001are we ready [Music] all right thank you we'd like to welcome everyone back i'm calling our our regular meeting back to order [Music] we are on item f which is our public yes item f which is our public comment uh we allow up to one hour for public comment where's my list ah there it is okay just a few comments before uh we proceed if you when you entered the boardroom you could have uh should have picked up a participle guidelines relative to our public comment this is the public's time to speak and the board will listen there will be no questions or engagement with the um the speakers uh individuals may comment for up to three minutes [Music] so we've set aside this time both at the beginning at the end of our meeting
002both are opportunities for the public to provide comment the school board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings you will have three minutes to speak our meetings are orderly we we also use robert's rules of order which really provides structure to our meetings and with that we are going to open up for public comment uh first we have tel telephonic i think he's here mr kemp danielle kemp welcome you have three minutes [Music] this is almond all right thank you to the board um for having me this evening my name is danielle kemp and i am being racially discriminated against by asd administrators for being black and disagreeable the last few months i've been the target of racially discriminatory and unethical evaluations by um administrators and their boss which all stem from
003[Music] um we have a um appeal process through our evaluative process which i don't believe it is a public testimony item and i believe we should be following that and i would like our chief human resource officer to correct me if i'm incorrect or [Music] uh thank you dr bishop through the president i believe dr bishop is referencing any number of processes available through the through personnel matters that may be available to this uh person testifying tonight and also as the board president is aware personnel matters generally are not uh subject to discussion in in this in this forum [Music] point of clarification then is that allowed mr k who to who me um through the president then yes ma'am um so may i speak on behalf of my organization [Music] for an individual who
004is going through these sorts of things you may you may testify on any anything that that is not having to do with the district confidential process such as evaluation okay because anything that may come before this board um relative to any employment issue uh is it's inappropriate for it to be testified on at this time okay all right um if your comments are about your organization you may proceed okay i i believe i'll stop that about two minutes and 22 seconds can we get that time back in the morning give me this time thank you can you well we'll have to do it a different way because she's already did you stop it at the time [Music] okay just a minute we'll try you can she can get it to two minutes and i will
005do the other 22 seconds thank you very much all right so uh my story is not unique i want to start there my story is not unique though other by park folks in the district and black folks in particular have been targeted by this administration just today the asd's first black fine arts director was forced to resign in year one of a three-year term due to racist treatment president this is um even of another yeah you cannot talk about individuals who can be personally identified mr kim okay all right and we will not restart your time okay um well that's kind of difficult then because i'm just talking about black folks who can be identified so we are not alone there are countless black um by poc educators and students uh who have and still
006are experiencing this to the school board i ask that you take um bypoc folks account of racism more seriously do a complete overhaul of asd board policy if your anti-racism policy was enough then all of us would not be going through this to our new uh incoming superintendent i implore you to please clean house on day one right now the asd's senior administration is sick with racist individuals who believe in stuff like anti-crt rhetoric and the great replacement theory clean house start fresh and empower the diversity that all of us like to brag about but not abuse but not empowered i'm the president and co-founder of the alaska coalition of by park educators and i approve this message thank you thank you mr kim uh next we have kevin boss in person kevin welcome you
007have three minutes thank you my name is kevin voss and i've been a social studies teacher and debate coach at baggage middle school for 12 years and i first met steve johnson who you're about to to meet here a little bit in 2011 when he visited our school hoping to pitch this idea of a middle school debate program i was immediately drawn to this proposal as begich had always offered a strong mix of athletic opportunities that few if any extracurricular academic programs so for the first couple of years i taught it as an elective and whereas some students sought out enrollment in this class others were admittedly placed there because other electives had filled up now after those first first couple of years however i realized that many students who were enrolled in other electives
008wanted to pursue debate but could only do so if it were offered outside of the school day and that is where i decided to begin an after-school program begich was able to offer me an addenda through title 1 funds and for the last 10 years we have had a steadily increasing number of committed students in our program as to why this program has been successful it simply comes down to the fact that these kids love it which i'm sure you heard in my students testimonials earlier this evening debate offers an alternative for students who are not involved in sports but more importantly it draws students who are keenly interested in the complex topics of the world around them we've debated everything from the environment to healthcare education to social media the kids are required to
009look at both sides of these issues causing them to at least reflect on prior held beliefs and what their societies tell them debate also gives kids the chance to find their voice i've had students who are terrified of the prospect of speaking in front of an audience go on to become poised and confident young public speakers but with all these benefits enrollment in our program has waned in recent years between 2015 and 2017 our tournaments averaged 25 to 30 teams with typically six or more schools attending for the last two however it has been reduced to 15 to 20 with only four schools being represented one reason for that is that at most schools it is only offered as an elective and if the school has certain scheduling needs needs as it has for me
010then it gets bumped recognizing debate as an extracurricular activity would provide schools the opportunity to hire coaches and in the long run i feel this is the only way it will survive sometimes laugh at the fact that i have a bunch of teenagers who stick around for 90 minutes after school to read write and work in our pursuit of academic rigor our district should celebrate these efforts and show its full support of the program thank you very much mr voss steve johnson [Music] welcome you have three minutes president baldwin members of the board thank you very much my name is steve johnson i'm the director of the singles debate program at uaa and i'm very happy to be here tonight to speak on behalf of the middle school public debate program we inaugurated this program
011as you heard from mr voss about 10 years ago and we're delighted with it caught fire pretty quickly though it was always uncertain as to whether or not there would be schools and students interested in participating in this i had confidence that they would do so largely because of my experience in debate both as a participant as well as a coach for many years i quite literally debate provided the intellectual foundation for my entire life i grew up in a small community in south dakota and didn't have much by the way of extracurricular activities that engaged me intellectually i had the good fortune when i went to university to find a debate program under the guidance of a really terrific teacher and eventually became somebody who wanted to give back to what had given me
012so much over the course of my life so when i became a debate coach for the university of alaska one of my priorities was making sure that other students in our community had that same opportunity that we had so we started this debate league about 10 years ago and as you heard from mr voss it took off very quickly that part was no surprise to me largely because i knew that the students when presented with an opportunity to engage in these intellectual conversations and the challenge of making arguments against opponents would find that as thrilling as i did and it's proved time and time again to be true i want to tell you a little bit about how the system how the debate [Music] league works and what we're looking for in terms of support
013from the school board so we have a course of four tournaments scheduled throughout the year one each quarter we invite all schools to participate in those tournaments as you heard from mr boss fewer and fewer schools are doing so largely because of some of the challenges that we've faced over the last few years but those tournaments are the product of a lot of preparation on the part of the students we announced the debate topics about six weeks prior to those tournaments the students work research and prepare their arguments come to either a middle school or to the university campus and engage in a day-long tournament where they are put through a course of about six debate rounds in order to determine the winner so imagine if you will not only an after-school program meeting but
014a group of students gathering on a saturday to study to think to engage one another and to be excited about it it's a wonderful thing what we need to make this program grow though is a vote of confidence from the anchorage school district we need support in terms of recognition as an official after-school activity it is not currently it's run exclusively by the seals debate program and the good intentions of all the teachers who are willing to give their time to it we need addenda for the teachers who are willing to give their time to it mr boss has been fortunate to benefit from being a title one school not all schools have those resources it's appropriate that the coaches be provided that and we need an operating budget for those schools that want to
015have a debate program to allow them to purchase the resources and to attend the tournaments that they need to attend to get their students excited and thank you very much women and personal privilege madam president yes i know in this setting we're not allowed to ask questions or engage in debate but this is really an offer of a partnership and i'm wondering if we can schedule a work session this spring where we would have more time to ask questions and look at details and and converse on it so if you would submit that as an rfi that would be great i would be delighted to thank you that's probably the best way for that now thank you sir we appreciate it and if it takes two i'd be on there too thank you next thank
016you sir [Music] send that one of you send it to katie please uh next we have leola rutherford leola rutherford in person [Music] okay i'm not seeing her we'll come back maybe how about david little hi david welcome [Music] and you have three minutes sir thank you madam president board superintendent nice to see you i'm here tonight wearing a different hat i'm a parent i have two beautiful students they were inspired they were connected with they were fueled by adam johnson a teacher at roll mcmiddle school who happens to give up all his time his personal time to run debate there my oldest i get to talk about my two favorite things my oldest son is an 11th grader his name's harrison he started this in debate seventh grade eighth grade and with mr johnson
017as one of his coaches and guides and judges he competed in middle school he then goes on to ninth grade and he becomes a state debate champ tenth grade was coven 11th grade second in the state and in the event won multiple region competitions and it was because of the research they do the way they structure their arguments the way they're taught to present [Music] uh their viewpoints and how they debate back and forth he has blossomed he has thrived and it's all because of that and his mom [Music] he's now on the asa board he is also on the executive board for student governments he is also on the anchorage youth advisory committee he's an ib students and one of the most vocal ones with a 4.2 gpa and he's also a three-sport athlete
018it's a lot to say it came just from adam johnson at romick but he's the one that gave him the voice he's the one that taught him how to use it more i now have a son who's going to be a ninth grader and he's been with mr johnson for two years he's looking forward to competing in high school he had a ball competing in middle school and um and he's arguably brighter than the first one okay he'll tell you that um you know their classmates have gone on to prestigious schools have gone on to yale um they've gone and gotten scholarships uh and coming out of romick starting enrollment for debate they've gotten scholarship to college and gotten college paid for because it depends they all know that uaa is one of the dream
019teams in this country they know that's they all know steve johnson um i can't say enough great things what they've done for my children and thank you very much there we go next we have roslyn grady welcome you have three minutes [Music] everyone thank you for providing me with this opportunity it's me roz what a year as you know i'm a mom of five i'm in my senior year 3.64 gpa and i'm 36 years old i graduated from diamond in 2003 last class of the old school and i will be student teaching in january i pray that my thing here doesn't cause any friction in my career but here we go i am here because i have received many complaints from children families and employees on the mistreatment they received while being a person of
020color and i just ask we please change the narrative oh and you do not know about it because who are they supposed to trust besides myself my executive committee and even other organizations like abc and the naacp this is actually happening to the very own we are here for three reasons the safety and well-being of children employees and families and communities of color equity and academic opportunities and curriculum and hiring and retention of educators of color the last one i have been here for the last and i believe five years and i have been they've been flying out of here educators of color fly out of here we wonder why the climate is horrible and i'll come back to that you have educators that genuinely love their job the children and their families that are
021that they are educating we realize that educators of color or children and their families were not being properly represented and that the climate was very dangerous to work in we do not do this for a check we believe in our public education and we want to make a difference in all areas when it comes to children of the anchorage school district all of your educators have been to school and worked hard for their degrees i don't even know if they're like me i'm pretty sure they're paying student loans but i literally pay out of pocket every two weeks no matter the color of their skin we're here to educate and what is sad about the climate is that it is very different dangerous and at the point it's scaring and controlling voices and this is
022scary to know someone in a higher position than me can stop my whole process all because they do not like me or do not they do not like what i'm doing for my community there is a lot of charming here and i hope and i have no idea how we're going to fix this besides changing the narrative the trauma is real at this point and that's probably why it's hard to hire and retain people of color now what i have look what i have to look forward to just happens my principal supported me and mentored me but he's leaving go to another school and i just happen to be receiving another awesome mentor but again i am one of the lucky ones what about all your other educators who may have been hushed support staff
023who don't feel safe or heard directors who may not be saying things they know are wrong and school board members who have no idea what is really going on in their schools i will not stand by and allow this to stop me from doing what i do best that is work in the best interest of children i educate and will be educating thank you thank you miss grady [Music] okay next telephonic we have jasmine smith she's not there okay what is uh leola rutherford here okay um kaya caltonborn or is it caillou cultenborn kaya star six hello hello we can hear you welcome you have three minutes [Music] thank you hi my name is kaya colton warren i am a teacher and parent at rogers park i would like you to separate the enrollment numbers
024of our dual program when allocating teachers to rogers park please look back at the previous written testimonies and emails that you have received thank you kaya and next we have jared woods [Music] jarrod star six to unmute [Music] hello can you hear me we can welcome you have three minutes hello my name is jared woods i am the father of two boys that attend rogers park elementary school on the neighborhood side i'm very concerned about the plan to cut teachers from rogers park on the neighborhood side classes on the neighborhood side have roughly twice as many students per class than the classes on the highly gifted side some of these classes have over 30 students while classes at the same grade level on the highly gifted side of only 15. now i grew up here
025in alaska and i spent my entire public school all my public school years at asd schools and i had many great teachers that made a huge impact on me and i'm very very grateful for the education i received i want my boys to look back on their public school careers and be able to say the same thing and it makes it really hard if they're in a class with almost 40 students for them to have the same experience thank you for your time thank you very much okay that concludes our public comment uh people signed up for public comment there are other written public comment attached to the agenda uh through board docs that brings us to item g consent agenda [Music] madam president i moved to approve the consent agenda as presented second moved
026in second to approve the consent agenda as presented any opposition all right saying no opposition we'll have to do a actually we have a member uh virtual so we'll have to do a roll call katie whenever you're ready remember wilson yes member lessons yes vice president jacobs yes remember holloman yes um ever higgins is not president uh member donnelly yes president bellamy yes [Music] okay and that motion uh passes six zero and one extension or yeah one one not present vote yeah thank you that leads us to item h which are our action items student hearing madam president i move to approve the expulsion of the student associated with asd incident number one three four one eight three seven as discussed in executive session second been moved in second to approve the uh uncontested hearing
027explosion expulsion sorry and this would have been for the five o'clock session today because there were two right thank you remember donnelly yes remember higgins is not present remember holloman yes vice president jacobs yes member lessons yes member wilson yes president bellamy yes [Music] and that motion passes uh six yays no naves and one member not present and that is again for the 5 p.m session moving on uh public comment is there any do we have anybody signed up for public comment on oh i see we do sorry about that okay right so we're now on memorandum number 126. what is your pleasure board [Music] madam president i move to approve asd memorandum number 126 the request to name polaris k-12 school gym uh the coach demon athletic facility in honor of damon and carey
028second moved in second and i know we have uh in the we should have uh people signed up for that one we have melissa carey welcome melissa thank you for your patience thank you [Music] sorry take your time [Music] i'm joined with my husband and sister sarah kerry williams who's also an educator in the district good evening madam superintendent school board members anchorage school district staff and especially the belarus k-12 community my husband david had been a teacher at blair's control alternative school for the past 22 years i know personally without a doubt that he believed in the importance of physical education and contribute to the player's philosophy and legacy he stated sorry he started each day with open gym prior to the start of the school day damon taught all 13 grade levels throughout
029the day he enjoyed keeping the gym open during lunch so students had a safe alternative place for activity and would do anything after school to help out where he was ever needed he always offered a helping hand and never said no to whatever was asked of him staff members and students alike my husband made it his goal and as a physical education educator to make sure that each and every student that walked through his gym doors was treated with respect and encouraged to do their very best damon made it his educational philosophy that he would find ways to help all achieve their athletic goals however it was not how well people performed at a sport that was important to damon it was how much effort they gave he wanted students to learn lifelong healthy activities
030so they could implement them through their daily lives and make healthy choices on in their own future damon's main reason for this philosophy was that he was born with type 1 diabetes to him he was never going to allow his disease to control his physical capabilities many who knew damon knew that he was a very incredible athlete in high school he played football and won two state titles he played basketball track and hockey in his spare time when he was not participating in school sports he made sure he was in the gym working out at least four to six times a week damon even holds lifting records at his alma mater bartlett high school he had maintained this mindset that physical activity leads to a healthy future as a teacher one of the biggest passions
031was his was the alieska ski winter intensive which he started 21 years ago this annual program offers students an opportunity to learn how to ski and snowboard and improve their athletic ability on the mountain the program grew in numbers throughout the years and ended up being one of the most interesting intensives offered for six twelve graders at polaris damon always looked forward to this time of year whether it was the hours spent on the bus rides checking in at the day lodge or actually riding the mountain with his students the improvements and skills achieved by the students phil demon with joy and pride he always enjoyed running into his students during the winter ski season at alieska and witnessed first-hand the green improvements as his students from the years ago demonstrated to him from time
032to time again our family has always been active how could you not be for both physical education teachers in the household damon's non-stop activity and his it's a mindset philosophy will always resonate through our family the love for the outdoors in the physical activity a part of our daily routine as it has been for these all these years demon would be honored if all polaris students maintained his mentality throughout their daily routines to have this mindset at polaris k12 will ensure that his philosophy will continue as each student walks through the gym doors our family is honored that damon is remembered in this way thank you for this opportunity as i know demon is looking down in such disbelief damon has made such a positive impact at polaris and will continue to do so for
033so many generations to come thank you for just bestowing this honor to acknowledge my husbands and dax father contributions to polaris k-12 school and community thank you melissa and kerry thank you melissa and next we have corey angst welcome thank you president bellamy and thank you board members i just wanted i just want a second two two points that missy uh spoke to [Music] damon was part of a colleague of mine for 14 years at polaris k-12 and uh and a role model the students the families and staff want to memorialize uh hit everything he stood for because it really went with the polaris philosophy every uh every one of our schools has a culture polaris for sure [Music] damon uh one of the things that damon did that you all would find really important
034was his ability to connect with students you know we talk about we review scores um every board meeting uh but we don't review very often the connections we talk about them but but we don't really have good data on the connections that are made damon had connections with every single one of his students k through 12. that was one of the positions he was in and he was able to really uh to build off that he would offer incentives to some of the elementary classes for additional physical activity which allowed some of us to experience and utilize additional planning time but i always knew and the teachers always knew it wasn't for me to have additional planning time it was to give the students additional time with him for as an incentive to to do
035something whether it was jump rope for heart or whatever type of activity he was encouraging them to participate his ability to draw on and build those connections over a life over 12 years for some of those students was incredible he's a huge loss he he was one of our diamonds he was one of our diamonds thank you corey see no other testimony we have the motion before us we'll do a roll call vote whenever you're ready katie i'm not impressed i wanted to comment before oh sure um full disclosure i am a former polaris parent way back then uh and sometime earlier this year i was at polaris and i honestly can't remember why exactly but after whatever i was doing i stayed over for a student government meeting and it was a meeting where
036the petition for this renaming was being circulated out to the classrooms and uh polaris is a little different and it was just neat to watch because this was not presented as this is what we're going to do it's presented as we need to gather the opinion of every kid in the school and you as a representative of your class are going to go back this is a resolution this is why we're trying to do it we want to find out if your student you know the kids in your class support this or they don't it really wasn't a push to to say yes it was a push to get the feedback but a number of students talked about what mr kerry meant to them it is a school that is much more of a family
037than your average school and uh it's it's very moving when students want to do something like this there are a few places around the district named after educators that worked in a building and it just means a great deal and in this case i think extremely fitting and it's what students and faculty want thank you thank you member holloman you are absolutely correct the students drove this bus they did and they did a fantastic job any other comments seeing none we'll do a voiceover oh thank you member holland for sharing um a little bit about the process we had the chance to speak with some of the polaris students involved in that process as they accompanied us to juno and i think they did their due diligence and i appreciate that effort enormously yes and
038i will be supporting this okay i never be ready [Music] remember holloman yes vice president jacobs yes member lessons yes remember wilson yes remember donnelly yes president bellamy yes when i'm president i like to move unanimous concern that there's no objection we have one member that is not present at all so that would be very difficult to do at this time but we have a 6-0 vote thank you that motion passes congratulations thank you so much missy next uh memorandum number one to zero madam president to approve asd memorandum number one to zero and adopt the attached school calendars for the school years of 2023 24 2024 25 and 2025-26 second moved in second to adopt the 22 uh 23 26 school year calendars uh any discussion yes could i could i ask the administration
039to please kind of summarize the process of how we we got to these calendars some of the core differences that they embody and um you mean other than what was in board connect yes there was information on board connect um i was hoping to just have a little bit of a discussion okay yes madam president um dr stock can you please assist thank you dr bishop so a little bit of background the current basic formula for the calendars has really been pretty much the same since 2006 as far as starting you know prior to labor day ending prior to memorial day and so on since 2006 between them and in 2022 there have been a few minor changes overall to the calendar those are examples of things like additional professional development days i think an
040asynchronous learning day some discussion debate over what to do with the election days for randy day you may remember that discussion from a few years ago but pretty much uh the tweaks have been minor the process uh in october march and april there were three full large meetings with a large group and i want to acknowledge andrew ball if he's in the room he can wave in the back there andrew was our lead from the labor department to work with the groups to do this and did a very detailed look at it and we took what we'd learned from all the previous years of working through calendars and they created two basic calendar options one we called traditional which was essentially a template from the previous year and the years before that it was basically
041the same and then another one we called option b which was had a couple little tweaks to it uh those then went out to stakeholder meetings and so we met with a student advisory boards the various labor groups various external groups in the community collected discussions and inputs about those there were two open public meetings they were held for the open public and advertised and then in march and april they published a community survey about those calendar options and came out with 2 actual survey responses and about 990 community comments then andrew personally sat down went through all 990 comments categorized him around topics and put numbers to him so we could capture what the community was saying and then we made some slight adjustments the the final result of that was the split between
042calendar a and b was almost down the middle there was less than a one percent difference in the survey responses but when you factor in the community comments it definitely went over to the calendar b so calendar b the way it's a little different is that there is an october 9th indigenous people's day and there is an april 19th closure day and those came from feedback from the community that were saying that april is a long haul with not one break it is straight shot and so they put a day in there just to have a longer weekend the other thing that came from community feedback when you factor in the 170 folks that said i do not like the friday start i think corey easton i had numerous conversations about the friday start days
043from the educator's perspective and so we tweaked that and changed it and so you'll see on the recommended calendar that it starts on thursday the 17th and so that's pretty much what happened out of those 990 comments the ones that had the most traction were comments about needing a day in april wanting to see the indigenous people's day that was a really big one with the students the student advisory board was almost unanimous about really wanting to see that on the calendar and then of course the big one was comments about the friday star day so that's all that was taken into consideration and when you put it all together we tweaked it based on the community's input and what you have in front of you is a what i would call a sort of
044a tweaked calendar be that was out to the community with those changes and so if you have specific questions about it uh andrew ball is online here to answer details about it as he did most of the alliance share of that work [Music] thank you dr stock did you have a follow-up yeah i do actually i mean i was trying to compare um all three the the 23 24 through 25 26 calendars um speaking very personally i really dislike the disruptions especially in the month of february it just always hits it's choppy um but i i know that's just a personal a personal opinion but i did notice that in um the 2324 month of february looks a little bit different than the 24-25 and 25 26 month of february because the latter two years
045have the parent teacher conferences and the what is the 23rd uh the student started for ronnie in the same week as the 19th and you know there are a lot of folks who look at that week and say there's a week of winter vacation um so i guess i wonder if there's a are there any ways to adjust any of these calendars to maximize student learning and minimize disruptions or have we have we have done our due diligence and this is this is it well i believe we've done the due diligence what i can tell you is when you lay out the list of statutory and cba level things that are all requirements the list is about this long the reason things haven't changed dramatically since 2006 is when you put in all of the
046parameters you have to work under this is what happens and so we get these these glitches and so i don't know uh mr bell if you have anything if you have anything else you want to add to that he says no any other questions from the board comments yes um one i'd like to say this process is probably in terms of gathering input from lots of different parts of asd and from the public the calendar committee is probably the one we do best at um it's a big committee meet several times and it's guided by by staff but it really does provide an honest chance for people to look at it and do the math and kind of see how it's all put together um the one and and kind of understand some of the
047problems this point would never make an amendment because i know how much discussion and all went into putting it together the way it is but i do want to say a number of people i know that have served in the military find it frustrating that that veteran's day is either not a holiday or a school day what we're doing is making it a professional development day where kids are away but if you actually served in the military you're expected to show up and work and a lot of those people really enjoy teaching around veterans day or they'd like to have it off to go to ceremonies and honor their friends as well and of course if you make that a holiday you bump the beginning of school by a day back in september and that
048has issues um together the calendar is tough and every single decision impacts other things along the way and i understand that but i do want to say i think you'll hear this from some of our staff that have served that that they would like it to be that way but i i don't have a motion in that regard thank you for your comments back in the day i served on a calendar committee and that's not one of the things i ever want to do again ever because it's just too many moving parts everybody has exactly a preference like you stated and there's just so much that goes into it that to change anything is is going to cause dominoes in every which way so i'm not you know uh unless there's um but we do
049get to look at it every single i mean you know we can consider uh but really i think um i appreciate the work of the committee and i think we got a lot of did i hear 2 000 responses to our survey 2700 2729 okay great that's a lot that's that's a lot uh but we were pushing it in in our community council meetings as well fill out the survey fill out the survey all right so okay remember donnelly i just want to thank the members of the committee for ensuring that we were returning to the traditional first day of for rendezvous holiday for students it's a professional development release day but at least the kids can go for a rendezvous and i've been advocating that ever since i've been on this board it's been
050years so i'm really really pleased to see that in these calendars because that's just the way it always was when i was growing up here in anchorage also see you get your way and now kelly's not getting her way let's vote let's vote remember wilson yes member lessons yes remember donnelly yes remember holloman yes vice president jacobs yes president bellamy yes [Music] and memorandum one two zero passes six years uh and one not present thank you that brings us to memorandum number one two two mr president i move to approve asd memorandum number one two two the addition of board policy bp 4212.8 employment of relatives second okay moved in second discussion [Music] i think this was a member holloman was this your did you want to speak to your uh simply goes i think
051it's information the board needs to be aware of um not necessarily information they need to act on unless something appears as concerning but we i learned as a teacher in the school the most important thing your principal really cares about is that they're never surprised and so the idea is the board should never be surprised to find out something that's going on in the district now that was my motivation for uh submitting the changes [Music] okay member jacobs thank you madam president uh vice president and then vice president hallman and i discuss this at length and governance um and i thank him for bringing the measure forward it adds transparency and um [Music] it ensures that the board is made aware of relevant information regarding employment and so i appreciate it thank you all be
052in support [Music] any other discussion uh i i think that the processes that we have already covers this i don't know that we need to change um it's not that we i don't know if it's i'm not sure of the problem we're trying to fix with changing the policy so um [Music] any other comments remembered only yes remember holloman yes remember wilson yes vice president jacobs yes member lessons yes president bellamy no and that motion passes five years one may and one not present thank you that moves us to item [Music] agenda item i uh non-action items they'll come back to you next time we meet we have no one signed up for public comment in our second round so that brings us to our superintendent update thank you madam president and um i think
053um mr holloman's um talking about no surprises is um apropos and i think when i was hired i said the same thing i won't surprise you and don't surprise me um but for the act of no surprises i wanted you to get an update on our um closing out the school year with cobia 19 in our protocols uh sharing some information we're going to have our experts come up to the table share the information of our grants and processes that are coming to an end and our new protocols as we move into the summer as um you are aware if you were on the board last year which everyone was that um the summer and school break times are when we made those changes so um with that i present to you our health services
054dynamic team please introduce yourselves uh and you may uh begin okay we have some slides i thought you have them up for us great hi i'm kathy bell and i'm the director of health care services and i'm a nurse and i am kayla mcclelland and i am the senior director of healthcare services and we're looking forward to giving you guys an update um around the current environment as we look to close out the air move into summer and then our evolving approach to covid and infectious diseases as we look to next year and years beyond so i'll get started um you can hear me okay um so this year has been yet another year changes for all of us um and i appreciate all the support asd administration staff and school board has shown us
055i'm just going to give you a little history here to start with and information about what's currently going on in our city hospital admissions are finally down the largest hospital in alaska providence alaska medical center only had eight coded cases this past sunday most of which were incidentals many of the hospitalizations over the past two months especially those identified in children are positive for other respiratory illnesses not coded they've been things like rhinovirus adenovirus rsv parrot influenza and then the typical flu just to name a few alaska has many copic protections available to us now the covid vaccine boosters monoclonal antibodies antivirals and for many natural immunity all of you that tested positive at some point um kova has also mutated to an illness that is causing less severe or no symptoms to many so
056our community has embraced their protections in many different ways while on the topic of vaccines and boosters i just wanted to remind all of you how proud i am to be an ast employee we the anchor school district led the coving covid vaccine initiative in our community by giving 27 thousand one hundred and three adult vaccines and three thousand six hundred and seventy four pediatric vaccines we led the way and i'm so proud of that um in moving forward um i have consulted with professionals in our medical field primarily american academy of pediatrics the alaska chapter pediatric hospitalists intensivists at the providence alaska medical center and our local pediatricians and they are all as confident as i am that our plan for summer school and next fall is strong and sound [Music] so we'll switch
057to the next slide now and here are some highlights of our plan to move forward some of the changes are already in place and others are to follow the beach tree pcr testing will be ending may 19th last day of students in school the beacon trailer contract also ends on may 19th summer school nurses will move into using antigen testing just for summer school for june positives will go we'll go home and follow our same protocol for cdc guidelines anybody that's positive negatives will with milder illnesses may stay at school while masked while waiting for a second test because as we know on the antigen test the first test is not totally accurate you have to do two tests we'll do the test according to the time frame recommended by the instructions of the type
058of antigen test we're doing if negative the second test comes back negative a mass can be removed and the student will stay at school if positive then they'll follow the cdc or asd standing protocols antigen testing will be done for staff and students that become ill at school only parents will still need to consent for us to be doing the testing i'm excited to say that we have already moved away from symptom free as of may 2nd nurses will move to using good nursing judgment along with good assessment skills to determine if a student needs to go home or not students with symptoms that impede their learning will be sent home students with milder symptoms will be evaluated and may be allowed to stay at school and not every student will need testing as what
059we've been doing in the past when returning to school after an illness students and staff will be required to test you will not be required to test before returning to school after an illness right now if they come back the parent calls them in sick they have to have a test before returning to school we'll be we are going to be eliminating that and using our nursing judgment and nursing assessment skills students will not need to stay home for five days if they choose not to test if they choose to test and have positive results again the student will follow and or staff member will follow cdc and asd guidelines parents will be encouraged to keep their child home for illnesses in line with stay-at-home guidelines asd is officially shifting away from district conducted covid19
060testing for the next school year august 2022 covi testing will still be available in the community just not at asd we the anchor school district do not have funding to continue with testing and with copic positives decrease decreasing and less severe illness for those that are positive testing is really not needed any further in the school district anchorage school district will get back to educating our children and keeping our children at school thank you and just to add to um as we close out our testing for this year um those were funded primarily through some of our partnership grants both at the municipal and state level so our six trailers um that were contracted through beacon the funding for those is closing out the end this month um and so we will be closing those
061down and then the broader funding for testing in all schools also ends june 30th so we'll be wrapping in and closing out some of those grants as we head into next year uh so really to to kind of add on to what kathy's saying is we've had a lot of change in learning in the last couple of years i'll go even as far as saying a lot of innovation and we've really moved from this place of uncertainty to this place of resource readiness we we as a district have had a lot of practice and underpinning all of our efforts was this idea of mitigation how are we preventing the spread of illness and then in response to that we built comprehensive systems to support those mitigation efforts we scaled up we scaled back down we
062scaled back up and we became efficient and effective in all of those mechanisms and then throughout that as i talked about with our grants we became we learned how to be a pivotal and excellent public health partner we worked alongside federal state and municipal public health parties to successfully navigate this pandemic it wasn't easy but we learned how to collaborate and communicate to swiftly change large systems i guess all of that should just really kind of emphasize that we're experienced in our district from the teachers to the tas all the way up to our superintendent we know how to respond to infectious diseases and as we move forward we need to broaden our focus and and really consider looking at all infectious diseases and underpinning that need i want to draw us back to an
063example back in the fall of 2019 roger rogers park had an outbreak you all may recall um and it luckily it turned out to be the flu it was contained but those things will happen the environment will throw things our way that we need to respond to and these last two years have supported a lot of innovation and learning and we've built strong systems by which we can respond effectively and efficiently as we look to the future [Music] um really what we what we want what we are doing moving forward is codifying this learning currently we have annex 10 that's our emergency operations annex and really this is a high level 10 000 foot view plan and it really discusses how we will be a partner as part of a larger public health response what
064this plan does not outline is what it takes to move this system in response so we will be adding um annex 10.1 the infectious disease response readiness and sustainment plan really the purpose of this is more operationally focused and it's going to integrate the learning we've had over the last few years and it's really to create a framework to sustain that continuous state of readiness i'm going to describe a little bit what of what that means as we look at the three tiers that are outlined in this annex there is prevention and preparedness modified operations and school closures and under prevention and preparedness that's really where we will be retaining a lot of what we've learned through these last couple of years such as hygiene promoting hand washing both through teaching and education and then
065those visual cues throughout the school buildings hygiene or excuse me sanitizing such as our hand sanitizers will continue to be available in classrooms and school settings also broader distribution of sanitizing solutions both at the classroom level and at the building level masks will remain optional and available in all schools and then last but not least vaccine education support and linkage we've been doing this predating the pandemic our nurses have really led this effort for decades and we will continue to do that as we look to the future and next as we move into those latter tiers modified operations and school closures those really build off that first tier where we look at if there is a known outbreak or illness how are we to respond and we'll look through the lens of group team classroom
066school district how are we assessing the need and then modifying and adjusting based on that really the goal here is that we are nimble and agile to respond we are allocating resources effectively and we're not making a blanket response for in a district when we can contain at the classroom or the group level uh i'll again go back to we are resourced and prepared whether that's distributing meals during an a nationwide or global lockdown or making sure there's hand sanitizer available in the classrooms our teams have been amazing and they know how to respond so as we look to the future we'll really have this annex to guide us as we focus not just on covid but really on broader infectious diseases overall and so we are excited as we close out this year to
067really codify our learning [Music] to send students off to an exciting summer and to hopefully uh see our numbers continue to decline and and look forward to next year so with that we just want to open for any questions thank you great report um member donnelly thank you mr president um one of my greatest concerns in dealing with any future closing of schools is that we do not repeat i think was an incredible mistake of going to a minimum of one hour a day for only four days a week of virtual learning we need to make an assessment i think that was a horrible failure for our students and our families and we're paying the price for that now and we need to prevent that from ever happening again we need an accurate assessment of
068what the minimum amount of time instructors should spend with their students in virtual learning and have that incorporated into that contingency plan madam president um that's actually for me you guys really don't do the educational part and you've shared that about 10 times and we understand and there was no plan um to harm children all right thank you any other comments oh remember jacob and then uh did you have no [Music] uh remember donnelly remember a member of jacobs why don't you um you had a comment or a question thank you both for the report i appreciate it and i'm i'm excited to see some of the planning we're doing um what i think i'm hearing is from a policy standpoint we're prepared for whatever comes next uh which is helpful from uh rhys with
069with grant sending with federal funds curtailing from a financial standpoint from just an equipment standpoint are we ready from that aspect just put it a little closer get to get a little closer if we can yeah sure so what i'm hearing is from a policy standpoint we're ready for next year um regardless as to what comes next from a from a funding standpoint from an equipment standpoint from a staffing standpoint are we ready there too thank you yes i appreciate that clarification the the 10 20 hour might have curtailed a little bit of my presentation but yes we will the really incorporated in this and that's why the title says readiness and sustainment we really retained what we could sustain moving forward and yes those supplies and equipment are prepared to head into the next
070year um and we through that idea of relationship should there be a need in the future we know how to collaborate um pursue other funding to add those things back in that if needed thank you madam president um and may i just add that at the very beginning of this pandemic it was the preparedness of asd that supplied every hospital and every doctor's thing with tens of thousands of face masks that people didn't have and so asd um has prided itself on being prepared and and the operations folks and george vicalis for for years those connexes um uh were purposeful thank you thank you member lessons comment um really a note of gratitude and i think we heard um you know gratitude from from jbeer as well earlier this evening with the vaccine clinics that
071were run and the efficiency with that so that's um a special note of gratitude for mr roth as well for your leadership and all of that uh through the president i i just have to say that yeah and i appreciate your comment but it was really nurse bell really when you got down to the the brass tacks of doing the vaccinations it was kathy bell and all the nurses too and the nurses exactly that kathy organized that effort thank you so that's a note of collective gratitude yes for sure uh member uh holloman um also i want to say that you know when when the clinic was operating in this building there was a lot of staff from the building doing logistics i don't think you just let you know like the foreign languages people
072stab people in the arm or anything but they were directing traffic and doing things and and i think for a lot of people it was like the first time we could really do something other than sit at home talking to people that normally don't have a lot of contact with the anchorage school district they really came away with a sense of enthusiasm they were really impressed by the organization a lot of them were really happy they were able to get the vaccine that of course is a central part but they really like the way the district did what it did and delivering it and it i i think has changed the outlook that a fair number of citizens have towards the district that that's that's been their contact you know they're older their kids have
073come and gone they they don't go to school events they're not seeing that but they came through this building and it was very orderly it was very quick everything was explained and they were in they were watched they were out it at community council meetings it really changed the tone of how people thank you very much for that yes this is i'm sorry for the follow-up but um an individual an older community member came up to me two or three days ago and said that he believes that the anchorage school district saved his life [Music] so i thought i should share that all right excellent report ladies thank you so much dr bishop thank you madam president um and thank you um our dynamic duo i uh now am going to uh turn it over
074to dr stock who let me know that this is his last regular board meeting um because he is um just so you know he is um extreme marathon runner and is running over a 30-mile race with his sister um to really commemorate and celebrate his brother's life that he lost uh last year and so i just want to thank him for um always being support and also um tag tame him on this next item so thank you dr stock and he'll let us know he he leaves um before meetings and everything to go run 10 miles and then comes back so he's amazing so thank you dr bishop um just a couple of summer learning points i know it's getting late but we do have a robust summer school plan we've got about 7 000
075students that will be coming through at 28 different sites uh we've got about 2 000 students getting specific transportation uh about just under a thousand staff members that includes everything from principals to paris and custodians etc one change from last year is that the summer programs will just exist in june we we had a really big drop off in the july session last year and so to use our time wisely we are focusing strictly on june with the exception of the special ed extended school year plans and the 21st century community which is a federal grant they will continue into july but those our programs will be through the month of june i want to get it something that member lessons brought up in the earlier work session today she raised the question about you
076know summer school the return on investment for it and i just want to let you know that um i've had a meeting with dr aches and i've asked them to to do a study and we we're all aware that summerslide is a real thing and it happens in almost all homes right kids are in school for nine months and then summer comes there are some homes that can stem the summer slide but they're the families that go to the library every week and read books and go to the museums and do all those things right but for the average individual there is a summer slide and that is you're tracking your map scores or skills from the spring session to the fall session what i've asked our assessment evaluation team to do is to do
077a matched study of our students from who don't go to summer school with students who do go to summer school and we'll look at the differences between the spring and the fall that's independent of that to see what kind of changes occur now we know summer school is good for kids even if it doesn't show up in those assessments right so it's not saying it's an indictment on having summer school but the question about return on investment is a good one because what if there is no difference then are we better off to put that seven million dollars into the school year with extended activities and so those are just decisions that were we're making we're going to be looking at the data closely and i think this would get at remember lessons question in
078the earlier work session today yes thank you dr stock and if there's um there's additional information put on your um handouts so that you can have talking points when you go to your meetings but if there's any specific questions um we can especially about this we can answer them in the board connect excellent thank you great thank you can we get this electronically yes absolutely we'll we'll stick it in the board connect this friday as well oh it's in boardville okay great madam president one quick question so if it's a june uh session like what are the dates a great question like three months four weeks it's a four week session 20 days uh and so it starts there there's a day or two difference between the elementary and the middle school and i don't
079have this we'll get those dates on the board connect yeah that's good information actually we will update this flyer with those dates but the ones on the bottom that are very specific they have much separate they have very discreet dates so correct um we'll get those in there okay great and finally uh madam president the the last part of this actually before i get to this i wanted to share that um administration has been uh just recently notified by um the debate folks last week in fact during graduations and we set up a meeting for next week to meet with them so it was our surprise that they were here because we didn't even get an opportunity to have a meeting um we support debate remember um when middle schools changed their schedules and went
080to seven period um some of the schools um altered some of those when they changed staffing when they added that second prep time in the planning time something else went away so if you recall about three years ago when we did that work um debate was one of those things that they made choices on um but that uh this just came up to us so we haven't even we've scheduled a meeting for next week dr stock texted me so did uh dr johnson and so we're delighted to to meet we just need an opportunity to do that yeah so just wanted to share with the board um and then also um because we couldn't meet last week this is what we were doing celebrating uh actually ten graduations occurred um at the alaska airlines center
081and we wanted to share uh just some of the successes you were all there at different times and so this is just going to roll through we've had such a a great evening every evening i can share as and i did share it one of them that the people that have attended all of the graduations were marty lang holly zumbro myself and every single tech guy they were all men and the tech lady and so we uh just shared like oh what happened in this one and so they were all again well we won't try to strive in the district is to standardize what we can do so that we know there's access and there's quality and then we want our schools to customize and make it their flavor to their school so standardization and
082customization and that's what we saw at graduation and as these um [Music] come to an end i am just going to share um member lessons and i got to hear this at the very end and and the last graduation was the middle college last week at the alaska airlines center and we were surprised the principals shared the class of 2022 earned a total of 4 267 college credits saving college tuition value of 1.1 million dollars to families and again i shared it's not free that was some of the words that the kids use um but basically we used the bsa smarter to uh for choices that students wanted and eight students qualified for an associate's degree and their high school diploma at the same time and they earned 60 or more credits um one person
083earned 90 credits a little over 90 and then two national merit scholar finalists were there um he also gave over the past five years so i want to thank the board for supporting me and an idea that i had done in a previous district and the school is in the theory and the design of it is about nine years old but over the past five years just in asd there's been 1302 students and a total of over 20 000 college credits with a 10 million dollar savings to families and so it is a true um [Music] really uh very diverse class that attends there and kids attend for different reasons um but what we've always done whether it's partnership family partnership king tech or any one of our home schools like middle college when they
084don't have those other things in schools kids always are allowed to keep one foot back in for sports or band in their home school and so the support of the high school principals as well as secondary um to make this work uh was also um really must be mentioned because it doesn't things like this to support kids don't have it on their own and it took the asd team so thank you and that concludes um the report on graduations and we have on thursday a couple more thank you yes thank you dr bishop all right so that brings us to item l uh comments um i'll start uh let's start okay kelly we'll start with you and go around the other way well i had some really favorite moments from graduation but um i'm gonna
085i'm gonna begin where dr bishop ended my favorite moment was when she told the graduates of the middle college program [Music] to look under their seats and they all did they were baffled and before then they started waving around dollar bills and she said the take home was that you have to move your booty to make a buck and that was a really good take-home message and uh it was effectively at the door um anyways it was uh cool it was also a really really there was really a dollar under every chair so whoever and i want to go on record um mr anderson was here everything it was my own personal money it was just a send-off of the last and i stuck about it there so yeah yeah so that was that was
086it was great and um it was also a nice chance to recognize the partnership with uaa yeah um also at that particular ceremony was a student whose name was joseph and he was the first graduate of the partnership with the lower yukon cusco clinton school district and he had a smile about a mile wide so i'll leave it there um it was a great chance to celebrate our students all of them thanks thank you all right remember holloman um pretty much what other people have said although i'm not sure that i would want to hear any educators say that outbound in school but you know you can get away with it now um but also i did have comments from several people that felt like graduation was done really well and there are people that
087don't always admire the way we handle large events and things like that but they they really thought it was organized there was room for kids to be a little bit different to be customized um and it was just appreciated and the uh certainly the the service ceremony went off beautifully and uh i i thought it was really well done us too yeah thank you [Music] member jacobs thank you madam president i uh will echo remember holloman's comments about the graduation being a very smooth and easy process it was great to be back um together again i know last year we were outside this year it kind of had the air of a bit of normalcy which was nice i think i attended the betty davis east anchorage high school i think the most controversial thing
088was one of the student speakers giving out the daily wordle answer [Music] and so beyond that i think it went really well i do want to congratulate all the 2022 graduates as well as all the staff tonight recognized thank you for those who came out and took time to testify and um i'll leave it there thank you thank you remember donnelly um yeah the school business partnership team folks had their last meeting of the school year they're just a great asset to our district and i thank them for everything they they're doing i also had a chance to attend the mirs 4.0 breakfast which i hadn't been familiar with that event before um it was really exciting for me to it's uh when i went to mirrors it was in a whole different building but
089you know they got the new building and it's it was it was really amazing how many of their students had 4.0 and they they were being honored and then the diamond graduation i just appreciate the board allowing me to attend that on behalf of the board it was super special for me as it was my 50th um year since graduating from diamond oh and the kids just couldn't been better they were wonderful and what a great what a great bunch of students we've got um i'm just really optimistic about how great they're going to do in the future and what great futures they're going to have um i'm you know i am a broken record about the virtual learning and if we're going to do a plan for it ever happening again i think it's
090essential that we have an agreement and something in there about the minimum amount of a direct instruction time uh i had advocated that be in the aea contract it doesn't address it um i think it should have but i i just think that it's just too important to our students not to have a plan to deal with it better than we did last time thank you thank you member donnelly uh member wilson [Music] yes i i just wanted to say again congratulations to excuse me all of our denali award winners i've had the pleasure of being able to first hand see the work done by the folks at the child in transition program for many years and because of their support and always willing to go out of their way for students they have helped
091many many students to graduate um i was a little bummed that i didn't get to celebrate with them in person tonight but i always appreciate their efforts um i had the pleasure of attending the bartlett graduation and it was it was so very sweet they presented me with a corsage so they said that is um that is their tradition and it was it was just really nice the the staff had such great energy and the students had great energy so i really enjoyed that um i also wanted to share that the communications committee is scheduled to take place on wednesday may 25th at noon thank you and i won't echo what everybody else has said but our students did have a wonderful graduation and i just want to thank the staff that work with them
092to make that happen and i want to congratulate their parents as well um i remember um jacobs and i attended the korean american scholarship event uh that really was a um very um short but very nice event where the korean american society gave scholarships to our students and that was that was just a wonderful event we also did the fairview renaming i want to thank dr hunt for her work on that um it was a little chilly outside but the hearts were warm and we all had a really good time uh i actually had a good time because i saw people there that i had seen in years it was great and then for ropes today dr bishop and myself and member lessons went over to rogers park and i'm telling you they're i'm just
093blown away there was one kid they do rope stands for uh right surprises um something experienced experiences anyway uh one of the sessions i had two wonderful sessions but the one that was absolutely amazing to me was a sixth grader who had already taken he did it on s.a.t study skills s.a.t sixth grade he's taken it like five times and he challenges himself every single time he's teaching other sixth graders how to do this this how to take this and study for um the sat i don't think at sixth grade i even knew what the s.a.t was so there's amazing things going on in our district i want to thank everybody um [Music] yes you absolutely can madam president i just wanted to add one thing that i didn't want to go unsaid that um
094secondary graduations in the planning really began last august and it was dr kirsten and her team that followed through with that so um we all enjoyed them and we just want to share with you that um i know that uh kirsten's um mom's funeral occurred during that same week but um we let her know how proud we were and how um really the families loved it so i wanted to give a personal thanks to her and her team for for carrying that out um it's always difficult to change things around here and that was a major change and it was successful so thank you will next year be at the center again good because that worked perfectly yes yes and the timing in between the graduations was good too because people did loiter they stayed
095out in the parking lot a long time but it didn't matter because there was time in between any other comments from anyone in the boardroom in our gallery our amazing gallery seeing none i know they're going they're giving me their all right with that i'll entertain a motion to adjourn live to adjourn second see now