ASD School Board Meeting 02-08-22

001welcome you to our school board meeting today is tuesday february 8th board members present in the board room we have members wilson lessons jacobs higgins donnelly and bellamy online we have member holloman also in the board room we have our student representative ellie shaw we also have dr dana bishop our superintendent and katie grant our secretary and several staff are also in the room along with our fabulous guests in the audience so at this point um will you lead us into the pledge please michelle i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all land acknowledgement when you're ready [Music] on behalf of the anchorage school board i want to take a moment to

002recognize and offer gratitude for the sacred ancestral lands of the denia people we acknowledge and appreciate that our offices facilities and schools are on these sacred indigenous lands and we honor the traditional care that has been given to this land throughout generations we are grateful for the opportunity to grow learn work and create educational communities on the sacred land we extend continued respect for the many cultures creativity and resilience of its indigenous peoples [Music] thank you misha [Music] so that brings us to our opening statement and i've pretty much already done it but i do want to welcome you here tonight and thank you for attending and supporting uh the anchor school district and supporting this board we thank our students our parents teachers staff school business partners and the entire community for your investment

003in our district with your time your talent and your tax dollars that brings us to item a3 which is the approval of our agenda madam president like to move the approval of the agenda as um as presented clear a second jacket thank you maybe jacob second moved in second to approve the agenda as presented is there any opposition to the approval of the agenda see no opposition the agenda is approved as presented thank you that brings us to recognitions item b1 we've been waiting a long time for this actually this is our fall 2021 uh denali award winners we are recognizing them tonight to alaskans denali means great one and the anchorage school district is proud to have employees that display greatness in the areas of achievement service and dedication this is the highest award

004offered by the district twice a year supervisors submit nominations and a panel of asd employees selects a number of co-workers and teams of colleagues that demonstrate outstanding commitment to the district's mission of educating all students for success in life we are honored to have two individuals and two groups who will be recognized tonight and i will now turn the presentation over to board members who will join us and read the recognitions uh member wilson will you please start us off kevin klott please come forward kevin klott is an absolute rare educator who understands the importance of providing support to students families fellow educators and the district clott is an innovator who is adept at identifying and creating content content to support our district-wide springboard implementation asd virtual canvas and apex e-dynamics all while while acting

005as a language arts department chair in addition to working with students to produce the golden view middle school daily news announcement on gvtv on youtube his poise tact and dedication relate to his instructional methods in this covet 19 era clot gives so freely of his time no matter what is on his proverbial plate his provision skill and desire to learn and stay up to date on the ever fluid challenges that distance learning and return to in-person learning has presented is unparalleled in addition to these monumental contributions he also took on being the coach for the golden view spelling bee his positivity work ethic and genuine love of his pro his profession are just a few of the attributes that have greatly aided golden view in identifying troubleshooting and getting in front of operational and educational

006hurdles when he is not acting as the golden view technology point of contact he also serves as the anchorage education association site representative while also serving on countless committees and leadership groups both in the golden view building and the larger asd community clot has developed numerous relationships with community organizations and harnessed their influence for the betterment of all youth he serves these efforts have helped foster opportunities for students to glean exposure opportunities and confidence in their abilities thank you well the following individuals please come forward nathan bankston p rivera tor christopherson michelle valentine susie whited rick stone john lewis jamal sayah and kenneth cauley uh um on september 2nd 2021 an asd maintenance crew was at south anchorage high school to clear trails on the property when crew member jeff sieber began to feel light-headed

007as he approached co-workers nathan bankston and pete rivera he lost consciousness and fell in the parking parking lot zebra experienced cardiac arrest his heart stopped and he quit breathing bankston rivera responded by beginning chest compressions south high school counselor tor christopherson arrived on the scene shortly thereafter and immediately notified high school security and administration including south high administrative assistant michelle valentine and school nurse susie whiting when it ran out of the building with a medical kit and valentine followed with the automatic external defibrillator in the meantime all members of the south high security team and student services principal rick stone arrived on the scene south security member john lewis took over cpr from rivera and bankston who had been performing cpr for almost five minutes soon thereafter what had used the aed to deliver a

008shock to attempt to restart sieber's heart at the same time south security members jamal saya and kenneth colley cleared the area controlled traffic and helped emts to the scene stone provided communications coordination throughout the event and made decisions on how to best direct resources to respond to the emergency in a review of the incident sieber was deceased for approximately eight minutes before he was revived with a combination of cpr and the use of the aed without the immediate actions and coordinated efforts of this life-saving team sieber would not be alive [Applause] um [Music] you might be safer over there all my security guys right it's awesome [Music] rachel ledoux rachel molina la dune please come forward rachel molina lagoon has been part of the capital planning and construction department for over 24 years after receiving

009her bachelor's degree in business administration from the university of alaska she excelled as a project support analyst and was promoted to project support manager in 2009 lagoon coaches over 30 project managers construction inspectors and specialists with a common goal of planning and constructing approximately 50 million dollars in bond funded capital projects annually in addition to her flawless record as a fund manager rachel has been extremely successful in the development submission and award receipt of capital grants from legislators and the alaska department of education and early development these grants have saved the district millions of dollars in capital project costs rachel's teammate best describes her impact on the department quote rachel is un undeniably a huge asset to capital planning and construction her problem-solving positive attitude hard work and dedication keeps this department running smoothly we

010are fortunate to have a reliable and an incredibly supportive co-worker following the november 30th 2018 earthquake rachel quickly coordinated and tracked facility damage assessment teams to complete rapid visual survey reports on all 92 asd facilities within 18 hours of the event rachel's ability to manage this time-consuming fema process has been nothing short of superb rachel is passionate about helping students and her community she is a regular volunteer for the alaska special olympics and coaches volleyball for the midnight sun volleyball club rachel maintains a positive cooperative and professional attitude she is a true professional who stands out amongst her peers and is an outstanding representative for the anchorage school district [Music] okay okay next uh please come forward noah adams hunter barger tara burt banging steven carraway david friedland luke giesler steve gonzalez christopher ho heather

011johnson evan jones amanda mcbratney joe michael james miller marion pentagrast roberto setone chris argento taylor stock todd sullivan and john wagner looks sort of yeah [Music] most of you were starting [Music] okay are we ready [Music] these award winners make up three smaller t teams that combine to provide exceptional customer service for the anchorage school district the it service desk team answers internal calls and attempts to resolve issues without escalation to other teams during covet 19 this team had to move to completely remote and had parents and students to support cue without pause over 10 000 parents and student tickets were resolved during this time from october 2020 to october 2021 the it service desk answered 22 000 phone calls from staff parents and students congratulations that's part of it okay the it service desks

012admin techs stationed at the education center provide in-person support for the administrative department sites including maintenance operations and student nutrition this team provides zoom and in-person support for each asd school board meeting technical support to all events at the asd education center and the yearly learning and leadership summit in the summer of 2021 this team upgraded 27 cafeteria manager computers in two weeks to be ready for food service and summer school sites once the summer sites were set up the remaining 60 sites were upgraded before school start this team also provides laptops to three provided laptops to 301 new aaa staff members to ensure they were prepared for the school start thank you congratulations [Music] the it application support and training team provides essential support and training for staff using instructional systems the team revamped

013the asd required training program now housed in canvas to make them user-friendly they provide training and support for queue to teachers clerical staff and principals this team also works directly with the assessment department providing technical setup and support for all asd testing applications as the face or voice of it these three teams are at the front lines and vet every phone call and ticket that comes to the department thank you all right so the team that fixes my mic we're just right here so thank you um i do just want to share i made a joke that um as they uh came up to receive their award they all took a step behind the podium because this is certainly our team from behind the scenes and i want to give a heartfelt thank you to

014you uh for working together to make asd work when we went online and just being able to turn on the dime and of course from uh capital um planning and construction to golden view to amazing south high we just want to say thank you for all your efforts and um you make asd great it is great because of the people that we serve the people who we employ um and our students and so uh from the bottom of my heart i just am so gracious to you and thank you very much at this time we are going to take pictures outside all of the awardees you have a lovely basket for you we want you to take that home along with your award but please mingle enjoy food take pictures and celebrate these wonderful people

015that are your your brothers your sisters your husbands your wives and our employees so thank you [Music] please join the board in the atrium for some treats yes we'll take a 15 minute recess to celebrate and congratulate [Music] congratulations that nobody paid attention to me [Music] thank you [Music] you we'll be starting in two minutes [Music] i know we'd like to welcome everybody back [Music] okay [Music] okay they're um with my daughter it's really cool what did it say did that not say that like he's switching the name oh okay welcome back everybody and thank you for your patience and uh congratulations again to our denali award winners we also have another celebration in the house tonight somebody has a birthday today remember wilson so can we just do one stanza she's 29 happy birthday

016[Music] just one stanza happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear dora happy birthday to you thank you for that i appreciate it i just totally embarrassed her and that brings us back to our agenda we're on item c uh c2 michelle are you ready yes ma'am okay so sab or student advisory board had their latest meeting on january 11 2021 22. this meeting was very successful just like all of our previous meetings have been um and then the sab exec board met last week over zoomed to plan our february meeting which is on february 15th 2022 at 11 15 a.m to 1 15 p.m and then this weekend lydia josh and maggie from polaris and myself will be heading to juno for the association of alaska school boards conference i speak

017for all of us when i say that we are very excited for this new experience and all the things we get to learn and just seeing juno so yeah thank you and you will have a great time and learn lots so we look forward to that report as well so thank you very much and now we're moving on to item d1 our math proficiency goal monitoring [Music] dr bishop thank you madam president and you should have that math proficiency copy and it's um looking good we're very uh happy to share it with you and mine rich so here we go boy we were out partying celebrating i missed my didn't have my place organized so thank you and this is just uh the first part of the monitoring is giving you the information with the

018graph so that the questions can come back and staff can prepare our staff in math that works with dr knutson um assist in providing the answers when we have the dialogue and so the math proficiency goal is 40 to 55 percent by may of 2026 and the interim goal 2.1 is also going to be shared which is the percentage of grade 339 students at or above the math benchmark on interim adaptive assessments which we use the map growth assessment will increase from 48.4 percent in spring of 2021 to 50 in spring of 2022. so if you take a look at the math interim goal we have a blue we have an above target area the top again is the goal we have the superintendent evaluation i'm sharing that according to the math growth color legend

019at the bottom uh we do have an n for the amount of students who were in the fall and the winter this year along with the annual target at the end [Music] the next areas very we chose um the template to continue so that the board has access and understanding as well as the public to the types of reports we're providing and the information and so we provided you the participation and performance uh of the individual student groups for which are reported uh to the state and federal government in regard to uh initially it was no child left behind has now been every student uh succeeds or and and more so they they change often but uh it is our accountability measure we also broke the goal down into although it isn't presented by grade

020level we broke it down so that the board could see third through ninth grade again uh the next steps the process what's going on as well as the interim goal we want to share with you as well we've placed in here and that is on page nine the percentage of three through nine students on track to be provisioned in mathematics because we can use map and we have map growth to predict as a predictor how they do for passing and being proficient on the state assessments now map has not done this work because as you recall the state assessment changed this year from peaks to believe it or not an nwea product so they might be able to do the assessment and interpolation a lot faster than they did before because they're going to own

021both pieces of the data and so this is determining someone who is proficient which is our prior interim goal is at the 40th percentile above this goal as a predictive is at the 65th percentile and so again delivered to you by different student groups so that you can take a look and the short-term next steps with talking points so uh we hope you enjoy this uh the staffed and amazing job they're quite excited in the math group uh to be able to present this to you all right thank you dr bishop and so with this uh report we will uh really uh please send you your questions in to katie uh so that we can prepare for our conversation on the 22nd um thank you dr bishop so we are moving on now to our

022public comment period on our agenda and we do have individuals who have signed up to testify so this is we we provide two opportunities to hear from the public at each of our meetings uh we have a an hour in the beginning and hopefully we get to everybody in that hour but if we don't get through everybody in that hour we do another hour at the end so today um i'd like to just read a few comments regarding our process as you came in you should have seen a handout that welcomes you to our boardroom and the ed center as well as gives you the process and expectations for participation along with the rules of engagement for the boardroom so welcome to our first opportunity for evening public comment uh this hour um you will

023each individual within the hour each individual will have three minutes and this is we do not in engage with the public we are here to listen to whatever the public would like for us to know so it's the public's time to speak and the board's time to listen the board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings through their comments but to be productive our meetings must be structured and civil uh we conduct all of our meetings under robert's rules of order and under robert's rules under these rules the board um and and the public are required to behave in civil and respectful ways by uh acknowledging or un by not um being attacked attacking uh or combative in any way um so under robert's rules uh speakers may point out what he

024or she believes to be the natural consequences of a board action but may not engage in speech that personally attack others please refrain from disturbing the meeting and this really means no cheering applause or outbursts now the celebration was different we did do a little cheering and applauding uh for this portion though unless you are testifying please be polite to the board and to other speakers uh no profanity or foul language this is a place uh that we do not have that in our board room uh please wear your masks at all times including during your testimony uh the mask must cover your mouth and nose unless you have a medical waiver there should be no waving of signs flyers or posters and if you have handouts the lovely katie to my left will be

025happy to make sure the board uh gets whatever handouts that you have so with that um it is my duty to enforce the rules of civility and decorum as such i have the authority to rule any speaker out of order for violation of these rules and others further i will have removed from the meeting anyone who does not heed to the rules or fails to conduct themselves in a civil manner and with that i'd like to welcome our first speaker [Music] and melinda peterson in person melinda peterson [Music] is she online nope okay we'll try to circle back to melinda uh jacqueline [Music] go go forth jacqueline go forth in person okay okay let's move to the telephone danielle kemp okay now sherwood williams telephonic hmm okay okay raeanne are you here raeanne there's lotte

026lores [Music] elizabeth is here welcome elizabeth you have three minutes okay before i start i just wanted to share with you this is my use of data right now this is what i still have to enter to show you the work that i do as a school counselor but three minutes good evening dr bishop school board members asd directors and community members my name is elizabeth conga mcgee and i'm here as a school counselor from whaley school i'm here tonight to celebrate national school counseling week in which school counselors around the nation have a chance to educate advocate and share with others the work that they do for students staff and families they serve i will continue to advocate and educate through giving presentations on our role at conferences speaking with legislative members and making

027a difference in my students lives every day i just returned from washington dc where i was surrounded by the best school counselors in the nation as we shared in the recognition of being school counselors of the year i am here to shine some light on the importance of allowing the school counselors that we employ do the job that they are trained to do although we are not therapists we are trained in providing social emotional learning tools coping strategies and dealing with trauma and youth mental health i am a true believer in collaborating with outside agencies to help our students move forward with the issues that have arose due to covid as well as the growing issues of mental health and suicide i am not a believer in outside agencies doing the job of the school

028counselor asd has school counselors that are hired to provide services for all students i would like to suggest that we have our outside agency counselors provide tier 3 services to students based on the recommendations of the school counselor already employed with asd to provide intensive one-on-one counseling for those students that are struggling the most allow our current school counselors employed by asd to provide the tier 1 and 2 services and provide the outside agency counselors a list of students that could benefit from tier 3 services asd has some of the best school counselors in alaska and unfortunately we are not leading the pack because school counselors are doing other duties other than school counseling a comprehensive school counseling program was developed by asd school counselors i have shared this document with many school counselors that

029have surpassed us in implementing a program in their schools as well as advocating that it be implemented district-wide i know that we are short-staffed and everyone needs to help however our students suffer when they don't have access to their school counselor there is a reason why whaley school has been recognized as a distinguished mental health and wellness school as well as the capturing kids hearts national associate school it's because miss harrison and i as professional school counselors are working right next to our with our administrators to help be systemic change agents in building a culture and community positive culture and community in our buildings i urge you to encourage leaders in our schools to listen to the expertise their school counselors have asd does not employ guidance counselors but professional school counselors and we need

030to start recognizing the expertise that school counselors bring to the table remember we are all about thank you elizabeth mcgee [Music] next we have uh in-person eve green eve green [Music] okay in person brian staschak [Music] brian stacey s-t-a-s-h-a-k in case i'm really butchering that okay all right i'll go through the list one more time in case somebody showed up melinda peterson jacqueline goforth danielle kemp now sir wood williams raeanne delores eve green and brian stasic okay that ends our public testimony you will find uh attached to the agenda online you will find written public comments as well that brings us to our consent agenda madam president i'd like to move that we approve the consent agenda as listed uh includes the um [Music] sorry meant to have those items right in front of me

031and i don't i couldn't help you out there december 6 regular session minutes the asd memorandum 073 personnel report asd memorandum 077 request for budget transfer reversal capital projects funded general fund and asd memorandum 079 authorization to access municipal financing for the replacement of school buses thank you is there a second a second it's moved in second uh to approve the consent agenda [Music] we'll have to do a roll call may we pull one of them for discussion uh sure which one would you like to pull zero seven seven please [Music] so we we have to catch up we kind of got out of sync [Music] pulling item 4 f4 [Music] so that leaves for the consent agenda regular session minutes for december six memo seven zero seven three and memorandum zero seven nine uh

032can i get a motion for those three because we we got ahead of ourselves uh sideways a little bit motion to approve those three madam president i move we approve the remaining three on the consent agenda moved in second to approve the remaining three items on the agendas uh is there any opposition to the approval of those three oh wait we have to do a voice vote don't we because yes remember wilson yes remember lessons yes remember jacobs yes remember holloman yes over higgins remember donnelly yes president bellamy yes [Music] those three items are approved thank you [Music] so now that brings us to um our action item that first item is uh asd memorandum number 069 are there any individuals wishing to [Music] um [Music] speak on on memorandum zero six nine approval of

033inlet view elementary school design development and supplemental educational specifications anyone in the audience wishing to speak on that memo on this item seeing none we will open it up to the board any board members have any questions or discussions um oh okay there is no testimony andy so we need you to move it to an action item so that we can discuss it [Music] memorandum 0 6 9. someone else can do it i'm not sure what you're asking on that oh yeah we we i just asked if there were there was nobody in the audience to who wished to speak so now we need to we need a motion yes uh i do move we approve ast memorandum zero six nine approval of inlet view elementary schools 65 percent design development supplemental educational specifications is

034there a second a second okay moved in second to approve memorandum 069 now it's open for discussion um yes remember uh uh donnelly thank you madam president i just continue to support doing a remodel rather than a replacement [Music] just just a minute okay all right member uh jacobs thank you madam president i was hoping to to hear from either the um design team or the building design committee as to how the design has changed since this item was last in front of us was one of the questions i had yes if we and the staff bishop yes madam president i've requested tom ross to come forward chief operating officer thank you dr bishop and and through the president if i might i would like to bring forward um first i'm asked tom fenisep to

035join me here but we do have members of the building design committee we we have the architect paul barrel uh from envision charlie peters who is the project manager and then and then the pres the the principal of school patricia erins and then two members have been involved frankly involved in this process for for several years ongoing now so uh i i am uh certainly uh we're we're happy to entertain any any questions about about the the um the building design committee i i would like to take this opportunity if i might um because i've drugged charlie and paul down here a couple of nights and focus on you know the design itself if we might and speak to what we're really trying to accomplish to meet the um the the the excellent school the

036outcome that we're trying to achieve for the district as well as for the community and the people who are here really uh i think embody you know that effort that's been ongoing now for for several years with inlet view so so mr jacobs you know we're happy to entertain any specific questions uh with regards to the the bdc but again if we can if we can spend some time on the the design itself but also you know why did the building design committee arrive at the recommendation that they did because again i think that's something that we really haven't a chance to articulate uh to the school board and we recognize that um you know this is we're asking the board to approve uh this design so with your agreements uh madam president and and

037i'm gonna yield i guess to mr jacobs he had three questions that came up uh in our request for information and i did uh indicate to him that we would respond to those so [Music] i can yeah well no i can read them they were the first one has the has the revised vdc process [Music] uh of adding members and other transparency measures to make meetings accessible improved bbc operations and i can't see and he's previous conveyed concerns so thank you through the president to the first i'll answer with the with a somewhat uh general response i i think the immediate answer is is yes um because again it it brought in additional voices to to uh input into uh this design but in terms of you know the guys who actually can speak to

038the dynamics of the group i'm gonna i'm gonna default to mr barrel and to mr peters to answer that more specifically okay you miss ralph do you want peter charlie do you want to start on that you can start okay um so we we brought uh three bbc members with us tonight to help so they can help speak to this question specifically but from my perspective as the project architect and running the bdc meetings we've definitely had additional input with the new bdc members we went through really a two-month additional public input two-month period to get input and that resulted in adding we added two bdc members to the bdc that were direct neighbors to the south and those two members have added um contribution to the bdc effort um and and it's it's gone

039well everybody's uh behaved nobody's been um you know it hasn't been a conflict um but there has been some disagreements but everybody's been very professional um and so well i'd let the bdc members hear speak directly to the question i think it'd be beneficial for you has there been consensus 100 no there hasn't so if that's what you're wondering no um but the three with three new members all of whom are neighbors and don't have any kids at the school and some of them don't have any little kids at all [Music] they have a lot to say and they've been listened to and there have been design changes that have happened mostly i think since the community council meeting the first one where the 65 was presented a lot of the comments from that resulted

040in some design and landscape changes that they were all well appreciated and well-timed comments but our meetings um are longer and i would say i mean paul's painting a positive light as a person who's been in the meeting since the beginning they were more productive at the beginning um and now there's definitely time given to listening to discord which is good but then at the end they've also been open for public comments and those comments haven't always been very kind and it is hard to sit through to our meeting and then listen to a lot of negative commentary but we have and it's it's just it's been good that people felt like they could comment i guess so that's my frank response a couple of couple of things on that really quick so the third

041bdc member that we added um was um the bdc decided to add an additional one in our third member in addition to the two that we allowed the south edition community council to add so the south addition community council added they elected or selected two people to join the bdc and then the bdc offered another to another neighbor that lives south of the school on m street um a position on the bdc as well and she accepted so that's why we have the third member and then we presented the 35 design at the south edition community council and then changes have resulted since then to the 65 percent submittal that you guys are reviewing and approving today okay and another one of the questions was um what what were those changes uh what changes if

042any were made to the inlet view design since the board last addressed this project so yeah so to answer that question um so the primary changes that have been made were reduction in parking counts we reduced the parking by approximately 20 stalls and we added a larger landscaping buffer between the parking lot and inlet place those are the two major changes along with some minor changes where we've um identified that playground shifting locations with to avoid some shading in certain locations we got a lot of input from neighbors that were concerned about shadowing of their property which in result ended us looking at closer shading of playground equipment on the property which which helped us improve that because we weren't having a shading issue with the neighbors but but because they brought that concern to

043us we were able to look at some closer things like that so we shifted some playground equipment around shifted um the basketball court and the asphalt games around so there were some minor changes there but primarily the major changes were our parking lot reduction and the green space addition at home long in that place were there any changes to the ingress and egress into the parking lot no they're um there has not been changes since then yet i can address that real quick [Music] so so madam president you you i believe you're cognizant uh when when the district went to the assembly for the the assembly to act on moving the bomb proposition forward to the ballot uh we we were working with with an assembly member to develop an option in terms of how

044traffic would route on the site uh we we did this this team did develop that that option that we we think right now that we we still need to look in more detail at it we still have to get a traffic engineer evaluation of it the the bdc um the expanded bdc did meet they did evaluate and recommend that uh that we would retain the same traffic pattern but again this is all based on you know an incomplete evaluation of the the the alternatives alternate traffic plan what it does and these guys can talk more details it it does route traffic on from 12th avenue through the school site on to 13th so it would bypass effectively bypass inlet place um it does come at cost though in that it would significantly reduce the amount

045of uh playground space to accommodate this so so there are some trade-offs but it's still an option that that the bdc will continue to evaluate get more informed advice to it and then come back with a recommendation for a decision if that answers your question that does thank you uh other questions from the board [Music] not to see yet remember jacobs yeah madam president thank you i wanted to first express appreciation for the building design committee members making time to come tonight your service on the committee um i know it's been a long process and i've watched a couple meetings and i appreciate that they're long i fully support the project continue to do so i intended to have my questions answered actually last month and so i would have preferred to focus on the

046design elements tonight uh for sure if there are any other elements mr roth that you would prefer to highlight and um you know for the board's attention i would be glad to hear them i want to make sure you were given space too to include that excuse me so through the president to member jacobs i do i do uh welcome the opportunity just just to highlight because it there have been questions and we we recognize that there has been you know some some consternation you know and to be sure and we we understand that you know the folks who have had the most concerns you know they have skin in the game right they live right next to the school site but just to share you know some of the the the reasons i and

047and again i think this is kind of an encapsulation of what bdc what led them to the recommendation that they have so the first is with regards to the south and it is not insignificant that it enables a continuity of education on a single site for inlet view and and you know firstly that reduces significantly the churn for staff and students and families over the duration of the project which could be up up to two and a half to three years it allows class cohorts to remain uh together throughout this entire period instead of being broken up to most multiple schools and that if you're a parent you have that peace of mind knowing that your kid will be able to continue in that program um you know from a from a probably a lesser

048consideration but it's it's a factor that it would reduce transportation costs and that we're not uh in a position of having to move students every day to up to three different schools to accommodate that population so that's one criteria uh with regards to the building just a couple things um the way the way the design is is set up it's it's it's set up to maximize uh southern sunlight which um which is significant in that i think the the fact that you have more direct natural light um studies i think do show that better light actually has a benefit to student performance and behavior in schools so they factored that in that also by being on the south side just the way the ground is configured it allows for a playground both on the north

049side the main playground but also a smaller playground on the south side of the field that these have been integrated into the design of the site and it also allows for what i think is significant better kind of an enhanced supervisory overview of these playgrounds play areas by both the staff at the school but also kind of a neighborhood watch over the school site also that um the the way that the building is oriented it's facing uh vegetation in the neighborhood instead of looking straight out onto the playground again not a big thing but a consideration you know sometimes kids looking at kids playing on a playground is a distractor that that distractor is not going to be there it's a two it's a two-story design which is more space efficient uh it allows for

050in addition to the necessary classrooms and a dedicated gymnasium um administrative space without without consuming a huge amount of the available space and we know that inlet view is a very small school site so that's a significant piece and then and then just the the comments from the group here in terms of the way the parking is configured it faces to the east so if you're coming down 12th avenue 13th avenue you're looking into a very welcoming school whereas where the way it's configured now we have the school building kind of on the the north west end of the site kind of kind of obscured it it doesn't it doesn't present that welcoming effect so these are just some of the considerations given all the different options that this team looked at that that brought

051them to this recommendation of how the school's configured and and where they configured it on the site so i'll pause if anybody has any any other comments that they want to add i don't want to talk too much but i just want to let you know that every time we had to make a decision between two hard choices because there weren't any perfect choices that everyone said this is exactly it the building design committee represented by parent neighbors and staff key staff really made the choices that prioritize the kids and the families in the view every time so you can rest assured that we were thinking about that first and foremost when we made all of our tough choices [Music] thank you questions remember kagan just one comment what i really appreciate out of the

052explanations being provided is that while there are controversies associated everything's fake is focused on the students what's best for educational outcomes what's best for the kids in that unit where it should be how it should be done and i think i don't think there's a better compliment than to say thank you for that because you focus on the kids that's what that's what we're looking for thank you other comments member lessons i have a question i actually don't know if it's appropriate for this moment in tonight's agenda or a little bit later but it's been suggested to me by a principal who has gone through construction elsewhere that the obligations of a principle in a major construction site are substantial and i would appreciate this opportunity for members of the administration ms ahrens to reflect

053on whether there would be utility in the district budgeting an assistant principal or something to that effect in the upcoming year year and a half two years to help you focus on your students and maybe not be a project manager [Music] i don't know if that's an appropriate question for this point in time probably for dr bishop at some point in the future um i think there is a process already in place on how the district handles those uh those staffing things so we'll just need to if if you don't mind we could okay great but that was a very nice thought kelly thank you any other questions or comments yes i just wanted to clarify one thing miss lessons had asked a question at the last meeting and we wanted to make sure that

054you got that answer um in the briefing the 65 document report on page nine there was a couple of missing spots um and you asked for us to get that information for you and miss erins can speak to the zone exemption students better um but the account that she gave us was 60 to 65 students and it varies per year um and then that their intensive students are zero but i think miss erins can speak more towards the zone exemption and how they came up with that number [Music] good evening and thank you for the opportunity to answer that question and um you know when we talked about this on exemptions and i know that sometimes have been some misconceptions that it's a a big number of students um but overall um every year the

055lottery process is very clear and transparent so families that want their kids to come to interview they apply to the lottery and those numbers that are reflected in the 60 to 65 have been decreasing um over the years uh just to give you an example this uh 2021 2022 school year there were only about seven students that were accepted in the into the sun exception for kindergarten and maybe one or two siblings that attended for upper grade levels and the other students are being you know processed through years in the past and sometimes it's just older siblings whose dear brother or your sister is turning into kindergarten age and therefore they are you know for family purposes this common sense that they come to the same school so that is a clarification that i wanted

056to present thank you very much are you good okay all right thank you guys we appreciate all your hard work and thank you for your time tonight thank you [Music] so not seeing any other questions um the motion that we are voting on is in accordance with ar 3311.1 f 0.2 the administration recommends that the school board approve the 65 design development and supplemental educational specifications for inlet view elementary school replacement and authorize the superintendent to use them as a guide for future capital improvements affecting the school and its campus ready to vote remember donnelly no remember higgins yes remember wilson yes remember jacobs yes remember lessons yes remember holloman yes president bellamy yes [Music] and that most sure that motion passes six to six years to one day thank you and at this point

057um we are moving before we move to non-action dr bishop oh that's right i'm sorry i'm sorry thank you um madam president prior to um the additional action item i was wondering if i could take a just a brief moment to introduce someone in the audience yes you might thank you madam president um and this is timely because this person has to uh get back to a job chaperoning children and um i would like to invite ron brown uh to the front and he might look familiar to folks but he has moved from the interim betty davis east anchorage high school principal to the betty davis east anchorage high school he was confirmed and hired and so uh as always when we hire principals um we uh share did they take all the chairs away

058from you no okay if you want um but uh because they if you would like to say a few words um maybe your experience or just to let the board get to know you a little bit so that when they uh come visit you at your school uh you'll be a familiar face we're so proud that ron accepted the job and he's done a tremendous job at uh the school now and he has a big game this evening diamond east and um if you know basketball it's a hot one so we know we got to let him go okay thank you very much superman uh madame married madame bellamy board members thank you guys very much for the opportunity to serve at the betty davis east anchorage high school looking forward to working with the

059staff students and the community um great school i've had a lot of fun um this is my i want to say eighth school and so hopefully i can settle in and um kind of give some longevity to this position i invite you to come out to the school at any time you feel like you want to take a break from reality come on out and see our basketball games because our basketball team is undefeated our boys basketball team two years so please come on and support us all right congratulations well thank you very much if there's no other questions for me i do need to get back to the basketball yeah we we were on the lookout for you so you we got we got you thank you congratulations thank you mr brown okay so

060uh let's see we had item [Music] we had memorandum zero seven seven pulled yes uh so we need a a motion [Music] madam president i move that we uh move item zero seven seven for consideration moved in second [Music] uh the actual motion is to approve a return transfer of unused funds from the capital projects fund back to the general fund in the amount of one million fifty dollars fifty thousand dollars fifty thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars the board authorized these funds in asd memorandum number 42. [Music] is there a second i think did i hear a second over here was it you carl it was remember jacobs [Music] okay it's been moved in second to uh [Music] um move memorandum 077 to action so member lessons yeah i simply wanted to take the

061opportunity to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation for the local community members the vendors who um in light of board discussion around the memorandum um spoke up and offered a lower cost possibility to our needs and and thanks to the administration for engaging with them in that process and i think you know that the district stands to benefit by a million dollars um and we can return those public dollars to our general fund in light of our looming fiscal cliff i think it's remarkable and i just wanted to pull it as an outstanding example of engaged community members and people working together to support education thank you [Music] any other comments see none let's vote [Music] remember higgins yes remember holloman yes remember lessons yes remember donnelly yes remember jacobs yes remember wilson yes president

062bellamy yes [Music] and that memorandum passes unanimously um so we the board we have approved the return transfer of unused funds thank you see we are now on non-action items [Music] any any discussion yes member jacobs yeah i would like to ask a couple questions and i i would wager that other members would do the same uh regarding memorandum 81 preliminary financial planning budget okay [Music] all right so why don't you go ahead thank you i was hoping to get additional clarification on the timeline as to when we might have more information on the reorganized mental health services that the administration is hoping to implement and what that looks like in terms of us voting on the budget if we'll have that before our vote um or if not when that information will be available

063for us um thank you and i can jump in here madam president and turn it over to mark stock and you can sit over there jenny if you'd like just to grab a microphone and dr stock can uh address it initially and then he has the new senior director of that position thank you dr bishop so uh we definitely have a plan and a process and when uh when we conducted the interviews for the senior director for mental health and student supports of which dr knutson was our successful candidate she presented us with a robust calendar of events for a process that would unfold during this time but i do want to remind the board that she has a day job running the teaching and learning department which is very very busy with all the

064federal programs so but in the meantime she's definitely begun and started that work so i'm going to turn it over to dr knutson and she's going to share some of the details thank you dr stock through the president remember jacobs we have been off hitting the ground running in january since we was offered this position and really um it's going to be a partnership just so you know so as the new senior director of mental health and student support and our senior director of health services um we're going to be working and partnering on this as we move forward so as far as a timeline goes really what we're looking at is first action was hiring these positions and ensuring we had people internally that had that mental health support and back or background to

065support this work the second thing that we're doing is really doing an assessment of where we're at as a district so right now kate and i are meeting with um internal people like our principals counselors psychologists and really getting an idea to what elizabeth testified earlier what are people what are their jobs where where are things working where are some of the conflicts so that we can have an assessment of that and have an accurate view of what's currently happening in our schools as well as meeting with our external community partners so that we can gather information about what they can offer what their role is and what they think their role is and so we can kind of work through an integrated behavioral health system within our schools so that information we're gathering this

066month and next month and then our goal is to open it up and have an advisory a mental health advisory team that we would put out in applications and get people um to join and this would be not just a one-time thing but it would be an ongoing um committee that we would have to really guide our work over the next um six years five years now um that we have this um strategic plan so that committee will really involve community stakeholders our students our internal um stakeholders like counselors psychologists behavior support strategists as well as our community agencies parents students on the committee and really laying out what is the vision of what behavioral health integrated behavioral health looks like in the anchorage school district right now we have a lot of services but

067they're fragmented and so the goal is to integrate them and really work together at bringing them together so that we can offer more equitable services to our students across all of our schools and i'm going to look to kate and see if there's anything else you'd like to add so madam president may i add so uh in time to vote for this budget um not a solid plan due to the stakeholder involvement and opening the process up to ensure that the plan over five years is sustainable and we are going to through the monitoring of goals and guardrails provide a white paper to you about the work that they're doing [Music] i'd have to madam president look for that date of that guard rail but i know that they're gathering information now for that [Music]

068other questions [Music] remember higgins you've got your mic on no you're good i'm sorry again you had your mic on i thought you wanted to speak okay thank you uh remember jacobs like if i get a follow-up if i'm my vampire oh sure so my understanding is part of the the process that the administration views and i know the council of great city schools has kind of advocated as us saying uh if we would like to see changes to the draft document asking the administration to go back to the review process and make changes as they see fit i'm struggling with how to do that if we don't have more information as to what changes might be coming to say um we need more supports if the um the re-envisionment of what we're about to

069undertake isn't isn't yet available and so um i guess i'm looking for advice um from the administration as to how i should process that i'm sure dr bishop through the president to member jacobs that is a great question and that's um we're also new to this process and had we been in any other type of year i think we would have had the human power to access and do some of this outside of the work day incorporating of a plan certainly a budget line item can be made we can say this is how much we want to spend on it we put wedges in our budgets quite often to be able to do that um but a serious plan that is professional that incorporates stakeholders uh that can bring us into the future the the

070plan is something that um [Music] there wasn't enough time in the day nor people available who need to be sitting at the table to do it and so um the budget wedge is something that can be done the actual this is how it's going to be spent we would need the leisure to be able to decide that as that plan come to fruition with the necessary stakeholders that our board has continually valued the input of our employees of different you know stakeholders really as well as our community and partners in the community other questions remember lessons i have a follow-up question with respect to mental and behavioral health um we have metrics for counselors it's like one to three hundred in middle and high schools and maybe also for elementary i forget off the top

071of my head um i guess i want to assume that's best practices is there a better practice than one to 300 and if so why are we allocating one student one counselor to 300 students through the president to member lessons um probably that i would say is not adequate that is what is affordable in the budget we could increase that and then we would have to look um those were established years ago we would have to look at what else then comes away and as you know we have one time money to kind of boost us forward this year but we are trying to integrate our partners so that this guard rail can can build into the future and so basically those are built around um if we had unlimited money we could do unlimited

072wonderful things and i'm sure that mark and his team can spend a wedge of money um well uh in servicing kids it's just that uh to come again to a plan is very difficult but those were established uh really utilizing best practices and understanding what they are and then what can we afford in our schools that's how those were established many years ago in conjunction with principals and other stakeholders probably about 2016-17 i think yeah prior to that time there were not um metrics necessarily that were public for those items okay do you have a follow-up are you good i have other questions not related to mental health okay so hold up let's see let me do a sweep of the room [Music] so i if we're specifically limiting to mental health at this point

073i do have another follow-up question i want to make sure my reading of the budget books is a significant document is correct and that the proposed changes in terms of additional staff that are being positions that were created there's not an influx of staff that would provide mental or behavioral health supports we're not seeing that in the budget is that correct well i i would um madam president uh to member jacobs i would uh we do have that in special education which again it's going to be a group effort in giving schools through our mtss process behavioral supports and a lot of times we know that the struggles with mental health come out in behavioral instances for children and so that's these people are working with teachers to support children in that realm but i'll

074turn it over to dr stock if i'm understanding that wrong thank you dr bishop there are uh in the vicinity of about 19 positions in the special ed services budget line that uh tarlisha wayne has recommended those are all behavioral supports some analysts some some use of funds that the positions they've not been able to fill and while this isn't specific to your answer member jacobs but i would say the stakeholders have three main categories that they're going to be exploring so first is partnerships and so think of that as the external supports in our community and how we might leverage those partnerships to increase the use of behavioral and mental health in our schools and so they will explore those relationships the funding streams that feed those and whether or not you know if

075we had other funds what we would be able to do with that capacity the second one is in the area of personnel which gets it member lessons comment about the metrics so they have to go in and look at what kinds of personnel levels of supports we might be able to leverage now understand in that area there are shortages in every single one of those mental health areas in our community so even if there were funds available the likelihood of staffing those is limited right now so that it has to be a longer term approach the looking for social workers behaviorist psychologists counselors family therapists etc those will have to jigsaw those together based on whatever comes out of the stakeholder groups the third area that they'll have to explore is the professional development of

076our existing staff what can we do and dr bishop has you know before talked about grants that we've gotten to do uh professional development with teachers themselves on how to recognize the trauma and the aces and the suicide you know potential among students so that we can leverage staff at all levels so those are three areas and while that's not a specific quote plan it's the framework of what this group is going to be developing and so while it won't be completely done by april we should have a pretty good idea of of some of the steps that we need to take okay thank you remember lessons sure so this is not a mental behavioral health question um my biggest concern with the budget is that i don't think it does justice to the sort

077of acuity of need that our young students are facing i spoke about this in my meeting with asd staff i think that this year's first graders and second graders who were kindergartners beginning school online and are extremely vulnerable [Music] and have the rest of their education ahead of them i think that they need intensive help you know the the idea that you know these kids right now like they're coding they they need to go to the er um of sorts we need to allocate resources like it's an emergency and so my request and i think i asked something to be effective how many teachers do we need to have class sizes at 15 and you said mr anderson about 220 and i guess i don't know how many it was about 225 okay if we

078went to a ptr which is not a class size necessarily but if we did a pti of 15 it was 225 [Music] fta yeah for k2 um how many more i haven't looked in depth yet um how many more is that than we currently have allocated like what what sort of a shift is necessary [Music] are you asking how many currently we have allocated to those schools yeah for next year you know if we currently need a total of and we know that to get a ptr of 15 we would need x plus to get to 15 we need the 225. you need 229 additional teachers correct that was that was the point where would where would we get 225 extra teachers i guess do we have them in our applicant database um would there

079be a way to triage and kind of apply a prioritization of that smaller ptr to the schools with greatest niece with greatest need i mean that would be sort of equity in action through the president um that's really a question for uh mark and i and yes that's what we're doing and that's specifically and we've received you know some feedback from principals that they're not happy about that of um our hold back positions also those specialists uh in the areas of reading because that's where kids struggle you know we need to be sure they you know can catch up uh and we're reserving those uh for the outcomes uh at the end of this year where the need is greatest to be able to serve the greatest need so we've supported schools through the ptr

080uh ubiquitously um and then we have staff uh that goes to the greatest need and and this isn't a new um process we've always reserved staffing for that but this time we've also reserved some specialists for particular programs [Music] okay uh remember jacobs you have another question i see your mic sign oh yeah i do but i can wait till others have had a turn i'm going well no but i don't see any others it looks like it's you and member lessons okay then yeah then i'll gladly take the floor again um so i think i'm interested in um examining what we're hearing from the administration on an examination as to what it would look like if we added some flexibility with for funding for additional mental health supports um in this budget and what

081we would have to look at reducing um but i'm i guess the information i need at this point is would the administration prefer a vote or is that something that i should request as a singular board member which i didn't hear you would you sure so my question to the administration is would the administration prefer a vote that um up to four members or more second the request of getting information as to what it would look like to get that extra wedge put into the budget or is that something i can request as a board member madam president i i really would defer that to the board because i think the process that you referenced was the board collectively would say this is what we want and then we would we would do it is

082that correct uh so an at i guess for me i would want to know what it's one thing what are we going to be taking the money from and i'm asking you my understanding of our process is the administration would be the one to to research an exam and give us a recommendation as to what that would look like and so my question is can we start the process of asking them to do that research and consideration we can always do that research in consideration i i was talking about do it like this is how it's going to be would be the vote i'm sure i know i'm i'm not prepared to make any decisions personally i just am looking for the information and that recommendation okay what um mr anderson and um mr ratliff

083how how are you [Music] picturing um what would be the scope of this like in terms of total dollars what would you look for us to reallocate at that point i mean that's if we're trying to come up with these ideas i think that's something that we would need to know is this uh two million dollars five million dollars ten million dollars type of type of request yeah so if i i guess if it's my request and i would make it i would say something like 2.5 and 5 million so maybe those two levels uh that would be helpful for me i think we would probably look at the most restrictive funds first which would be something like sr2 rollover just to give you an idea because it has an end date um and so

084when we look to adding wedges we we obviously look at general fund we look at other stuff but we do look at the most restrictive funds first and the ones that run out first that would get us through the year yeah um yes madam president to add i think he probably isn't concerned about where the money comes from it's what programs is what i'm understanding like what would the opportunity cost be not necessarily where it was derived from and that would actually take the whole team to do that and so we can bring some of those ideas back is that my understanding is correct the opportunity cost absolutely correct thank you [Music] and so in order to um are there other board members interested in member jacob's uh request okay well okay thank you other

085questions for the team yes um this is a bigger question could we get a better understanding of a long-term vision for it and devices and software there are some sizable elements of this budget dedicated to technology to software and and yet you know the user funds for asd virtual run out and fy24 um i'd like maybe a little bit for the public record and for my own understanding could you help me under we bought a lot of chromebooks already where where are we and where are we going and and maybe why and i think that's a question for dr bishop yep thank you and i'm going to defer to our chief information officer mike fleckenstein [Music] through the president to member lessons so i think that's probably a multi-part question that takes um us and

086the instructional team to to respond to from a purely what what's the program it's it's a one-to-one program at our secondary schools and and right now it's actually defined as one-to-one from uh grade level three up we are looking at um potentially making some changes at the elementary level to uh better suit the instructional plan that they have right now we plan to continue with one to one during the pandemic we found that there were a lot of inequities in our community and so as we started to pass out chromebooks at the beginning of of the pandemic we actually had a lot more takers and a lot more need than our initial survey showed that the community might be and so we can we want to continue that uh providing that equity of device and

087access to those to those children and so the plan is to continue that program part of the money in in the program that you see is also some staffing at uh secondary levels and so over several years the the actual tech support need at secondary schools has increased dramatically we've added many different instructional programs that have a technology piece to them a technology requirement whether it be adaptive curriculum testing you know at the state level there's testing at the state level that is all online so all of those pieces really require somebody to be on hand to service the staff so that they can continue to instruct even when they have issues with devices if you go to a modern classroom you're going to find that it's it's stacked with technology and and that's purposeful

088to try to help with the instruction and so they had nobody allocated at those positions or at those levels or some schools had halftime teachers some schools was not consistent uh the principal made the choice about whether or not they could use technology and as the dollars have decreased of course most of that support went direct back to direct instruction and so as a part of this one-to-one plan we used that to really create a comprehensive look at what what secondary schools should look like and we heard loud and clear from schools that they needed some tech support so we put one person at each of the high schools and a half time person at each of the middle schools to address the same issues at elementary school they have a tech contact that's a

089teacher and we increased how much we pay them for that additional support at the school and then there is a centralized pool of people that helped with elementary school pro issues you talked about buying a lot of chromebooks so chromebooks have a shelf life and they run between five and six years that you can use them and then they actually are turned off by google they don't provide any additional support they go away and so we have uh stacked this plan so that the money that we're putting into it each year uh deals with each of those um uh when those devices become obsolete and so um what you see in the plan before you right now is the amount of devices that we need to replace next year that are are obsolete and expire

090and so i i don't know if dr stock or somebody from the instruction team would like to talk a little bit about the additional software that's been implemented and how that impacts instruction we do have a variety of instructional software packages and one thing i've learned about the the technologies the years have uh have gone by once you really start down these roads you don't really back up i mean there you don't you can't just get rid of all the technology and say we're done with it but what we are trying to do is study the instructional impacts more carefully had it not been for the technology that we had this pandemic would have been far far worse for a vast majority of our folks going forward we're trying to figure out where that fits

091in and clearly there isn't a need for one-to-one for every elementary child and we're working through not doing that so we're working through what the instructional plans are at those levels so um you know i would just say everything mike just said so can you send me a follow-up question so something like um my sense is that we turn to iready and some other software during the pandemic because there was online learning it's something that the district is continuing to use this year if we're looking at restructuring maybe i'm asking you to reveal too much or more than you already know um is that something that you would imagine being continual or is that i mean as in like once you start you don't get rid of them or is that something that will be

092reevaluated well through the president to remember lessons i ready as a specific example uh while it was very very useful on the reading portion during the time of the pandemic it is still a vital part of the current new i ready math program so it's still supplementing the math piece but it is no longer a requirement on the ela and in the reading side at all so that's an example of where we needed at the time and now we're moving moving away is it's not as appropriate anymore but it's still a piece of the math the new math curriculum and madam president and uh to that point though each year we do like to reevaluate whether they're apps programs things like that to kind of do like yep this is a green light we should

093continue to do it this is kind of a red lighted thing we probably should stop and then yellow we have to reconsider but you missed the time uh when we needed to move to a new um grading system and queue system and um taking an old piece of technology away because a new one is replacing it by the company not us um takes time and energy and and so all of those little mini changes take time to get with staff but we do like to make them and take things off the table because if they the bottom line is that they're not adding value to the work that we need to do to support student learning whether that be on the back end of business nutrition or instructional we shouldn't be doing it okay are

094the questions [Music] remember yes thank you um i also spoke at my um meeting with asd administration about ventilation and i think that um the ventilation expenditures are a wise use of s or funds and i think they reflect the community values um one question that i had as a follow-up however is what are we doing for um if anything for carbon dioxide detection in our classrooms because it's my understanding loosely that understanding of parts per million within a classroom environment could allow us better a better approach towards sort of respiratory viruses in general as we shift towards covet being an endemic thing there's a whole suite of other things and we have this new fancy deceigo system so you know do we have the ability to or interest and commitment to carbon dioxide detectors

095in all of our classrooms and if so would they connect with the pivot towards electronic monitoring that our ego system can do that the bishop yes thank you madam president i will defer to um is that correct um tom rock chief operating officer i can tell by our look we haven't done a detailed engineer assessment or evaluation and i don't think anybody can wing that um [Music] frankly that's correct [Music] yeah and and again and i know remember lessons we've had some conversations about just just the the hvac systems in in our schools that that our goal uh is to ensure that those systems are operating as designed and as a part of that that movement of air and filtration and bringing in fresh air that a part of that is is is vacating any

096any buildup of co2 uh that that might be building up in the air uh to jim's point we we haven't done any any specific analysis on that but i i feel confident that insofar as our systems work as design that we're replacing filters that fresh air is coming in as as intended that it's it's not an issue thank you okay i'll see no other questions right this minute uh we thank you guys for your time [Music] we're moving on to our i don't think who do we have okay we are now on item i public testimony um and we have one person um nyle sherwood williams [Music] can you hear me uh yes madam president can you hear me i can you have three minutes and welcome hi yes uh through the president uh to

097the anchorage school board with regards to the latest 110 million dollar bond buying scheme as will be placed on the april 5th 2022 ballot i'd like to strongly caution members of the board when we continue to put out these bonds before the taxpayers we know they vote them forward at about an 85 percent clip it's time the anchorage school district begin to exercise its fiduciary responsibility to properly manage the taxpayers funds and to stop mismanaging them i think back to a couple months ago when we had to have a 1.8 million dollar emergency passage for a communication system at west enrollment high school start managing the funds more properly that was obviously dilapidated and needed to be fixed years ago um with regards to through the chair remember lessons comment um that individual students would

098need to be put on life support um i would like to caution uh members of that body i don't know what you're talking about it's all right kelly i got it thank you can i continue my testimony with free from interruption and prior restraint please we gave you we paused your time you may continue but please do not uh uh point do not i mean i'm not here for debate with the board yeah if you'd like to debate right so i'd appreciate if i could just continue my time without prior restraint your time please refrain from attacking any board member or misrepresenting you may continue all right so through the chair remember lessons earlier in the meeting about five minutes ago uh was discussing the fact that we have an emergency among k kindergarten first

099and second graders that have just begun school while wearing the coercive medical device over their nose and mouth preventing them access to being able to see the subtle cues of communication of body language where up to 92 percent of communication is actually understood by human beings the children are on life support because of the policies of the anchorage school board members and its superintendent pay attention anchorage voters and please vote accordingly and redress your government in the election on april 5th 2022 study the school board candidates be sure to have a new school board president after april's election one that will look out for the interests of all students and not one that's seeking to have affirmative action through critical race theory to benefit a select few as happened at the alaska association of school

100boards meetings you can check out the video on must read alaska it was posted all children are created equal and entitled to equal protection under the law under the 14th amendment of the united states constitution thank you mr williams your time is up and we're going to continue on now with item j on our agenda superintendent update thank you madam president i just have a few items i do want to share that february is school board appreciation month and so we have some nice cards for you and thank you we do appreciate your work um many times it is not very thankful we have many experiences with that also i do want to honor our school counselors and thanks for the message this evening our school counselor week is this week and they do an

101exceptional job also uh in reference to black history month uh please pay attention on twitter and other things about the activities going on in our schools but i also want to give a shout out and we will assess these to see how they can fit in with what we teach kids but the local [Music] the the local inputs and leadership and activity of our local black leaders and the commercials that shiloh and the anchorage black caucus publish are phenomenal and really demonstrate uh the input and expertise of our black community creating and building a better anchorage and so i was i just loved learning about uh the people who built things long ago before we knew um their name in anchorage so i want to give a shout out to those commercials and hope our

102kids watch them um not watch tv necessarily but we'll try to get them that message and then also i would like to thank mj and his team uh lisa miller especially for the wonderful presentation denali awards tonight as well as the reception uh and the entire team that really supports the work of the budget and all that we do here so i just am full of gratitude myself um you know valentine's day is coming up soon thank you thank you very much all right so um we are now at uh school board and administration comments do we have questions for the superintendent oh sure you may thank you mr president um thank you for your follow-up in the board connect uh regarding the report and the testimony we heard at our last meeting from a

103student that was very concerned about some inappropriate lyrics and music that was being played during passive time at betty davis east anchorage high school and the follow-up said they had figured out how to isolate the alaska native culture charter school which is much younger students from that music but i remain concerned about the actual music is how has that been addressed um through the president to um remember donnelly yes i believe that um in that write-up it was that the administration is reviewing the music um it did come from students and then i went to the admin and i believe administration is beginning to review that music as well and i'm not sure just to be correct they are working on iso isolating um the the intercom but i'm not sure that that is totally

104completed by now but in that write-up it was the review of administration we'll take a look at those songs thank you for that i had one more question sure um i'm trying to understand how our how we're evolving with our protocols regarding the implementation of school masking and we know with the the omicron variant it's much less deadly than the delta variant but it's more contagious so you have a much higher number of reported cases but a fewer number of actual hospitalizations related to it how are we adjusting how we're measuring the the high risk zone uh determination given that that fact through the president remember donnelly uh actually we um are lucky to have an rn who's a director here work at um providence so we get a report every day about the hospitalizations

105and with the large amount of cases the actual hospital did go up their cases they are dropping not i mean their patience with copen um also went up so they were getting full and uh they are dropping though which is a good sign daily uh as well as our our cases here so we do take a look at the capacity of the hospitals because we're a partner in that cases aren't necessarily specifically looked at for us it really is the capacity um as you know i put out a letter in the board connect that was sent from the commissioner and dr zinke and we've had conversations i've had personal conversations and um as you brought this up we really are talking about uh adjusting as um cases go down and medication elsewhere is adjusted we

106have so many layers that um i believe it's appropriate to bring back to the board i have spoken to several board members about this and there's still some trepidation if you will so we want to present a good argument at the right time part of that argument is the cohorting of young children um and i've spoken to [Music] doctors think about this as well as you know kids go into their classroom and they're with that classroom and you know then they go to lunch and then recess and whatnot but they're really generally with the same amount of kids in inside and so um it isn't like a high school that is thousands of kids where they interact and so we're really taking a look at what are the steps of easing instead of just pulling

107the band-aid off of the mitigation steps and some of them we have already done such as um not really uh if a child is sick you know we'll test them but we're not keeping close contacts home um other school districts are still doing that we are not and so we've moved some of these um through these mitigation uh efforts and lightened them up and demonstrated that they work and so we work together as a team every day at a huddle um studying um what can be done i have asked our directors to work with our principals to talk about that and start socializing that at their schools getting feedback uh so that we can move to the next level as the omicron continues to drop in cases thank you i'm glad to hear you mentioned

108that distinction from the youngest children uh the world health organization most european nations made a distinction between fifth and sixty-year-old five and six-year-olds from other elementary and they also made a distance between elementary and secondary and um i think there's more and more growing evidence of of the appropriateness of having a different standard for the youngest children when we're going to mandate vascular masks for them versus older children so i'm really hoping the administration will keep that in mind as you come forward with recommendations for us as it may be appropriate to end the mandatory massacre for the youngest kiddos before others through the president absolutely that is my discussions with our state health folks and that's what we're we're looking at um we it's it's not only you know parents there are teachers who

109are concerned about that as well and and feel that um you know we're coming to a time that they want to see children's faces uh and children to see their faces as they learn and grow in anchorage school districts so that is in consideration and we look to adjust it um we did already a little bit adjust helping out our high schools and i shared that when they play not necessarily sometimes in anchorage but different places come to anchorage that may not utilize masks as we have it's not the children or the coaches or anything that's involved in the activity a lot of times it's the stands and i i asked principals not to put their self in harm's way and um we're gonna say this is what we do here's a mask come in

110but if someone all the way up in the stands uh takes it off and there's arguments between people um we we really aren't going to spend our time um putting uh risking the relationship with our own parents as well as uh fights with others but um it those are few and far between but we have uh in that area in public um in the evenings not during the day lighten that up as well in just regard to responsibility because it's been really tough on the people who do those games where they're so much public thank you ma'am president thank you remember darling any other comments uh i'll just let's start any these these are your wait a minute any questions for the superintendent i'm trying to get to our closing comments here go on yes

111sure um you may or may not have this information accessible it's my understanding just from looking at the metrics that we have for asd that there have been somewhere around 6 000 cases of clovid since the semester started do you have a sense of and maybe those maybe the day by day um [Music] the number of cases that we're getting each day may be reflecting changes in the community those numbers are going down yes um i'm wondering if you have a sense of what the impact on could you tell us a little bit more about the um changing impact of omicron on staffing if you could just sort of give us a picture i imagine january was very hard on our staffing does february look like it's shaping up to be a little bit easier

112um it is absolutely easier yes absolutely hands down easier and we have those numbers of staff out and positions covered and we can provide those data for you in the board connect and so that is what we do watch that in our ability to cover classes and that was a reason to to continue some of our our mitigation but we continue to uh do pcr testing but very few are coming back as positive compared to where we were in last month okay quest uh any other questions for superintendents now we're going to move on to comments board member comments let's start to my left i'm going to start with miss shaw [Music] um i don't think i have any okay all right thank you we're glad you're here always remember wilson yes so i wanted

113to recognize thank you elizabeth national school counseling week i appreciate the work that our counselors do in the schools to support our students our families and other staff members so i appreciate all of that work so thank you for for highlighting that i really appreciate it um i i knew it was actually i thought it was national school counseling month so you narrowed it down just a little bit but that's okay i'm going to continue to say thank you to our counselors i also want to recognize that it's black history month and it is the opportunity to honor the contributions and sacrifices of african americans who have helped shape the nation so as dr bishop said please take a look at the different um opportunities that this school district as well as the community has

114um to honor our african-american heritage um folks and i i also wanted to say i was at uh central middle school today and had the pleasure of listening to the presentation of some eighth grade school business partnership students and at central those students and that classroom is working on starting a cafe and [Music] so they went through their entire presentation but there's two things that i really appreciated from their presentation and everything was was very professional they were dressed professionally which was really nice they spoke very clearly their their presentation was very well lined out you all would have been extremely proud of these students as i was um but two things that they highlighted was the what they intended to learn from their successes and what they intended to learn from their failures so

115i really appreciated that because in in anything we do our failures oftentimes teach us even more than our successes do so for uh and the teacher said you know that's one of the things that one of our students said that that should be added to the presentation so i i just really appreciate the work that's being done in our school business partnership programs that's near and dear to me thank you member wilson remember higgins i'm getting through quick today i think i have three hours and 45 minutes so um we'll go ahead and try to address it completely uh i want to start off just by sharing a story that yesterday in the newspaper with west high school i think it's very moving to me and the staff there needs to be recognized for what

116they did it involved a gentleman mr billy ray macon senior who 60 years ago when he graduated they stamped on his diploma um the statement this student met minimum state requirements pretty big you know diminishing the significance of what he went through and the story goes on to talk about how he was had a young family he was working at el madoff he was walking to school he didn't have transportation and the fact that he even got through it was pretty remarkable and then to see that not wanting to display that was really insulting okay i can picture that well uh superintendent gus uh gustafsson uh swin gustafson um soy or is it wrong and he had an opportunity um he is presently the principal and i'm the superintendent but i was with him yeah

117i was present with him and we presented i was going to start this by saying if i make a statement here i want to invite the superintendent to correct me i didn't think it would be that serious uh and to make her day she can go ahead and correct me all she wants thank you you can join it with the well i don't know if you saw the sneakers so i appreciate that though i didn't mean but the principal saw the saw the the wrong here uh took the action and when he the family brought him there to get a new diploma he had the the um auditorium with auditorium with uh students he had the cheerleaders he had the choir and the superintendent the superintendent bishop um was there and gave him a new

118diploma and what moved me about this it's a fairness to him but it was something else one is never too late to correct a mistake and that's the message that went out to the students but what's also there is the diploma is a milestone that carries with you the rest of your life and i like that message i thought it was really good and so i really appreciate that um just a thank you to the students and the other notes in regards to school board celebration this is a difficult job because we don't know whether we're right or wrong many of the decisions we're trying to do the best we can and a lot of us stay awake at night sometimes wondering did i do everything i could for every student because it makes a

119difference in their life going forward and that's a tough position to be in and when it comes to the counselors i'll show a story that no one else was on the school board then but when we had an incident at uh south high school um in which a student had made like columbine type threats um and the determination was it wasn't sui it wasn't real at that point people intervened correctly and they moved quickly on it but we had a workplace expert presentation up here and the workplace presentation said police are valuable in schools but the most important safety issue is counselors identifying students at risk before the incident is more important than reacting to it afterwards and they put the emphasis out there how important counselors were to the safety of schools being number

120one beyond anything else we got in school so um thank you appreciate it it means a lot and i'll share that we will be working trying to persuade legislators to provide as much support as they can to schools public schools remember we had a presentation that talked about how last 10 years we got 70 million less than what we had 10 years ago when you consider uh inflation and last five years we've gotten zero increase in the base student allocation and would be declining in student population we're talking about reductions that are significant we talked about two years from now 67 million and hopefully that the legislature should respond but they are our elected officials so i encourage everyone in the public to let your elected officials know what you want you make the difference

121i've seen it before when the public really got engaged in it and lobbying the if elected officials tell them what they want it really makes a difference and i encourage that greatly thank you thank you member higgins what what i would like to say is when um mr macon's granddaughter posted who is a friend of i mean i've known i've known the family forever but uh when she posted that it took less than five minutes as quick as i could send a text to dr bishop to the and then to to uh mr gustafsson it was done like that thursday night and so we just needed to actually it wasn't even thursday night because his birthday was friday and this was they were traveling to anchorage on tuesday so it took some teamwork uh and

122i think the school did an awesome job and it it is a heart warmer so i agree with you on that so thanks for sharing that uh member holloman do you have any closing comments um just simply you know continued thanks to everybody involved you know i think it's say it's been a long hard year and of course we're just in the middle of february and there's quite a bit uh this this is a time of year as a teacher that it usually gets hard um because it's been a long time and there's still a pretty good run to go before you get to the end but i think over and over everybody's had to adapt and come up with new ideas do more than they ever had to do before and ultimately when you

123get down to it it's the people in our buildings and the people that that are doing the work every day that make it work for for kids i also did want to second member donnelly's comment about how this makes our mitigation efforts may come off in layers i know a lot of people are ready for them to be over uh i think everyone on the board is but i do think people have a certain fear of just like a sudden change where so many things go away and if the administration's able to gently release the mitigations that we have you know get a little closer to normal not [Music] concerns available while the numbers are dropping they're still high the numbers are dropping and we're not absolutely sure if that's because people are testing at

124home and not reporting positives versus just you know what we're what we're having reported is dropping but certainly it is about to come down and uh hopefully this time it will stay down for good so again just thank you to everyone for all the work that's been done and we'll keep moving forward thank you thank you um let's go member jacobs your closing comments thank you madam president wanted to uh congratulate all the denali award winners and some really inspiring stories came out of the presentation so thank you to the winners and the staff who facilitated the presentation all echo uh the presentation errors or the recognition of staff continuing to move education forward in our district i know it's early i just found out today it's a school board appreciation month but i think

125the the thanks really need to continue to be directed at us our staff um regarding future meetings here this month the 15th is our communications and governance committee meetings at 3 30 and 4 30. finance is on the 23rd at noon for those looking for even more local government entertainment thank you and we'll see you guys next time thank you yes remember donnelly thank you madam president um as [Music] as most people know i have not supported mandatory masking in our schools and especially not for our youngest students are kindergartners and first graders and i've been trying to figure out why the cdc is so with his recommendations continuing a mandatory massacre is so different than the world health organization and many european nations that do not take that same position and in our recent

126meeting we had here with representatives health and social services that was the point of my question when i asked them what's the most persuasive evidence you know that the cdc has to justify support of mandatory masking of our elementary students and at the time they cited three studies and um so as i was researching these three studies it just happens the atlantic magazine last week published an article that was highly critical of these same three studies that the folks from health and social services referenced that were the cdc was relying on and i would really recommend that article to board members and to the public it raises a lot of the same points that i have about the world wealth organizations uh finding a clear dichotomy in the the cost um benefit ratio for our

127youngest students especially our kindergartners and first graders and also for our elementary students and that's why many european countries never went with masking especially for uh elementary students but they did an analysis of those same three studies that the the folks mentioned to us last week and um i i don't want to take your time going through them right now but they kind of they kind of really discredited them saying they weren't a sufficient basis to do the kind of things that the cdc is recommending i'll just say that one quote is therefore the overall takeaway from these studies that schools with mass mandates have lower covered transmission rates without mass mandates than the ones without mass mandates is not justified by the data that's been gathered so this is not some conservative magazine this

128is atlantic magazine you know this is you know very mainstream or even left-wing magazine that's that's that's talking about this and so i really do think it's time for us to take a uh revisit these issues um they did find that the the studies that were out there did suggest that there was a correlation between teacher masking and the reduction of covet positivity even though student masking did not have a significant effect and one of the other things they concluded is mental and we talked a lot about this tonight mental and social economic emotional outcomes are hard to observe and measure and they can take years to manifest and they're variously very serious potential impacts upon our youngest kids so [Music] i continue to think that if you're going to impose public health interventions they

129should have very very critical credible evidence that they work significantly enough and i'm not saying that there's no efficacy the mask is all that's not what i'm saying but they should be significant enough that that we also have evidence to say that they're not harmful and i don't think on balance right now the cdc analysis is active i'm going to stand with the european countries and the world health organization on this and say it's time to take the mandatory masking off okay thank you number donnelly remember lessons [Music] um [Music] i'm not gonna have any comments from me [Music] dr bishop [Music] no comment madam president anybody over there in the gallery have any comment project i'd just like to um real quickly just everybody but being last everything gets said so ditto ditto ditto

130ditto and good night we are can we move to adjourn [Music] [Laughter] [Music]