ASD School Board Meeting 11-17-21

001[Music] good evening i'd like to call our uh our meeting to order we are continuing our meeting from tuesday june 16th today is tuesday the 17th we are continuing uh that meeting present in the boardroom we have members wilson lessons jacobs higgins donnelly and bellamy joining us virtually is member holloman [Music] we also have a superintendent and several staff members who have uh who are continuing the meeting as well [Music] so we will uh let's stand and would you stand please and join me in the pledge [Music] i pledge allegiance to the fly by the united cities of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all last evening we [Music] i think we've got to item we were on item number we were

002on our action item and item number oh hold on i got the wrong agenda this is the right one we were on item number four under f four what i would like to do prior to continuing our um [Music] action items last night there were several citizens that did not get an opportunity to testify they had signed up they'd followed all of the procedures and we ran out of time so i would like to [Music] alter our agenda slightly so that we can hear from those citizens before we be uh resume our our work is there any opposition to hearing from the from the citizens there are 10 of them that were not able to testify last evening we have contacted them and they are [Music] hopefully they will join us is there any application

003do i need i don't think i need to make that emotion if we if we all agree to it or how would the board like to continue okay i thought so too but i just thought i'd ask thank you okay so let's see who um on our i think i'll go by who's uh let's see who's present in the board room i'll just call the names out if they're here uh uh katie did you give them a time five o'clock okay so we do have sarah osborne on on the line sarah can you hear me yes you have three minutes sarah thank you okay thank you um hi my name is sarah osborne um i'm an asd educator a parent of two and i'm calling in today from denial land um and calling in to

004urge this administration to envision what schooling will look like in anchorage over the next five to ten years if we want robust learning communities where students are valued challenged and encouraged [Music] we really need to support fair contracts for aea and totem the district's offers thus far have been offensive to educators and also harmful to student and outcomes this has been an incredibly difficult school year for staff and students yet teachers continue showing up every day with no contract showing up despite the serious health risks of covid and showing up for our students and supporting them through their own traumatic experience of the pandemic as dr bishop has noted extreme behaviors and violent incidents have dramatically increased across the district a testifier last night expressed this as well and it was evidenced by what occurred

005at west high two days ago these behaviors are only intensifying as the school year continues as many students behavior sel and academic needs are going unfulfilled due to the lack of staffing in schools and yet teachers continue to show up and do the best we can with barebones staffs and no subs this is not sustainable i am really terrified that this violence will continue to escalate as we move into this very dark and unpredictable winter as you know many of our best educators plan to retire quit or leave the profession some will wait until the end of the year but others will not um and the district must act immediately to change the trajectory of where our schools are headed the district must solve its own staffing crisis by offering aea and totem fair contracts

006offer living wages that keep up with inflation let us keep our health care and relationships with our chosen doctors fix tier three retirement to make it working or to make working for asb a feasible long-term career don't take away the planning grading and collaborative time that is essential to student growth and success please act now to protect schools now and in the future thank you for your time and thank you very much let's see uh next we'll have uh telephonically uh rosalind grady weish [Music] rosalind could star six to unmute hello yes okay sorry i just i was just got out of training okay i'm ready my time is going i can't see you have three minutes hello my name is roslyn i am a pharah educator i am also the co-founder of the alaska

007coalition of wypog educators that is black indigenous people of color i'm a mother of five and they are all being educated through asd from preschool to high school once again i am a parent educator i started out as a cafeteria manager and now i'm an inspiring certified educator currently going to school paying out of pocket i am a product of asb what keeps me knowing that i care about the kids but i'm also discouraged because of the fact that both unions are currently going into arbitration i am guessing you all or some of you have never been in our shoes the parent educators who gets beat on beat up the educators who educates over 30 students in their classrooms no matter if they're behavioral elo or fed at the bto who almost works 365 days

008throughout the year the bus drivers drive up and down snowy mountains making sure children get to school safe the front office willingly takes it from all ends of the spectrum or even the principals who eventually maintain and keep the whole ship together now educators of color leave schools because of microaggressions from their co-workers experiences of racism salaries the lack of support provided by school leadership the lack of resources and the desire to pursue another career because of the best they go through or improve their opportunities and education so they can try to make a difference where it matters the most i really think we need to figure out where the leaks are in the pipes on teacher retention in our district i have my experiences as a para educator not feeling valued being beat up

009by a student not mentally supported and expected to come back to work the next day i had an employee who cried every day because of how their teacher treated them on a daily basis i have worked with awesome teachers who left due to the lack of support i also worked with an office teacher who left the district because of her instead of her being looked at as a highly educated special education teacher she was looked at as an aggressive and angry black woman she didn't receive any support as far as she was concerned and ultimately saved her sanity angela campbell you are dearly missed our education system deserves a racially and ethically diverse teaching course because it will prepare our children to be global citizens and two teachers of color are positioned to serve as

010role models and culturing factors for children of color who account for more than 50 in our district and when you do not put some respect on our names why would we want to be here it's almost like an abusive relationship get beat up do it all over again the next day with a smile on your face we as the district should be paying attention to the recruiting of educators of color but also the retention we can hire educators all day but if they do not feel safe and support it there not one day being valued feels like something i now am wanting to be a certified educator because i have been valued for the last two years now let me put on the record i'm not saying that it's not my belief that children of

011color cannot be educated by just teachers of color but i'm just thank you roslyn your time is up okay uh next we have nile sherwood williams mr williams can the board hear me yes sir you have three minutes uh thank you for the record nile sherwood williams resident of anchorage alaska i'm an american citizen i'm a child of the living god uh the crime has already been committed once again uh by members of this body for unlawfully allowing me not allowing me to report to the meeting in person and to be able to redress my government for grievances and freely speak all because a sign was held out front of anchorage school district which read for the record implied consent is not consent asd gas chambers then i had another sign where i made a

012mock-up of a headstone that you'd see in a gravesite and it said rip underscore john doe anchorage youth death by pfizer shot repeat death by pfizer shot so as we all know there is actually no john doe as of yet anchorage youth but i am warning parents against the bio-weapon attack being launched by pfizer the district put it on hold this week in jesus name glory to god they decided to stop the child slaughter and the child sacrifice in the name of these bio weapons put your faith in the blood of jesus christ he's the only way to the father the only way to heaven and anchorage school district superintendent members of the executive team cease and desist from these unlawful assaults with bio weapons pfizer shots beacon health services cease and desist in jesus

013name and about that six-year-old little girl on november 5th 2021 it was a friday at anchorage education center at your bio weapon terrorism with willful intent to cause genocide of the anchorage youth and i repeat genocide of the anchorage youth beacon health services held a child down six years old in the atrium of the anchorage education center while she said and i quote no no i don't want to do it no no i don't want to so when i hear a girl that says no no means no we as alaskan citizens have the right to refuse medical care that includes people of all age groups all people are human beings and are entitled to right the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as amendment nine at all so all rights

014that are not named are also held by each human being you don't have the right to violate that you're not providing proper consent it's not in a one-on-one clinical setting with patient parent and provider it's actually in a pub [Music] next we have valerie balroux bellarood okay we'll have to come back here let's try don bachmann [Music] medicine john [Music] i don't uh nope okay what about catherine walker [Music] okay kayla submitted hers in writing thank you what about david mccarthy mccarthy okay and author james jensen okay [Music] so that includes everyone that us had signed up last night uh that we notified that could come back today all right so that brings us back to our agenda and we uh left off at [Music] uh item f3 memorandum zero four one i believe there

015was a um an amendment when we okay [Music] she'll need just a moment to pull that up [Music] i think it was dora um [Music] yes we did leave with the this amendment and uh after consideration i'd like to just withdraw or the amendment it's my amendment [Music] and i'd like to withdraw it at this time [Music] see no opposition to that [Music] okay so what is the will of the body may i ask a point of clarification sure so you've withdrawn this amendment and so we should no longer expect a staff to present a exactly proposal okay thank you and that is um [Music] and yes and so i did yes that's what i'm gonna do right now it occurs to me [Music] that there might be room for a little bit more than

016100 million dollars although uh for my for my own personal um comfort i'd like to keep it at 102 mil but i want to have more discussion about the safety issues before [Music] and maybe that's what i should have done is maybe ask more questions about the safety issue yes you can hand those out it's am i confusing myself now or anybody else let's hand out the we'll hand out the handout here so we can kind of get a so without it without it we are after the last one we were at option two plus the liquid was here yeah yes and i and i so i i thank um thank you mr roth for this because i'm trying to figure out i don't want to limit us to 102 if we can [Music] if

017we can handle more but i also want to make sure that we're not splitting i didn't quite understand the end of that last discussion we had i think miss remember lessons said something about a 16 million plus a 9 million and it seems to me that that would be splitting um so i didn't understand that whole discussion so if you could walk us through the list that you that um we have here that would be great yes ma'am um through the president so so just to to recap very briefly when we left last night the the the board had uh uh approved uh for amendment option two which was inclusive of inlet view but also removed uh the lake otis and the chugiak high school roof projects the board then uh member lessons then did

018recommend an amendment to add back like otis which the board subsequently approved so so what you see here is just a very quick summary based on guidance that we received at the end of the meeting last night taking those two two events in context that we were asked to come back with um with a list of proposed decrements that would get down to an amount below 102 million but also remember holloman had mentioned you know a willingness to look at potentially uh going above that amount so the list that you see there uh is uh in in order what the administration would recommend if if the board were to decide to reduce down from what is now 111 million 105 to an amount to about a hundred and two thousand we we uh as an

019administration do strongly recommend that we not decrement the security vestibule projects that we would continue uh to retain those on the bond so what you see is the decrements would would be a roof replacement spring hill elementary school and then we had two projects for the maintenance building and for ursa miner for for restoration roof restoration projects that we would move those and that we would decrement planting and design by some amount to get us down below 102 million so that's a very quick synopsis okay [Music] remember donald trump yeah madam president i'd move the restoration of the chugiak roof project to the bond package uh the restoration of [Music] okay so i'm okay so i need to probably pull up my documents [Music] and how much is that for that family i thought i

020had that number product or tom how much is that madam president where would we be moving it to on this uh on this list we will be moving it into the 11 11 million yeah the deferred requirements projects it was on the original proposal it was just just above 16.8 million uh in with the chugiak high school roof restoration project 16 million dollars is that the one 16.8 so then what you're suggesting is that i know i'm sorry yes that's true i'll second for discussion madam president i think if uh speaking to the main motion of not in the amendment i think if the people of chugiak knew what happened last night that their roof was taken out uh i think they would be unhappy they'd be here just like the other people were here

021because the other people had notice of what was going on two years people didn't is there okay there was a second remember uh jacobs thank you madam president um could our um staff speak to the the scope of the work that's involved with the roof replacement project and any of the urgency of including on this year versus um the impact of waiting for a future on bond cycle thank you yeah through the president yes so chugiak roof is already has gone through some uh renovation we actually did a restoration on a portion of it over the gym it is a very large roof it includes the older irma type roofs we've had some issues with it um but it's being maintained if the question is could it last another bond cycle another two years yes

022of course other comments [Music] may i ask a question about an unrelated school uh no could you just we're speaking to the i mean nobody else has a question well we don't know that yet because i haven't gone around the room mr holloman do you have a question um what is the the total for shugi act and what is the total that we've approved so far uh so far we have approved uh 111 million just over 111 million dollars the amendment before us would add another 17 million 16.8 million thank you remember higgins so i won't say anything maybe i will can you hear me now yeah uh um i appreciate the list that we've got in front of us in regards to where the reductions can be because i'm looking at it from the

023standpoint of what they have to maintain what the risk factors are and taking that into assessment i don't believe that we're going to going above 102 million is going to jeopardize i think it could the bond itself i just don't want to go uh higher than that um and i like that and i like the responsiveness here i'd like to trigger actually i mean if you can wait a couple years we're pushing things up as opposed to moving them back eliminating them we're not doing that and um so i'm i'm going to [Music] i support the what they've done and the work that they've done in regards to coming up with this list so i'm not going to support trying to modify that or increase it above the 102 because i think we jeopardize getting

024the bond approved otherwise remember wilson anything right now okay now remember doc remember uh don remember lessons did you have a comment on the motion or you on the motion not on shoe yet high school at this time other well i'll say that just for the record it was in the first option and then it was also an option three but not an option too because we substitute it correct option one okay thank you remember donnelly thank you madam president i've heard a lot of talk about what's the uh most efficient cost efficient step in justifying what's in here is delaying the chugiak roof uh the most cost efficient uh way to proceed [Music] through the uh president i'm not sure member donnelly i i'm understanding the question well we've heard a had a lot

025of debate that moving forward with doing a total school rest rebuild is more cost efficient than doing major remodels so i'm asking is delaying the necessary needed repairs to the tubiak group for two years the most cost efficient way to proceed at this time through through the president to to member donnelly thank you for the question so so again i'll i'll come back to you know the the the comment from last night that the administration made a recommendation uh to the board uh for a bond proposition that included chugiak high school uh as one of the projects on that bond and i and i stand by that uh to to mr fenicev's comment um that that the roofs in the district that you know this old irma style roof as an example of chugiak you

026know they are problematic and there is risk that the longer that the the roof remains as is that if if there were a significant failure that there is you know most likely going to be a more expensive repair but it's you know that's that's that's presumptive i don't know that that would happen within a two to four year period um but it's a risk uh the longer you keep it um coming back to your question is it the most efficient um it will be more expensive in 2024 so from a purely economic cost perspective the short answer is no [Music] okay [Music] any more questions discussion on the amendment call the vote [Music] and i guess i need to restate the amendment the amendment number three would add um restoring the chugack roof replacement project

027for a total of 16.8 million to uh 11 100 111 million dollar um project uh existing projects later i know we have to remember wilson no remember lessons no remember jacobs no remember holloman no remember higgins did you say mine first yeah yeah i'm sorry madam secretary remember higgins voted for me oh [Music] i vote yes sorry i guess i should look up when i ask remember donnelly yes [Music] president no and that uh amendment uh fails five to two are there any other amendments i guess where we're at we've got the list that has been proposed by the administration so i would um propose that we adopt the reductions proposed by the administration and that is spring hill elementary roof replacement of 5.17 million ursa minor elementary restoration 1.8 04 million maintenance roof restoration

0281.556 million and the planning and design 712 000. that will reduce the um total project to 101 863. is that the correct interpretation of that our sheet everybody understands okay so because i won't repeat it like you did i'm sorry that's right okay okay so we will do katie has him all done out individually so hold on for just a moment to came up is there a second we need a second a second [Music] so there is a second what you speak to your motion please thank you i i a couple of things one is and uh mr donald i think you agree on this that all the safety issues are here and i know you spoke to that last night i appreciate that uh administration is advocating not to cut that i i totally

029support that uh with the safety is still number one and um those are critical issues and i'm glad to see that all of the reductions that we make are going to be a judgment issue because they're all all problems and issues and they could be problems between now and the next couple years even the ones that are 20 26 are still got issues there that could pop up earlier and move them up to a higher level of need between now and then as well there are all kind of problems associated with our deferred maintenance list so what i'm looking for and what i think we've received is the administration's uh best evaluation in regards to if we're going to eliminate items this year and put it off for two years these are the safest of

030the of the list and the ones that would cause the lease problems all of them will cause some problems uh or may cause uh contributing uh issues as well but given the fact that we're switching things out really from 2000 and up to this year 2022 and as of 2024 this makes sense to me the list that they provided it seems to be logical that some of these areas would be the ones that would pop up and um we got to make hard choices and i they've got to maintain the facilities i think we need to give them the flexibility as to which ones they think they can maintain the best and which ones they can delay uh it's a judgment call and they've got the additional information that we the board doesn't have do

031not have so i appreciate the list he came out with and i think that below 102 million is important because i do think it's difficult sometimes with these bonds with some of the items regarding other issues that are out there um if we made it larger this year it could be real tough and uh so that's the reason why i chose to adopt the well recommend the list that they provided to us thank you okay yes kelly um i want to go on the record and say that there's a lot that i support here and i appreciate the focus on the safety and security i did pull up the past six years of cips just to see what what was what's been around and what's newer and i of course there are things that become

032pressing um spring hill has been on a cip at least since the 2019-2024 cip um so it's been around for a while so it's getting its kick its can kick down the road a little bit more um the one thing that i i think i would just appreciate um is a better understanding of why this year for the first time the security vestibule sort of target for the for the 22 bond increased from 9 million to 16 million dollars and the the best detail i could find was in um this uh the document that we received about six weeks ago i had a nice breakdown of all of the projects and i appreciated that level of detail um and that's the first time anywhere that i see replace analog surveillance systems and the attached to

033the number 16 million versus security vestibules around nine million dollars so i guess could you guys just speak a little bit more to the the maybe the urgency of expanding from 9 million to 16 million this year [Music] through the president [Music] again just just offering a thought here that you know it it's not that there is a a change in urgency i i would argue that that you know we we as an administration i think the board members as well historically have recognized and some of this was perhaps exacerbated after parkland recognizing that that there is a threat i mean we we have the same social issues and anchorage as they have in parkland florida and realizing that many of our schools were built to a standard that you know back in the 60s

03470s that problems that exist now did not exist then so it's been a balance of trying to figure out you know what what percentage of your of your bond dollar goes towards roofs what goes towards security what goes towards all the different requirements so as as this has been addressed for several years i i think that you know maybe if not a you know an increased sense of urgency but just a recognition that you know we're we're we're kind of taking unnecessary risk by not addressing something now that we can address madam president may also add um we were charged by the board at that time and we created a safety panel that was made up of parents and students and administrators and they came up with recommendations and those were some of the recommendations

035and what you heard last time they studied the problems it was an extensive review and they studied the problems and that's where member donnelly mentioned and exactly um some of the issues that came out about the differences between secondary schools the threat is on the inside elementary on the outs so a lot of those things came up at the same time i would say that in addition to that just what was already stated in regard to us putting together the original bond was really the the support and understanding um major maintenance safety issues all those top priorities that had come out from um what tom roth mentioned in in the hay survey and so you know it isn't one turning point um tipping point um as we said year to year that the cip continues

036to change based on the board's um direction at the time that is a dynamic document and we'll see it change quite a bit so um i'll turn it back over to you tom so i thank dr bishop so so i guess i mean i i really don't have any anything else to add other than again a recognition that that it is a need to address what is a limitation in our older buildings that were not uh designed or built um for the environment we find ourselves in today okay did i see a no remember don thank you madam president it's been two or three years but i remember a discussion where we talked about that in this marketplace there's only so many folks that have this skill set to do these kinds of projects and

037that we were spreading it out over a series of years because we wanted to not super heat that particular skill set in a given bond period and it made sense to adjust this to the marketplace too or else i think we would have done it faster that's just my memory of one of the factors we were looking at also thank you remember jacob thank you madam president i actually just wanted to point out that the discussion regarding safety which i appreciate and i support um the projects being included in our bond proposals actually aren't necessarily germane to the um amendment number four um raised by member higgins and so we're really deciding about reducing the items listed and so i just wanted to differentiate [Music] thank you so the amendment before us is to remove

038spring hill roof replacement ursa miner elementary restoration project for a reduction of 1.8 mil the maintenance roof restoration for reduction of 1.5 6 mil and the planting design amount for a reduction of seven hundred and twelve thousand for a total bound amount of a hundred and one million uh eight six three president can i just make one clarification this is a type of omission on my part so it was a ursa minor uh elementary roof restoration restoration we left the word roof out he omitted that word unintentionally yes any questions before we vote yes remember wilson i do have a question regarding replacement versus restoration the two um restoration projects is there a concern at this time it's a restoration project is there a concern by pushing it to a future bond that it will

039become a roof replacement which correct me if i'm wrong but is quite a bit more expensive than the restoration through the president to member wilson it is a risk [Music] no other questions remember donnelly you i mean not donnelly sorry holloman are you good yes i am thank you all right let's vote yes i just want to say i have a continuing concern with us spending 30 million dollars for a new school when we could be within a reasonable bond package total amount accomplishing all these overdue roof replacement projects um i'm just really disappointed we're we're dropping these in preference of tearing down a school and rebuilding a new one thank you member donnelly whenever you're ready katie katie vice president holloman yes remember jacobs yes [Music] remember lessons yes remember wilson yes remember higgins

040yes remember donnelly no president bellamy yes [Music] that passes six years one day okay thank you [Music] see no other yes dora i'm a little concerned about the um removing both of the restorations [Music] with the obvious concern of future bonds could cost us more to replace those roofs so we just voted to remove those for a are you offering a motion i would like to offer a motion to add those two ursa minor elementary roof restoration and maintenance roof restoration back onto the bond oh a second [Music] okay we have a second you can uh speak to your promotion my my concern is is just that the the potential for um increasing our costs the spring hill elementary roof restoration and i'll just make that comparison i don't know that it's dollar for dollar

041and i'll let you folks um speak to that but the roof replacement is 5 170 thousand for the spring hill elementary roof replacement versus the restoration which we can restore at this time for one million eight hundred and four dollars or one million eight hundred and four thousand um my concern is the cost of the district will be considerably impossibly considerably increased if we push these two projects to a future bond [Music] rate of clarification yeah you are speaking of the the ursa minor roof project and the maintenance roof project or correct the spring okay thank you so you want to put those back into so that would add that amount of money to the one to the um the 1 million 800 and 4 000 in addition to the 1 million 556 000 for

042the maintenance roof restoration so the two restoration frustration projects is what i am requesting that we add back in and what would that amount be [Music] any other comments questions on the motion member jacobs thank you madam president um could do staff have any um perspective on what a replacement would cost for the maintenance roof and the ursa miner i mean is it in the range of is it can we make that apple samples comparison for spring hill or is that not accurate it's comparable yeah so so i think generally as a planting factor that the cost to restore a roof is about 25 of the cost to replace uh madam president could i just make a brief comment then yes yep so i i almost uh chose to make a motion to divide the

043the question um but out of respect for katie i chose not to and i probably would have uh made this motion that dora not remember wilson not so i think i support it i think making reasonable financial decisions now that could um and may save uh funds in future years i think is is something that orchards stand for and get behind thank you [Music] do we have a final amount i mean i guess not the addition for the edition three three million three hundred sixty thousand that's twenty two three million okay [Music] excuse me [Music] okay so amendment five [Music] to add back in ursa minor elementary roof restoration project okay and the maintenance roof restoration project for an amount of what is that total amount again 36 i mean 3 million 3.6 mil [Music]

044which would then bring our bond package to 105 thousand it's almost about 105 million is that right close to it 36 maybe 1 4 yeah one five something one yeah 105 460 other questions comments [Music] i'd like to speak yes um yeah i am in support of the amendment um [Music] you know we're all cognizant of the fact that if we added in everything that we thought needed to be done it would be a a number that would not be supported by the public but we're still in that situation where we have more needs coming on each year than we are addressing and i think we have to move in the direction of fully taking care of the district at least pacing and hopefully getting a little bit um better than that so that we

045we skinny it down and take thing take care of things in a more timely manner so it i think as we go through the spring bigger forces are going to prevail um i don't think this is an amount that changes the likelihood of the bond passing by very much obviously a lower number is better but uh in explaining this to the public uh ruth have always seemed to make sense there are always a handful of people that don't understand why we ever have to work on them or replace them but most people do get they have a life span and they are expensive to replace and when we talk about the number that we have in the district they kind of get the math on the fact that that we've got to do a certain

046number of them every year or or we fall hideously behind and we can only do so many every year so i do support putting this in and continuing the work on it and i'll vote yes on this thank you thank you any other comments before we vote dora i mean i'm sorry we're ready to vote on dora's amendment [Music] i'll restate the amendment to add air summate did you oh i thought okay to add ursa minor elementary school roof restoration project to the 2022 bond proposal for 1.8 mil and the maintenance route restoration project to the 20 2022 bond proposal for one point just over 1.5 mil for a total addition of 32 3 mil 3.3 mil just over 3.3 mill all right let's vote remember jacobs yes remember holloman yes remember lessons yes remember

047higgins [Music] remember donnelly yes remember wilson yes president bellamy yes [Music] and that passes unanimously so our bond now stands at [Music] 105 223 1.5 105 million just over 105 million have a question sure does the administration right now do you have a sense of how many facilities are supported by the present series of amendments that we have here between there's a lot you know some big projects and then smaller ones i think we could probably look at the options yeah i probably have to i mean it might take a lot of i'd have to i would have to take account yeah i i would i would opine though with within within the municipality proper i think it is a it is a fairly uh widespread distribution of projects i would say it's lacking in

048the eagle river chugiak area this is just an observation now that that that high school has been postponed to 2024. may make a motion sure i moved to add chew yak elementary to the bond and what is that amount it is 5.9 million dollars is there a second yeah i'll second it i will second the motion okay you may speak to emotion i appreciate the reflection from mr roth about the lack of um school property in the eagle river chugiak area and i think one of the things that i value about the overall package is that it encompasses so many schools so many sub subsets of our community it gets people to be excited about improvement in their neck of the woods and although i appreciated member donnelly's chu yak high school motion a little

049while ago um i feel like this does part it gets us part of the way there at a slightly lower cost um so i see value in if we've already passed that 102 million dollar threshold i see value in incorporating the cheat yet community through the elementary school project other comments [Music] remember halloween you okay [Music] for a cost of 5.9 million i don't know if that's just the best amount [Music] so madam president i might just uh mr fenisep did account so this current proposition will benefit 28 school facilities and uh a maintenance facility in the district does that include uh two gap if it passes yes okay 28 if if the board were to add okay and the cost what can i get a overall what is that 110 ml i have 111.

05011. okay thank you okay remember higgins you know i i looked at these before and i even when we first started it and i thought to myself we've got such a tremendous backlog of roofs and new ways of doing it you go out there with a separate bond just on roofs and then maintain everything and just go grow bananas and let's catch up but there's a limitation here of what we're risking as far as approval based upon the size and the amount where we're at and it and if we're going to add something back in i would want to consider what our staff is telling us that the highest priority and this is this they gave us the list of the ones they can that we can cut and you can add back all kind

051of ones um i'm just i'm i am concerned that the size of the bond may risk getting anything through and i think when we get up to the the 110 category and above that's the reason why we pulled back on that i think we really want a risk of of getting it approved uh we're close right now to what we're paying off people can understand where the issues are there we've got some high priorities we've got a lot of different maintenance we've got some some school issues with serious problems and we can sell that but i'm just concerned that right now [Music] it would be a problem i don't know if we're going to get the infrastructure funds coming into the state and where that will go that supposedly is going to go to all

052kinds of public buildings and everything so we may get some funds coming in anyway but even if we don't i just don't want to see us go for everything and lose what we could have gotten and i i'm just concerned about that and that's the reason why i'm going to pull back from supporting this one but i appreciate the goal and i see the benefits but we got a lot of schools that we'll lose if we don't get the bond through other comments questions yes i have two comments um number one just to remind the board that the capital improvement advisory committee if i recall my reading correctly recommended that we bond at 80 million dollars a year to actually that would meet our needs so less than 80 million doesn't meet our ongoing needs

053i don't think the community would buy that but just putting that out there for the record and then again looking at um this is a printout from the october meeting again uh previous bonds that have passed have been well above what this would be at 55.5 million per year uh we've passed bonds that were 59 million 57 54.8 59.2 58.4 59.1 so it's it's within the realm of the possible [Music] let's uh you know other comments we'll vote [Music] remember holloman yes remember jacobs yes remember lessons yes remember wilson [Music] yes remember higgins [Music] why not yes remember donnelly yes president bellamy no anonymous and that passes six to one so our bond package is now up to [Music] approximately let's say that well yeah we don't know yet 111 million thousand dollars [Music] okay

054see no other comments no other hands we have a bond package we've got the backdrop so we're back to the main motion i did have a question about um the package in total okay so um hold on oh sure yeah [Music] this would be the main version [Music] i would feel uh a little bit more comfortable if someone would also check the math that i've done [Music] if this is the main motion as amended do you want to take it uh let's let's take a little at ease to make sure that our math is right did that have a decimal place i got my cap calculated here [Music] i but think started [Music] right and that's okay that's that's that's again i don't want to ask you an unfair question but i think it's a

055legitimate [Music] question speaking of mine [Music] we'd like to welcome everybody back so we are at the main motion um with a final well if this is a final bond amount of 111 million 233 hundred and ninety three million dollars um could miss mr roth could you read the projects that would be in that amount please [Music] yes madam president uh threw the president to the board so to to recap what the the board is going to vote on uh for a bond proposition so the first project is inlet view elementary school replacement and an amount of 30 million 967 000 the next the east high school academic area safety improvements 6 million 73 000. [Music] read through a number of roof projects the chinook elementary school roof replacement five million four hundred and eight

056eighty nine thousand campbell elementary school roof replacement five million nine hundred and fifty thousand college gate elementary school roof replacement 6 million 663 000 kincaid elementary school [Music] site improvements 5 725 000. birchwood elementary boiler replacement prototypical roof improvements 379 000. prioritize security vestibule and security improvements six million correction sixteen million thirty thousand maintenance building roof restoration one million five hundred fifty six thousand percent minor elementary school roof restoration 1 million and 4 000 the lake otis elementary school building improvements 12 million nine hundred forty two thousand the chugiak elementary school roof replacement five million nine hundred thousand and then for for planning and design time you can confirm but the amount currently listed at two million five hundred seventy two thousand that that would be decremented by amount of seven hundred and twelve thousand

057uh equating to an amount of um two million eight hundred a correction one million eight hundred thousand and sixty [Music] you the only difference in that is with the maintenance maintenance can you use your mic sir sure he's talking to tom so there there is and we we probably will we'll we will need to adjust so by by moving the chugiak elementary school roof replacement from 2024 to 2022 that that would modify the um planning and design money we probably need to recalculate that yes so so the planning and design money is calculated based on the next year's cycle of bond so when you reduce that from the next year's cycle of bonds you reduce the planning and design money needed and i'd have to go through the calculation on on that but it would

058be less money for planning design okay so can we can we derive a number yeah [Music] okay [Music] and president if if we might maybe take take a pause and place for a couple minutes while we calculate these uh figures absolutely [Music] let's take a comfort break for about five minutes you another one you [Music] no [Music] all right welcome back everybody thank you for your patience [Music] we are now at the main motion we now have a correct uh amount and so the main motion as amended to approve proposition one district-wide roof replacement uh and improvements inlet view school replacement security improve improvements deferred required and building life extension and safety improvements and planning and design projects in the amount of 111 million uh ninety thousand dollars i mean million dollars um as outlined

059in this memorandum and so remember jacobs thank you madam president so i i want to take us back to where we began this journey and i want to thank the board members and engaging for engaging in ongoing and thoughtful dialogue and the staff for helping facilitate it going back to in the view where some of the modifications to our bond proposal started and i um still very interested um and invested in making sure that the best possible outcome occurs with that design process but i am adamant that i don't i don't see a place for the board in duplicating or being involved in the building design committee work and so to that end i i would ask that you met and president um hopefully facilitate a presentation by the building design committee in a meeting

060of ours in january of giving us an update as to how things are going with the new members and the the process because again our our inclusion of that project in the bond proposal and their process as a design committee are entirely separate and we aren't advocating for anything besides its inclusion uh here with this this vote the other thing i would ask is if we could um have the building design committee meetings calendared on our calendar so we can board members can attend if we so choose just to understand what the process is how it's going i think would be great without any concern for open meetings act issues so thank you i don't um [Music] i don't see it mr roth do you see any um i mean i think those are reasonable

061requests that we could have a work session around the continuing work do you have any thoughts on that and you too dr bishop uh through the president to to the board and to remember jacob's comments uh absolutely um i i think you know the intent is that we would be as transparent in in the whole building design process you know i recognize the uh the the communication with the ombudsman uh and and you know i i i thought his analysis and recommendations were frankly spot on that uh you know i would just comment um because i i think there there may be some community perception that um by by not complying specifically with the open meeting act guidance that that was intentional i i can assure you it absolutely was not i think it was

062more out of ignorance but we absolutely want to correct that that uh guidance i have given to mr feniceff is that moving forward every meeting will be noticed to the public so that you know interested parties can certainly attend and observe those meetings um for this design [Music] thank you madam president could i just follow briefly yes sir i i just want to be clear i appreciate uh mr roth thank you for the the follow up uh my my sole intention with the request is to make sure not that everyone in the bbc agrees or the community is out of agreement because i don't think that is a realistic outcome but truly just to make sure everyone feels heard um at the end of the process and so that's definitely my intention so thank you

063for that i'm looking forward to those discussions thank you and i have a question we have a [Music] tell me how once we have our package our bond and cip package we tell me the how does that who writes the language that accompanies the bond we have a proposal from a a group of community members and i i will forward it to you for it's right now in the where did i send it finance just so we could have a place a placeholder for it because i really don't know what to quite do with bond language because i know we we suggest language and that language goes to the muni and it goes someplace else so how does that work um through the president uh to to to the board so if i if i

064if i understand correctly they're actually a couple of different um communications that will go forward the the first one i'll address is that there will be language written and generally this will come from capital planning construction that that is the language that will actually go on the election ballot that is specific to what the administration or what the the school district is asking from the public there is a a second um actually there are three so the next is a um document that goes forward to bond counsel and and that's again the the communication that that articulates what the board has acted on or a bond proposition and i think jim is probably better versed on explaining you know what what happens when it goes into that um into that process but the language we

065get back from bond council based on the guidance uh that we send to them uh informs how if if the assembly approves and it gets on the ballot and the the public approves it how the district can spend uh the bond authority and then and then lastly um not necessarily sequentially but we we send a communication to the uh city clerk and and that informs the assembly um prior to their taking action on the request did i cover that is there anything else i'm listening to so if there was input into either input into to the drafting of language on either one of those where would that be go for consideration i i guess madam president i'm not i'm not fully understanding because usually that the language is very specific to that the projects i

066mean what the projects are and then the dollar amount that that is estimated if if we're talking about details of what each project involves that that language is not included in any of those communications okay now this is i think what i want to do is not hold us up here but i'll i'll come in and have a chat with you um right now it's city i sent it to finance just because i didn't know what to do with it and i wanted i didn't want to lose it so perhaps we can look at it at um either the next finance meeting i have it on the 12th on the 15th on the 15th we got it already covered so you can advise us at that time but i'll get i want to talk to

067you prior to that time yes ma'am all right thank you okay our main motion well can i sorry oh a few questions real quick mr ross um one what is the it says roughly the property value i mean could always talk about the how much you and you have to put back into maintenance and given the value of the of the property what's what's the estimate today of what our property value is do you have any idea [Music] uh through the president to remember higgins two billion dollars is the assessed property and and then the maintenance required to maintain things we've have a you know obviously 800 million dollars deferred maintenance it's massive but even without that we would we normally be expected to spend approximately how much per year just to maintain that so

068so there's a percentage formulas the general rule like most businesses so the guidance that that is provided by the council of the great city schools is for for a district of our size about anywhere between 40 and 80 million annually for uh deferred major maintenance okay i appreciate that i just want to make that point because when we're looking at the size of the bond we're looking at what we're doing every year and we've got such a large deficit i just think that's important for when we are explaining it to the public into what's going on that we are spending money on maintenance every year a substantial amount but the legislation in the 1990s decided not to fund capital type improvements they said they would fund it through bonds and they expected us to do

069that so it really wasn't added into the formula for students for for operations and so we're following that and when you look at the size of the properties that we have and the amount that businesses would be putting into it every year just to maintain it we're in that category or low compared to what um capital investment you have to keep putting back in to maintain that quantity that size of operation so thank you [Music] okay yes remember donald before we vote thank you madam president i just say that i support the vast majority of the projects on this bond package i remain concerned um about the inlet view as a total tear down rebuild a brand new school and i'd point out that the difference in the cost of doing a new school at

070interview and doing a major remodel to fix all the problems there is the difference is about 10 million which is just about enough to make this new total of 111 million dollars for this bonds down below the amount of bonds we are retiring so i i hope the board at some point will reconsider and i think that would be i still think that's the proper way to move ahead thank you member donnelly see no other hands or comments the main motion is before you [Music] amber higgins yes remember jacobs yes remember wilson yes member lessons yes remember donnelly no remember holloman yes president bellamy yes and that passes six years to one day thank you board and that takes us to our next item f4 memorandum number zero four three [Music] yes madam president i

071move asd memorandum number zero four three the six year capital improvement plan [Music] wait a second okay thank you all right it's been moved in second that we um that we approved the six-year plan uh improvement plan remember donnelly thank you madam president because of how tech the changes that have now occurred in the six year plan due to the bond package the board just approved i would suggest it's going to take some time to re-restructure it and so it'd be appropriate to i would move to table the six-year proposal the consideration of that at this time and to our next meeting i would suggest time pacific to 12 6 is our next meeting [Music] is there is there a second from alzheimer's okay got it katie and i think remember donald you've already spoken

072to emotion but did you want to say anything else any other comments or questions so the emotion before you is to um table the memorandum number 043 so that the staff can have an opportunity to match it with the changes that we just made [Music] whenever you're ready katie voice vote remember donnelly yes remember higgins yes remember holloman yes remember jacobs yes remember lessons yes remember wilson yes president bellamy yes [Music] and that that motion passes unanimously thank you uh we've been now moving on to uh imf5 memorandum number zero five four a board member asked to pull this from our consent agenda um i think it was remember lessons there would you like to speak to to oh i'm sorry sorry um i'm getting ahead of myself go on remember uh holloman uh yes

073move asd memorandum number zero five four acceptance of arp act grant award [Music] second [Music] okay it's been moved in second yeah it's been moved in second to approve and authorize the superintendent to accept an american rescue plan that's a rpx grant from the alaska department of education and early development in the amount of 112 million 600 and 632 million dollars i always get that mixed up all right thank you for the opportunity to speak to this um item at this time i moved to reallocate five million three hundred and eighty seven thousand six hundred ninety nine dollars of the funds currently directed toward the indirect cost and intended to recoup the costs associated with administrative services that are paid from the district's general fund for items such as purchasing omb finance payroll and hr

074to a new high value response area for fy22 attracting and retaining a classroom workforce check it [Music] out i'm just gonna say so it's been moved in second it'll be up in a minute you may speak to your motion she's gonna you know i think you can because i'm not sure so crucially this reallocation would allow asd to conduct a strategic investment in our classrooms for the remainder of fy22 and could be further refined to focus on areas of our greatest instructional priority for instance with reading with respect to reading math science as well as well as our cte offerings it would be wholly aligned with operational and structural instructional and spending priorities identified through the sr-3 community input process and would still leave 565 000 and change for administrative purposes in addition to more

075than 3.1 million dollars that are allocated from sr1 and sr2 for indirect cost um in memo 54 5.9 million dollars of 112.4 are currently directed toward indirect cost and intended to recoup these administrative services um it's my understanding that the rate for indirect cost is set for fy22 at 5.59 this is the maximum allowable rate according to deed for this year but it can be applied to grants that less than the maximum rate in a way what's troubling for me based on my understanding is that although charging and direct costs to grants is a common practice and is intended to account for the resources that they consume the real work that the staff have to do um i don't think that it allows the board to be as nimble to borrow from a phrase at

076our finance meeting the other day as as i think we need to be at this particular moment and i say that given the realities of our labor situation um right now we are in a state that faces tremendous challenges attracting and retaining teachers due to state-ordained retirement structures our district hasn't been able to fill all of its openings this fall and i just read that nationally we've had 30 000 public school teachers give notice in september alone so i think that the project of prioritizing student learning with respect to math reading science and cte must address the issue of retaining the staff we do have as well as enable the district to attract new employees finally just for comparison purposes i want to understand what districts like ours are doing across the country the center

077for reinventing public education which is tracking 100 large and urban districts including council of great city schools members has an alphabet soup of districts that are focusing on educator pipeline teacher capacity teacher salary priorities so you know literally and figuratively anchorage should be at the top of the list we have atlanta is beating us at this game they're focusing on small class sizes hiring additional support staff they're targeting students who are underserved or disproportionately impacted by coven by hiring additional staff baltimore which had [Music] 178 000 touch points to create their um plans came up with a list of priorities priority number two for baltimore is that city schools will actively recruit retain and support qualified educators administrators and staff who are prepared to accelerate the personal growth and academic excellence of each student albuquerque

078um i just started going through the list and i will rest there okay and i guess my question i have a question so did you do we do you know what we're doing as a district prior to making the recommendation i mean so there is in the memorandum we have their specific um high value what is the phrase um specific targets for the near future learning loss initiatives including summer school for this upcoming summer a new data platform air quality improvements duct cleaning optimizing air flow uh king tuck welding shop there's 500 000 for the recruitment and retention of hard to fill staff and there's some more for going to reading initiatives and charter schools um i looked at this indirect cost because i thought that the board might take particular interest in deciding that

079it wanted to focus on the issue of staff retention and recruitment at this moment in time for fy 22. and and i guess i i would just like i think i will i personally need to have more information i can't uh five million dollars i mean i know when you look at a pot of money 12 112 million dollars it is so enticing that we can do everything but i also know that there are things that are being done there are also pieces that are missing for me i'm i don't have the information i need to to support this tonight not saying i don't support it but i would like to have a more systemic review of what is being done what is being planned and um so uh i see jim came up and

080dr bishop which one do y'all want to speak first um adam president i'll go first and um remember lessons i really appreciate um your ability to research um but i in your meeting in your finance meeting we shared um [Music] that approximately six to eight million dollars went into small class sizes this year we lost over a thousand students and did not reduce and kept our staffing member higgins has shared and known publicly in the meetings about the fiscal cliff we are about to take that we have not increased we have contracts to settle we recommended utilizing these funds for our staff specifically to carry us through and not reduce the staffing in asd hence we requested that as your budget comes through that you see uh the spots for this because we use the

081s or two to hold us together this year to see the investments into these next two years in regard to staffing in regard to learning loss in regard to summer so we provided the items that are right away requesting the board to honor your budget process so that we can attract and retain as many staff members as we can the indirect cost doesn't go out and buy additional people in administration it frees up present money to reinvest back into our classrooms and so um i thought our discussions uh shared some of that information but um i will challenge any district in absolutely investing this art money into the people of the district the children and the employees and so i'm glad that you did your research i'm glad you're happy about those other districts but

082i'll tell you you've got a great one right here [Music] uh mr anderson through the through the president um i think i think i must have been missed clear somehow in the finance committee meeting we actually have more flexibility by taking the indirect cost applying it towards currently budgeted admin costs freeing up general fund money that could be applied towards deficit it could be applied towards a number of things so you really have more flexibility to deal with i think the board is aware i hope that we had about a 12 million budget deficit this year we may or may not get 7.1 million from federal impact aid that the state is holding depends on their appeal we we do have personnel shortages which are certainly creating unspent funds that can go towards that deficit

083but i think we've been pretty consistent when we briefed that the very first memo was going to cover some initial immediate emergent needs um things like the duct cleaning and making sure we're covering down for summer school so we can start planning now and that we would follow with the pro forma in december where the the board can see what we think our starting point is if we did everything the same way we did it this year based off projected enrollment next year and what the general fund shortfall would be if we did not use esser funds or source of funds and the board will see we're not done yet we're still working on it it's pretty complicated but it will probably be north of 60 million dollars so when we come in and we

084build a budget and we talk about this during the pro forma and you can see that there's a deficit naturally just like we use source of funds this year and are continuing to use source of funds through the remainder of this year we will recommend a portion of that based off board discussions and priorities of sr3 be applied toward board priorities to help the budget next year i i honestly [Music] uh trying to find a n not to be rude i i see no advantage to taking the indirect cost and applying it toward attracting and retaining classroom workforce when we can free up general fund money that has great flexibility as we look at fund balance and as we look at the reality that we have three or two open contracts going into mediation in

085january and to pre-stage set amounts of money that might be available for outside a contract might not be in the best interests of the of contract bargaining process so i i certainly would support what the board votes on i i don't think it gives any more flexibility at all and i think it detracts from our ability to do [Music] joint bargaining in january [Music] remember jacob thank you mr president i wanted to to really dial in and um because i i think i had a similar takeaway um and remember lester's touched on it um as that staff these these grand funds that we're receiving do have significant restrictions on them whereas money freed up from administrative costs and using grant funds for that purpose that freeing up general fund money wouldn't have those restrictions correct

086through the president that is correct okay um so i think that that flexibility um is important um in in part because we can use those funds however we want including supporting staff which i'm looking forward to to doing and having those conversations and so um yeah i appreciate the clarification thank you [Music] comments uh let's go to member higgins thank you and and i appreciate the superintendent's comment i talk about the cliff all the time now uh because i know it's coming and i know that as difficult as that is it doesn't change us from having to focus on a strategic plan though to deal with serious issues here at the school district and i think that remember lessons concern and i think it's appropriate is all we directing the resources we need to do

087in the best way there's so much out there in the way of funds and i don't think we're having enough discussions on that strategic plan and in the absence of that how that money is being used leaving us out of the picture we can't follow that and we've got to do something about academics we've got to do something about retention of the teachers we've got right now because we all if there's a cliff when we don't have any teachers that cliff is going to look like it's small uh if we don't if we can't attract replacements for people that are leaving their profession right now and we had what two and a half million people last two months in the country decide they're not going to work anymore they're giving it up they're going to

088walk away from it they're going to retire early they're going to do whatever you need to do and so our workforce is shrinking it's impacting the municipality is impacting asd it's impacting the state it's impacting every employer i can't go anyplace without having an application being the first place you see you know you see the business's name is it's been taken over by job wanted you know we want you uh type of information so we've got a crisis and having a strategic plan for that if this provides additional funds that's what i think the message is how can we identify funds that can help address strategic needs right now and what is the plan to do that if this helps provide the plan and i applaud the effort to try to do that and say

089let's let's see what money is out there that we can do it with i know we got a lot of unknowns financially okay and i know that a big pot can be spread all over the place okay and i think the concern that uh member lessons has and and my concerns as well is what is the plan within the funds we've got with the highest priorities so that the board and the and the administration has a really detailed discussion of that what can we do for academics what can we do for teacher retention what how are we going to survive with with teacher recruitment we got problems with food service staffing we got problems in every area just like every other employer um in regards to that so i just the the goal here and

090i applaud you know a bit because we're discussing it right now because of of the member lessons proposal is that we need to look at every bit dollar we've got and what where they are and can we use that more effectively to achieve these high high priorities we've got to have what what investments can we make today that's going to help this district survive we're not going to stop a cliff okay but we have to teach kids while we're doing it and we have to make sure that we have the staff to do it and we have to do things to see the results go up so we've got to be able to say let's question every dollar we're spending let's question where we're putting it if it doesn't need to be there and fine

091if we don't take this 5 million out and we leave it there what is that 5 billion going how are we using that in a way that's going to help us achieve the goals that we have got to meet on the school board i got on the school board with the idea that at the end of my term we made a difference if we don't do that then i have failed and that's where i'm at right now i get on the first time with graduation rates and other things and right now it's academics and surviving the pandemic and so i applaud the thing but i don't think we're getting the response that i need in regards to saying why is this an advantage where would that money go you turned yourself off but we got

092you thank you dr bishop thank you and and i think um [Music] i want to share with the board you're you're preaching to the choir i know what's happening in schools i have a certificate i place myself in the pool of teachers who sub i am in buildings every week i am not blind to it what we're saying is you mentioned strategic plan i'm asking you to spend your money strategically because it will go fast there has been a ton of asks from the outside and we're also sharing with you in one month in two weeks going to find out the bigger picture of the pro forma what it's looking like what the future looks like and we have strategic plans what we presented to you are those things that we know will make a

093difference right now the safety issues the money for retention that we're already using because we have the plan already that's what we're presenting to you that these are the things we can act on right away the other millions of dollars more than half of these funds we're presenting to you with your budget two exactly do that strategically plan [Music] as you move forward because the money can be held or spent until 2024. so what we're trying to do is to engage you in the correct process i believe to understand how to utilize this money forward attracting and retaining staff absolutely needs to happen where does it happen you have three negotiations open utilize what you have at the right time strategically is what we're trying to say taking money and saying okay here is probably

094not the best way to spend money you have a strategic plan you have goals you have a budget coming up use your processes that you already have to come together and move it forward because we all want the same thing it just needs to be planned as mr higgins shared that's what i'm hoping that is what this was for to not have it be gone because it can go we we have literally six asks from outside of asd to spend that arp money on functions in our community already requests there's lots of eyeballs on it we will be held accountable the most way we're going to be held accountable for these funds is what he said again i've been agreeing with you a lot today mr higgins um it's bothering you the accountability no other

095time in american history has as much cash been pumped into public schools if we do not have an outcome in student outcomes you know putting money into our profession i don't think federally we will ever have this money again i have just as much interest to put it and make sure we have the outcomes and you can't get student outcomes without investing in your teachers i understand all that but i think the plan should be comprehensive but it also should be with a site on what next year is going to look like in the year after in the year after that is why we presented just a small portion because you will have a long time and lots of meetings to plan that other 60 million dollars or actually it's more than that a hundred

096million dollars [Music] that that was the reason just to think about the bigger picture of it is all thank you other comments remember uh stanley thank you madam president um i really appreciate this debate this has been excellent thank the member for bringing this forward i'm learning throughout this debate it's it's great research in fact i can't pass the ability to point out the irony that just yesterday in our training session our alaska association of school boards called this kind of excellent research by a member unauthorized research by a board member i really think that was really wrong of them and it really questioned my my belief that we should even be a member of that organization anymore so i really appreciate the debate and um i'm really thinking very hard right now on how

097to vote and so thank you all of you for your input on this remember higgins my only response to that is that they really did a good job of saying focusing that we are responsible for approving strategic plans we are responsible for a curriculum we're responsible for so much and i know it got into a debate about independent research and how they did it and all that because of distraction and i will agree with you i didn't like that particular part of the presentation at all i didn't think it really added value but i thought it was a good presentation in focusing that the board is responsible for the strategic plan the board is responsible for approving the curriculum and we are ultimately responsible obviously to the voters for the school for everything within asd

098and so i like challenging everything i appreciate that well and thank you my recollection is that board members can do research but is that you know it's what it's not about the research it's it's just not um but when we are you know when and we can bring research forward i don't recall anything yesterday that said board members can't research or were condemned from it said and i can see the slide in my head and i could probably pull it up right here it said board members can do research comma and i i guess the the point for me is systemically i don't know the impact of doing this taking this action today i would have preferred um a time where we would have had time to discuss it know about it discuss it and

099and and and talk about it um and and understand exactly what the impact of it would be making sure i know we have some things in because when i talk to teachers it's not just about the money the things that matter to teachers is not about um giving them a stipend or a bonus the money is important for their salaries but there are other things i think we can do as a district we're not going to buy happiness what we what we will invest in is and hopefully find a way to [Music] invest in and and support and value show value more is you know how how they're feeling doing their job and and making sure that they are feeling valued there is nobody to hire we either gonna grow our own um we're gonna

100we there is nobody to hire there there's very little to attract and that's a national trend so they're not it's not like it was uh years ago when people were just climbing all over themselves to come to the anchor school district it's not like we could offer uh you know we give you a contract and you have five hours to decide to take it or not we go to the next person because we had that power that time that is no longer the case and so how do we i think when we settle the contract that is going to give people the value that they need all three of them all three contracts because there are three and i think um that that process it's a grueling one but it is a process and it's

101got to work itself through so i you know i think i think the intent of this is great i think the impact of it we have to talk about more andy member hollywood yeah uh yeah i appreciate the intent the member watson's has in redirecting this money but i i agree with the points are raised otherwise that it creates a logistics issue this isn't the specific amount of money that we want spent on creating a district that will attract and retain teachers and the exact price of that is very hard to tell while a lot of people worry about money disappearing into administrative costs and whatnot i do understand how this defrays uh budgeted cost and it frees up money that we have complete freedom to to deal with under the boundaries of our budget

102so i will be voting against the motion although i do appreciate the intent behind it thank you member jacob thank you madam president um i i agree that this has been a good discussion um and to a certain extent a um a miniature finance committee meeting this might be the best advertisement ever for folks to tune in if you like this there's more um with that said i i wonder if if there's even wisdom in in voting um on this knowing some of the logistical and just uncertainties regarding just the language and so i guess i'm curious a check in to the maker if if we still see um voting on this appropriate [Music] remember lessons [Music] i think what we're going to see here is that we know we got this money going into

103the general fund they're replacing the general fund that gives it more flexibility and our challenge during the budget process is where is the money going and everywhere in the budget so we know that we have additional money replacing this in the general fund we're giving us more flexibility there and now that we're aware that as you pointed out it's very good that we have to look at the impact of all of this money on the general fund we can look and question and say okay how much is the general fund impacting is is impacted by this and where is that money going so i think this debate will come up now doing the budget process at a higher level because of you because you've raised it as a solid issue so whether the money is

104here or whether the money is extra in the general fund whichever way it is it still exists and it still gives us the chance to be able to focus and question how that money's being spent thank you member wilson i appreciate the research that you've done on member lessons like i truly do i would as as um president bellamy stated i would have appreciated some more time to review that um rather than having a little a lot less time to review your research and your thoughts listen to your thought process and have the the input from the administration so i i would ask that in the future um when you you have this wonderful research you you offer it with some some more advanced notice to give us well at least me the opportunity to

105review it and ask some questions myself as well thank you okay [Music] any other comments uh madam president i i guess i'm i'm looking for clarity are we proceeding to a vote uh the maker has not removed has not rescinded her vote okay so i mean her motion sorry my microphone's gone um i appreciate the thoughtful responses from everybody here i appreciate hearing that we'll be receiving the pro forma shortly and i look forward to engaging in that process i had a conversation with the principal a week or two ago monday last week she said that she had had interviews she had interviewed a hundred people for roles in her school for this year she's still relying on long-term substitutes i had another conversation with another principal three four weeks ago no applicants for three

106weeks prior [Music] this i'm really concerned about retaining the employees that we have [Music] and i'll rescind this motion [Music] but i intend to continue to focus on retaining the people that we have because as you said president obama there's nobody coming it's not the appropriate phrase but the cavalry is not coming to rescue us is coming to my mind in order to have effective classrooms we need to have an adequate number of teachers [Music] if you want to be there so i will rest in that motion and i will look forward to the process of engaging strategically and nimbly nimbly um with um everybody in the room okay the maker of the motion rescinds her motion at this time um and i that just this i absolutely agree with the intent of this i

107personally think it's going to take more than 5.3 million but we don't but i don't have enough information to know i want to settle these three contracts i want to settle the contracts and if we can if we can get that done as as quickly as as procedurally possible because it's not just a human thing now it's a process um because i think that that that alone will add value to to the to to the workforce because what i hear is it's not just the money but yes the money is important and it is not having subs it's having people in this building who can't do their job because they are out subbing in the in in schools i mean it's it's about things that are um exasperated we've always had sort of subs some

108days but not like this and we've always had a pipeline of talent not like this we don't have a pipeline and so how do we do that and and and you know i think there's some things in the work at the uh in the works at the uh state level at the national level um and i think there are things that we can do much better than we're doing now but it's it's again it's that how are we going to be strategically minded to make sure that we use this money i mean it's unfathomable to me 112 million dollars some districts get three times that because they have that much money i mean i mean that many kids um i cannot imagine atlanta they probably got 10 times i don't know what that would be

109but they would they would have more resources they would have more of a labor market they would have surrounding neighborhoods where people can drive and commute to work we don't have that we have what we have and and yes i want to retain them and yes i want them to feel valued i want all of that i want to settle those three contracts and that would be this part of the start for me um and if that conte if we can do a good job with that people will want to stay and if we can provide relief with subs i don't know where to get them but if we can provide sub release uh and and um get let people get back in this building i don't know on any given day i'll bet you

110a third of the people if not more are out in schools we got a superintendent that covers classes that's that's great because she loves doing it but what about the other work what about what about the other stuff we wanted to do what about the other stuff we need the staff to do and teachers maybe we we can let teachers go when kids when the day ends for kids and everybody's gone maybe we say okay you don't have to stay that extra 15 minutes that extra 20 minutes so there's some things i think we can do that that might not cost a bunch of money but would add some stress release some immediate release and some of our principals are doing some amazing things i think in fact you covered a mental wellness day at

111willawa that was amazing clark had a paint day for their teachers that was amazing now those things don't last and don't get me wrong they don't replace they're not the the things that that that do everything all right meet everybody's needs but we know that it's stressful and we know that we want we want them to stay so we've got we've just got to strategically move through and figure it out and and look at not just our intents but also the impact of what what it is we're going to do and how it's going to dwindle that get that back down to our kids and our families so with that um yeah i just want to confirm that the second agrees with the motion withdrawal [Music] okay thank you [Music] so there the there's well

112the maker has already okay yeah it's it's typical yes okay all right okay so where are we katie so we are back at the main motion uh to approve and authorize the superintendent to accept an american rescue plan act grant from the alaska department of education and early development in the amount of 112.5 mil or 4 million dollars and some change [Music] no more discussion let's vote remember donnelly yes remember wilson yes remember higgins remember lessons yes remember jacobs yes remember holloman yes president melanie yes and that passes unanimously we are now at i am h yes madam president the move asd memorandum number 055 acceptance of the 2022 anchorage school district legislative i'm sorry i'm what else we're good those are non-action did you want to pull that's right i um no i'm sorry

113i misread on the agenda i don't need to introduce that so yes it's not an action and i spoke out of turn sorry and they will come back at our next meeting and there is no additional public testimony nobody's in the room to testify superintendent do you have an update uh yes thank you um the update i was going to share the other night just yesterday was um a really great general leadership that we had the other day and and if you're out and about you can um see how it landed on our on our principles um this month we we really wanted to talk about how uh what we do in schools lands on our families and and our um kids and we had um a few guest speakers um teresa lyons from the

114ywca we had from alaska public radio uh stephanie mcfadden and um from first alaskans iu um kay she has a long lasting it's hard uh it's let's start it's pronounced it uh hula tuck um sounds like a a k but it's spelled with a q uh and they really um told their stories about education in anchorage um and their experiences with anchorage two of them actually were our graduates and uh just shared some insights into schools and their experiences and what they could do as partners in the community uh with asd and so that was a highlight uh additionally we had some other trainings this week that uh people could attend or not but the two uh in talking about investing in people we had um called coaching greatness someone come up and our coaches

115whether they worked for us or not or some were our pe teachers uh provided um and it really engaged in staff development on a 360 basis learning about themselves and their strengths and building capacity and i will share some of those comments with the board about um feeling actually to your point you know feeling valued that the first pe teacher from one of our high schools said you know i've been working for 15 years and this is the first time that i've really sat and thought about what i do and how i can get better in my craft with my my peers and so we had about 50 on one day and then we also did what's called leadership blueprint which are teacher leaders coordinators assistant principals um directors supervisors that got together that also

116uh invested in uh 360 to to really learn and work with a peer and a team so uh three of those um professional developments happened all last week uh actually one yeah all last week on wednesday monday and friday and um wanted to to share that because they were well received even in a time that is ultra stressed um the idea that we're doing fine and things are normal and that those words can't be used um we are doing the best because we care about kids every day and um work hard every day because we care about kids and and people are going to buildings and we're just holding each other up and um doing our best and part of really calling a snow day last um thursday was was part of that i mean

117i i relished in the ability to be able to say everybody go home at 11. and um because that doesn't affect students and their learning uh and didn't have to make up another day didn't have to ask um our hourly employees to use their leave so they can work longer in the summer um you know there's there's lots of um [Music] impacts when we when we change things around so uh just really we're we're looking forward to having a couple of breaks at school uh well deserved and well needed thank you thank you and so that brings us oh yes remember donnelly thank you some questions for the superintendent um madam superintendent education week is reporting that schools can now use coveted relief funds for school transportation expenses i think it's kind of a new

118development i'm not but i've just read that this week and i know we had some bus routes that got we were unable to fulfill earlier in the year and i think the district did some help to parents there in that circumstance but but now that it's specifically authorized that we could use cobit funds for that if we have any future bus discontinuations um can you have any plans for the district to be able to use those funds to compensate parents [Music] um that's a great question we we could we don't have any plans because we have um we uh utilize some of our essa money to to to be able to do that and when we um offered it believe it or not because it's um viewer a lot of our parents didn't take it

119because they said they didn't need it um when we planned that much in advance uh we offered it some took it some different didn't but we have plenty of gas cards if needed we could um but um [Music] we're working through those things and getting folks hired we don't have all of our bus routes yet but um did feel along those same lines that um you know we received money for the children let's give the money back to um the cost of that and uh but to our surprise a lot of our parents just are turning it down and saying you know what we've got this don't worry so but we can but we haven't needed to okay let's see any other questions remember jacobs the name will come back into batman yeah so i

120had a question on the um there was a library book that we've gotten emails about it's circulated for various news sites and like i said a question about that uh it's uh it hits close to home a bit um as alicia and i have fostered youth from the lgbtq plus community and um we didn't intend going in to to serve that population we certainly weren't the most well-equipped but we found out early on that actually the those youth are extremely hard to place in foster homes in alaska specifically which was interesting and so when the when i received the email and the subsequent notices about the book being inappropriate i'm concerned about removing books from schools with that said i understand that there are legitimate library science related reasons why certain books shouldn't be in

121a library in this case a high school library um i'm more curious if you could expand on what level of parent involvement and this is a bit of an education question for me too what level of parent involvement is the district looking at in the conversations as to whether or not a book is appropriate for a school library and then two if we decide that a book isn't appropriate for an asd library are we i i'm thinking that there might not be many occurrences but as a matter of practice have we thought about replacing it um with a book that's considered to be age and developmentally appropriate so just sufficient literature to to for students to access information that they might be seeking thank you thank you um through the president to member jacobs i

122can put our review process and who's on that the teams that review uh it does start at a school level and usually is handled right at the school level and doesn't come to this level uh unless needed um the content of the book well it was an adult novel and then when uh we did the review process i just made the call because um just so you know if we were to use our library share system for the muni library it would be blocked as an adult novel but yet it was in hours so um we saw it as an adult novel and removed it uh if you were to google lbgq tea plus um [Music] you could right now in our libraries find other literature so it isn't that we don't have that or

123that we're doing a book for a book um we support our students and their interests and but this particular book it was not about the um you know that the light yeah the lifestyle it simply was about the sexual content so it did you know so i i don't know if that answers your question um can i follow madam president yes thank you yeah so now and i appreciate the explanation um i actually went after the the article and the emails were received i went over over the weekend i went and um perused through a copy i didn't i didn't read it to cover to cover but um there are i would say it was a little bit more uh the content of the book i don't know if it was fair to say that

124it's it boiled down to just that but um i i'm not i'm also not disagreeing that there were um it's definitely questionable whether or not it was agent developmentally appropriate and so i'm all for a process that decides that i don't think that every instance should rise to the board level and we're already getting emails about other books and so i guess i'm i'm curious that the question boils down to what level of parent involvement there is and if there's ways for parents to get involved i think that's a valid voice in the conversation and then two in lieu of taking resources and books away um i do like the idea of replacing it with something if we feel that something isn't agent developmentally appropriate instead of just losing that resource replacing it within a

125a different book to me seems valuable and sends a message which i think has been sent to the lgbtq plus community this was one book as i understand it in one school with extremely limited circulation i don't think this issue the message that was sent by its removal far outweighed any benefit that the the one book might have had and so i think it's more about messaging and so that's what i'm interested in sure and um i think those questions can be answered in the board connect i'll send information about how the process works um in selecting books i think that was the thing as well as um removing a book from circulation but these processes are are are long-standing they're i mean and just so you know a child can come into a library

126and saying hey do you have this library book and a library could say librarian no i don't let me look at it and we can get it in here so even kids can request books at libraries but we'll get get that information and there was no intent to i know the words ban this and that um it's just um a call that we make and and uh in the past we during my tenure we have removed other books um we've had um uh you know ones from our our middle school reading series different things like that um but certainly i felt as though there were other books that replaced it but i think you are sharing that was my point that actually they're in the library but like kind of like a trade-off is what

127you're talking about okay thank you well taken and i think along that line i just i look briefly at our policies because we have a controversial issues policy so we might need to look at that and see if there's anything we can do to make it because i'm not sure i'm not sure what the process is and so if a parent has a concern ideally what happened now when i was a librarian that's been like eons ago they would talk to the principal or come directly to the librarians we would have a conversation and a parent may not want that book for their child but it and that put it put more onus on the employees to like okay your mom said you cannot check that book out but it's an appropriate book but the

128parent chose not to have their child read it we try to do things like that i mean i think in the past we have but usually parents talk to principals principals talk to librarians librarians and principals talk to parents and they decide you know what you know how they're going to handle it so i i'm whatever the process is and i think that there's a form or there used to be a form that people could fill out when they had a you know we have a form that that parents any citizen can fill out if they have a questionable book but it's not at the board level and i people are offended when i say i didn't you know the board is not selecting books uh neither are we um i mean you know but

129when we know of an issue we do send it to the superintendent and um but then even that because i don't know how we would know every book that's on the shelf in every school's library i don't know how we would do that but i do support parents rights to uh question and and uh ask for a review so i would like to look at our policies again make sure that they are doing what we think they're doing other comments remember higgins did i see you no you did [Music] okay mr holloman question none today thank you thank you all right well back to kelly you good okay and then we'll go to back to you mr donnelly so this may be echoing or maybe building on president bellamy's um request for information from the

130start of this meeting seems like a long time ago um and that is that i am really interested in understanding the plausibility of adjustments to the calendar for the second semester of 20 of this current school year that would support student outcomes by potentially creating additional staff time for mental health and wellness as well as protected time for site-based planning and professional development and i say that again coming out of a conversation with the principal and that principal said we need a day a month maybe we can develop like a swat team of people that come maybe it wouldn't interrupt students at all right if a swat team of relief substitutes could come in and allow that school to have professional development you know maybe that's a creative solution for allowing staff to have that

131time without disrupting students so i would be keenly interested in building on president bellamy's rfi um [Music] what what creative problem solving can we do to give to give our staff the time and space that where they can do their best because i wanted to underscore that thank you okay we're back to remember dolly thank you madam president um i wanted to follow up on the the pornographic book uh i think it clearly was pornographic and i support your decision and taking it out it should have never been in the school in the first place um i've received a lot of questions from parents regarding the exposure that took place we got like how many students checked it out does asd have a policy of contacting parents of students who checked out the book um

132is there going to be any affirmative offer of counseling for those children that were exposed to the pornography and what is our policy to try to prevent this from happening again [Music] we can have some answers to that yeah i i mean i'm not prepared to answer that yeah would you like to can i have a copy of that yeah okay i think i have the same email i mean questions similar questions so i can um i mean i yeah and and i think as we know it was one copy in one high school library this year one student checked it out that was in that was an information that we have already yeah i think it'd be also important to know whether other schools ordered that same batch of books and then it was

133actually identified as inappropriate and pulled out i mean i think that would be important information to the public also okay um and madam president some of the information we can get and then some um even in looking into this uh staff had retired uh we didn't have we we had to you know forensically look ourselves so um 2018 is is the year that um 1819 that it was and so um [Music] the staff that ordered it don't even work for us anymore so just wanted to share that but okay so we're moving on on the agenda and president if nobody else had another question i've got another question okay mr donnelly thank you um madam superintendent um major school districts around the country who had mandatory masking are now discontinuing it a particular example is

134one florida major district that actually fought with the governor to get the right to do masking and now they're discontinuing masking mats who never had it key and i just currently i just called down there they're not requiring masking for their children there either will when will asd have a written plan for discontinuing mandatory masking for our students when will we have a plan in place for when that's going to occur sure um just my latest update shared that as we move forward with time and our cases are going down in our city i was in the last paragraph i said that we will be adjusting our um mitigation more soon we are working through that now with um [Music] our uh health services to be able to present that back but i look forward

135to uh announcing next month when that will happen thank you and i am gonna move us on to uh we're kind of there board and administrative comments so we will start let's start with you tonight member jacobs you have any comments closing comments uh thank you mr president i uh i don't think i i think i'm mostly okay today uh upcoming meetings i've said a lot it's been a two-day meeting um i know that we have uh our joint meeting with the assembly here on friday um normally i have more time all right i'd make more time to pull up our committee meetings i don't i think um i think governance is already met this month so our next governance meeting is in december so um that's all i have there thank you thank you

136uh comments remember uh [Music] thank you madam president yeah two subjects i wanna mention uh i did some more research into our ability to uh get us back onto channel nine our board meetings and uh as you know we had some discussion of that at the last meeting and there was raise that gci who hosts channel 9 was moving to something they're calling yukon streaming and somehow that was [Music] suggested that it was not going to be available to the general public as much but i've since identified that's that they're going to move everything to uconn streaming so everybody that has gci is going to be able to get channel nine so i think it's still very appropriate that we can consider and get back on channel nine and i did talk to the folks

137that coordinated they said they'd be happy to have the school board back on there all the technical equipment and resources exist to get us back on there it's not a question of any of that and the assembly is maintaining their presence on channel nine even though they're also doing some streaming options such as us so i i don't want to see this issue died i think uh getting more access to the public is really important and not everybody has a computer or streaming to be able to access our current system and a lot of those people that don't are going to have this service through gci because it's the most common provider in anchorage right now so i i don't think we should consider that a subtle issue yet i think we should be still

138considering getting back on channel nine um i was very concerned that the meeting last night we heard some testimony um that opposing critical race theory was and somehow linked to opposing teaching minority history i just that's just false um my opposition to critical race theory uh being on the asd website or being used to develop policy has nothing whatsoever with the honest teaching of american history and the history of minorities has a valid and needed place in our schools i i was just really discouraged to hear that um representation i i think we're all equal under the united states constitution more importantly i think we're all equal under god um critical race theory in my opinion and many many others is simply a very marxist anti-god anti-traditional family anti-western civilization and frankly unconstitutional racist concept

139it's radically anti-merit which is something the school districts and taiwanese merit merit it's anti-equality it's anti-capitalism it teaches hating american culture and i think it is sneaking its way into public schools nationally and any use or its presence in our district i also believe is a direct violation of our new anti-racism policy which as you well know madam president rightfully states that and this is a quote our board rejects all forms of racism and the the very critical race three books that were on the asd website advocated overt and illegal racism uh just quote from how to be an anti-racist by iran kennedy the author that our director of office our office of equity and compliance said she was hoping to use as a guide for developing policy a quote from page 19 of that

140book the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination that's pure overt unconstitutional racism being proposed and i pose its use in the school district thank you thank you um i have two sort of parting thoughts um [Music] the one is maybe a follow-up from our finance committee and sort of a follow-up from this discussion a little bit ago i remain interested in understanding the extent to which we might compensate staff who have been doing the heavy lifting this fall as a result of unfilled vacancies and so i feel like that's a conversation that i would like to continue to pursue um in the finance committee and through the budget planning process and the second is a

141total change and i wanted we had a lot west high school came up on the news this week but on sunday i was able to go to west high school with my family we watched a wonderful afternoon matinee from their theater students they had us laughing they were charming they were effervescent and it was a total joy to just be there and um appreciate their gifts and it was also really cool to see rifley competition happening in the adjacent gymnasium so i'm bringing together students from across the district that was just an added bonus so i was appreciative of the good work that our students are doing great thank you [Music] closing comments member uh holloman um i don't really have any okay i'm ready to close thank you all right thank you come on

142mr higgins comments i think by my calculations i have four hours and ten minutes uh no you have like two seconds [Music] i uh target time again i'm just trying to figure out the math here real quick i didn't want anybody else to just run away uh okay just a few comments real quick first of all on the part of the banning of the book i i had a chance to look at the book i had a chance to see some of it but i understand the decision uh i think it's not uh it's not an attempt to move the subject out of the school i appreciate remember jacob's proposal that we replaced that book with something comparable because we're not sending a message that we're not interested in the diversity of books for for

143kids to better get and acceptance of that that was a discussion at the alaska school board association as well and i appreciate that so especially since uh in the 90s i purchased my wife the american heritage dictionary after it was banned by the anchorage school district because it defined gave meaning to certain four-letter words they didn't want the kids to actually know what the words meant um so it was kind of interesting which comes what i got to an american heritage dictionary to send a message so i appreciate that just a few comments i we we went here to be to thank the people that spoke last time but there were a lot of heartfelt you know supporters with the with the charter school um with the contract issues that are out there there's a

144lot of people coming forward spending the time taking it you know staying here in the meeting so that we can listen to them i want to tell them that was meaningful to me i appreciate it it was um something that um it's good to see that type of support with any of our schools and uh with the issues that are there and uh with that i'll yield the four hours and eight minutes left thank you remember wilson so there's a lot of agreeing with pat tonight because i agree with what you say in regards to the um the staff from the schools coming in to advocate for for their students and their communities as well as a family so i thank them as well i i don't know about all this agreeing with pat in

145one meeting but just joking um i i also i had the pleasure of uh attending willow for their wellness day and i i left um smelling of popcorn and hot chocolate and so i i called that my new perfume for the day but they did a wonderful job i appreciate um the district staff they came to help with with their school as well they they had some folks out and so as you mentioned earlier there's district administrative staff that are helping to fill in in the schools as well um spent my morning at whaley this morning and that was that was great too i really enjoyed um getting to know the the staff there and um seeing what they what they are doing with the students there that's a school with um high behavioral needs

146and i know they work really hard they they were short staffed and it was running a little crazy this morning but um all had positive attitudes they all talked about um how they they make sure that they just get the job done for the students they fill in they help out they do what they need to do to make sure even if um there's some staff out for whatever reason they support their their staff if they need to be out for you know if they're ill or for family reasons whatever it is so that's their way of supporting each other so i think that's what i've heard from many of the schools that i have had the opportunity to go visit so again thank you to the staff for for supporting each other and supporting

147our students and families thank you i'm so tired i don't even know if i can speak but um i would like to just uh offer my own understanding around this critical race theory conversation um i i respect member donnelly's right to bring it up uh but in my opinion it is totally misrepresented we there is no such thing as a k-12 critical race theory curriculum as a lawyer remember donnelly may have had the opportunity to study critical race theory as part of a legal class or a college class our kids are fabulous but they're not there yet when i use crt it's culturally responsive teaching which we have required our teachers to do for years it's not new what's new is an apple a misinformation and misapplication of a term to public education and i

148get it people have a right to just think and feel however they like and they get to say whatever they like because we all have the freedom of speech but when that speech is is toxic i believe that we have a right or an obligation to speak up there is no critical race theory k-12 curriculum the anchorage school district is not teaching critical race theory and as long as there is what a you know the books that were on this website we have addressed over and over and over and over we will never be able to convince individuals and they have a right to believe what they believe i respect that we have addressed that but it keeps coming up it keeps coming up and i will keep responding the way that i do the

149anchorage school district is not teaching critical race theory adults who have access to materials and wish to engage and uh inform their knowledge they are perfectly welcome to do so we've explained the intent of the books on the website they were on the website we got a legal opinion on the website yet it keeps coming up and that's why we live in you know we're blessed to live in america because we get to say what we need to say over and over again and with that that ends our public comments for tonight and i thank everybody for coming thank you