye aye opposed same sign that appears to

002be unanimous okay this time we have um i've been notified two individuals who would like to communicate from the public i would ask each of you to give us your name and your address and please limit your comments to five minutes so uh mr millsap you're you're on mr millsap i will now move you from an attendee to a panelist so just a few seconds and mr millsap you're welcome to begin speaking it didn't flip up until right now it said on you anyway this is vern my my question is the same are we going to go back to five days or not because everything that i watch fernand i think we lost your audio are you guys there yes well i just wanted to because it flipped from a group picture to just one

003person so i don't know what it's doing but anyway like i said and that's reason i have called to school i wanted to find out if the virologist was going to be there tonight because when she talked last month i i had a few questions and i know i'm not supposed to ask questions but i still would like to state it my opinion so she's there so she can hear is she there i don't believe she's on this call vern all right well if if one of you guys would i would like for you to ask her a couple different questions like she was pretty thorough last month but like i said i have heard of several different treatments corona 19 and i i don't understand why we're not doing five days a week it

004seems like that would be more work for the teachers and the students are not getting what we signed up for which is our tax money going to the teachers i know that sounds mr millsap i think we may have lost you again your audio went out vernon showing you're on mute we just we heard that vern go ahead hey burn yes steve vern we are hearing you steve yes burn we hear you okay what burn we hear you okay i don't know what's going on all right we know i don't know at one time it said host muted me so did somebody mute me on that side no mr millsap i've been trying to unmute you and now it looks like you are unmuted so we can hear you you're welcome to to share your

005thoughts thank you okay i guess we'll start from scratch last month when a virologist was talking she was pretty thorough but there was still things that she left out like cures for cv 19 and we all know the kids infection rate is den way down so and the death rate is like oh my god so low even for people that are 70. so i don't understand why we can't have five days of school for the kids the kids are the ones that are suffering what's what's you guys numbers have you had a great big influx of sick kids have you had a bunch of sick teachers see you guys cover all this stuff after somebody speaks and then you can't rebut and so i don't know what the cure for that would be but when

006that virologist talked i wanted to say a couple things after she had given all of her stats there's cures out there and we all know it even if somebody was to get sick so why aren't we going to school five days a week that's what the parents subscribe to five days a week and the kids are the ones that are suffering so what's the problem here is what i don't get what is the problem anybody got any answers or are we just going to keep we can't reply to you in this form in this format well then how are you going to reply to me i thought that's what you guys were doing that's the reason you took people's calls we never reply this is not a discussion it's feedback from you too i want

007it i just want to answer the question it's a question can't you can't we ask questions as parents or is that unacceptable you are certainly free to ask questions we are not free to answer them in this particular format that's ridiculous that's ridiculous then how are you going to answer my question how do i do it i'll do it the way you want me to do it but how do you do it i asked you guys that last month and see now another month has went by no answer no communication nothing and i just kind of think that's unacceptable when we pay for everything for the school as taxpayers and i moved to urbandale to have good school for my kids not and there's other schools that are back as far as i know there

008is and i don't think there's any problem so why isn't urbandale back mr mills i will continue to answer your questions um when you send me emails which if you recall several of us have answered your emails so it's not exactly accurate to say no one has responded to you right but i mean in a board setting steve that's what that's the regulations as i had told you that's the format as president hauser claimed it's not a back and forth conversation i'm sorry i didn't ask for it to be back and for steve i asked a question one question i see i see that nobody wants to answer that one question vern we cannot answer it in this format how about any of you any of you texting me back then like tomorrow and tell

009me why we can't have school for five days would that be acceptable any of you i think the time limit is up and i would just say if you listen to the content of the meeting after public comment you'll get an answer to your question so if you listen to the conversation between board members and administration they'll be an answer to the question but katherine i believe we do have a time limit yes we do the time limit uh communication from the public is um mr holobrands mr oliver and so i will move you um i know you're dialing in on a phone so when you are able to speak please do mr holly brands it looks like your audio is connected so if if you're ready to speak we welcome you too now you

010disconnected it john go back to how you were whatever you did before there you go all right we're set you folks can hear me yes go ahead thank you okay all right anyway for the record john hall brand 4217 86th street here in urbandale and tonight i will be speaking to wolf items d uh your voice schedule change under your number seven action items and your item eboy the homestead completion date under your number nine facilities update both of which are now closely related glad to see us getting started on glorious so far very favorably impressed with stahls construction management of the olmstead project would be very pleased they ended up as general contractor or construction manager on the valerius project this is coming from a person with 45 plus years of involvement heavy steel

011construction for large buildings including schools and major bridges which is an expediter what all that taught me was if it can go wrong it will go wrong now a few words of caution do not vacate or start demolition delirious until completion of homestead is firmly in hand you do not want to get trapped in a situation with 200 kids and no building port the preliminary punchlist dates for olmsted seem very optimistic particularly for the impaired pnc east end which is areas which are still not totally enclosed and no roof deck originally this was supposed to be done by september 1st until now the construction schedule for homestead wasn't that important now it is with the advancement of lures we would urge not finalizing any demolition contracts for valerius till say april 2021 which is one

012of the punch date for that troubled area and see where we are at that time if my concerns prove to be overblown fine just get the building built thank you thank you okay we will um just note that the information in four a b and c are for future meetings we will actually be voting on the proposed calendars later in this agenda is there any you know that said is there any clarification or questions about anything that's involved in any of those items including the enrollment numbers um steve or mary beth when are those actually finalized when do they have to be into the state they're finalized on october 15th okay just to clarify we're not voting on the calendars we're voting to set the public hearings for the calendars yes okay okay so we'll

013move on to the superintendent's report changing the lep amount to the school budget review committee from our last meeting in september mary beth you want to explain that yeah i just i've included the document on that after our board met the department of ed had changes in documents that feed into the limited english proficient allowable growth document our board approved a higher amount than we were actually eligible for we don't need any board action on it because you um the department of ed will only take the lower amount but i just wanted to make you aware of that change which happened the day after our board meeting does anyone have questions to clarify the amount will be offset services won't be cut is that correct correct okay okay so we'll move into item six uh

014covet update which we normally have every meeting so we'll open it up to a the recommendation from the administration is the district continue to use the information we're provided from dr shaffer schaefer we deem most appropriate as she is in the best position to share the data but is not accountable for any of the decisions made by the administration or the school board do we have any clarification questions from anyone yeah i mean it seems like that was the reason why i voted to hire the epidemiologist because nobody on our staff with the exception of nurses is prepared um in a medical capacity to make these types of decisions certainly we do hold our administration accountable um but the fact that you know before implementing the new guidelines we didn't even reach out or consult

015to the epidemiologist really really disturbs me um i absolutely would not have voted to hire an epidemiologist if we were going to use her as a trophy like i said administration certainly knows how to run a school but they certainly do not know how to be medical professionals anyone else yeah so how are we proposing to use the information from the epidemiologists i guess that's what i'd really like to hear administration speak to i'll speak i guess first and then lauren can chairman if he's not um i guess that's why we put this on the agenda because it's not clear we're hearing from various directors of the board how they wish us to use that information um lauren has talked with her a few times that she has shared information and lauren has passed that

016on to you he also spoke with her prior to tonight's meeting to gain some insight as well to see the alignment we're using to see if it aligns with cdc it aligns with polk county health department with the iowa department of public health those types of things but again there is definitely some confusion and since we're getting um comments from different uh directors who have varying beliefs quite frankly that's really why this is on the agenda to see how does the board really expect us we did not hear that we were going to um use that person for every decision that we make on a day-to-day situation and that seems to be the desire for some and we need some clear directive about how you expect us to use that information catherine when you recommended

017or suggested the epidemiologist and i'm sorry if i'm putting you on the spot but what did you have in mind for that role did you have in mind that they would be collaborating with our administration or that we would reach out to obtain their opinion after decisions are implemented well this is probably premature but i would probably suggest going forward that we develop some sort of group which includes a number of people including the epidemiologists the nurses i would suggest possibly parents who have you know diametrically opposed ideas on what um on how we should be operating and our health professionals the nurses in each building and probably a range of parents as far as age and what their educational needs are i would include you know parents of students on ieps to begin to

018actually formulate a plan for when and if our system would alter our our approach to what we're doing i completely agree with everyone's contention i am not a medical it's the height of irony that we as non-prof non-professional health people and we're not actually on the ground in the schools that we would be tasked with making this decision and i've talked to a number of you about this so what i would i what i would like to see is a group of people all with different stakes and obviously probably very different approaches to things the the issue i think at this point is that there's nothing clean or clear about any of this and every time that we propose to make any changes you know there's there are intense feelings and then behind the scenes

019there are logistics that that because we're not there we don't we don't know about that for example i've been told that we keep our students in the buildings and cohorts so they don't use the cafeterias and i don't know that that is necessarily a mitigation strategy that every district does i see i don't know that so i don't know whether to say oh yeah we can double the number of kids and um and so that is where i would come from i do not believe that it is our responsibility to micromanage many of these decisions that we are not there daily to actually participate in so what i would like to propose is that the people who are and that would be you know parents of all ranges and ages of students and our staff

020i i'm not sure that we are giving our staff adequate opportunities to to speak about their experiences i don't know for sure how to representative how to do that as representatives across the board but what i would hope for is that they would be able to develop a plan should we decide if this and this and this happens then we will propose that we will do this and maybe that means going back full time and maybe it doesn't um catherine i think that's a great idea but it's october 12th right like can we can we talk about building that kind of team that's similar to a sayak except for covet response but acknowledging that we have decisions to make now and in effect we are acting like that right now because we get public feedback

021from teachers and parents and our job is to interpret that along with administration's recommendation to make decisions so i don't want to diminish getting more input i think that's great but i we can't delay decisions right while this kind of ideal committee is being built well and also i'm concerned that because decisions were made without the input of an epidemiologist i mean it was very clear if you re-listen to the board mean that things were going to be discussed with the board and it wasn't um i would like to consider rolling back the guidelines until we've had collaboration with um the epidemiologist and the group that you speak of because i don't think the implement first and asked later approach is beneficial to anyone and i would i can speak i can speak to the

022decision that was made regarding quarantine okay we took guidance from polk county health in relation to iowa department of public health so i certainly feel like there was collaboration that was done um and would in my opinion see that more as daily operations in terms of how we're handling with the assistance of polk county health care officials in this case that guidance which was taken directly from them from the iowa department whether we individually all like that or not could certainly be a point of individual opinion for sure and i totally understand that um but i i would certainly also contest that this decision in particular was made without the input of health care officials in the state so going forward how will we utilize i guess to pull us back how will we utilize

023the epidemiologist and i would like them because they weren't favorable to this decision wouldn't you agree lauren um i would say that i can read the email i have it up if you'd like me to read it would you like me to go or do you want to just go what i was going to say is that the what the epidemiologist said i think is that she was in line with what the cdc has said she has also said to us that she really trusts the decision making that polk county health makes in general and i think works with them as well so i know that that may sound like a bit of a convoluted answer um but that is what she said and i think stacey in the email that is certainly accurate um

024so i would agree with you on that yeah that she she was not favorable to the decision she never said she was favorable or unfavorable and i certainly didn't ask the question in that way but what she did share was data or guidance from cdc and i think if if anybody were to take a look at what the cdc has said most recently and compare that to what the iowa department put out there is a dis discrepancy in regards to quarantine can we be more clear with the epidemiologist um for example when we want a statement from a doctor in a legal capacity we say this is the statement do you agree with this yes or no this is the new quarantining guidelines do you agree with this yes or no if not what is

025your recommendation can we be more clear with gathering their thoughts and asking probing questions we can be more clear but that doesn't mean we necessarily i don't know i don't know that i think it's quite clear in the contract that she is not making our district decisions that is a responsibility that that ultimately administration has a recommendation for the board to act on i agree i just think she should provide a recommendation to our administration i think that's why i voted yes to hire her as a consultant i think if anything though it's it's a tool for our administration to use to get information and ask questions for areas they don't understand because what happens when you know her opinion may deviate from polk county health and and we're charging the administration to make recommendations

026for us i think you know we have to take into into consideration one it's an epidemiologist that we're actually paying and it's just a tool and resource for uh lauren and the rest of the administration d at facts to make an informed recommendation to us it's not it shouldn't be our job to micromanage this particular facet that the administration is charged with and i worry sometimes we're looking to overstep these bounds i i would just say uh my understanding of the relationship kind of from the start when the board said we would like to do this was in line with what mark just said anyone else have any clarifying questions so what are we looking to to do with this 6a right now i guess that's that's where i'm a little bit confused still it

027is unclear because it doesn't really appear to be an action item it appears to be a clarification item okay and i think probably the discussion at least what i'm hearing is does the board expect to be to have have direct communication from the epidemiologist and understand that communication i think the line is is that our decision or is that information that's what i would that that's the line i think um i personally would like to contend that um the day-to-day operations the concerns that people have the individual buildings we're not there and so for us to presume to be making a decision um seems out of line to me and so do we want to know necessarily that the epidemiologist thinks is that maybe that's okay i don't know but the bottom line is those

028recommendations need to come from inside considering all kinds of factors that we are not privy to and we we never will be and so i think that's the that's the direction that the administration is asking and her role i still contend was as a consultant she's not a decision maker will she provide recommendations that was my understanding that she would provide the administration thoughts and recommendations as well as being able to answer questions but that they would take her recommendations into consideration along with other information i think that's reasonable i think that's a reasonable question but that doesn't mean necessarily that we that we are making those decisions at least not at the preliminary level in the buildings right but if they're looking for clarification from the board how do you want us to utilize

029the epidemiologist my response in mine alone would be before you make a decision gather a recommendation from the epidemiologist whether you choose to follow it or not is ultimately on you but i am curious to know what the epidemiologist said and i would think administration would be curious as well we have this wonderful resource tailored to just us at our disposal so i i so what i'm hearing is an expectation of consulting whenever we're moving to make major decisions on changing a delivery model or is that what i'm hearing because day to day i didn't expect i mean if you want to watch what her information is you can go on polk county health it's the same company i mean if you if if individuals want to know what she's saying in her data it's

030exactly what we got in the last in the board meeting and i and i think maybe to the bigger picture one thing that we could have her do again at the next board meeting or or maybe a month from now either way would be to have her speak into a little bit of the forecasting piece as it relates to the different metrics that you might look at about change in delivery model and as it relates to full cold and flu season and getting more indoors what's what's that excuse me what's happening with the positivity rate and then also in the in the most recent discussion that i had with her and this is where you know i would call it a kind of a consulting relationship where she talked about the cases per 100 and

031how that metric in relation to the positivity rate and those two things together can really um speak to what uh the virus looks like in real time in our in our county um and i think she would be maybe that timing would be good to hear from her again in regards to some of those things uh and i think i would like to hear from her based on um you know we we've got a lot of red areas up in the northwest side of the state and then we've got a red area on the northeast side of polk county and i'm pretty sure the virus doesn't just stay away from polk county because it is polk county so my questions would be going forward what's what's the chance of virus transmission based on what's going

032on on areas that are adjacent to ours that's a real concern for me going forward and then i would like to know uh as you stated going into cold and flu season and the complications from that and whatever knowledge that she has about you know pushing everybody inside right and those are major concerns and i think you know stacy to your to your questions too i think if she were to come two weeks from now um you know maybe some of the more detailed questions too that you're thinking about that would be a great chance to be able to ask those directly as well i would really appreciate hearing from the epidemiologists when she spoke and provided some information and spoke so highly of the mitigation strategies it gave me a real sense of calm

033and anxiety reliever also i felt another pertinent thing that she mentioned was about um the numbers hitting a certain percentage and to let the numbers settle out i think it was beneficial to hear i mean it really was beneficial so i thank you for the opportunity and i would like i would like that opportunity again okay uh clear as mud so we're kind of agreed that we might we want to watch the circumstances and we want to to be able to as a as as the year moves into the end of october be able to to bring up some of those issues that accurate i think to bring up is fine the better question is is our administration getting the resources it needs to make the best informed decision and recommendation to the board and

034that that's really we put that back on the warrant if he needs something you know to let us know and i i would say the between our relationship with um polk county health and specifically kerry lebanon townsend who is uh their infectious disease person and dr schaefer in between the conversations that we've had her presentation and then what she provided in writing as well those those two entities are very helpful i think in terms of helping guide us um in the direction we're going to go over the next few months for sure i right right now i would say that is um those two groups are very beneficial good and then we have to trust our administration to to bring us the recommendations so yep appreciate it lauren thanks okay so the next item it's

035a recommendation that we follow the current board approved metrics uh to decide if and when we consider returning to full on site instruction we have any clarifying uh or uh questions or issues uh i don't know if uh it would just take too much time but i was hoping christa could talk to us um a little bit about the needs that they have in order to come up with a plan um to get us back in person what like what the timeline on that would look like and just kind of the some of the things that they have to consider so that we have a little bit of a better understanding i think that's valid sure i'd be happy to um so we actually are we i mean we have to be not reconvened but

036we have to continue with our district leadership team to just examine everything you know we've done things such as move furniture we've changed schedules um you know and and that was really the focus getting hybrid if you recall back in the summer i think the eight or nine board meetings that we had um we started thinking we would be full in person and then you know as summer progressed it was no we're going to be in the hybrid and then we really thought okay well that won't last very long we'll go back to in person so anyway each of those plans requires different logistical considerations you know at this time kind of monitoring the metrics and what they've been we haven't made any concrete decisions um about returning to learn full-time nor do we have

037a recommendation to do so um you know i i think the conversation we just had about the epidemiologist and the forecasting and the cold and flu season you know is something that's weighing on all of our minds because the recommend excuse me the metrics that we have currently are still in line with what the cdc would recommend so really it's just it's just a matter of planning you know one of our biggest mitigation strategies right now is the ability to keep kids distanced as well as wearing the masks and though the masks certainly would not change at least there's no indication that that would change if we go back into a full-time you know five days a week in person structure um the distance certainly would you know catherine mentioned the lunchroom for example we're

038not eating in lunchrooms reading in classrooms where where kids can be distant so you know just a lot of those types of logistics um and planning that would have to take place to make sure that we could continue to mitigate in a way that so far has been very very successful um you know to my knowledge we have zero transmissions within our schools you know any case that we have has come from outside which is which is awesome i mean we obviously want no cases but it's it's it's great to be able to say gosh what we're doing is working so you know we have um given ourselves um you know a rough deadline of approximately a month to get a plan in place um that would put us at around the november board meeting

039um the first november board meeting excuse me assuming you know cases are i saw where the 14 day positivity average was up about a percent today if you look at the coronavirus website so we're at 6.4 i believe in polk county the metric that lauren talked about the cases per one hundred thousand i think you understand that better than i after your conversation lauren with um with the folks at polk county department of health but we certainly want to monitor that you know looking at a 14-day average it's just not a a needle that moves very quickly when you're looking at 14 days so you know we've been watching it for sure and it going down is wonderful but right now i guess we weren't planning on changing course uh soon with respect to the

040hybrid just simply based on positivity rate and um the metrics that were discussed back in august uh based on a number of the emails that we have received over the last two weeks uh is there a chance to send out further surveys we got like a baseline of where everyone was before if we could send out another survey to to both teachers and to parents and kind of see how everything's going would that be yeah there is we actually have a parent survey that we're sending out um as part of parent teacher conferences collecting feedback um rolling green actually sent theirs out last week to their families asking several questions we have a we have a set of questions that are consistent across the building so that we can kind of do some comparative data

041you know and look at celebrate some successes and see where we can make some improvements buildings could then add their own individual questions so we've got that planned and we we typically would do that to coincide with parent-teacher conferences just because we have an opportunity to kind of get in front of parents remind them to take it that kind of thing it does not specifically ask about the three instructional delivery models and a preference if you will for those three instructional delivery models could we do that absolutely should we do it yep um and so yes we will we will gather additional data as part of that i i think though you know going back to the conversation about the metrics um you know i think we have been sort of operating with those metrics

042being a pretty established set of criteria um and so if if that's not the case we would certainly need to have some conversations about that if those metrics are still um soft in terms of kind of i mean i know there's always gray right because we're looking at we're not looking at um um we're looking a lot of data we're not looking at you know hard and fast numbers but if there is a you know i i certainly haven't been given the impression that anybody you know around this table including our administration um feels good about moving those metrics or changing those metrics so if that were the case we'd have to definitely have that conversation sooner rather than later um so that we would know kind of what direction to aim for and then

043what to monitor as we go um yeah that was sorry this is not ashley this is sarah but it was super oh i hope is that did you hear what you wanted ashley can i ask you a question or do you need to oh yeah i i have i have a a follow-up that can wait till after you're done so go no you can finish i just i it um no pregnancy brain's getting the best of me uh you go i forgot what my thought was because you got me distracted i'm sorry um okay so my question is um would you or would anyone be able to speak a little bit to kind of the very unique situation that urbandale is and with being just a building short um and how that will be impactful

044or continue to make us look just a little bit different maybe than what our neighbors are the pro the process that they're following um is that yeah actually sarah i can't do that tonight i didn't ask for any of that we it's fine but yeah we actually just talked about that today in our director's meeting you know we are in a unique situation with the school down essentially and having karen acres and jensen be overcrowded you know back at the beginning when we did send out the survey and excuse me families selected the remote option fortunately many of our remote learners clustered at those two sites to say that they would not still be overcrowded however is false um i'm recalling numbers off the top of my head but it was a problem we won't

045hold you tonight thank you i did look up just today we're at 564 remote learners in pre-k through um 12 which is 14 almost on the nose 14 of our of our students but broken down by building i don't have that we have had a lot of movement you know or some movement i should say um we were approximately 70 75 off the top of my head of uh kids from each of those buildings that elected to go remote um they were what was our increase yeah they were holding about an additional 120 to 130 students each so we would still be you know more crowded than we would be in a in a year when olmsted was not under construction by about 40 to 50 students per building okay so yes that is definitely

046an additional challenge that we have to consider yeah it is and it's a unique um position to be in during a pandemic so um thank you for sharing that we don't have any data yet as far as a plan to move full-time as far as additional students that may pick online only yep so that's another challenge right now we do not we don't have the capacity to move more students to online learning um you know at this some excuse me at the high school for example we are at the end of the quarter almost so we're halfway through those semester-long classes and i will say the biggest challenge by far is supporting from from my perspective has been supporting the remote learners at urbandale high school with all of the different classes and all the

047different you know the kids can take and should take all of the different certifications that teachers are required by law to carry you know as i look at the participant list today many of our teachers who are supporting those remote learners are on listening to this very discussion we're asking them to to move some mountains to make any additional shifts mid-semester like this um is not possible quite frankly from a logistical standpoint um so that's a concern for me you know i think in k-8 it's a little bit easier but still certainly a challenge um oh you're saying even if we did shift to we would not be able to accommodate families who are comfortable in a hybrid but would not be comfortable going um full-time we we will be sending out um a survey

048we call it a survey a questionnaire um in mid-november to all families saying if you would like to make a switch from remote to in-person or in-person to remote please do so give us that information by december 3rd and by january 19th when second semester starts we will have built the schedule and so yes we can absolutely accommodate anybody that wants to make a switch on that timeline at that semester break but midstream like this i just don't know how that would be possible okay thank you for sharing that that makes a lot more sense also so is the action item here to approve the vote on the um recommendation the administration recommendation um so i would move to approve um the recommendation provided under um item 6b that we follow current board approved metrics

049to decide and if we win if and when we consider returning to full on-site instruction hey dude i had a little bit more discussion oh i'm sorry yes i did too okay go ahead bree no is this i'm sorry is this an action item because it's not under action items and we didn't vote on 6a question if i can just get clarification i'd appreciate that thank you yes this is an action item okay and at the first one again do we need to vote on 6a since we skipped over voting that's what because originally from the congress again the individual comments were having there was great questioning on how to use epidemiologists and we felt it was important to make a recommendation so we were very clear on our direction because it puts us in

050a really tough spot trying to um when we you know we're i as i've uh we've talked at the administrative table as we all know our community has various uh opinions and honestly so does our board we're a micro um organization of our community and that's why this is so challenging because there there are no perfect answers here um the way i interpret this part of the agenda is that they're just updates on kovid and not necessarily mandated b to be action items but i think for this particular one however the board votes it would be helpful to the administration if we elevated it to the level of action item so we could put our stamp on their recommendation because there is a lot of scrutiny over this particular one i agree with you judy

051it's just i usually like to take the time to contemplate my vote and i did not think we were voting on this tonight well to be clear while it's not under an action item um when there's a recommendation listed that means it's an action item and since it's covet 19 the intention is that we're going to have that on i'm sorry go ahead there's a recommendation under 6a so what's the difference as i stated we we highly assumed you would take a vote on 6a i mean there is a recommendation we did an action item too on that and i think we came to the consensus that we did not need to vote on a i think judy's taking a position and looking to provide some guidance to the administration now and and started to

052make a motion which i don't disagree with i think i just had a little bit more discussion that i went well i think if we can continue the motion is on the table but can we please allow people to ask questions and make comments that would be brianna mark whichever of you yeah thank you um sorry steve where you had to say just for future um again while it wasn't listed under action items um does the board even though we're going to always have a covid 19 update area do you always want action items just under action then that that's not clear we thought there's no reason you can't take action under covet things where we make recommendations but if you do not wish that i guess i need a little clarity on that because

053there will be several decisions let's face it over probably the next few months the board will have to take that is totally covered 19 so we felt as appropriate to put it under there and make a recommendation versus listing it under action item i appreciate the thoughtfulness i think catherine is probably i know in the past she's done quite a bit to shape up our agenda and i think she might be in the best position to state how this should be placed in our agenda you're on mute catherine so i but again um brianna were you able to finish what your thoughts were well actually no um first of all thank you um first of all i think that this is uh a stan this should be a standing agenda item that we talk about

054at every board meeting um you know actually not you know until now we haven't even really talked about it um i think we have to decide if those metrics are what we're going to adhere to i mean i know that there's been we voted on it i know that there's been no conversations even even our um community members have heard meetings that say well it's guidelines and things like that but if that's what we're adhering to then then that's what as a board we need to use that to make our decisions um i do really appreciate and think that it's necessary that we do do we survey and survey in a way our community so that they have just one choice or i would be okay with this choice in this choice because i think

055maybe our survey last time um had kind of maybe some misinformation if you will because some people said oh i'm fine with this i guess i'm okay with this but it didn't give us this is what i you know want specifically um i am concerned that we wouldn't be able to accommodate our remote uh people that choose to go to remote if we do end up going 100 full-time um i i think that other um you know other communities and districts are trying to make that work and maybe it's just a few few families and if so i think that it's really necessary for us to think about that um i also really am concerned especially about our elementary students and i understand um the purpose for the hybrid and the mitigation strategies i i

056fear that many of our elementary students aren't able to access some of the remote things on their off days and i'm also very concerned about our special education population our students on ieps that need to access face-to-face learning and when we look at you know some of these conversations um i i wouldn't like i mean i would like to have think about options not just over the whole district might be going back a hundred percent i mean i do think that thinking about maybe slow rollout or different options or really being able to accommodate all of our learners in the ways that we we're also hearing from our community that they want us to think about this as maybe not a one size fits all but really what can we do as a district to

057support those families and the students that really need that support okay mark i think bree hit a number of key areas that i have concerns about and one is is the communication to our our stakeholders as far as what needs to happen going forward as far as any change and you know you heard me talk about the the metric guidance uh that was put together before when when we had a vote on it and i was concerned that it was uh labeled you know a working document or or that it wasn't you know in concrete and particularly the the sources of that um guidance that was being uh from there and my understanding when questioning that it was that it was pulled from a lot of the districts surrounding us and now we're seeing those

058districts go back to full-time learning some of them or or had already started in in five day a week learning and we're obviously going to get the questions from from our parents and stakeholders why are we so different we do certainly have some building concerns but i think we need to provide some certainty through surveys and and through information put out to to these parents about what we need to see change and so i do start back again with the the metrics is that really hard and fast for us and i posed that last time it to me it appeared to be if then you know if this then this and it seems like that's what our administration is looking for from us i have concerns about that document which i voiced before and i

059won't go through all again but you know what what is the source of of that guidance in there and is it just a mishmash of borrowing from from neighboring districts so we do need to provide some guidance to our administration absolutely and they need to have something that they can rely upon to provide us these recommendations but we also have to provide concrete information for our public to like this is what can happen to change and i do support like we we have to start looking at all right is it elementaries or is it certain grades that maybe we need to provide a different service too so if i'm hearing you correctly mark you um you are you're wanting so you're so so when we leave here tonight you want to be very clear whether

060or not our administration should rely upon the metric that isn't currently in place use it as guidance or if they should be looking at and looking outside i want to be very clear on on what they are looking to because last time we we had this to a vote it was then presented as well this is just guidance this isn't hard and fast rules and it is going to morph over time but i think as even brie pointed out we haven't had any further conversations about what this document is or or even what's in this document and the sources of of the decision-making data and so i think we have to have those conversations at some point in order to to rely on it and provide our administration with some some good guidance i mean

061if we're just pulling things into a document i just from a legal standpoint i have some concerns and you know i'm more interested in and the kids who need the education and and the equity of it all to begin with so well is it fair to say um or i'm just going to interpret what i heard christa say um tonight was that there isn't a recommendation at this time from administration to move forward so can we just clarify with them that they i mean it is just guy i mean the way i took it from our original meeting is that it is guidance um but they are also using additional you know they are monitoring additional sources in addition to having the ability to consult with our epidemiologists sure the recommendation under 6b right now

062is administration recommends we follow the current board approved metrics to decide if and when we consider returning to full on site instruction i feel your frustration mark i feel like you know we've gotten some messages from parents saying hey we don't feel like the process is transparent and i thought i don't have any more information to offer you because it's already been turned over i mean when you look at just the document if it's not a recommendation that the administration put forward to us i mean they they have been doing their own mitigation strategies and not following the ten percent um so that already means it's just kind of a loose guideline is that correct or no i don't know that i quite followed the the use of their own well because the well i

063guess the the document was produced by administration right the board had no no part in creating it it was put forward to us on a board agenda um and in my understanding was that steve created it from a hodgepodge of sources that's what was said in the meeting and so you know my concern is even if those i don't i don't even know if that's a if the document we were presented is being used as a guideline or being used as a hard and fast process i feel like i don't even have that clarification or understanding right now and i would i would like to get clarification to be clear there were two board members on that subcommittee yes so trying to trying to move forward i think this action item the board is asking

064us to give them guidance on how to use the guidelines because over the past few weeks we've been around five percent and i'm sure that's been very confusing for the administration and families to think how are we going to make this decision when that's a moving you know every day that changes so i think what they're asking is let's stick to the metrics that we supported and give them support and say that's how we want you to interpret the metrics we want you to interpret them this way and provide just some guidance going forward that's my interpretation of this action item as a whole is to help reinforce that it doesn't make anything perfect but it helps them make decisions over the next few weeks so i don't i was a little confused about what's

065not being followed um we're still following it we're in the yellow it's 5 to nine point nine um and again it's i think the lowest i've seen it is five point six i think but don't steve that's what i'm saying yeah we're we're following it but when when we use the word guidelines if you're a parent out there who's struggling they might think oh well it's almost a five that means we might go back but this is us saying no we would not want to air on on the caution of following those guidelines if if this were to be approved the other piece we're hearing um and lauren please correct me if i'm wrong but um again while i don't speak directly to pope county health lauren does um the other things we're hearing is

066that with everybody relaxing um they are anticipating a huge increase here and then add in the influenza season and we're concerned again we're not doctors either but we're concerned when we hear that that okay everybody's going back maybe that's okay for us let's see how they work if it works great for them it may be a great example for us hey we can do it because we know we have great mitigation strategies but we're also concerned this time of year and letting our guard down when we are keeping people safe because of all the mitigations and part of that mitigation is the hybrid model of meeting every other day while it's not perfect i am grateful and i i'd like to publicly say thank you everybody for your emails and your questions and concerns the

067board and administration has the exact same ones and those are the ongoing conversations yeah thank you very much thanks for saying that steve um that that is uh we have had an outpouring you know of support and uh you know concerning questions from the community and and i think it's i just appreciate that you guys have been um you know you continue to look at the process as a district as administration and and um and are not jumping uh you know a decision making that that that we may not quite be ready for but i i do want to say also it is very challenging you know there's a lot of concern from our community and this board in administration um with the you know social emotional wellness of our students in transition is very

068challenging for those students also and this you know if when we do it let's let's do it right because back and forth transition is very um very challenging for for students and our young students in particular in particular and um students with additional needs as well so i i think when we do it let's just let's make sure that we that we get it right okay so if i can synthesize this we're being asked to support the recommendation that we continue with this current metric is it perfect no nothing we're doing this year is perfect so we'll always kind of do the best we can i would echo sarah's concern with consistency having worked on the inside of educational institutions if there's a chance that we're flopping back and forth that's more detrimental than what

069we're doing right now and so as i heard krista and lauren say we are seeking additional considerations and input i mean it didn't matter if we said tonight that we wanted to go full there isn't a plan to do that so our alternatives here are quite limited so i would advocate for reiterating judy's recommendation with the caveat that we clearly understand that the district administration and all the resources that they have are trying to do this right and study it and and develop a good plan for going back fully in person i would also say that probably most of the districts that have gone back in person have violated their own metrics so i you know it's kind of it is what it is um right yeah emotion on the table there's emotion on the

070table and i think krista i that i can say this after but we need to celebrate the fact that we have an identified inter transmission in urbandale school district yeah i mean that's amazing yeah and you guys have done a very good job to make that happen and our teachers have done a very good job to make that happen so i know there's a lot of negativity out there but goodness sakes guys that's great yes that's solid work right there and everyone from the bus drivers to steve seriously and you know not to create some hierarchy but like every single person involved to parents who are doing a good job you know teaching their kids about hygiene and mass and taking on precautions everyone deserves to celebrate that so i'm sorry there's emotion on the

071table yep do i have a second i'll second okay do we have a roll call mary beth yes sarah schmitz yes mark smith yes hauser yes sarah geyser yes stacey anderson yes ashley anderson yes downs yes that's unanimous great so i appreciate all of the input from everybody all your views and i appreciate again um all the people who have reached out obviously deeply concerned about their children's education as we are and i would reiterate that we we hope to consider all kinds of alternatives maybe even a gradual rollout so we're just going to applaud the efforts of the people on the inside and their resources okay so we'll move on to see there is no action this is an information item does anyone have any questions for christopher carey i applaud the efforts of

072people to reach out to students who have not been participating i think that's awesome nothing okay let's move into the other i'm sorry i knew it wasn't working um we're on 660. my one question was just to ask do we feel that these numbers are within a normal range um in regards to how many are are just missing here they're like is it is it substantially more less even it would not be within the normal range of what we would um be having in a typical year and it i i don't know what a normal range for this year is um it's more than what we would like but we're continuing to work on it we do have some tough ones that um are heartbreaking but we continue to strive to engage and make it

073a good situation for everybody thank you okay so action item 7a a motion to set the public hearing for the 2021 traditional calendar down so moved okay um let's just do a roll call judy downs yes stacy anderson yes sarah geyser yes ashley anderson yes mark smith yes hauser yes schmitz yes that's unanimous okay thanks guys okay the same on item b for rolling greens uh calendar for 20 for the next actually two academic years do i have a motion down so moved smith another roll call mark smith yes sarah schmitz yes ashley anderson yes hauser yes downs yes sir geiser yes stacy anderson yes okay okay item c recommendations for uh plaques for the for olmsted elementary and for the fitness center hopefully we didn't misspell anybody's name or miss anyone if you think

074of anybody and then maybe a couple initial questions um i could always ask later but i'm um mark i notice in a lot of times you had use your middle initial would you like that in there sure i do that's what i go by thank you and then um brianna i wasn't sure if there was a hyphen in there or just a space under say or geyser it's just a space thanks thank you for the clarification sorry i didn't ask ahead of time okay may i have a motion it feels weird to move to have your name on something it is very weird but i don't know to prove it sorry mark second that's fine okay let's do uh all in favor aye all right same sign okay that's unanimous okay so item d we

075are making a decision on whether to move forward with moving up the new elementary do we have any clarifications or questions on this item if we vote to approve this and we have some sort of issue with olmstead as uh john spoke earlier this month this evening um do we have the option of postponing demolition yeah i agree i would move to approve but not if it means demolishing eric baron can you maybe best answer that timeline please that's a good great question sure um hello everybody um so the schedule that we provided for this particular project um is is different than we did for the homestead site and in this in this instance we are illustrating the option to demolish the building first while we finish drawings for the remainder of the building so

076um we essentially have that that opportunity or that option to um to decide right up until we issue those documents out for bidding um for the demolition portion so we can still proceed with you know with the drawings and the preparations the specifications um but and then you know if we get to that point in time you know next spring that you want to delay that um that is not a problem is there any way to set the vote up that the i i'm not sure how i want to word it but that we wouldn't vote to demolish right now it's okay i think to proceed with um things on how to do that but i just feel so nervous that just you know that it will forget by the time it comes and you

077know the they'll it just won't come back to the board is what i'm worried about and i'm worried about space um issues with the kids most of all in social distancing i'm also concerned about upcoming expenses i'm aware that this funding is coming from other sources it still makes me nervous to spend money during a pandemic but i would love to put off demolishing with certainty so in the in this preliminary schedule that we have now it would come back to the board and what we have listed here this is always subject to change but the board would have to establish the bid date and public hearing for the demolition and right now that would happen at the may uh the may 2021 board meeting so um whatever your actions are tonight um this this

078would come back to the board for uh further approval um just as a as a parliamentary action uh to get things moving and then with regards to the dollar with financial expenditures um mary beth or steve you you know you have different pots of money and things of how how dollars are allocated so regards to how those dollars are spent you might be able to answer answer those so my understanding is we could approve this without that stipulation because it would come to the board table in may correct what are the finances of doing this in a pandemic are there any implications that the administration can see terry beth i don't know if you can answer it or if tim is on um from piper sandler well i'd like to hear about kind of how

079will it impact the district as a whole will there be any ripple effect no um we have funding available and if tim oswald's on and he's able to speak that's fine but i know he spoke last time too um because of the positive taxable valuations we've had consistently over the last three years that's enabled us to move forward quicker and because of the favorable interest rates both of those things are in our favor and then in talking with eric and his team the ability to lock in prices for materials at this point in time is a huge advantage as well and any sort of um timing with the cash if something if we needed uh some preliminary expensive covered initially before our bonds were sold we have funds to do that if you remember right

080i reviewed the capital the tenure capital projects plan and we have balances in there we've tim oswald and i figured i think the most we would need to dip into that and maybe not at all but might be five hundred thousand dollars and that would be replenished after on sales we did have some conversation when i met with eric and uh when we discussed this proposition originally and there is some uh some talk out there that when and if the pandemic ends there will be a building explosion because there's been some caution and that's maybe an implication too a year or two down the down the line and getting ahead of that might be advisable as i remember the conversation and i think more importantly don't forget we're getting kids and staff into a new

081facility two years earlier that's that's exciting we if we felt we could have at the start we would have set these projects back to back and so it's pretty exciting that we're in a position financially to do that as well yeah that's that's that's two generations of kids that get a new building instead of brian and jensen are hilarious so that's awesome um are there implications i mean i'm i'm inclined to support it absolutely um are there implications from like the school standpoint in terms of logistics and being ready to make that shift i mean i guess as i say this our teachers and administrators have already made the shift to the hybrid model so moving a plan to move buildings is probably um well within their capabilities right now i will say judy naturally

082there are um many many um plans to go through and we'll we're actually have a meeting scheduled for i think it's wednesday already this week to bring the committee back and start creating a gantt chart which basically walks through everything we need to do to get it done so we'll be busy but we're excited okay yeah any other questions um one request i'd have going forward just says we're back into this building conversation which is crazy that we're starting again um is to have building leadership at board meetings if possible while we're discussing these big decisions so we can ask questions about the impact it was very helpful during the um olmsted conversation to always have building leadership um so this isn't about this meeting but just moving forward maybe a reminder to bring them

083back on board to those regular board meetings okay enough wait time may i have a motion move to approve moving forward with yes number two down second okay let's do a roll call this is quite a commitment hey uh sarah geyser yes ashley anderson yes hauser yes stacy anderson yes downs yes schmitz sorry sarah schmitz sorry i said yes um but i don't think you heard me mark smith yes that's unanimous okay great exciting okay let's move to item e which is the first reading of a policy uh dictated by uh fema procurement uh pima grant procurements we have any questions if not me i have a motion move to approve that second okay all in favor oppose same sign okay that appears to be unanimous let's go to item f similar policy on fraud

084may i have a motion downs move to approve that second okay all in favor aye aye aye opposed same sign that appears to be unanimous okay another um fema grand award policy any questions if not may i have a motion okay all in favor aye aye aye aye oh seems fine unanimous all right we have some board reports um don't know the fitness center that's good news i don't know if we really need to cover that i'm assuming everybody read it that's awesome that we are getting money back for our energy efficiency anyone have any questions on that okay if not let's go to the olmstead updates does anyone have any questions on this or bill do you want to address this briefly sure i don't know how to get my video to work uh

085so i'd since steve he gave you the original board report which i don't think he attached here but so we talked about um completion dates and so i kind of went through the schedule mike what we're looking at and so we'll also put together the video that you guys will get at the end of the month for your tour but i think what's interesting is so area d the academic wings are coming along really really well we're actually about ready for paint in the southwest one area and then as far as the common space the steel's getting set we're putting uh the floors are getting forward we poured one of the decks last week we're gonna pour another one tomorrow and then we'll leave one deck left to pour in there and then just as

086far as density of the building when you get into that open area that area will really go fast not much of its two-story and it just doesn't have near as much minus the admin area it's pretty much paint and block walls and pain structures so we're feeling really good about that one comment back to any issues with the demolition is we'll be in a spot where we can really look at that and like eric brought up that comes back to use twice to look at those things when the drawings go up from head and all those things so there would be a chance if something would slip to catch that and we by no means install we'll take the building away from you before we give you one so um i guess so other than

087that everything's going well it's busy every day if you drive by there we're running somewhere in uh depending on the trades and concrete pours in that somewhere between 70 and 100 people a day working on that site so it's going well great thanks anyone have any questions for bill okay you're free to go thanks for hanging on all right thanks bye have a good night everybody move to open that consent agenda thank you i have a second second smith all right do we have any discussions or questions on anything in the consent agenda okay if not may i have a role called vote to approve this sarah schmitz yes mark smith yes catherine hauser did we lose catherine yeah we just lost her okay uh brianna sarah geyser yes ashley ashley anderson yes judy downs

088yes stacy anderson yes catherine hauser sorry we're we lost you just briefly oh you're muted still muted i read her lips it said yes okay yes thank you the computer is failing me tonight i don't know why a district computer don't leave me now okay so at this point um i'm wondering if you would be willing to take a five minute break or not before we move into the work session um and maybe what can we bring up how much longer are we planning for the meeting tonight uh i'm hoping we can zip through the work session um maybe before we do that uh steve do you want to catch up with people on whether they want to go to isb yeah that would be great so just um we do need to know um

089soon so we put a cut off date of october 20th um so there is a link there so even if you can't it doesn't work out for you again it is virtual this year um please let mary beth and or myself know that you plan to go and which sessions um that link then will take you to all the sessions that are provided and then we'll get you uh paid up and signed up for those who want to go so steve i won't be going okay no judy thank you and uh family obligations i likely won't either okay i won't be able to attend either steve this is stacy thank you stacy okay ryan take it away good evening how's everyone doing am by hanging in there with me everybody good how are you i'm

090good it's good to see everybody you know i've been sitting here and listening and and really supporting the work that the board is putting in that they had senior admin is putting in so again i know we're it's 803. we all have families that we want to get to and tend to so we'll go ahead and dive into this work as you see that we we've uploaded um some information on the uh on the on the board agenda so you should have access to that information um already but i'll go ahead if it's okay with miss dean if i can share my screen and we'll work through our equity and inclusion now keeping in mind that this is just our starting point um we've got a lot of work that we plan on that we're

091planning on doing here over the course of the next year as we support that our black lives matter proclamation that the board put put through so what we're going to do today is just a simple introduction to the equity inclusion work and then as we move forward we're going to dive into some some heavier things so i'm going to go ahead and get started let me see about sharing my screen here and i think that we are ready to go so again i'm just gonna thank the board for giving me this opportunity to work with you this evening this is something that i've been looking forward to since the proclamation so i'm looking forward to our collective journey here together you know our objectives for this evening we're going to examine our differences between uh

092equality and equity and create a collective definition to guide our work surrounding diversity equine and inclusion one of the things that i've learned through all of the work that i have supported is that if we don't have a common definition it's going to be very challenging it's going to be very difficult for us to move forward so we're going to take some time to work on what that collective definition is first before we dive into some of the more heavier topics um that were that are going to happen later on so our learning targets we want to make sure we we have a clear understanding of what the goals and the outcomes are for for our time together uh first i will reflect on my belief and understanding of diversity equity and inclusion and i'll

093think critically to define equity and inclusion and how it impacts me and the greater community so again those are our learning targets where we were compared to where we are going this this kind of came from our black lives matter proclamation but if you spend any time um looking at the black lives matter um literature that's on the web or anything it's so much more inclusive than just black lives matter it's something that in that uh encompasses our lgbtq it encompasses um community activism social justice etc so we're going to encompass all of those things into our into our learning so it's not just about black lives matter it's about everything ultimately we want to hold ourselves accountable to our reaching all teaching all mission and vision so that way we will have our equitable

094outcomes for all on if you were able to download that information i want to just take a couple of a couple of minutes just to give you an opportunity to outline some some personal goals that you will have for yourself as we continue to work through what diversity equity inclusion and inclusion looks like i put our smart goals on there just just to kind of give you some guidelines on what writing those personal goals are an example of something an example of a goal would be um if you have taken the time to read kendy's book how to be anti-racist one of the things that he talks about is is do you have someone that does not look like you that you're going through life with and if you don't have someone then i wouldn't

095then according to his work he would encourage you to do that he would encourage you to find someone that doesn't look like you that you're engaging folks in conversation with that you're inviting over to your house for dinner so that way you can have a different perspective um of things that are going on in our greater community so that would be an example of a goal is to find someone finding find someone that you can engage in conversation with um that does not look like you so just take a quick minute identify some of those goals like i said that there was a sheet that was on the board meeting or on the board minutes that you could write out those goals so you can go ahead and take a quick second to identify what

096your goals are as we dive into this work this so the first part of our topic is i want to take some time to dive into what inequality looks like okay so again if you have that sheet you should have four boxes on there where i would like for you to just take a quick second and write down your thoughts on what inequality is what it looks like how would you define inequality from your vantage point look at this picture everyone knows of the the giving tree it's one of our one of my favorite children's books um but kind of shaken up to what is inequality so how would you define inequality and as this is a working session as you write down some of your some of your thoughts if you would be so

097inclined to share what some of your thoughts are please feel free to do so ryan lately i've been thinking about this just related to our experience with covet and how inequality has manifested itself and you know we think about our families who some of our families who struggle they don't have necessarily the access or time or privilege to be able to speak to the board for example um and be present with us on a zoom call on a monday night or or email us and give us feedback so i've been thinking about you know how access to technology impacts the ability for families to to give feedback to the board i guess that's like a manifestation of just like one acute area of inequality that we're seeing in the district absolutely absolutely thank you for

098sharing that i know just one of those points that's something that we continue as a senior leadership to have conversations about is you know what are we doing to ensure that all of our stakeholders have access um to the information uh just like you said the opportunity to come and share with senior leadership with the board etc so those conversations are constantly ongoing here so absolutely i appreciate that anyone else anyone else want to share your your definition of what inequality is or what it looks like to you okay so now that we've had a quick second to talk about what inequality is what is what is the opposite of that in equality what does equality look like in reference to what you see here not only going on in our in our school district

099but also in the greater community i'll go i can share ryan um i like to think of it as removing the barriers right like so that everyone has equal access to what they need so there's not the barriers in place and we've opened it up so that um all can access exactly what they need to have to be successful which i think is the which is the perfect segue into the next slide which is equity okay and i want to take a quick second to talk about the difference between um equity versus equality as you can see in the previous slide when we start talking about equality equality is making sure that everyone has access to the exact same thing okay everyone has access to the exact same thing when we start talking about equity

100we start talking about making sure that everyone has exactly what they need in order to be successful so when we start looking at this picture here where equality they had the same ladder equity makes sure that everyone has access to what they need to be successful again looking at this picture one ladder is different than the other just to make sure that this one child is able to reach the fruit from the tree so we want to make sure we start talking about equity it's about making sure every single student has what they need in order to be successful there was some comments earlier talking about getting students back into the building we want to make sure that everyone has what they need to get back in here to be successful etc but there's one

101other step that we also need to take into account when we start looking at equity and inclusion and that is justice okay so looking at this picture and knowing what we know about equity how do we move from equity and equitable outset equitable access compared to justice and what does that look like ryan i'd be curious if you think you know justice can be achieved because in my mind justice is absolute fairness and i don't know how to provide fairness just just equal opportunity i can't um make life circumstances outside of school um fair and so they they will never receive i guess justice if that makes sense i don't know if i'm explaining myself right no i i think you i think you raise a very good point i think the first question i

102want to respond to is do i think that justice is if i'm understanding correctly do i think that justin justice is obtainable am i understanding your question your question correctly yes all right ooh that's a good one that's a good one and difficult i i'm gonna go on a limb to say yes i do think that it is attainable because it is about addressing the system as a whole and not just pieces of the system when i think about when i think about our system and our academic our education system if we look at things from a systematic perspective and we address those pieces of it i do think that we can have justice for all of our students because we are truly taking the time to address the system and those subsequent systems of

103oppression okay those systems of oppression could be access could be access to technology could be access um to services our students who are receiving special education services etc if we handle those those different obstacles um i do think that we can achieve justice it's going to take a lot of work it's going to take a lot of conversation um and it's going to take time but i do think i do thoroughly believe that we can have a just system i think and i i would just add i think like even though something might be theoretically unattainable doesn't mean the work getting there isn't worth it and making changes right like if if we could never be perfect trying to be is probably a good thing i think when i look at this i think a

104little bit about like what would happen if we stopped thinking about services provided to students who need them to create equity as extra and stop thinking about people who might um need that extra investment as the other instead incorporate into the entire system and i would just like shout out one area i feel like has done a good job with this is um like integration of our students with special needs into the classroom over the last two decades i think that's a that's an example where we decided okay let's just make the classroom better for them instead of like creating a separate system and investing separately in a separate system and asking them to um asking for kind of a different track obviously that's not perfect and it's not done but what i see here

105is like integrating the marginalized individuals or communities i guess redefining that term and just looking at everyone the same and building a system that supports everyone i don't know i'm kind of rambling but i think you hit the nail on the head building a system that is for everyone and not just for pockets or separate pop populations if you will so i so i completely understand where you're coming from okay so now that we've had conversations surrounding equity now that we've had conversations surrounding justice what i'm going to ask for you is the sheets that you have that you have taken some time to fill out if you can get those to me and so the next time that we have a conversation we're going to have a collective definition of what justice means for

106this group and then that's going to then guide our work that's something that we're going to continue to look back on as we continue to dive into conversations surrounding equity and inclusion it's something that's going to hold us accountable to that definition and working towards more equitable practices for our students here at urbandale brian may i ask you a question absolutely and i can't see you and i'm i apologize i can't see it because i'm in my pajamas so i'm hiding um but i still want to be here and have a work session with you all um so but you know one of the goals you do when you were mentioning ideas for goals was to interact with people that don't look like you people with different um races and different cultures you know okay

107you know my situation you're a white mom in suburbia how do you how do you do that how do you without how do you actively what's a what's a proactive way and positive way of engaging other cultures in your day-to-day life the perfect example okay perfect example two weeks ago i had a parent from urbandale community schools reach out to me and engage me in conversation she didn't know me um she's working and she's supporting her students or her children that are in our district she's supporting them with with research with conversation i just spoke with her today and she said she um watched a pbs special with her family so they're they're having conversations but they're also trying to engage people that don't look like them in conversation her reaching out to me landed

108a conversation with two other families so there were three of them there were three families that i met with just this evening and we just engaged in good healthy conversations surrounding what equity and inclusion looks like what diversity looks like what they are looking for uh what they are looking to gain from my role in this position what they're looking to gain from you know the urbandale education system so it really is just about taking that leap of faith and reaching out to someone that does not look like you and engage folks in conversation you know they always say that on sunday mornings our country is the most segregated because people go to different churches take the time and go to a church you know visit if that's what your practice is um take the

109time and go to a church service a service that you traditionally would not go to um i've said since day one utilized me as a resource i think i was on a conversation with um with the middle school i think with mr braden and i was supporting that team if you don't have anybody then allow use me as a resource reach out to someone and call and just engage folks in conversation but it all starts with just taking a chance yeah and i think i probably will reach out to you rain because one of the things that i don't want to put the whole board through an unnecessary conversation for them but struggling with okay so i reach out to somebody who is a different race and a different culture than me and um am

110i trying to put any sort of emotional labor on that person it's not you know it's not their burden to explain things to me if i go to if i go to black church am i invading a space that's a safe space for other people it wasn't meant for me and i just feel like the road to hell is paid with good intentions like i i worry so maybe maybe you and i will have to have a conversation ryan and and i would and i would gladly welcome that conversation okay i'll even take it one step further let me know and i will be happy to go with i'll be happy to invite i'll be happy to go with you that's what can be meant by finding someone else to go through life with so

111then that way it's not about it it's not about someone being a burden it's someone wanting to learn someone wanting to grow want someone to ask questions of about things that you may not understand because of who you are or the privilege that you have or the life that you have lived it's just about growth so anybody can please feel free to reach out to me well dude thanks brian mm-hmm so as i kind of bring our conversation to a close again i feel like i'm kind of rushing through this and i apologize but i also want to honor everyone's time and their and their commitments to their families but our future learning is going to start to get a little bit a lot deeper um again once i get that information from you and

112we come up with our collective definition of what equity is our next conversation is going to we're going to dive into what critical race theory is what that looks like um i really think that as we dive into this work we have to have a theoretical framework and so critical race theory is a great theory um for us to engage in conversation with our next conversation is we're also going to start to dive into bias versus privilege versus our identity and how those strings those three things equate to anti-racist practices so again the learning is going to be the learning is going to be great um i have a book that i am that i want to engage this this body in a book study um that's also going to support our learning so i'll

113be reaching out to this team the book that i want to start off with is so you want to talk about race um and we're going to use some of the some of that literature that to continue to guide our work so you know like i said this was just a a brief introduction to equity to inclusion i want to make sure that we have some common language and know that the path that we are going to be going um down in the future so does anyone have any questions now i can see you this is sarah i only have one question i'm not sure that it's for you ryan but potentially it is depending on who they want to answer it but um when we dive into this work um one of my as

114i was reviewing for the meeting today one of the thoughts that i had is we've we've we've brought a lot you know several questions forward about you know if you want to say equity and the district and um you know kind of my question is do we as a board um and so this is probably more so for you catherine do we really need to put a specific goal around the work that we are doing in terms of accountability district-wide kind of complex i had some thoughts about this i mean what i had a conversation well online with ryan about um you know i guess defining whether we are working on ourselves or whether we are envisioning being systemic and you know having worked inside the system i you know and i've expressed this before

115i think it's very powerful for us to be able to respond coming up from the system and you know it kind of lends itself to this idea of justice i mean i again don't pretend to know what it's like to be a student you know you know latino i can't i don't i don't know what that's like inside the system and so some of this for awareness but i would contend that for us to be able to work on the system we kind of need to know what the major issues are and that's what i would hope to rely on ryan for i mean what what can we do as basically policy people not management people right that's kind of what i was thinking catherine especially in terms of um setting you know in in

116the data that's already be being collected within the system that that we've had so many conversations sorry about that my daughter just entered the room but um uh we've had so many conversations surrounding um the discrepancies in uh you know discipline and um you know i i guess i can't even recall how specifically we've looked at like achievement um you know scores and um so maybe we you know we talk a lot like about the issue but we haven't set like a specific board goal engaging the entire system in uh in improvements that that we're looking to see and that is um it doesn't have to be certainly a tonight discussion but um i think we need to go there um in the in the the very near future yeah and what i would say

117maybe the most more valuable thing coming out of this is to try to help provide an overview for ryan and some insight into where we envision ourselves fitting into this because you know we're we're we're not really inside the system we're a satellite and so i mean we can say things but i think probably having people inside well yeah definitely in weekends what can we work on this year that and how can the board help to facilitate that yeah we can make things happen inside the buildings because we're not there right right and and the work that we're doing i i was thinking the work that we're doing in engaging in our learning um definitely would you know isn't you know as empowering for for us as you know uh district leadership but um in

118in terms like we're not within the system so unless we set something specific around that that would you know direct the change that that we're hoping to see um and in through the data that we have um access to uh then i think we won't probably um and again i would like to allow you know krista kerry and ryan and to certain extent shauna to begin to look at this and say what how can the board help us to do better with this i mean what can we actually empower the system to do and and and that's how i envision it um i'm intrigued to do some of the reading in that um i gotta tell you i'm not a fan of book groups i don't like to be forced to read a book i'll

119do it on my own but um that's irrelevant obviously at this point but that's how i would envision this i don't feature us saying okay we're going to we're going to see see the system you know raise reading scores for this particular ethnic group over the course of this year i don't i don't i see that as micromanagement i think examining the system and trying to figure out how can we continue to provide those opportunities in a broader overview so for example and i've had this conversation with some of you before i look at the playground out here okay it's beautiful now the bottom line is it's a city park we haven't provided those kind of resources to any of our other buildings still that is an inequity you know and really looking at that

120and saying how can we as a district try to make those situations equitable even though that's city property and we haven't really looked at it that way across the poverty levels you know the opportunities the you know in all kinds of ways systemically and obviously i'm kind of rambling myself but you know my concern obviously has always been from the beginning it's part of why i got on the board because that's what but i would say catherine as much as i appreciate and respect what you're saying i do feel like over the last three years we have we have circled through these conversations and we've said you know these are the concerns we have and this is how we'd like to kind of bring this back and we continue to to kind of circle through

121these conversations but we we have not yet as as a border as a you know we haven't set a goal specifically asking and and i believe it was you judy that has brought this up several times that that has said but we haven't really given any direction you know we have never and and i'm not saying again it's definitely not a conversation for tonight but i do think we have to at some point be more specific and and not micromanaging but just saying that you know if we want to see our discipline you know our if we would like just to even the playing field if you'd like to say then um you know if we like just if we want to give permission for change then we probably have to set a goal around

122that at some point in order to move the system in order to drive um the work and now that we more so have people in place um uh in in [Music] even even though i think you know ryan has many um responsibilities you know one of his responsibilities you know that as steve had said is you know to to to look at these numbers so maybe it is a time that we start you know focusing in on what that goal would look like yeah sarah can i jump in please yeah okay so i think i think what what i would just add um not assuming sarah's intentions but kind of like bringing this all together is that ryan this has been the most work we've done as a board on this issue in my tenure

123and that's not great it doesn't mean it but it's celebrating tonight and it's celebrating this but i think what um sarah if what i think we as a board need to do is take this learning and then push on um the things we've mentioned before like having a forum on race with our students so like pushing on movement on that and then bringing this learning to every decision that we're making as a board um sarah that doesn't necessarily like connect to what you're saying is a specific metric or goal um i think that might naturally come up after we have a forum perhaps and some more learning um but i think i would just tell this challenge this board to take conversations like tonight very seriously and be present and engage a little bit more

124in conversation and then keep pushing on those actionable things that we can do like having a forum and stuff like that and and i do i i agree with both you know with what everyone is saying definitely and may and part of my um where i fall short sometimes is when we don't put like a date on those so we we do say you know we're going to do this work and then one of us you know somebody on the board two or three months down the road will be like oh gosh yeah we need to circle back to that and then we kind of don't put a you know uh so if if i i think that you know doing a forum is a great next step if we can just in in again

125it doesn't have to be tonight but i don't want it to be a couple months down the road that we say you know let's let's bring this together and let you know december 1st be our day or whatever you know whatever that might be but that we know that we have a time that's coming that we're going to continue to progress yeah and i mean i don't want to i say this with due respect to everyone on the board it's the end of the night everyone's tired but like if we say we value this if this was an english classroom and we would have a discussion not everyone would get points because not everyone participated and so like i just think the next time we do this i would ask my fellow board members to

126try even if it's uncomfortable even if they don't like sometimes lack of participation can be seen as lack of caring and i know that's not the case but if we really take this seriously we gotta we gotta do the work and and i'm i'm gonna jump in here and i mean there's there's a lot of things that have gone on in there and i'll start with i'll start with you um miss judy and i'm going to push back on that for a little bit because just because someone doesn't articulate in a conversation doesn't mean that that they're not participating that just means that they may not have the words right now to interject their thoughts into that conversation so as i lead folks through conversation if you feel you know if you feel so inclined

127to share then by all means share but if you don't i'm also not going to force that person to engage in the conversation now circling back to what ms sarah was talking about and having the forms and and what we have to do to move forward if we don't have a clear idea if we don't clearly know how we are defining what equity and inclusion look like and how can we set any type of form to move forward in that work a lot of a lot of researchers out there say that racism is never going to be solved because your definition of racism is going to be different than what mine is so until we have that collective commitment to that definition of what equity is for our district i think we're going to continue

128to to keep spinning our wheels okay third we're we are having those conversations with students okay i had a forum last thursday with students at the high school and i'll be back this thursday and friday to have forums at the high school about three weeks ago i had another forum with with students over at the at the coffee shop we've had great conversations with those folks so these things are happening now when we say that we've been doing this for the last two or three years i might stick my foot in my mouth but i am going to say this you haven't had me yet give me an opportunity to get into the buildings give me an opportunity to work with staff give me an opportunity to work with our senior leadership allow me to

129do what i do and i guarantee we will move this forward i just need the time and i just need the support of this group to allow me to do what i do and engage folks in conversation engage folks in these healthy conversations mr i know i know you want you want the data and you want to get to those members and we're getting there but whatever we need well we have now i mean and ryan i appreciate that i think it's a lot for one person to take on and i think realistically this isn't just the work that you should be doing it's the work that the system should be doing and you're gonna agree with that and i might 100 agree with that which is why we're having this conversation with this body

130right now which is why our equity and inclusion committee is meeting tomorrow so we can start pushing this work out to all of the buildings that's why we're engaging students in conversations that's why the social studies department has invited me to have conversations with how we're changing our social studies curriculum at the elementary buildings the workings fantastic um i it is not going to stop me from saying that the work is everyone's work the work isn't just your work it is it is the work of our system and um when you know for some reason there's there's a view within you know our our at times there's the view that that question is is is questioning questions are not necessarily questioning but the the reality of being within the school system that is that if

131we don't have a goal established around this the the work you know there's momentum and then that momentum fades out but if if there's a goal there's accountability and then accountability allows that work to continue regardless of um you know who's available to you know it's it's it allows the work to continue no matter what that's my only intent in asking for that is that it says this work will continue because there is um you know a board essentially a board directive for that work to continue and this is the and it doesn't it doesn't let every third person check out on the work it says no i do have to stay accountable to this work because that is what that's what this the system is asking for at this time um and and it

132is in important work and i think you're doing a fabulous job of of bringing it um out there they're it doesn't you know our job is to push you know to to support and to you know push thinking at times also so i think i am you know i am going to continue to come back to that i think we have to have a um you know a a board goal set around this and and then it does allow it still allows you to continue exactly what you're doing but it allows there's got to be a reason we collect data i mean we don't we don't do it to hold it in our in our data stream so um let let's use it let's use it to drive that to further support the work that

133you are doing that will then um travel through the system is my thought but you know it it it takes you know it will take all of us to to set that in place so it's i just wanted to ask that we consider that because of the accountability that comes along with it absolutely and we we are definitely on the same page especially where the goal piece is concerned because i i i it was with intent that i wanted to spend some time just talking about the goals of this body so i hear you goals hold us accountable to growth goals hold us accountable to the learning goals commit us to the work which is why i wanted to you know which is why i put that even out there let's get some goals on

134let's get some goals on paper let's get those in here and let's hold ourselves to those goals okay so so all that to say as i completely agree and so again trying to be mindful and trying to be mindful of everyone's time and honor everyone's time i appreciate this like i said i i i'm i am open to engage folks in conversation whenever please feel free to reach out i've spoken to miss sarah i've spoken to almost all of you in some form or fashion and for that i i appreciate that um so again and i will say this one of my good friends now joe joe mcqueary has said it let's go to work and i'm and i will repeat it let's go to work so thank you for the opportunity i probably i'm

135probably 20 minutes over my time so thank you for the opportunity and i continue our i continue i look forward to our continued work thank you brian and i am maybe you know a brief update in the december meeting would that be reasonable absolutely we could visit about you know what you have going on internally particularly i think the board needs to have a discussion as a unit about whether we need to actually formally develop a goal at this point i think that needs to be a group discussion definitely yeah absolutely all right thank you i appreciate your time i appreciate your work i'll drop off my assignment tomorrow motion to adjourn yes second all in favor aye aye aye opposed same sign