ASD School Board Meeting 09-21-21

001we are live [Music] okay good evening i'd like to welcome everybody to our school board meeting today's date is tuesday september 21st present in the board room we have our student representative this is her first night joining us her name is ellie shaw from south high school in addition we have our book the board members uh we have member donnelly who is joining us virtually this evening and in the boardroom we have members wilson lessons jacobs holloman higgins and bellamy so with that i would like to ask ellie if she would lead us into the pledge followed by the land acknowledgement [Music] i pledge to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] madam president

002yes is that you mr dunlee yes thank you i'd like to be shown as um uh excused and in remote attendance excused thank you mr donnelly we will make we will do so thank you ellie whenever you're ready before we begin i would like to acknowledge with gratitude the denia people past and present who have lived on these lands since long before anchorage was here may we all be good stewards of these lands to none thank you we'd like to again welcome you to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the anchorage school district and this board the board thanks students parents teachers staff school business partners and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time your talent and of course your tax dollars moving on

003we are on item three approval of the agenda i will accept a motion to approve madam president move that we accept the agenda as posted is there a second a second thank you it's moved in second that we accept the agenda as written are there any opposes see none the agenda stands approved as presented and that leads us to our community report ellie do you have a report for us today yeah thank you this past tuesday morning on september 14 2021 student advisory board had their first meeting for the school year during the meeting delegates introduced themselves participated in a gathering activity shared a brief overview of sab for those unfamiliar reviewed the sab constitution and small groups and reported together and we just kind of went over it and we introduced parliamentary procedure to

004those unfamiliar and then mrreen brown who is the senior director visited our meeting as a guest speaker and presented on the graduation regalia initiative currently being considered by the district she tasks delegates with the job of taking the information home to their schools for further discussion and review for each school and then each school will submit based on the regalia options presented on by october 4th the schools in attendance included south diamond bartlett eagle river east chugiak service stellar polaris and family partnership and our next meeting is on tuesday october 12th in the afternoon in this meeting room during that meeting we will briefly review the graduation regalia initiative select students for the senate youth nomination discuss the assad fall conference and elect an sab president for the 20 to 21 school year [Music] thank

005you ellie members of the board do you have any questions for ellie yeah i was putting that in my calendar what time is your meeting on the 12th um i believe it's at 11 15. i could be wrong though we can double check it's online we can double check thank you ellie thank you member lessons other questions well we are certainly happy to have our student representative with us so welcome and that leads us to item c on our agenda and in the last few week meetings we have not had a gold monitoring [Music] section because it just begins we're just beginning that process officially so we are now going to open our monitoring conversation regarding goal one that goal is beginning september 2020 the percentage of third grade students proficient in reading on the

006state summative tests currently peaks will increase from 40 percent to 80 by may of 2026. we will also have conversation on our and interim gold 1.1 and that is the percentage of k2 students at or above the reading benchmark on interim assessments uh fastbridge curriculum based measures will increase from 37.5 in spring of 2021 to 80 in the spring of 2024. before we begin i'd like to um assert to the board that all of the components of the report that we look for um before monitoring are present in this report now we received the report two weeks ago and you should each have a copy of that in front of you and the components are the report that you have clearly shows what is being monitored [Music] such as a specific goal and interim goal

007it shows data for the three previous reporting periods the current reporting period and the target reporting periods it also shows the superintendent's evaluation of performance via the peaks and fastbridge color legends for peaks the superintendent has evaluated red far below target and for interim goal 1.1 the superintendent has evaluated orange which is below target shows supporting documentation that evidence that evidence is the superintendent's evaluation via the tables provided it also indicates next steps so with those components present we accepted the superintendent's report with all items being in order we are ready to begin having the progress monitoring conversation the first part of the conversation is to dig into the data itself with the latter part of the conversation being more forward focused in other words we'll begin with any questions that fall into the who

008the what the why categories of inquiry first for the purpose of understanding the current reality of our students as compared to this goal once those types of questions have been exhausted meaning the board fully knows what the current reality is then we will move on to the how and in the how category these are questions that hear what the superintendent has planned in response to the data so with that conversation logic in mind the floor is now open to the board to engage in inquiry regarding the reading proficiency monitoring report and yes the superintendent would like to make a statement um i want to give gratitude to the feedback earlier as well as the work of staff because i just noticed that this changed to superintendent evaluation performance so that was a great suggestion and

009that's where that uh would lie so okay um i um thank you to those folks over there who listened and adjusted so thank you so much i appreciate it and for the suggestion and i see the page numbers on there too which is great thank you okay so board members we are ready to begin our conversation remember lessons sure i'm gonna i'll bite on our brand new reevaluated um re-uh re-labeled uh section of this particular slide and the question is in your estimation why what accounts for the overall progress being far below target although the data would suggest that we are below target thank you and and this one um [Music] just required a lot of uh thought on my part about what is already set up and movement towards that goal and as you

010see the the target is 80 and that's where we want to go and and presently uh as stated it would look like okay we're just a little below target but the understanding of the bigger picture of reading proficiency um it doesn't just happen with the teachers in third grade it happens with everything that's before that and when we look at our interim outcomes presently they are in the red zone and so understanding that education and matriculation is building on skills in kindergarten to really know them to move to first grade to really know them um in our system we can't say well third grade didn't make it we have to say we are not getting there um later on in this presentation you'll see that the interim goals are at red and if they remain

011at red we will continue to be far below like just over own a bigger picture we're going to be we're not going to make um that growth that's going to bring us to that next target and so my overall assessment of being on target is off because of the little things that we know that go into that it's more than just a peaks assessment okay does that answer your question remember lessons another question uh remember um higgins is that better yes i'm not looking so much forward as i am back first you know because um you know the best predictor of future performance is past performance and that's an old saying and i don't like it always but i'll use it anyway and and we haven't gotten results the last four years that you know

012is significant i mean we set high goals now but the question is what did we not do the last four years what should we have done or how would we do it over again and and um in order to increase that and then to project forward that with just little pieces it just seems like there's a lot on there in the past four years and we're looking at going super fast in the next four and i'm just i'm trying to look back not forward what's what did we not do was what we should done thank you sure that actually that's a great question and it is warranted because you would look at this and say wow what are we doing and i want to say that actually in areas in our school district we have

013done phenomenal we have evidence that when our reading program has been implemented with integrity like i'm honestly going to try my best i'm going to follow it i'm going to do what i need to do that we have not only gotten results in individual classrooms but we have in individual schools and we have that documented over the last few years of what's happened i would say that several things have taken us off target number one the the total mission and focus of really from the board level to my level to everybody's level as we go down because if there's alignment from the board to the classroom we're going to get it done right that alignment hasn't always been strong we really operated on um kind of a volunteerism that if i want to do it

014and and i'm not sure if you're here the last time but lots of testimony when we moved to a research-based reading program was a lot of pushback and it was very difficult uh to get back on track to say yep we're going to keep moving forward this is research at base we're going to do it also serendipitously since that time the collective meta-analysis of reading has really moved to uh that phonemic awareness and phonics is essential in instruction and prior to that time really you know there was this fight over balanced literacy and whole language well even at the university level they've converged on um even where they put balance literacy out the university columbia has said yeah we were wrong we need these types of things we need phonemic awareness and phonics which is

015essential in um research-based reading so uh that's happened uh the board's focus that leads to my focus that leads to you know all of our focus driven down to really be serious about our mission has changed um our ability which then that affects our ability to understand what's happening in our classrooms monitor it put our energies around supporting teacher learning supporting what's needed in our schools to get the job done things that are not instructional but that have also happened over the last four years and have impacted this uh was the earthquake that really set us up for focusing on building facilities and needs and maslow's type needs rather than instructional so we got off task right after the earthquake we got back on task started going into classrooms looking at what's going on what

016are the supports needed are we teaching with efficacy uh what we know students need to learn uh and then we were hit with a pandemic and so um on the instructional side and focus side on um our ability to really do all the work that's asked of us because a lot of it is happening but i would say the the new focus of narrowing other things getting clear on our mission is going to help us and and um so that's that's what would be my response about you know what did you see over the time um but i would say that to say that there hasn't been growth uh there has been it just hasn't been district-wide and remember the mission is all means all so we definitely want to make sure that in every

017single one of our schools and classrooms learning is occurring to have children read on grade level to read on grade level with their peers not only around the country but around the world okay did you have a follow up you know one of the past goals i know on the school board was to make sure every student advanced academically a full year not just be on grade level and so the one of the issues is the differentiated reading material so that they achieve that goal i i know that i've seen the the figures as far as and i don't know what's accurate in regards to trust they having the board the staff or the superintendent we've seen those numbers what what have i mean we what if we listen carefully to the teachers on what

018they say the opposition we've got opposition out there what are they really opposed to what what is it that they want to be heard in order to follow us in regards to the approach we want does that make sense in other words we want them to follow us right want them to follow the leader this is what we want and what is what are their concerns in regards to because i'm hearing concerns uh in regards to the program um and so some of the opposition might be connected and i'm just wondering have we tried to address that some of those concerns that they had and remember higgins if i can just hold that question until we get to the um to the how part i will come back to it uh i made a note

019but don't let me forget any other ques let's go back to the um if you look at your little sheet the who the what the why we're going to get to the how which is we have one question already on the house [Music] yes remember jacobs thank you madam president uh question for the administration is it um do we think it's statistically significant that the year-over-year was a drop for the third graders using the uh maps assessments for economically disadvantaged students and i guess i'm referring to page four there's about eight percent drop and for fast bridge for k through two it stayed static year over year and if so what can we glean from that um so i need to go back to your question so you um map isn't on here so you're

020talking about congrue um p how we look at peaks and how we look at this correct sorry wrong term oh okay um so in regard to peaks you're how it looks year over year as composed to or opposed um in comparison to rather fast bridge yeah so the economically disadvantaged student group dropped eight percent on the uh for for our third graders and it stayed static on the k-2 assessment if i'm understanding the data correctly i was curious if we can glean anything from that okay let me identify those data real fast so this is um we want to start with peaks first and we're going to look at uh economically disadvantaged and we have um 28.38 in one year and 20.75 in another okay and then we're going to look at fast bridge and

021we have to 24. and so what i would look at is um [Music] well that that's great i would actually like our um because i haven't looked at that specifically i hadn't received that question prior to and that's a great question um because we're testing a pro you know not signific significantly different number of students um i would like some assistance from our reading specialist but i do know that if you could come up and assist with and i could restate the question [Music] um i i could look into it but um what fast bridging k2 is doing is i know initial skills um of uh those building block skills in k2 uh primarily k1 are those skills um in letter naming so and see letter sound fluency i actually it's a lot more than

022that but it's um word uh nonsense word fluency um concepts of prince word segmenting and so the skills start from basic and grow to actually reading and on peaks that assessment is specifically around grade level content of standards and so in the fast bridge is assessing individual skills not just standards curriculum-based assessments in those prior grades the jump to third grade and peaks where we dropped a lot um i do want to share that statistically and really for reliability and validity that state assessments for standards do not start before third grade generally we have specific tests for kids in kindergarten first and second that we can do but they take a lot of adult input because what you're doing is taking away the ability just to perform a task with what a student knows and

023so the reliability of national assessments is very unsteady before a child is in third grade that's why you won't see any national assessment anywhere before third grade and so if i had to guess it has a lot to do with the content standards of what you're asking a child to do and that's demonstrating it according to an a finite skill individual skill on peaks but would you guys have any um information about that because that's a great question hear me yes thank you two member jacobs through uh president bellamy yes that is true the fast bridge is a very discreet skill that we're measuring and remember this score can takes in kindergarten first grade and second grade which those are all different little discrete assessments that are being done the second grade is the only

024one that is one measure our oral reading fluency so in order to be proficient on your peaks you have to be a very good reader and that means including all the sub skills all the phonological awareness the phonics the vocabulary being fluent having comprehension so it is two very different measures for very different purposes but we do those k12 measures along the way to make sure they're gaining those discrete skills to reach that overall proficiency to being a good reader and being able to pass that third grade summative assessment so to make a point the peaks is the first assessment that they would get in regard to comprehension the others are just are these fluency skills building on each other that would lead to a child being able to learn content and and you know

025integrate those skills into comprehension because curriculum curriculum-based measures these do not do comprehension so they're really looking at different things but that's a great question i might actually even research it more after this thank you okay yes member wilson so i i actually just now noticing the um peaks grade 3 assessment results and the fast bridge grade k through 2 assessment results the the peaks has a comparison of spring 2018 19 to spring 2000 to 2021 and then the fast bridge the comparison is winter 2020 21 through spring 2000 20 to 21. do you feel in your assessment without having obviously the the spring 2018-19 fast bridge information in front of us do you feel like maybe that would be the discrepancy and the difference in percentages um i'm pretty confident that it it really

026isn't um and i just want to give a little bit of background on the fast bridge we did move from a different assessment called aims web to fastbridge so a lot of our longitudinal data's uh difficult to get um but uh again we we struggled in the 1920 um year or um yeah 1920 to have a a fast bridge as well you know to have a complete set so we have a lot of beginning sets but not ending sets to be for comparison but but i would believe that the trend is probably true in these two years that we have even though the middle one is is gone nor do we have um you know we have an ames web test before that um i would say that is is like in these they're just

027um a little bit different is that fastbridge has a lot of curriculum-based measures that give you one composite whereas the prior test did not so that's why we didn't put them on they were less likely to be interpolated over time as peaks is you know going to be um because we're going to get a new test this fall this spring i mean so we're going to run to a little difficulty on the trend lines but we tried to include what we could but that's a great question so i'll i'll ask a question a couple that kind of connected i think well in my mind so can you just review again because i who is struggling the most and really you know what's your best what's your best guesstimate as to why your best what does

028the data tell us as to why like like who's struggling sure so um as if you take a look at peaks in third grade um we can uh notice that the the two groups with the lowest um english language arts and that's what eli stands for english language art scores uh where native hawaiian pacific islander and special education uh the next two groups are alaska native and um black students and um the the you can see the struggles i mean with you know if you have a data set you only have 13 of all kids in that set of all kids that identify that and again these are self-identifiers we don't identify the kids they do when they um enroll um it's a struggle and and it is about um you know where we start

029in our schools and and more so than individual demographics i want you to look at economically disadvantaged because of any of the headwinds that we might have and a headwind could be if i have um a native uh hawaiian pacific islander many times a headwind could be the home language is spoken and the child knows the whole language well but then when we transfer into school and it's only english that is a a head one at the beginning but we call it um when you know a second language kind of a superpower in the end right um but um having parents that might not have proficiency themselves growing up having access to books uh having access to learning prior to coming to kindergarten a lot of these if we rounded them out we could look

030really economically disadvantaged as a true headwind and given the pandemic if you uh think about the pandemic and the ability of more affluent families being able to stop and adjust and fill in the gaps according to a family that had less flexibility to stop adjust and fill in the gaps there are reports of quite a bit of families that when we um instructionally and we really saw this in the pandemic it highlighted it for us that the ability to give supports at home is sometimes limited depending on work hours depending on um other children so sometimes i think about when they're learning at home parents left had to go to work eight-year-old is left with a 14 year old but the 14 year old's also doing the 14 year olds work on zoom and so

031you know that effect over the last couple years just in the pandemic highlighted just the true ability to be able to learn and again learning is about those experiences and one of the things that we want to do as a school especially through what we call like title one is specifically designed to provide more inputs into uh supporting students in their learning and so whether that be after school activities before school activities uh additional um wrap around services in the community through boys and girls clubs and things like that um experiences matter language spoken to a child matters and so if i'm growing up not hearing english the whole time or maybe not even spoken at all i could be hearing english but i'm not spoken to um that's going to affect a child's schema

032theory of the what they know already to be you know be able to name things uh prior to get there so um you know there's lots of different headwinds that we can hit but i would say especially in in uh some of these areas we need to have the teaching that is very deliberate in being able to build that capacity and member higgins mentioned kind of every kid deserves to grow for a year for a year and that does happen um with our curriculum because the majority of those interventions are given at what we call what i need now and so we expect students to be advanced as well as to be re-taught in the in our schools that is an expectation so looking at the uh peaks page four on that same page we

033have um schools that are above target i mean that's they're 47 or higher um are those schools doing anything um do you know what they're doing that's different than in the other schools or uh does it go back to the that uh analogy the headwinds and the tailwinds actually that's a great question and and we have some schools that are um on target and or even above target and um there is even within the schools that are on target there's a strata of how on target they are we have a school and um phenomenal um the the teachers even last year the teachers and the principal engaged in what are the standards that we need to learn how do we understand through our you know curriculum how to teach them who's learning who isn't they

034absolutely and this was a south side school um that generally is more affluent um nailed it they are like 20 percentage points higher than others that are also so this isn't to say that every school is everywhere but there are certain identifiers in school of the work being done that moves them above others that school came in higher but grew the most in asd other schools when the kids come to school they're scoring at that near target but they stay they we're we're not moving we're not growing even in those high ends and that was already an ask like doesn't everybody expect to learn and we're like yes that's why we've selected a specific program that actually is evidence-based to move everyone and so um [Music] the majority of those 14 schools actually all of

035them are either lottery schools or in higher socioeconomic neighborhoods but even in those schools i can demonstrate to you which ones come in on target and which ones have kids who come in on target and they move to well above target that's happening as well and my final question has to do is uh and i think you just answered it this data includes everybody or is there anybody missing from the data other than uh the three schools that were noted these data do not necessarily have all kids who may who who were in a homeschool charter school or um if they were at home learning and we couldn't pull them back in for testing they may not have been so um yeah i'd have to double check but um a lot of our at-home learning

036did not assess okay other questions [Music] yes remember lessons yeah thank you um maybe this is a this is a follow-up to the who's missing question um on the peaks slide which i think we're still it's still up there um there are a few noticeable i mean everybody had a change in participation last year because of coped some groups dropped more precipitously than others um in terms of participation do you have a sense of whether the inclu how might the inclusion of the missing students data have altered the results is that is that an answerable question in any way shape or form sure so um i see uh if we look at peaks there was about 18 we can look at the change in the percent of students that's the second to the far right

037category and it really ranges from um you know what's the lowest uh you know under 19 23 16 you know 20. uh i think there's only a range of about seven percent from anyone and i'm not sure statistically that that matters because every single group changed um and so um we may see different data if we assess again but i would say these numbers are so large in the groups that um you know you have 68 percent of that group testing 72 71 that they're pretty high evidence themselves that if you were to look at that and because we're so large that those numbers are generally going to be around the same i don't think that there was a certain kids that would skew everything because you noticed that every single group pretty much moved

038yeah okay thank you member jacobs thank you madam president one of the questions you asked i guess kind of spurred a follow-up do we when we're looking at the schools that are um are succeeding specific campuses do we have a way to um to even out the even up the the playing field i guess in terms of additional reduced class sizes or additional resources that certain campuses may or may not have to make an apples-to-apples comparison is that a challenge that we have and are we can we overcome that so it seems like we're moving to the house which is fine but are there any other um any other who what or why questions before we get to remember uh higgins and member jacob's question okay so let's move on to the house and you

039may can you restate your question please thank you sure yeah i just when we're looking at certain campuses that are um seeing um more growth than than other campuses can we remove some of those control factors like look at his class size a factor look at his additional resources or support staff a factor is that something that we're looking to evaluate when we're trying to compare campuses in terms of what's working what's not sure um through the the president and uh you know presently in our staffing we have different staffing models especially for the additional supports like counselors aps that are assigned to elementary schools in particular that really are based off of a matrix just because there's limited resources in addition to that of what the district has in the district resources title programs

040and that's specifically meant to add additional inputs into schools of poverty so we have those two things um so that has been um really uh a process for quite some time to to change um we'd like for them to even change more given more finances you know but uh generally if you add to this you're taking away from over here because the the cup hasn't grown right um and so uh yes to that that we have traditionally done that there's always a cut off of what you know like some of our schools have uh a full-time counselor some have a part-time counselor and they really are based on needs and a matrix just to try to articulate who gets what and um so yes that occurs but primarily with this because of what member higgins

041said just the the longitudinal look of no movement we're starting to look inward to say what are the high quality and high value teaching practices that ensure that learning happens and so rather than just um have money in places because i have very small classrooms with very low scores and very large classrooms with high scores right and learning so um and again i say scores but that is students behind those students are learning if they're demonstrating growth and so what we're looking at is really taking a look at what is it that kids need to know what is it that we're doing to get them there what instructions happening uh and how do we know you know how do we know that that's occurring and so we're really re-examining that through the data of student

042learning more so and we're allowing the schools to really discuss that and what i've seen in data meetings not only practicing than myself but in working with the experts who are at the school level they can identify the things when when engaged about what what they can do that aren't like well if i just had this or this or this it really turns into if we had all we had what else could we do and so both go into it but i would say we're at a point that we're looking at adults doing things differently rather than just things that we can purchase or give to schools okay remember higgins i wrote down part of your question so now would be the chance for for you to bring that back regarding uh what um the

043how relative to instruction i'll start with by putting the microphone on stuff like tell me how i issue you uh i guess there's two issues here one is i always believe that before you can be heard you have to hear them and what one of the concerns that i have is feedback that they don't feel like their concerns over the curriculum and the way it's rolling out that they're not opposed to the changes of phonics things like that but there are other issues there and they don't feel like there's been that dialogue there and that's one of the issues if you if you're gonna you kind of get buy-in and if you don't get buy-in you get opposition you know it's a general rule and the second part of my question is is the how

044other places are doing it there are some places being reported from in the press and articles that have gotten some pretty high results knowing the pandemic they've done things different and so without just looking internal what have they done that has gotten better results what have they changed that way too to do it i can see some real benefits long term if we have the right connections with some of the type of computerized programs and other connections that carry over into the classroom and maybe prevent lost time when kids have to be home which is going to be a lot right now and things of that nature so there's two questions one is what have we done to get the dialogue going when we get such negative numbers that keeps getting thrown out and um

045um and like i said what what are those other people doing what did they do differently that that got the results that they claimed to have gotten sure so um i'll take that so we actually have um leaders in our schools data you know dialogue areas for all that feedback about what is it that i need to do my job better and that occurs um i want to remind you and i'm not sure if you were a board member but the reading curriculum was selected by 68 educators in our district not not me and what we did was base it on the evidence of what is out there so as you asked me to look at other places uh the evidence-based product that we have actually was selected by educators uh given um you know

046the rubric of what they were looking for to make a change in student learning and so i i would challenge that actually an outward look of studying research and best practices was made um in um an idea to an electronic system uh we did engage and we we take the eye ready and have at the school level and we started this in the pandemic so that um and it's a program that kids can you know take it to find a placement so that if they are out they continue to grow and it's very targeted to their learning um i would say that um a reliance on a computer and a child is probably because i ready needs um adult input like it needs someone saying oh like i see that you're on this let me

047you know help you and it you know we believing that a computer is and and you know is you know the panacea i i haven't found and we had every ability during a pandemic to prove that and it wasn't so it's really that teacher the teacher's ability to engage students and at home it was our parents ability and we shared that some were able to be there with their child and redirect and others not um but we do want if our kids miss school to have something that they can work on which is the iready program that we've invested in as far as kids learning and feedback we want the feedback and we want to use data that is exactly what the data meetings are for and we're not sharing what we think is going

048to happen or what we think we like or don't like because it does take doing things that we've done differently adult behavior change uh what we want to do is look at and say what are our students demonstrating now and where do we want them to go here's what our data are saying this is what we know about best practices what can we do to support each other again it's in that system of those three categories of being able to support teachers with professional development engaging them with their peers to discuss what's needed how to do it see if kids are learning if kids are learning let's keep doing what we're doing if kids are not learning let's go back and figure out what is it that that we missed and a lot of times

049um what i've seen when i've observed these meetings i mean they're just phenomenal at the school level they're identifying a particular skill that lots of kids miss in some classrooms but one classroom has it and guess what they do they like how do kids in your classroom get this how did you teach the skill because your kids got it but ours didn't and so again it's not an eye gotcha with each other or who's better or who's not it's literally about these are all of our kids we didn't want to move our school forward how are we going to do it um is there going to be like especially right now and i think i shared this during the work session we have to narrow down what we're asking teachers to do especially now and

050keep it simpler because they everybody teachers aides principals you know people here in the lunchrooms i mean everybody is working to keep schools open primarily and so i would say that to be true um that there is just a lot of stress in our system presently um in addition to let's talk about reading and make sure we have outcomes so so i would agree with that about stressors right now but we look to support teachers how we can support schools how we can and while continuing to have uh student learning occur thank you remember donnelly i understand that you had your hand up and i apologize um if you have a who what why or how we'll take it i have a how madam president thank you um i'm superintendent in january 2020 we've got

051some survey results regarding the utilization of our reading curriculum and actually being utilized in classrooms have we done any follow-up surveys to that and if so how how does our current level of utilization compare to the january 2020 level that's a great question member donnelly and i can uh answer with no we have not done anything because immediately following the the walk through into classrooms to see what was and have that report we had the pandemic and then we had online learning um whichever you know was built off of canvas uh i want to assure you though that uh the plan to monitor uh the use of our materials is is built in if we can go to page um keep going keep going keep going once more um nope back back one so uh

052the instructional focus uh is it's written in there that we will teach the early literacy skills with the priority plan to ensure um evidence-based reading instruction and call it occurs in all classrooms um teachers will support learning through the multi-tiered system of support and we're going to also use the phonological awareness lesson of hegarty because it is like a 10-minute kind of miracle that we can do uh for really catching uh kids up as well as uh really all kids benefit from this um learning phonemic awareness and phonics is not a hindrance to kids it actually benefits those there's some who come and are able to read without it but what this does uh it builds capacity for spelling later on as well as multi-syllabic words when kids get older so um phonemic awareness and

053phonics has never been a detriment to anyone it has just accelerated everyone students who didn't receive this received more so i'm happy to say that built into the model is advocacy and integrity in using best practices remember donnelly [Music] thank you did you have a follow-up member donnelly oh madam president i just i i really do think that would be an objective criteria we could use to evaluate the progress we're making is what percentage of our classrooms are actually using the current reading curriculum with efficacy it was an incredibly low percentage in january 2020 it was really discouraging and so as soon as we can get some numbers back i think that's going to tell us a lot as a board overseeing this progress how well it's going thank you member donnelly any more questions

054remember lessons oh get mike's on sorry um are we staying within peaks right now shifting to the interim you might go whenever i could anywhere all right um [Music] okay anybody else so if we go i guess i'm just um how do we ensure how are we going to um of all the strategies that you the implement looking at the implementation plan i think that's near the back um how how are we going to know oh i so this first column means that all the things have been completed at that level one so we have like five states can you just talk a little bit about this slide sure so uh across um the top are the implementation strategies one two three and four and it's all from defining what supports are there creating the

055structures that um ensure that they're done and um remember donnelly one of those structures will be walkthroughs um to check to check that we're we're teaching um clarity of roles and responsibilities uh um you know have we identified the gaps and barriers and changing them and develop a plan for the following year so it's an ongoing process the actual action steps uh are in the overall strategies of mtss is used and we base it on data and so we give students the instruction that they need based on what the data are telling us and um the data discussions are huge if you move up from the bottom that is that input and that ability of staff at schools to problem solve i know what's happening in my classroom and i uh maybe know like the

056things that i can do well and can't do well or the things that i think we could do all tied together as a grade level so those data discussions uh again um are based off of student needs but engaging and inclusive of the people doing the teaching uh professional learning um that will be defined by uh student data again and the needs of staff and then of course high quality instruction and curriculum matter and these uh different strategies come from research and best practices of where has learning behavior changed for the positive where students are getting things done these things are incorporated we have studied not only schools but we've studied states state outcomes school outcomes and district outcomes and what you see before you are those high quality practices that have high value on

057return and so we look that as we move over i can share with you and each monitoring as i come back around to reading what is more and more done one of the things i do want to share with the board is that this first semester because of getting school started getting reacquainted in a pandemic dealing with the staff shortages this semester is to just learn what these are and what they mean at my level there was there wasn't an expectation of day two in school to say hey start hitting this get this done um some principals are at a level with their staffs where they're not struggling with staffing it every day that they've had meetings on this already and engaged and overlaid them on their own data other schools are at a level

058where it's like i don't even have my my whole staff staffed i'm dealing with eight to ten subs a day we're going to get on our feet before we dive into these deeper it truly is based on what's occurring at that level and how we can stabilize it to move forward um that was specifically designed i still think that in five years we can get where we need to go when we support people where they're where they are right now and right now in in some of our schools it is just what is the board goal and what does that mean what does that look like how does that do it and we we offered um principles um dr stock laid it out at our uh you know coming back um that that's this first

059semester we we are going slow to go fast later on because of where we are in the pandemic okay back to you member lessons okay um going slow to go fast i appreciate you acknowledging um the challenges that are right now because that's what i'm hearing from schools as i visited and you know i look at this graph of moving from 40 to 80 and i think it's exciting and incredibly ambitious and also incredibly necessary but i also look at each of the cohorts and i i detail these in a questionnaire and a list of questions to you each of these cohorts is a group of kids who has gone through one or more of their years deeply affected by coveted disruptions right this this group of third graders that we're hoping to see movement

060from this coming you know spring of 22 they were kindergartners the first the first time we rolled out our new reach for reading they were first graders when their spring was interrupted by coven they spent most of you know half of last year online and now and now it's game time now they're in third grade and each of the cohorts thereafter um we're asking a lot of them as students and of their families and of their educators the amount of buy-in from the community probably shouldn't be underestimated that's more of a statement than a question um what will you i mean if we're going slow to go fast what will well what will be done with greatest urgency next semester sure so um we build our actions around what students need and so i don't

061mean to say that we don't have win groups and other groups set up right now for students we know that we've assessed students some students are getting and they get reading and more which is that tiered approach to mtss so we're all getting reading like we always have um but i might need more in a certain area or more intensity of learning to be able to catch up and we call that the wind time or what i need and so our data determine those steps and those needs um but those needs sometimes are not in the academic they're in the behavioral and sel and so our mtss structure to think through the needs of children is built around you know um learning and behavior because we we do need other supports in other areas um

062i want to share that i haven't met anyone in our community in my entire educational career of over 30 years that did not want us to have high expectations and for their children to learn when they come to us in fact they might trust us a little too much that they are learning year for year and go back to member higgins um i think that the expectation that what they learn in a grade level they'll learn and that they'll continue you know to matriculate and continue to grow and learn is the expectation i don't think their high expectations for us have changed i think that we shouldn't change those expectations um kids who come to us should you know expect to learn the standards that are set out at our state that match other states

063because it's a global world to compete and i don't think because you happen to have some headwinds that we're not going to have the same expectations for you um what it does look like is different actions that we take according to the needs of children and the capacity of staff and so that's what allows it to look differently at different places with having some standardization and then some customization but we continue to use data to drive our instruction and drive what is best needed by kids rather than our emotions okay thank you any other questions any questions at all i know it's a lot and and if you have questions uh after remember donnelly how are you doing uh did you have a question okay thank you okay dr bishop thank you and thank the

064staff for uh assisting um this is a good i like the process we just got we gotta hone it get into it and make it our own but i really appreciate it all the assistance that we've gotten from um the staff and from our um from the superintendent so thank you uh and uh what i'd like the board to do if you have a minute um on the back of this just pull that second sheet out and if at some point tonight uh kind of rate how we did the first time so we can get better and hand that to katie so we can analyze look at it and analyze it so that's the form in the back that's called the it's it's actually called the evaluating it's an evaluation form okay so let's get

065back thank you dr bishop now we're going to move on on our agenda and that brings us to our public testimony [Music] and i'd like to thank everyone for coming and being uh very patient with us as we got through the top part of our agenda so again welcome uh the board has set aside one hour uh at the beginning and at the end of our meeting so uh today i don't we have approximately 25 people signed up for the first hour of testimony this is your time to talk and for us to listen the school board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings through testimony however to be productive our meetings must be structured and civil asd conducts meetings under the robert's rules of order a set of rules for orderly

066meetings that have been used since the late 1800s those rules required the board and the public to be civil and respectful of each other's opinions and statements here are a few requirements under robert's rules do not attack another speaker's motives do not attack individuals speakers may point out what he or she believes to be the natural consequences of a board action but may not but may not engage in speech that personally attack others we ask that you refrain from just disturbing the meeting there should be no tears applause or outbursts unless you are testifying you must be polite to the board and other speakers attendees will not be permitted to interrupt the business of the school board no profanity we have our student uh representative here today so of course there will be no profanity

067there is no place in our meeting for profanity or cussing we ask also that you wear your mask at all times including during your testimony uh your mask must cover your mouth and nose unless you have a medical waiver there's no waving of signs flyers or posters if you have handouts that you wish to share with the board please give them to katie grant she succeeded to my left as the president of the board it is my duty to enforce these rules of civility and decorum as such i have the authority to rule any speaker out of order for violating the violation of these rules and and others furthermore i have it furthermore i will have removed from the meeting anyone who does not heed these rules and fails to conduct themselves in a civil

068manner and with that we will begin our public testimony uh first we have in person [Music] lumila macy welcome [Music] you have three minutes welcome good evening my name is ludmila messi i have lived in alaska for 19 years i have two kids who are currently attending this entry school district for the past 10 years for the most part via was satisfied but recently the school closure and online learning make me worry we're not moving the right direction few weeks ago my child was sent on currency for one week because of possible close contact in school my child that said several kids were sent home because they simply removed the mask while eating lunch it's impossible to eat with mask on i'm glad you changed that policy another issue i should like to address is

069current mask monday my kids were sent to principal office because they were not wearing the mask properly i have an honor student as adult we all know that it's impossible to wear mask properly all day for example both of my kids wear glasses and the face mask affects the vision staff may members shave my kids ask them to sign piece of paper without any parents consent the policies that you have created have made school officials spend too much attention on the mask and call it related topics that they forgot why we send the kids in the school in the first place avi should we use the same amount of energy that we spent on mass on getting alaska education out of the 49 place in the nation one from school was never close and kids

070never wear a mask in school the city in english doesn't have a mask mandate but somehow we put our youngest generation in mask i'm guarantee when you leave this building you do not wear a mask mask up all for sure i was here two weeks ago and i heard how successful summer school was i think i know why because my were optional and kids and teacher was more focused on education and they were more relaxed so i'm here today to ask you receive your mask mandate and to make mosque optional let's parents decide what is good for our kids we know them better now kids let's see the beautiful happy smiley facing again thank you next in person we have elaine headen [Music] welcome you have three minutes is that the time start it's it

071should be right in front here we will start when you it'll start when you start okay okay thank you okay does this time started do i start yes start now okay okay can you start over thank you uh my name is elaine hedden i'm a physical therapist with over 20 years excuse me i'm sorry did it start yes you could oh okay my name is elaine hedden i am a physical therapist with over 20 years experience in an outpatient orthopedic clinical setting treating adult and pediatric patients as you are hopefully aware the united states court for the 9th circuit in 2012 ruled that the anchorage school board cannot avail themselves of qualified immunity i will repeat they cannot quali they cannot avail themselves of qualified immunity if they are aware of harm or even potential

072harm that may result from each one of your decisions to notify you and to give you scientific evidence of potential harm i have attached an abstract from dr shiva ayaduri at all that summarizes the ineffectiveness and more importantly the potential harmful effects of prolonged mask wearing on one's oral health particularly our children given they are still physiologically developing and that the mouth is the gateway to the systemic health across the entire body and the brain thank you knowing the potential harmful effects of prolonged mass wearing you cannot therefore avail yourself of qualified immunity if my child or any child is harmed this means as an individual you can be held personally liable you can be sued if our children are harmed from wearing masks all day long to be clear without qualified immunity when you

073are sued you will have to get your own attorney to defend any claims brought against you and your personal hard-earned assets are exposed in such litigation i therefore urge you to take personal responsibility for your decisions i request at a minimum a policy change of an optional masked protocol for students based on scientific evidence presented to each board member today i will be emailing and sending certified mail to each board member the abstract of the scientific evidence and this testimony i urge each one of you to perform your statutorily required responsibility even the harm may cause my child and our children thank you [Music] thank you uh next in telephonically we have sally gates sally can you are you there yes i am yes welcome you have three minutes thank you board members and dr

074bishop i have two children enrolled in our asc neighborhood school i am compelled to speak today strongly against the elimination of required quarantine for those who have had a close contact with a coveted 19 positive person last week the state's largest hospital declared crisis standards according to er dr gina wilson ramirez this means doctors are being forced to choose who will die and who will not hair is being rationed and not just for those with coded 19 we have critical health care staffing shortages only the most critical surgeries are being conducted this is our reality it is unfathomable to me that asp is choosing now to loosen its quarantine policy asd needs to function as part of our community's solution to the kovid 19 crisis not contribute to the problem anchorage medical professionals are pleading

075with people to stay home and get tested if they have had close contact with someone who has had who has tested positives asd's new policy stands in complete opposition to this and goes against everything we know about how the virus spreads the purpose of quarantine is to keep the maximum number of kids in school we know that coven 19 is highly transmissible before symptoms develop if we stop quarantining requirements we exchange the seemingly unnecessary quarantine for some children who thankfully never develop symptoms for the absence of children and staff members who may be out for weeks because they have been infected at their schools by pre-symptomatic individuals i realize not every family can afford to miss work in order to care for a child who is quarantining without symptoms i propose that asb uses federal

076funding provided to school districts for the purpose of keeping kids safely in school to solve this problem consider providing designated quarantined classrooms in these classrooms children at various grade levels could be supported educationally by a teacher aide who could work with classroom teachers to keep students moving forward additional safety measures could also be put into place including separate breaks and recess times for at school quarantining students some parents may prefer to have their children quarantine at home but those that need their children to be in school would have that option now is not the time to be less cautious now is the time to heed the warnings of medical professionals now is the time to use the extra federal funding we have to creatively solve coveted related issues like alternative education options for those our

077doctors are asking to quarantine i implore you to reconsider your current policy my deep concern is that if you do not the district is looking at not only dramatically higher student and staff absences but also at the loss of more families to another year of home schooling our children deserve to be in a safe environment thank you so much thank you uh next in person we're on uh number four jessica rodriguez in person welcome you have three minutes teachers are being forced to teach with fidelity in a classroom of students who are many grade levels behind and do not have the academic capability to process what we are teaching them i currently have 23 students 19 are two grade levels behind and two are a grade level behind only two of these students receive any

078form of intervention services due to having an iep this is a systematic issue and not one created by kovid or teachers like you would like the community to believe covid exacerbated an existing problem i go into my classroom every day knowing that my students will continue to get passed on regardless if they know their letter sounds or have the ability to read or write [Music] sorry i'm upset we use a curriculum that does not work and has consistently demonstrated it does not work which is evident in alaska's ranking of 48th in the nation for education last year i requested greedy mastery kindergarten for my second grade class i was told it's a replacement curriculum and instead my lowest students received phonics for reading they had to read three small paragraphs they couldn't read how they

079received what was in their best interest they may have left second grade with the ability to at the very least blend sounds we now have a math program that students don't have the prior foundational skills to comprehend but i am forced to teach at grade level if we do not expect a seven-year-old to sit in a college algebra class because it is beyond their capabilities then why are we asking them to do the same thing in our classrooms when students are forced to sit within a classroom where they are unable to understand what is being taught it causes on and needed trauma and takes away a love of learning and is replaced by despair low self-esteem and behavioral issues parents in the community have the right to know that teachers hands are tied and that

080asd continues to fail their children and teachers students are not provided with the resources or direct instruction they need and have the right to because we are not allowed to give it to them our concerns and requests have been consistently ignored and denied you have the opportunity to change the disastrous course that you have created by allowing us to do what we were hired and educated to do teach untie our hands and allow us to put away what hasn't doesn't or isn't working allow us to instruct at a level in which our students have the ability to understand and become successful allow us the freedom to choose what is beneficial without ramifications trust that i know my students and their educational needs why must we constantly beg for what our students need and have fallen

081to deaf ears i can no longer carry the guilt that is causing myself anxiety panic attacks and the inability to sleep i cannot allow thank you your time is up thank you next in person we have susan reed [Music] welcome susan you have three minutes i am susan wingrove reed a retired asd arts teacher and a member of the alaska black caucus education committee i am worried about the toll copit19 is now taking in our city the data is very clear that our bipoc communities are hit hardest by the pandemic in alaska and in our country this is a very real sorrow-filled element of the systemic racism that we must acknowledge and address in the coming weeks and months in our classrooms hallways public meetings and community we are reaching a tipping point fact the

082hospitals are being stretched by the unvaccinated who become gravely ill not by people who are gravely ill as a reaction to getting a vaccine i am heart sick about the recent mockery insults and threats directed at medical professionals who are begging for our help to mask and vaccinate at the recent assembly meeting internet theories and opinions versus science and facts i passionately believe in individual rights but personal freedom versus citizen responsibility to public health and democracy is putting us all in grave danger i recently lost a friend who had to wait 24 hours in the er at providence before getting a bed not cobig related this should concern all of us the headline today that alaska is now number one in america and the coveted rate of transmission should be a call to action that

083high rate means a delay of a week or two before the full effect is felt in our limited and exhausted hospitals we have no clear idea yet about long-term or permanent health issues that will haunt kids and adults who have clogged 19. this virus has no precedent protocols have to evolve as the virus mutates we need to pull together not escalate divisiveness my next door neighbor is an elementary school nurse his stories are eye-opening we must honor the nurses who are maintaining compassionate and patient communication with parents listening and helping being there for kids and our hard-working staff i spent today in the west high choir room these kids are resilient and amazing perfectly okay breathing deeply singing laughing and working hard with masks on they know it makes a difference masking is a tool

084that helps keep people safer makes it possible to make profoundly beautiful music together i feel safer going into asd schools than i do going grocery shopping so have we reached the tipping point i must be hopeful thank you for standing firm on wearing masks in schools prepare to possibly take even stronger stands as vaccines become available for younger kids we need everyone in this room and in our ritually diverse community to make choices that will help us get through this as fast as we can together please thank you thank you very much we're now on uh number six heidi knockover telephonically heidi i see that you're there you're in the queue star six to unmute can you hear me hear me yes we can hear you now you have three minutes thank you so much

085hi this is from heidi northover i'm a mom of two littles and i'm an elementary school teacher for asd i'm calling because i wanted to share something that sometimes we missed because there has been a lot of growth a lot of joy in my classroom and for that i'm super thankful we are masking up in school and i've yet to see a kid or a parent complain because it's something we're doing to keep ourselves and others safe it's a small thing that i can personally do and we can do as a community to make the schools safer and more accessible to all during these times which are difficult i'm also super thankful my school has on site testing i have used it to keep my students safe and myself space testing is another tool i'm

086happy to take and to use to keep my students healthy and to keep me at work and healthy that being said teaching doesn't stop at 4 pm and worrying about the health and well-being of the students in my class and their families and our community is something that keeps me up at night i know there's more we can and should be doing to keep students and staff and their families alive and well and some examples i have today are being more transparent about contact tracing and at the very least requiring students and staff who are living with or are in close contact with someone who's actively infected with kovid to quarantine at home our families are looking to us and asking us teachers for clearer and safer guidelines that we can use to protect our

087community i know it's a lot but it's not for forever it's for right now and right now here in alaska we have the highest coveted rate in the entire nation there's more we can do to protect all the asb um our little community neighborhood and the greater community of anchorage now is not the time to wait it's the time to take these important steps thank you and that brings us to number seven andrew gray telephonic star six to unmute andrew andrew there he goes my name is andrew gray and i have a student in the district early in the morning of tuesday september 7th we learned that my son had had a positive covet exposure from a neighborhood kid over the labor day weekend we emailed our school nurse who told us that our son

088needed to stay home the rest of the week and if had a negative covet test that weekend he could return to school the following monday that whole week he felt great and it was a real struggle for us to keep him home that friday september 10th the superintendent updated the covet policy so that asymptomatic kids deemed close contacts no longer needed a quarantine my son could have attended school that whole week and i was upset this had been an inconvenience for my family however that friday night my son spiked a fever of 103. he slept for 14 hours and woke up feeling terrible he tested positive that saturday morning i was immediately grateful that he had not been allowed to attend school that previous week i would have felt terrible if he had gotten his

089classmates or their families sick although the adults in my family are vaccinated we all contracted breakthrough covet cases from my son and this is the reason that i am not testifying in person tonight i offer this anecdote as an example of how the previous policy worked that said he did miss a full two weeks of school my son is already behind in reading i believe the disruption from the pandemic over the last 18 months has adversely affected his learning and i'm sure he's not the only one i ready is not working for him he must not have been paying attention when he did his initial assessments because it's far too easy in person school is a necessity and for that reason i do support the mass mandate for kids to catch up in our district

090though we're going to have to invest in some long-term solutions i support class sizes at all grade levels and i heard what dr bishop said earlier about some big classes doing well on assessments and some small classes doing poorly well i'd want to look closer at the makeup of those class groups that were studied as a former high school teacher myself a teacher's job is unquestionably easier when there are less students more one-on-one opportunities more time for individualized feedback when grading papers and the ability to know each of your students as a person not a number we need to also promote more widespread access to tutoring and increasing the principles discretionary funds so that individual schools can uh do individualized programs for their struggling learners i know these commitments will take a lot of money

091where is that money going to come from the state i will work my hardest to lobby our government to provide more funding and if they won't do it i'll do everything in my power to get those who will elected thank you for letting me share thank you next telephonically uh number eight rosslyn grady weiss roslyn star six to unmute hello yes we can hear you you have three minutes hey it's me roz um i'm not currently there rest in peace for my great grandmother she just passed away but i am home with my preschoolers and high schoolers i feel much better thank you to those who was concerned i've been supportive of a lot of decisions lately but i can't support the no contact tracing only because i'm going to use my family as an

092example as most of you know i was the only one in the house that was symptomatic my children only stayed home because i'm an employee had i been that parent five four out of my five ended up positive three days after my positive they all were asymptomatic it is my understanding that the new rules would have had them at school that would have been three different schools affected or three different yeah yeah okay so with that being said um i received results for two children later that were positive also and they were asymptomatic days later so my um although they were quarantined from me they weren't quarantined from each other until those results came in at that point two days later another child that was negative was then positive sorry my children were identified as

093close contacts but according to the verbiage that came out if i wasn't an employee they ultimately would have been at school i know it's only so much that we can do as a school community without backing of the city but let's keep structured and proper mitigation in order and direct from the top instead of schools being on islands of their own because they are different at all the schools classroom sizes are over 30. there are costume sizes over 30. well i'll leave that to your imagination the goals for reading sound good but once again we have classroom sizes over 30 students how are we going to conquer classroom sizes classes are too big we need to reduce classroom sizes and i'm sure we will see a huge difference in that um i have some ideas

094maybe like um for especially for contact tracing maybe we can contact alaska career college um uaa or even kcc has a program that could provide provide opportunities that can work with middle school high school nurses and maybe even help with asymptomatic testing as part-time positions and even our teacher shortage i think it would be awesome depending on college credits a third year and up college student be able to run a classroom with the instructional coach being the lead supervisor um plus the building principles that's just a few ideas i had um i want to get oh and i want to appreciate the thank you to all the schools that allowed alaska coalition of bipark educators to drop off backpacks um there were two there i mean most of our eastside schools and um yeah because

095i didn't get to mention that last time with my speech so once again i appreciate you guys and maybe we could talk more about ideas thank you next telephonically number nine dr paula williams it's star six to unmute okay yes and welcome to three minutes welcome thank you good evening i'm dr paul williams i'm actually a proud member of alaska by caucus and one of the co-chairs of our education committee and on this evening i am actually going to testify to the um i'm going to revisit see our entry racism policy the policy that was put forth and passed by the school board and i want to testify to the importance of not only putting this policy in writing but enforcing it in light of some incidents recent incidents that have taken place within our

096bartlett high school and in our golden view middle school and i want to draw attention to uh the second paragraph line one where it reads board rejects all forms of racism and then the third paragraph the board recognizes the negative impact of racism on student learning and on lifelong social economic opportunities health and well-being the board will work with the superintendent to identify and redesign any racial and equitable policies and procedures that limit academic opportunity and i'm saying that in light of this because just recently we've had with the alaska black caucus education committee i've spoken with four parents from the barton school who are very concerned that their kids black have been had have actually been received racial slurs or conscious vibration flares by white students one mother in particular she was very very

097she was not only alarmed but very upset that when this incident happened her daughter was called a by a white student not one time did it happen and the student went to the parents but it happened again and the next time that it happened this student actually got up in this in this young female face and so it was brought to the teacher the teacher took them to the principal volunteering initially we thought that it was the black girl who would create this issue when the students told it was not her it was asking a young man what alarmed the parents the mother of the daughter is that this student or the principal from the school did not contact her until 26 hours after that incident happened and that should never have happened because the

098character had been the first person or first one to my thinking is the first point of contact before even when the i heard a conversation audible audio and the school principal stated to the parents she said well i was on the call with the parents of the student who had offended their your your daughter and so therefore she had security to contact her but the terror felt that unacceptable the parents felt that unacceptable because she felt that even in life that you were called you felt it was important enough to call the kids parents who offended my child it should have been just as important for you to reach out to me that was one incident then we had a second incident where there's a father where his son too and he was saying that

099his son is this isn't bartlett who is what thank you miss williams your time is up number 10 danielle camp telephonically mr camp star six to unmute okay can you hear me yes we can you have three moments okay all right uh before i do begin i would like to ask the whole board to follow up on dr williams that's very alarming what's going on at bartlett and possibly at other schools so please follow up on that one uh thank you to the board for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is daniel kia i am president and co-founder of the alaska coalition by park educators during this same time last year we had 11 active covert cases in the asd today we have over 400 in climbing doing the down that is a 3400

100percent increase in cases from september 2020. i'll say that again that is a 3400 in colder cases from september of 2020 it should be no coincidence then that we also see a 3 000 increase a percent increase in uniqlovic cases from 35 new cases in september of 2020 to over one thousand recorded just today that shows us that what affects the school district also affects the muny and vice versa the asd has done a lot to mitigate the transmission of covet in schools but it can do much more for instance the asd can rescind its recent move to not quarantine close contact of covet-positive people as it's counterproductive to the good health and safety of our students a couple of folks have already testified to that already mandating vaccinations for all asd staff and students

101over the age of 12 and mandated as soon as available for five to 11 year olds if the asd can mandate vaccines for chickenpox measles hepatitis a and b like it already does then it can mandate for covet 19 2. matter of fact the asd website says it clearly no shots no school you can also use federal covet release funds to hire more staff to conduct testing and contact choices mandate weekly testing for each class at school which is totally doable right here new york city schools just announced they will test weekly at all their schools and saint mary's school district here in alaska has been mass testing all their students weekly for the past year with zero outbreaks or class closures all we need to do is scale up from there ladies and gentlemen

102the holiday season is coming and have past this prologue then we will be in a world of hurt come december if we don't do better now in order to keep covert at bay we need a whole team effort uh from the top of government down the mayor and assembly have to mandate mass and vaccines and uni-wise parents please don't send your kids to school sick i know it's too tough all right you know with your job on the line and everything but please don't do it employers help your employee parents out who have coveted to be able thank you mr camp next in person we have takeda parker welcome you have three minutes [Music] hello and good evening my name is takita parker and i am the membership chair for the alaska black caucus and

103i am also a proud member of the education committee within the alaska black caucus as a health care professional part-time at providence i wanted to give you an insight on some of the symptoms of covet 19. the symptoms are as follows trouble breathing persistent pain or pressure in the chest inability to wake or stay awake pale gray or blue colored skin lips and nail beds consistent ongoing diarrhea nausea are vomiting congestion our runny nose sore throat loss of taste or smell headaches muscle or body pains fatigue shortness of breath or difficulty breathing [Music] fever are chills severe and ongoing cough these symptoms vary from person to person but studies have reported that people who have contracted covet 19 have one or more of these symptoms listed studies have also shown that these symptoms are the

104same with the delta variant studies have also shown that people that have been vaccinated are either asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms if they contract the delta variant the delta variant is affecting unvaccinated people more nationally of patients hospitalized with covet 19 are unvaccinated i said all of that to say this if it is raining outside does anyone have to remind you to wear a raincoat or bring an umbrella to protect yourself from getting wet or sick if it's snowing outside does anyone have to remind you to make sure you put on a snow suit on your child or a hat or gloves are even snow boots we do this to protect ourselves from getting sick not to say that you won't get sick by wearing the snow suit or having the umbrella but we're

105protecting ourselves with the mask and i wanted to say superintendent bishop thank you for staying in your ground with this mass made it mandate it is needed as a healthcare confession thank you and next telephonically we are at number 12 poly car star six to unmute polly star six to unmute [Music] hello chair bellamy dr bishop and members of the school board today the alaska covid case rate became number one in the nation i'm here to ask you to take more aggressive actions to protect our students teachers and families from the harmful effects of this pandemic my ten-year-old daughter who some of you met a few weeks ago and who cannot yet get vaccinated recently had covid she ultimately missed more than a week of school not to mention being sick when she got the

106positive result my first reaction was what does she get seriously ill and there are no health care facilities available for her because our hospitals are so overwhelmed with unvaccinated covet patients our family maths my husband and i are vaccinated and we take many precautions so some might say well that just proves that these things don't matter but we know from the scores of scientific data real life experiences and stories that personal actions alone can't protect us from spread in our community it is impossible to avoid or reduce the transmission of covid19 when half the adult population is still unvaccinated and not wearing masks so we are in crisis and we need to act like it today i want to thank you for maintaining the math mandate and i want to ask you to consider the

107following mandating vaccination for all asd staff using federal coveted release funds to hire more staff to conduct contact tracing make on-site testing available one time per week at least at each school provide hepa filters or ensure better air filtration at schools and i would like you to reconsider the decision to not quarantine asymptomatic close contact when my daughter was sick her close friend stayed home from school gladly what if they stayed in school and passed the virus on without showing symptoms because of this policy change i think the cycle of transmission will never end with this approach and finally for families who are um you know in the choice or maybe not having a choice of using asd online due to other factors i think we need to take more steps to improve the quality

108so that more students do not fall through the cracks i just want to end by saying there is no evidence that masks harm people despite the many unfounded claims if people are afraid of germs you can wash your mask the alternative hospitalization or death is much worse for those who fight personal choice when it comes to masking in vaccines i say this it's not personal choice when your individual choice impacts the health and quite possibly the lives of many others we are in crisis and we need to act with accountability to our community thank you thank you [Music] next telephonically we have karen stevens star six to unmute karen hello thank you for taking my testimony today um my name is karen stevens and i am a parent of a 13 year old um who

109happily wears her mask she skied junior nordic all of last winter which started out with a mask mandate and then after a couple of weeks they decided that kids only needed to show up with the mask and once they were actually skiing they could remove their masks i would say maybe even 100 of the kids skied the entire junior nordic season with masks on um they were disgusting but they all skied happily they all did their workouts and showed up at the cars sweaty and um and had great exercise um i'm sure that there are um kids that don't enjoy wearing masks and i'm pretty sure i can honestly say nobody enjoys it but it is something that the kids as i've seen these resilient kids they're not afraid to wear masks they're not they

110just like yep this is what we have to do this is what we do for our community um i also am a big proponent of testing weekly and knowing that there are some funds out there some code release funds that could help support weekly testing at schools i think that that would go um a long way for peace of mind and also to keep covet out of our schools keep teachers teaching and keep students learning that's that's our goal here i am a proponent as well of mandated vaccines for teachers and any staff in the schools the vaccine has been approved by fda if that was something that people were afraid of it is now something that has been approved and so i feel like that excuse can maybe go to the wayside thank you

111for hearing my customer testimonial thank you [Music] we have uh next we have kevin mcgee in person i don't think i see him okay so next number 15. we'll move on we'll swing back around eugene carl haberman welcome you have three minutes thank you [Music] my name is eugene karlhaven i represent myself i follow the public process when the public cross is done appropriately decision made by the governing body is more likely to public interest the last few weeks as you know i attend a lot of meetings over the years but things are getting more and more distressing distressing in the way people are treating each other in these different places now i'd like to point out this as a member and public here i feel welcomed here by both the school board and staff

112and the public and thank you i feel more welcome here than any other meeting i attend and particularly at the anchorage assembly meetings or the borough assembly news and i thank you again and also says welcome you respond to my my uh concerns and you don't ignore it and you take some action one way or the other that's being considerate but what's going on right now on the culvert issue is more of the same outside of this room and where we have a situation where people who are not comfortable way things are run are going on their own setting up a discussions calling listening sessions that occurred saturday at the lusak library no public notice on the website from uni and the end result was they selectively invited certain people and was at a public

113meeting a public discussion with people of different views it was slanted and that's not the way to conduct a meeting we need to hear from each other respectfully we may have different views on different issues that's understandable but how are we going to learn from each other and go forward in a more positive way if we don't do it in that way and not this other way and as the assembly their members are talking about introducing legislation and dealing with mass carrying but they don't even need legislation in one aspect of it by simply removing themselves and not having meetings in the city hall small rooms and more uh troubling for people who are concerned about covet and also the ability to hear from each other that's not a place for it it's the assembly

114chambers blue sac library that's the place for people to hear and learn from each other but the assembly chambers was used last saturday unfortunately in such a way it's alarming because people are not satisfied with way things are going they're taking on their own and directing meetings in such a way so it's going slanted and we cannot have that it needs to stop right now it's coming from elected officials and i plead with you to join me in concern that this direction is not appropriate and we need to go forward and be respectful and that closes my comments with 12 seconds of spare thank you thank you sir uh next telephonically we have jill harder and i don't we don't see her in the queue we'll circle that uh telephonically we have austin williams it's

115star six to unmute mr williams [Music] we see that you unmuted but we can't hear you oh i can hear me now yes we can you have three minutes sorry thank you for the opportunity to testify today i hope you and your yours are well and healthy my name is austin williams my wife and i have two children at our neighborhood school ocean view elementary last week's announcement that the acreage school district was abandoning its quarantine requirement took me and my family by surprise when we decided to send our children to school in person at the beginning of the academic year we relied on the asd's coveted policy to provide a measure of safety for our children amid the surging case count in our community those safeguards were abruptly and without warning eliminated asd had

116previously notified me twice that someone had tested positive in my daughter's first grade class i received a third notification yesterday alerting me to the fact that someone in my son's fourth grade class tested positive because asd has no testing requirement now has no quarantine requirement students staff and volunteers who are in close contact with the positive individual are free to remain in the classroom because it can take several days before someone with covid begins showing symptoms it is quite likely someone who has coveted but does not yet know it was in my son's classroom today and will be there again tomorrow under the current asd policy if my child is in close contact with someone that has covid i'm under no obligation to send to have my child tested and may immediately send my child

117back to school so long as they do not have symptoms even though my child may be positive may develop symptoms later and may expose countless other students and staff in fact if my children is asymptomatic and i voluntarily have them tested and the test comes back positive i now have to isolate my child whereas if i never had them isolated never have been tested excuse me i could simply keep sending them to school in this regard they these new policy of not requiring close contacts to quarantine actually disincentivizes testing we're in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century while it is a significant burden to parents to quarantine and test children who have had close contact with known positives there simply is no other way to ensure our schools remain safe for in-person

118learning asd cannot control many aspects of the pandemic but it has the ability to implement common-sense measures including quarantines testing contact tracing and vaccines that are proven to help mitigate the risks to our children and staff i hope you will reconsider the recent changes to the asd covet policy reinstate quarantine requirements adopt regular testing and contact tracing procedures and require all eligible staff students and volunteers to receive the covered vaccine thank you for your consideration thank you sir that brings us to uh testimony number 18 sean theodore williams welcome you have three minutes good evening good evening ladies and gentlemen of the anchorage school board my name is sean theodore williams senior i'm a father a proud retired paratrooper and a community member of the black caucus bypoc i'm here today to inform you an

119event of racism lack of accountability as well as not adherence to school board policy during school on the 13th of september my daughter and her friend were called a multiple times this was said by a young caucasian individual which was unprovoked by my daughter and her friend what's concerning to this father is the response from bartlett staff or lack thereof the principal did not formally notify my family until 26 hours later what did happen was this young individual was talked to about the event to which he confessed on the language he used i was told he was educated about the use of his words if all we had to do was talk to or educate racists we wouldn't have a policy denouncing all forms of racism acreage school board policy may denounce all forms of

120racism a bartlett high school does not adhere to this policy for example this event is one of three with the same individual saying the same racist rhetoric to the same young lady all of which is confirmed by the principle in an audio recording the principle principle is also recorded saying the individual is on the autism spectrum accountability is extended beyond a disorder for the principal to use this disorder as a shield for this young person is a disservice to people with autism was a serious disorder so i ask you where was the education the first two times why was this behavior allowed three so i also ask you where's the accountability for this young person who is allowed back at school the next day my daughter and her friend had reported this young individual before

121where's the accountability for the teacher who failed to adhere to school board policy and make a report lastly where's the accountability for the principal who thinks it's more important to call the delinquents family first and not the victims family first this is a clear example of a caucasian racist being allowed to control the narrative over a victim person of color in efforts to silence my testimony and intimidate me my employer's legal department was contacted today by this principle those efforts are in vain this only furthers my suspicion bartlett high school would like this event swept under the road i will make the audio recording available to anyone who wants to validate my claims thank you ladies and gentlemen the board and i hope your children are never have to go through what my child has

122thank you sir next number 19 in person now sherwood williams welcome you have three minutes [Music] thank you members of the school board i'd like to first let you know that i forgive each and every one of you in the name of jesus christ the king of kings and the lord of lords who's by his blood and his salvation i am able to achieve [Music] so much more philippians 4 13 i can do all things through christ who strengthens me so despite the fact that i was locked up in a jail cell last week i'm still here to testify to you today members of the community this stands as notice that you do not need to force your children to wear that medical device that restricts their oxygen parents you can pull your child out

123of anchorage school district sue the school district to get the thirteen thousand three hundred and sixty four dollars per pupil that this school district wastes today through the president dr dina bishop superintendent up on this screen you identified reading goals for the students instead of identifying how many can actually read to proficiency let's look at it the other way 61 percent you're failing members of the school board waiting till 2020 to achieve success of 80 percent it's too long a hundred percent should be the goal madam president members of the school board and superintendent this goes to the entire leadership structure of this school district to impose mandates of medical devices masks violates the nuremberg code you are not medical doctors you cannot prescribe medical devices you cannot prescribe the ability to take an injection

124a bio weapon it's killing people they're glitching out in the streets crashing into buildings there's wrecks every day please don't swing that little bell thank you it's kind of a demonic ritual i don't like it madam president through you i demand the resignation of this whole school board tonight you are abusing the children and allowing them to be abused another thing when we look at the record of the reading report you're expecting a loss in reading proficiency between winter and spring this year look at the slides thank you mr williams next in person we have tessie canada welcome you have three minutes [Music] as an experienced teacher in asd i'm deeply concerned by what i see currently happening to the students and teachers in our community i knew the last two years of covert would

125take a toll but i was truly shocked to see the utter arrested development in my students or the level of stress and anxiety for both students and teachers these problems existed before but was exacerbated by cobit while at different degrees these problems are being seen at every level in socioeconomic status across asd i have three students at grade level four others are close behind these seven students are able to access the mandated curriculum everyone else is not scoring three years below grade level the very place they were prior to gobed despite the many lessons provided and it is not due to teachers not teaching to fidelity it is impossible for them to access the heavily language based system when they cannot read such a gap is leading to extreme frustration low self-esteem and severe behavior

126problems my very lowest students already in replacement programs often receive the least instruction at their level because of severe staffing shortage those tas and teachers are often pooled to assist in testing or to sub in other classrooms they cannot improve without instruction at their level specialists are being pulled several times a week due to staffing and sub shortages and teachers are missing their contractual planning time again policies prior to kobits set this in motion and do not appear to have an end in sight since uaa no longer offers the teaching program and tourism teaching isn't the answer as is evidenced by our test scores in state standing it is simply a short-term band-aid a healthy district needs a balance of experienced and new teachers it is not uncommon for teachers to spend 12-hour days or

127work six to seven days a week it is one thing if done by choice on another if it's done and expected from us this is unacceptable and unsustainable even machines that are constantly run breakdown hundreds of teachers quitter retired last year if this continues i fear hundreds more are planning to quit this year then what will happen to our children we are exhausted demoralized and experiencing compassion fatigue at a collective level never seen before teachers cannot maintain the same level of expectations without support and ample planning time and i take great personal offense when my dedication is questioned i have shown up every day for the last two years even before a vaccine was made available to us and i lost an entire month of my life struggling through covet now i am wondering how

128much more i am thank you next we have nelly r williams telephonically [Music] nelly star six to unmute hi there hi you have seen here about three minutes thank you uh dr bishop and asd school board thanks i'm here as a mother of two young kids and that go to school and first i want to thank you for your time and energy and navigating lots of important decisions that impact the health and safety and education of our kids i know your jobs aren't easy so thanks for that i also want to publicly extend appreciation to the teachers staff and principals who are doing their best to provide safe and productive learning environment for our kids it's not an easy task under normal circumstances and their efforts are truly heroic under the constantly shifting floor of

129a global pandemic so um i also would like to thank you for the decision in august to require masks your leadership on that front is appreciated by me and many other parents and supported by science but i will also ask that the current situation of record cova case numbers hospitals facing situations that are truly unthinkable that more needs to be done and quickly since your kids are safely kept in school first i would urge you to re-evaluate last week's decision not to require quarantine of closed contacts without this important layer of protection in place more coba cases will be circulating quickly putting kids and staff and their families at risk which is scary and additionally we should be providing ample and easy and regular testing at each school and comprehensive contact tracing if funding is

130a limitation let's reassess where federal coveted funding is going and make sure resources are being directed at these priorities lastly i would like to urge that vaccination should be required for all asd staff as well as volunteers working in our classrooms our youngest kids don't currently have the option of being vaccinated and covered rates and children have continued to climb over the past months many of them yes don't get extremely sick but some do and it's only a matter of time until the worst happens and as a society we should be doing everything in our power to take care of our kids and we most certainly should be doing it at the school level we need to work together to ensure the health and safety of our kids come first and vaccination is the quickest

131and clearest route to doing that you all have committed that keeping kids safely and consistently at school should be a number one priority and i do agree with that however right now we need to be making decisions that are putting our schools on a fast that aren't putting our schools on a fast track to sick kids families uncertain about sending kids to school giving changing policies and rotating classroom closures and acting the items that i highlighted above can we install some certainty and safety so our families and teachers can get back to work caring for and educating our kids thanks so much thank you very much uh next in person we have chad garner welcome mr gardner you have three minutes good evening everyone can you hear me yeah all right thank you my name

132is chad garner i'm an elementary pe teacher at target elementary and i have two topics i'd like to talk uh to you guys about today and that's um the staffing shortage subs substitute teachers substitute tas please stop using specialists as substitute teachers once again please stop using specialists as substitute teachers you're not fixing the problem my school my principal my assistant principal i respect and support 100 they're doing the best that they can i recognize that on the same note we've had issues with substitute teaching uh substitute tas for many years even when i was a substitute teacher i have yet to see a fixed their solution to the problem i don't know if that's reducing the requirements like in the matsu i don't know if that's increasing the pay to attract more applicants but

133something needs to change lastly [Music] i have a title of an article from the adn here that says anchorage teachers still without a contract criticize pay raises for administrators october 1st it's like deja vu all over again every time we're still in the same position all over again and for me as a teacher it doesn't feel like i'm being supported it feels like it's an attack on me as a teacher when i go and watch and view these youtube um negotiations i don't know how we're going to attract and compete with the best school districts throughout the the country when we're not paying teachers mtas and support staff what they what they're worth and i also [Music] i'm still trying to figure out how we're going to compete with not having a pension what i'm

134looking for is solutions i know there's a lot of people at the ed center that have a lot of ideas and they make a lot of money to come up with ideas so i'd really like to see that happen thank you and have a good night thank you sir telephonically we have toya brown [Music] toya star six to unmute hi my name is taya brown i am a member of the alaska black caucus and on the abc's educational committee i would like the board to know i stand in agreement and i'm so thankful for the anti-racism and educational equity and masking policies i hope to see these policies expanded on as we move forward with anti-racist efforts and fight the coronavirus battle i strongly urge you to revise the disillusion of the quarantine policy also

135as a parent i have found challenges within the afd as a member of a bypass household i have felt we have suffered because the current asd curriculum supports a system that looks at the success of bypass persons as an anomaly or does not acknowledge fundamental bypass u.s history at all i hear this reinforced in the testimony of angry parents who advocate against the truth and critical race theory please understand thinking about race critically is not optional for members of bypoc households and discounting the effects of the past on the present is foolish as many of us teach our own children that we learn about history as ignorance on these issues leaves us doomed to repeat it i would like to request the school district consider implementing policies surrounding immediate parental notification when racially targeted offenses

136occur in the schools especially to the parents of the children who have suffered the offense there is a pattern emerging of unequal parental notice and imbalance representation for the welfare of bypass students i feel the district needs to push towards equity and curriculum and opportunity i expect the school district to create an atmosphere of truth and honesty which can shape a culture of inclusion and foster truth and empathy for all sides i firmly believe that it's impossible to support equity in the school district without also addressing the need for recruitment and retention of teachers of color i know your job is very hard i want to thank each and every one thank you so much have a good evening thank you number 24 we have kelly ramey welcome you have three minutes good evening school

137board and dr bishop my name is kelly ramey and i am a proud principal of tarmian elementary and i would like to talk to on two items today but probably will only get to one the first item i'd like to talk about is the starting pay raise of a special education teacher's assistant currently a new hired special ed ta would make between 14.70 or 87 cents and 16 dollars an hour these tas are on the front line working with our hardest need kids and i don't think that is a living wage at most we're offering somebody to work in a classroom of intensive needs kids since last may i have spent numerous hours interviewing and hiring applicants and i've hired these for i have four positions available there's 84 open ta positions district-wide 10 are

138in structured learning or self-contained classroom and i have four openings so i'm the majority of the ones that have openings when i hire these applicants we offer them a job welcome them to the school district and then they talk to um talent management and find out 16 an hour is what we're getting paid cars is hiring probably for more aren't we serious 16 bucks our highest needs students are not getting what is mandated by law to them and i don't even want to i i pale i don't even want to talk about the safety of these classrooms i have 30 slc kids in three classrooms three teachers and four to five tas my staff this year has filled out 12 workmen cops for being injured on the job last week i got injured on the

139job i was hit in the face i went to the doctor today and i'm glad i can still see out of my eye our teachers the rtas are not getting paid enough these people are trained by the b team the b team's doing an amazing job but when kids with intensive needs have volume or problematic behavior low staffing is a tragedy and a safety issue um 44 seconds so i will just say please help us help our kids keep our kids safe keep our teachers safe by increasing the wages that a newly special ed teacher assistant or any teacher assistant is paid in the anchorage school district thank you ma'am number 25 we have corey angst welcome you have three minutes thank you president bellamy uh we have a great opportunity tonight an opportunity to

140celebrate amazing accomplishment accomplishments of our fellow educators to date educators who are working through overwhelming obstacles to keep schools open and students learning i know this is true because i see excellence all around us and every day i hear and witness educators who are committed to their students families and the community let's give a shout out to tarmigan and their educators who came out tonight to give testimony with all the success the obstacles in front of us are taking its toll on staff in my written testimony i shared the experience of a newly hired nurse it was her story her words on saturday i was approached by several newly hired educators i will share with you what two shared with me one came from out of state and was concerned about the tone regarding contract

141negotiations he was hoping asd and anchorage would be his new home but is now questioning whether he will stay longer than a year another teacher transferred from another district from within alaska she shared how unmotivating and torturous the pacing guides and pacing lessons were for her students and herself you talked about test scores earlier this was not her experience at her other district and she was unprepared for her re her regimented teaching in anchorage and is now considering moving out of asd why do i share these experiences asd currently has over 100 unfilled teaching positions as well as another 100 unfilled ta positions and both your totem staff and aes aea staff are currently working without a contract and both do not seem to be resolving themselves our community is hurting we need to keep

142our house cleaner and brighter we lost a lot of good staff last year and i am still concerned asd is creating an environment where our most capable and committed staff both new and experienced will continue to leave the district together together we can make it through this pandemic we can come out stronger on the other side more united and more committed but not without our educators or our esps the asd board created these goals what steps will you be willing to make as a board to ensure your goals are achieved in five years you made the goals now it's your job to take action i know we can do better and i know we can do this together aea is willing i know totem is willing i know every staff is willing to do their

143very best you number 26 we have dustin darden [Music] hello thank you for the opportunity to speak um thank you for the opportunity to speak i did want to speak in regards to forgiveness and i wanted to give the land acknowledgement appreciation before i started my speech [Music] i thank you heavenly father for being the creator of all things seen and unseen your word is what spoke this existence into being and lord god i i hear the concerns of the people tonight i pray for forgiveness for those who've been called harsh words lord god i pray for unity for every every man woman child that's been called something that's been hurtful and i pray a washing of the water of your word over all of those individuals lord god i do thank you for the

144revelation knowledge of forgiveness and the power of love and how you can live in this free society and forgive those people who trespass against you because you did it first for us lord god i love every one of these people gina bishop katie grant all the school board tom roth i love all these people and i do pray that that that you show them what what the people are seeing in their children lord god and i pray that people see the power of forgiveness a handshake a hog a kind word i pray that the the walls of division that separate are torn down and that we walk in unity and no more names being called and lord god to those who who've been oppressed i thank you for this land of liberty and the laws

145on the books and if any child was coerced into wearing a medical device show them how to act in love and take the discoveries of evidence to the anchorage police department and enter case number two one two five zero four [Music] five take those discoveries to the anchorage police department and put it under the window if it's an email saying that your child needs to wear a mask take it there if it's a email encourage them to get a shot take it there and they are processing the peaceable arrest that was served to these people which i love which i did not want to do but is the peaceful way to achieve uh thank you sir your time's up that brings uh just a note that we have uh written testimony attached to the agenda

146online should anyone wish to read that so in addition to the testimony you've heard tonight you may also read the written testimony that was submitted and that brings us to our superintendent update i need to do a check in with the board is everybody good or do you need a comfort break okay let's take a five minute comfort break thank you [Music] uh [Music] um [Music] about 30 seconds before we start [Music] i'd like to welcome everybody back [Music] uh [Music] there she is all righty so we are going to continue with our agenda item e superintendent update welcome bishop thank you madam president i'm going to take uh the opportunity during the superintendent's update to highlight um our summer learning program and we're going to just celebrate the elementary summer learning program and this

147was a result of uh planning that occurred last year in utilization of our relief funds our s or 2 funds so the summer learning pro program started with a purpose to really address unfinished student learning and we came from a stance that our students we acknowledged that not being face to face did make impacts and that it wasn't that kids were falling behind it's like they didn't have an opportunity to finish learning because we were out so we structured it looking forward and seeing the cup have full from the get-go the instructional focus again was english language arts math primarily english language arts but also math if a student had a need in that area we worked on social emotional learning and themed integration with art and sports and that was our support staff and

148elective staff that supported summer school we had targeted interventions and organized face-to-face and again um just to clarify this was the summer learning program that was planned with the relief funds not the title or other summer programs uh like the online so we had multiple programs i'm just speaking now uh to the um unfinished learning one we utilized from the get-go explicit evidence-based instruction with implementation integrity so our staff they were trained and they were site-supported with their peers of instructional coaches they participated in collaborative sessions as well as received additional training as needed and when i say trained the staff all the staff that worked uh took an online course to learn about the instructional model and to hone in on some of those things as well as demonstrated that learning to each other

149so they practiced it so we had an authentic opportunity as well and if they didn't feel confident they came for a second day to work specifically on certain skills so we scaffolded just like we would children we scaffolded the supports needed by staff as well uh just to give you a mind's eye there were two blocks one in june and one in july uh students went to school for four weeks four days a week for half a day and of course uh that half a day there were two sessions morning and afternoon in each of the four weeks and each day the sites strategically said were selected based on student need transportation food accessibility and we operated with four sites in june and six sites in july and more supplemental programs were offered in june

150so a lot of our title programs had other types of summer school programs for which the children were already involved and so we didn't want to compete with other things but really had a focus for this one [Music] so the total number of students served was uh close to 2 000 in this particular program and the selection process schools really analyze data to provide prioritize and determine student need so we wanted to be sure that those uh that had the most unfinished learning that we actually made sure that we had room and space in our classrooms to serve them priority was given to english language learners title 1 indian education and special education areas that we identified early that we needed supports and families were notified and supported through the application process and all applications

151not only of the prioritized students but other students that applied were accommodated because we found room or another program that would be appropriate so we didn't turn anyone away i do want to acknowledge that we did have low lower enrollment in july overall uh basically due to july in alaska we didn't have as many many takers as we did in june so um with the 20 sessions and that's with the june july half um you know each taking a different session morning and afternoon there were actually 20 sessions and we when we identified uh the outcomes we just recently had these every student uh was assessed when they entered and assessed when they left and in addition they were assessed weekly and we'll we'll really talk about that but the orange if you will is

152uh we have looked at our attendance day in the past and the orange is what percentage of students attended 90 of the time because we knew this was in summer and we knew it was difficult to get there if you had a family vacation and we said it's fine if you can't be there just come when you can and if you notice totally of the 367 kindergarteners only 50 percent of them actually went 90 of the time yet the academic growth 74 of our students showed academic growth so my confidence in our goal is based on not just summer school as was mentioned i mean we were able to demonstrate our confidence by what happened in summer school but i would say it's really the efficacy of the entire program so if you take a

153look across the board first grade made phenomenal growth 84 of the students showed academic growth in those four weeks four half days a week it can be done so with that um i want to share a little bit about um the next slide so in understanding what happened because i want to share that i went out to our summer schools to visit and i went and i visited every classroom in that summer school and it was a full school and instruction instruction instruction i mean kids were you know crisscross applesauce at the edge of the seat and teachers doing stuff and i was like wow this is like bang up and so i i called back to the director and said man what's going on this is um awesome i went to the school and

154whoa it was a great school and then um he said oh thank you thank you i'll tell staff and then i would go to another school and go oh my gosh the same thing's happening and so i just wanted to share that the alignment and the efficacy of the program was really designed by a team of coaches our educators as well as their supports those that are the director of reading um uh diane or their and uh the director of ell christie garby and um the elementary director who was also a lead so we had three leads who did this and i want to share that because um dan barker said you know it was mandy clark it was it these were the folks that assisted with a greater group to plan it and the

155teachers and principals carried it out well at the building level so i just want to share that this was not my doing it was the planning of asd and the efficacy of those involved to share a story sometimes is easier than just giving the facts and the data because children are behind it and i watched um and i encourage you to it's called um it's on netflix and it's called the playbook and uh they're just little vignettes like 30 minutes of uh coaches that if you like sports that have had high success with their teams over time and it's called the playbook and basically it they give their life life lessons of that they take to put into their success as a coach and many times these come from their families like when i was

156born my father said this i had to learn through the hardships of my life that this is what mattered and so they usually come up with three to five ideas and i requested uh you know could could we look at something where a principal watches this and let's mirror the life's lessons if you will of what we understood about summer school of what mattered most from the eyes of educators and so claire hill met with her team at baxter and they came up with this and this is claire uh playbook that she's sharing with us if children do not know how to read by third grade it can start being a life sentence for them in their education my name is claire hill and i'm the principal at chugach optional and i had the honor

157of being the principal at the baxter summer learning program we had a very successful summer and we had the great responsibility of making sure we were catching students up as much as possible in the areas of reading and math this program is really important because we are targeting their instructional needs and trying to help them make gains so they're ready for the school year and getting their reading really strong as strong as possible and so all the kids we were serving the summer were below grade level and we did a few things to make sure that we were as successful as possible and so the first thing i want to talk about is the unified mission and collective energy toward reaching our goal all of this stuff that we're hired were given the invitation to

158be on board with this mission of delivering the summer learning plans and the educational instruction the way that uh the teaching and learning department and those designed it and um it was very there's a scientific approach and so everybody who's working this summer is very much on board and they um understand that um the schedule of the day the sharing of students making sure they're in the right classes [Music] focusing on student needs above adult needs data-driven instruction making sure that we are making decisions about instruction and students based on their data and being able as adults to adjust what we're doing if it needs if the kids need it every educator needs to be going in the same direction and understanding the expectations all for student needs and so the principal's really key in

159making sure that that that mission is put forth beforehand making sure that it's happening throughout and then um following up constantly and so that first piece is that unified mission and the strong structure of the program we didn't waste minutes the kids were here a fourth morning session in an afternoon session and there was no minutes lost we had a very tight schedule and you can walk into any classroom and see what the schedule shows so that is the first thing the structure and the unified mission another key thing this summer was the instruction the teachers were highly trained we had instructional coaches helping them before the program started they did training before the program started and so they're highly trained on instruction they're also given the ability to invite feedback feedback isn't something they're

160scared of it's constant and it's probably more of the culture of this program and so feedback is is often and for all of us and so we're adjusting um but the instruction level is high and every adult in the building is focused on student needs and so they may be teaching phonics for reading they may be teaching sips it just depends on what their kids in their class need and the teachers are getting trained to make sure they're meeting their kids needs the third thing i want to talk about today assessment assessment drives instruction and so every week we're sending home progress monitoring information on paper pencil to families and so they go home on thursdays and they came home with data to their families about you know how many words per minute they were

161reading or how many letters and sounds they had and it was that assessment data was starting conversations at the staff level about how we can make you know what improvements we need to make the families were on board with it they were excited about it i was getting emails saying my kid left his his data sheet at school can you send me a copy of it and they wanted to see those numbers grow and it made them feel like the program was valuable our attendance reflected that the families felt like the program was valuable so when they are seeing that it's working they're sending their kid back to school and the students felt proud of themselves when they saw that growth and so assessment was key and if a student needed something different we were

162able to meet as a team and move them into a different instructional class and and the teachers they're all our kids and so if the students needed something different we made those adjustments so it's very fluid in our thinking and now the fourth thing i want to talk about is collaboration and collaboration is key and so that piece is we have a unified staff everybody's on board um and kids are the focus the kids needs trump the adult needs and so adults may feel uncomfortable at times teaching something that they're not you know familiar with and they get trained on but the kids needs trump the adults needs are and the collaboration looks like trust it looks like ability to take feedback it looks like meetings data meetings it looks like talking to colleagues to

163share ideas it looks like courageous conversations we are very proud of our our data this summer at baxter and i'm sure all the summer learning programs we've seen that when kids showed up and they engaged they grew as learners they grew as readers and so you know some of those students who were in the tier two and that you know their scores were falling in that yellow color color um they jumped up to proficiency we saw some students who uh didn't even know right they weren't you know how to write their name in preschool writing their name so some pretty substantial milestones we saw kids get to grade level standards and um and we saw parent families start engaging in in new ways with their child's reading and asking questions how many words per minute

164should they be reading as a second grader and um and starting to be on board with that this summer we had a they were focus and that focus was we wanted students to improve in reading and in math and that was our focus this summer um and part under that umbrella we supported their well-being we supported um you know the emotional intelligence and all of those things but the reading and math piece that was our focus this summer and we were using data to make sure every day was a strong day of teaching i encourage principals to have a focus on reading and for these students who who are struggling it is such a barrier for them for everything they're doing um and have a rigorous goal a courageous conversations data-driven instruction and highly trained

165educators i think those things make all the difference [Music] that's the story of a school that we asked to share and the data from that school even shows greater uh in some categories percent of students who showed improvement and even with less attendance and so for some of the things that we can control and some things we can't control uh students being away from us sometimes we can't control that we don't have an influence on that they we expect them to come to school with high quality instruction and and teachers working together we know that we can get academic outcomes met and um it wasn't summer school what it was is i think utilizing those um high quality effective approaches that are in research and it's it's uh if you haven't read hattie's book he

166really chooses them so um that return on investment of when there's limited time limited money limited resources do the things that matter the most and so clear focus a unified mission obviously high quality instruction teachers pulled it off they did it assessment and essential is the collaboration and i think that was a primary question from the board about how do we work together collaboration is is baked into our progress to move forward and that concludes my report all right thank you uh member higgins questions yeah thank you i um um i was at first a little bit taken back that we had a percentage there without any academic growth but then i saw the attendance and so i guess you know that really throws that off a little bit so that doesn't bother me at

167first you did and i said how could somebody go to some school not get any academic growth do we have an idea of the amount of academic growth i remember back in uh 13 years ago when we had stimulus funds and all that and we expanded the the kindergarten program i mean the preschool for elementary and we had a 19 academic growth during the summer the problem was we didn't get a over that much the next year and we needed to fund during the regular year not just summer school so we expanded it one time but not but do we have an idea of the level of growth overall that we got that's a great question and um just recently uh within this last week we finished all of the fast bridge assessments for the

168fall and we'll be able to uh tag the students in the summer so we have just from the summer but what we were interested in what you said is is this carrying over to this fall uh so we'll understand more when we report to the board now that we have this false data um what we shared today was void of um fall 2021. so those were being done and again with the rough start with just getting everything you know it's just tough out there and so we just did what we could in the time taken so it's taken us a little bit longer to get data but that's okay because we've got a pandemic so we'll be able to share those data in in time but they were just recently completed um at the end

169of last week okay member jacobs thank you mr president uh i want to uh echo my appreciation for um all the staff involved with the successful summer school program for sure um do we anticipate or is it too early at this point repeating um a similar program next summer do we have other opportunities outside of traditional in classroom time to to continue to kind of make up ground that's a great question and and we do have uh in the planning uh to uh continue summer school but we'd also like to do before and after school as we can it's just um i think you heard here it's it's taking all of our energy and staffing just to staff regular school that it's hard to um extend it without a workforce and so when we we're

170working with our partners to be able to do that we do want to offer if teachers wanted to to run after school but it's just tough because um every day is tough and so we haven't um all those additional outside of school time we haven't um we've offered it but they haven't been you know up on step yet because of the workforce um but i do want to share that um although our classrooms are large size the win group was designed to to narrow it and have like you saw here like smaller class sizes as well as whether you need to be re-taught or accelerate like the wind time is also to accelerate students who can be accelerated into additional learning so um we'd like to it's at this point for those additional supports it's

171not necessarily about funding it's just the workforce primarily may the president follow up yes so just a question on um we heard some testimony regarding this and i was contacted by a contractor actually who was interested in serving as an asd substitute do we where are we on the spectrum in terms of stringency for who can substitute who will accept and um you know who will accept as i guess as a staff that can be in front of students and is it are there other districts in the state that handle things a little bit differently if you have any experience in that area sure i will um i'd like to to really look at that to study other districts as well as uh where we are and i can get that report back to the

172staff that's a great question thank you okay so my my comment really has to do we were at baxter jack jack was at baxter for two sessions he did miss a week uh but he was there and not only did i visit baxter which had a phenomenal program those weekly reports the way he grew over the summer was amazing was just mind-boggling for me he had not had any formal schooling until the summer session so we went from once a week zoom to um every day well four four days a week or did it go every day four days because fridays was planning for teachers anyway it it was amazing and i am so thankful that um to hear uh to have everybody here how dedicated and focused i'm telling you it it was it

173was really good to see everybody on the same page doing i don't care what class you went into you would recognize the strategies you'd recognize the focus but it wasn't just baxter uh i forget where patrick was was he willa chris patrick um not patrick chinook chinook same thing in his school i mean it it was just absolutely amazing and so if i had a question it would be do we have any sense whether the um [Music] the two sessions or a longer session so going from you know all the suggestions um the way to go or was there any talk or just doing like a six week session um you know what i'll have to get back to the planning team um i'm i'm not exactly sure um [Music] you know the the determination

174of that and and and all of that so i'll have to get back about why um two four-week sessions were were chosen i know that the volume of students that we wanted to be able to reach um and we had seats go unfilled because of the july and we we found out that july is just tough for families and so maybe um we do start earlier and maybe have longer we're just trying to to figure that out okay yeah that was uh that would have been yeah and not just for um the program but just to give teachers a you know you do six weeks and you're done as opposed to uh you know two separate blocks it might be better i don't know yeah but it's wonderful thank you yeah madam president some of

175the principals did both sessions some did not and teachers as well some teachers decided i just want to do one session and i'm traveling this time so i'll do the opposite so um it was really and and anyone who had elementary cert um i was surprised to see just as a side note there were a lot of music teachers teaching um that volunteered and then did the training and and were phenomenal so it it uh um basically um you know staff that um were willing to to come in and do it i think they they took anyone who who who um just went through the process and and and turned out they supported each other and shared the mission remember higgins follow up yeah just one comment um i thought the um the third grade

176reading scores being a life sentence kind of issue was alarming with 60 of our kids in in their crisis kind of mode but there's a lot of studies out there a lot of examples where people have played catch-up it just means we got it recognized that that will be the outcome unless we do something dramatic asd i know in the past between fourth and eighth grade has led a lot of groups in regards to our academic growth we're not quite there now but if we get back into that mode we can we can still kind of help those kids that otherwise probably will live up to that saying of being like education centers and i just it i never saw that written that way before but it was pretty significant to me okay thank you

177um and madam president just to comment on that that the evidence is is really true like you said if um we don't change things and it goes to read to learn learn to read and there was a time when our alaska standards were you know i mean there was a time that alaska showed growth in fourth through eighth grade but that that doesn't exist anymore and so uh it's essential um i do believe we're in a crisis and the life sentence is just that it will always be hard and um just always difficult if you're not reading on grade level and you're being taught grade level things it's always going to be a struggle for you yeah so you're you're correct okay uh member lessons thank you um all right so let's see if i

178can put this together in in one question um i'm interested in understanding i appreciate this sort of bullet point slide uh that's right up right now the bullet point about collaboration it's my understanding that the teachers had maybe 20 of their time to dedicate to collaboration in summer school if they had a day for that is that right yes so summer school to look at data to have discussions to build capacity um we reserved that that last time how does that compare to a normal school day in the rest of the year like is that something that's actually i mean that's a lot of time to really work out the kinks with your peers is that something that could be replicated in some way shape or form and you know collaboration is a part of

179the approach moving forward um i'm just i'm wondering where in the school day you know uh countries like finland collaboration is a really important part of their game plan is there a way to integrate collaboration on a more regular basis like in the summer school program within the school year because i feel like that's a really crucial missing piece and if so how can we go about doing that so collaboration um different things happen sometimes um you try to give teachers on the same grade level if when we're not working in a perfect world try to give teachers on the similar grade level uh similar prep time so that they can collaborate you know on their on their own as well and just provide them even the time in the day to do it many

180times we meet after school but those are limited contractually i think the board has known that um we have uh studied and done this and this is a continual request to do a late start or early release on certain days it was discussed prior to the pandemic but the pandemic left us with kids home more at the secondary level we do that middle school has an additional planning time elementary schools uh we basically are kind of piecemealing trying to find time uh to collaborate because of its importance there is funding and again you know it just depends on being our workforce being able to fill it but there was planning around funding to support teachers to take a couple hours off during their day to meet together uh while their classroom uh is taken care

181of uh but again at this point in time uh due to the you know our situation with workforce that's that isn't a viable but uh the funding um through our professional development is built around supporting teachers in that manner and um but without again uh the pandemic and our work for shortage that's not um you know highs on the priority really to to have them so uh just working on other other avenues before school after school um i want to say teachers collaborate a lot on their own as well so um but the importance of that remains key and we remain you know dedicated to solving times that we can get people together to work together [Music] yes you may thank you and i guess the related follow-up is you know it in my mind

182um small class sizes can be a crucial component of effective instruction right a teacher can really drill down and focus on his or her students when it is when you have fewer cats to herd what were class sizes like in summer school and is there a way that we can i i think i recall the statistics from the budget it's like more than seven million dollars to lower class size ptr by by one um but if we were to focus on these early learning years can we replicate can we make an investment in our early years moving forward that will give a playing field for our young learners that looks more like the summer school focused environment sure so um that's a great key and i just want to go on record there was testimony

183here of course um the number of students that you work with is going to matter but if you look at evidence-based practices that is a lower return than high quality teaching i just want to be clear on that so um we have we structured these to be small class sizes so that teachers can work with students deliberately we've structured when class size is small i have evidence of our summer schools with small class sizes with no growth i have evidence of one of our our schools that did not get the return and the buy-in and the leadership that has does not have a return they were in school their attendance was higher than their return rate teachers matter what they do not just class sizes leadership matters instructional coaches matters the collaboration of working together

184we have time in our schedules for collaboration it's just whether who could decide what we do with it you know that that's also a concern so um [Music] not that it doesn't matter because research demonstrates it doesn't matter but there is a list of things that have a higher return for student learning than strictly class size as a teacher yes it was a lot easier for me to have as a coach to have fewer kids than more kids but then we address the reality of where we are and what do we have to work with and then we just designed the parameters around that could we fund classrooms at 15 absolutely but we would have to identify what goes you know we years ago wanted to take certain teachers that taught a certain subject and

185put them back in a classroom to lower class sizes and we and that was not accepted that was not accepted and so there have been attempts to protect the classroom if you will but we operate with what we've always done and so and until we operate differently and choose to make different choices then then we can't but one thing is going to have another you know if you focus on one thing you have to take from somewhere because the the cup is like it's only this full and so if we share it we have to make other decisions and and i'm willing to do that with board support but we have to then decide this is what we're doing and it's going to get tougher and tougher because everyone and i think in our system

186is is feeling crunched right now so okay any other follow-ups remember higgins i i appreciate that comment in the class sizes i do recall there was a somewhere in philadelphia area where they went with a low classroom size in first grade got all the kids reading in third grade they were all staying on reading and they just they put they said we're going to sacrifice in the other areas and they found that you know the the impact in the later grades was not as significant and when you looked at the benefit there it it was dramatic so i don't know what the real solution is the outcome but given the outcome where we are and if we could do it over again what would we do to get increased impact i like putting things on

187the table myself and saying what are all the options what can we do because we don't want the same results in the future so i appreciate the idea of you mentioning the idea that we okay we lost it i heard you need to have a discussion [Music] uh thank you and we're gonna move on uh but i do my only my question is um you know this idea of a playbook i really like it uh and i know that's going to look different from school to school um and and and hopefully that's going to be part of what what every principal and staff would you know whatever whatever their components are um that everybody's focused on that would be great to to if everybody had that while it will be uniquely their own [Music] making

188sure that that that playbook is in place so we're going to move on now to our consent agenda can can i ask one real question certainly but we had we had a change in regards to the um uh keeping the uh the children separated because they were exposed and and we were gonna do it we did it differently and i know we made the change and i guess i'm just interested in understanding where that came from i'm looking at cdc and cdc is still recommending contract tracing in combination with pointing and isolation so and i know we don't have a solution for when they're out for five days which would really take the pressure off of that but i'm concerned about the fact that our hospitals are past capacity uh in many respects and there

189are people out there not getting treated the impact of having more going in there can be very bad thing what what basis or what you know what information did we have to make that kind of decision because i'm concerned for the safety of the kids and so thank you remember higgins uh there was an explanation in board connect but dr bishop do you can you uh respond sure there there isn't uh actually a single answer um many different factors and uh with the flexibility that the cdc shows that masking is effective we also know vaccines are i mean those things come out what was happening in our system is that the testing um you know when we talked about the first or second week of school and it took five days to get back the

190testing is actually uh even longer it's hard to get the testing back um i have a strong belief that healthy kids should be in school because of the masking and the precautions and the distancing that we are doing the assumption that students who uh may have been exposed or who actually are are positive or may have been exposed by someone at home are coming in and spreading it we don't have that evidence because of the other measures that we have so we have had kids with covet cases in school wearing their masks others being around them and they we we did not have a viral hot spot if you will and we were sending hundreds of kids home not just because we basically because we just couldn't identify who was whom and who was exposed

191so by the time we received the test back because it took so long you had to almost go some days it would be okay i'm seven days out from the time that i thought i had symptoms to i got my test back two days before that i was symptomatic and it was very difficult to then know a week out i'm positive who was i with this you know this long ago um and i i was you know shared even our state is not truly contact tracing and those who contact trace um effectively uh agree with that um i was told by dr zink that uh pretty much because um the house is on fire we all know that uh it's contact notification that that is what's being done the true sense of contact tracing hasn't

192happened since you know i think since the beginning of the pandemic because of the workforce again and the viral spread so um coupling the not having immediate test back with students then being in school anyway students and our percentage of students who we did ask to contact who came back with negative tests keeping them out um you know that when your virus is a little more under control um surveillance testing yes i agree with that it does work it doesn't uh it's not as effective with the number of viral spread that we have now um keeping up with if you're sick staying symptom-free is our best bet um and the i still think school is the safest place when students are home who we believe um you know a parent shared today i kept my

193kid home but a lot of students are not they're engaging in fact we had a situation in a school that i shared uh that we were worried because we thought oh no there's you know it looks that there's several kids um did this spread from school and what we found out was that was actually a weekend birthday party so when we're wearing masks in school no one else in the school got it except in that class except for those four students who went to that sleepover and so not that one case proves everything but our masking our other mitigation of distancing when kids come to us and adults come to us we wear our masks um that exposed students are actually having a higher level of mitigation when they come to us than when they

194stay home and i'll just say it with my experience and our mission of education [Music] healthy children and healthy educators should be in school and i believe we can meet our mission and be safe and focus on being symptom-free is our best bet and and i appreciate the answer i'm just i'm just thinking ahead that we may with the like you said it may be november december it can go crazy and when we don't have the hospital beds and we don't know what the new the moon will be or the other bad things that we just need to be prepared that we may not we're going to have to be able to be prepared to do more and i don't know how to do that but how to make it so that when kids are

195homesick they can be in school still or something i know when the whole classroom is out it's easier but i'm just very concerned about the contingency plan at this point because the numbers in the hospitals and and the worst time i think is still to come thank you oh great sorry remember jake sure yeah i planned on holding uh this question until um our non-action item on the symptom free plan but i guess i can ask it now if if that's okay um the i just wanted to flag first that um in talking with um just some individuals who had gotten tested recently my understanding is uh the state sites within the muni are around 24 hours currently for getting test results back so things have changed for the better in that regard but new

196york this new york school system the new york city school system today i think i read is moving away from quarantining as well as i understand it but they do seem to be implementing regular testing the other thing that i've come across just from speaking with a medical professional was a a test to stay option where students are being tested with the rapid testing on a repeated basis who are closed contacts are those options that we're considering that are on our radar as the plan is being developed and being modified um through the president um to remember jacobs yes when part of our testing right now is the ability to test right away in only 26 schools we added our high schools to have a better return rate um it's in a pilot you know

197phase right now um the expectation when we set up our other eight testing was to get it back very quickly it wasn't for staff nor students uh and so our plan is to move in the direction of being able to get a test quickly but again the service in our city is is limited and so we are working through our avenues to get uh that return rate for us and so right now it's in high school but to do it we have to give a little bit of like staff and we kind of came to a happy medium i want to tell you there's still nurses that are upset but a nurse would have to if it's a kid's older and they can spit in a cup or do the swab themselves the kid does

198it and the nurse just helps bag it and then the company comes and does all that um [Music] the other way uh our testing is i mean it's a long process it's like 20 minutes inert you know a test so that that's not doable that type of test so we have this new company helping us we're looking to do that but at the elementary level it's more of a support because elementary kids and and i just want the board to be aware we can do a whole heck of a lot of things if we really had a whole heck of a lot of additional people and they're just not there so um wanted to share that a lot of these grants and things came our way and the new york has a lot more in

199even speaking council capacity to do all that stuff with private industry and why do private industry go to that market well because you know it's done the beginning of this pandemic capstone took care of a lot of things capstone then started slowing down because the the market for their needs you know came and so we're dealing with this um ability to serve um we did not feel comfortable because it can't i mean i'm just going to share it again it came up in a work session and in public testimony of taking a grant people have mentioned over and over you should have taken that grant sorry i'm not going to take a grant that holds our people responsible for something that they just couldn't get done i could not put the burden back on schools

200again um i feel as though what we're doing can get us forward and keep us safe and focus on symptom-free and help our people come to work and and not feel overburdened and and probably like you hear it already we are overburdened on doing one more thing is difficult we found however this testing back to your original question that um really we're hoping will work we're in a phase that you know if they come back with a return uh then we're going to expand that and so i look in six weeks that we will have that ability and perhaps have a test to return but right now the balance of the benefit to cost was was too great so thanks for asking sorry i used on that one okay thank you all right so now

201let's move on to the consent agenda madam president i move to approve the consent agenda as listed in the agenda tonight is there a second second okay it's moved in second to approve the consent agenda as uh listed in the uh uh on the agenda are there any opposit any opposition to approving this consent agenda as it is seen none [Music] the consent agenda is approved we're moving on to g action items and we do have public testimony when we get to the items okay whenever you're ready member halloween madam president i move to approve asd memorandum number zero two three and authorize the superintendent to approve lease terms up to the amount of eight hundred and eighty thousand seven hundred seventy three dollars per year for teacher and principal devices further it's the administration's

202recommendation that the school board approve and authorize the superintendent to transfer the remaining 339 227 dollars that was budgeted to lease i.t equipment for the purchase of accessories and devices not covered under the lease is there a second second it's moved in second to uh accept memorandum number 23. is there any opposition to oh i'm sorry we do have to mr donnelly i see you um [Music] okay we will have to do a roll call vote because you're not in the room so at the at this point before we do our um before we vote is there any public testimony on memorandum number zero two three [Music] and we've got to start with our student ms shaw your vote move yes yes thank you i'll do a roll call since uh we do have a

203remote participation remember donnelly yes remember higgins yes remember holloman yes remember jacobs yes remember lessons yes remember wilson yes president bellamy yes [Music] and memorandum number zero two three passes unanimously yay um [Music] next mr holloman madam president i moved to approve asd memorandum number 024 and authorize the superintendent to dispose of the listed surplus property by seal bed sale public auction or other means is practical in accordance with board policy 3270 sale on disposal of books equipment and supplies personal property and administrative regulation 3270 sale on disposal of books equipment supplies is there a second second moved in second that we um accept memorandum number 24. is there anyone uh present to testify on item memorandum number 24. anyone seen no one we call for the vote michelle yeah yes thank you and uh

204member higgins yes remember jacobs yes vice president hallman yes remember donnelly yes member lessons yes remember wilson yes president bellamy yes and memorandum number 24 passes unanimously thank you member [Music] madam president i moved to approve asd memorandum number zero two two to prioritize student testimony and public participation in regular and special meetings by passing revisions to board punk um or policy 9323 meeting conduct or i'm sorry board by laws 9323 meeting conduct is there a second second moved in second that we pass memorandum number that we uh accept miranda not accept i'm sorry moved in second that we the board accept memorandum number 22 is there any public testimony i think we do have public testimony on memorandum number 22. [Music] uh let's see andrew gay telephonically [Music] okay i don't see andrew gay

205[Music] okay he's not there eugene carl haberman [Music] welcome you have three minutes [Music] my name is eugene carl haven to represent myself i follow the public process when the public process done appropriately decision made by the governing body is more like in the public interest now um this is an action item i did and i didn't mention this slightly on the last meeting but uh what do we have here yes you need to follow state log provide a reasonable opportunity heard yes you need to do that but you do not need to selectively say this group has special privileges over another because where is it going to end that's the problem what you can do as a overall picture is improve the participation of people by the way you get that information out like

206the packets don't go out the saturday before a tuesday meeting for example in the last regular meeting you had fell on labor day weekend hacker came out on saturday no way for anyone to call in on monday and you had your meet school board meeting on a tuesday that can be changed that is a way to do it also note this who's left in this room right now did you have a lot of people attendance even with co-working and mass concerns and all that kind of stuff it wasn't overwhelming the number of people and what's being shown right now is it's not just happening here it's happening in the borough it's happening at the assembly that the prior the conversation the people now attending is they're attending the talk about covet and whether they're for

207or against the way it's being handled and they're not really involved with the rest of the agenda whether it's at the assembly in anchorage or the borough or at the school boards that's the scenario but in reference to students attending school board meetings as you know i attend school board meetings out in the valley and i do see participation i do see not a significant but enough to say they have a concern but there is not a special scenario that you are trying to propo you are proposing and in all fairness respectfully you are a substantial improvement in the way things are being handed over in the valley because when you do action items you go for each one and ask if there's individual public comment over in the valley for those students who want

208to participate you'll see agenda now that says there's gonna be five or six items and all they have is three minutes for all of them together and and no administrative report that's where it's gone too and the reason the reason that's happened is i'm the prince of one that testifies and there's there's a way to get things through without clearly examining what i say as a member of the public and that leaves six seconds here thank you very much thank you sarah anybody else [Music] andrew gray you're online can you star six to unmute hi yes my name is andrew gray and i have a student in the district i support nemo 22 to allow items that students might testify on to occur earlier in the meetings because getting enough sleep is essential for our

209kids physical and emotional health a well-rested student is a student who can pay attention interact in a constructive way and more fully participate in their school day we also want to encourage our students to participate in the democratic process during the anchorage assembly's discussion of a possible household lived experience board which would advise the municipality on homeless issues a common phrase we heard was nothing about us without us i feel the same way about our kids why shouldn't kids have a say in the things that directly affect them according to a recent post on a facebook group called alaska parents rights and education this prioritization of student testimony at the beginning of the meeting is quote sick and a quote a blatant attempt to use their parental rights end quote i completely disagree i'm not

210saying that students should testify instead of parents just earlier than their parents and i'm not saying that students need to testify at all but if they want to let them do it before their bedtime in the online publication the alaska watchman an article appeared on september 7th stating that this policy would create a two-tiered class in the meetings those who can testify first kids and those who can testify late adults first i don't think that's really true because action items get their own testimony and don't have to be during initial audience testimony but even if it were true shouldn't we prioritize our kids isn't that what this is all about trying to optimize our kids educational experience don't make children stay up to all hours of the night in order to speak about the issues

211that affect them allow our students to be active citizens and get healthy sleep please support memo22 thank you for letting me testify thank you sir next uh we have polly carr telephonically [Music] star 6 yes welcome you have three minutes there um i am here to express my support for memorandum 0-2-2 toward revising school board policy uh bb-9323 toward making meetings more student-friendly so i i support um this revision um for a few reasons i think the minor changes that have been proposed in this policy can actually make a significant difference in encouraging more students to participate in school board meetings and to allow them to participate at a time that is more appropriate given homework and family schedules at a previous school board meeting i attended a middle school student who had prepared testimony

212and attended the school board meeting for an hour and a half in order to testify was cut off before she had the chance to speak in my career i've worked with high school students for years learning about civic engagement and i know firsthand it's a big deal to attend a public meeting and speak before a group of elected leaders to prepare testimony and then to actually give it so when that incredible moment occurs we want to make it happen for them and i think that's what these simple revisions would do so i'm also all in support for these revisions um students are you know the priority constituency of the school board and they should be given priority order in the sequence of testimony like somebody else just said i'm not saying they're more important i'm

213just saying let them speak earlier if they're there and they can i would also like to ask you to consider other moves in addition to this revision to make it easier for parents to testify at meetings especially parents of young children i have attended many of these meetings and unfortunately watched parents who signed up to testify just kind of slowly drop off throughout the night because they have to put kids to bed but these are individuals who are civically minded they signed up they prepared they really wanted to be a part of engaging but um they they need to be waiting till later and so i'm just wondering if like there's some way to identify um if parents have young children um any any sort of other time constraints uh to try to make it

214more feasible for people who are trying to manage families at home to be able to participate in these meetings and weigh in on on school board business thank you so much thank you ma'am next we have now sherwin sherwood williams in person [Music] i do not see him uh what about dustin darden in person okay so they're they're neither are here thank you so that concludes uh public testimony on memorandum number zero two two um is there any discussion [Music] i'll see carl and then kelly remember jacobs thank you madam president um i uh i fully agree that we have a legal requirement to provide a reasonable form of public testimony to asd stakeholder groups i think any disagreement on this measure if there is any involves how to best implement guidelines to ensure the

215requirement is met in short i do not consider it reasonable that an asd student would have to wait until after 9 pm on a school night to testify in front of the board which makes decisions on their academic experience i do not think it is reasonable that we ask uh students to step into an environment which is unwelcoming to obtain real-life civic engagement experience which is a sentiment that's in line with our goals and guardrails i believe this board can make a small reasonable step such as this to improve the amount and quality of engagement with the public and i hope the adoption of the memorandum and the related board policy change is just the first step down this path i do support the motion to approve and would ask others to do this thing

216thank you remember lessons yeah i um i am support after a great deal of contemplation i'm supportive of this because i do think it puts our students needs to go to bed at a reasonable time and to find ways to practice that civic engagement um at the center of of this experience i wanted to underscore the sort of the timing of our board meetings right now with this new goal monitoring one of we're unders under the understanding that in order to lead as an effective board we're going to be committing a large chunk of our meetings to goal monitoring and we have a calendar now that's going to come up in the next next meetings agenda and we're going to be dedicating a an hour hour and a half i don't know at the start

217of each of these meetings so i think that that alone underscores the need to make student testimony more timely so i think that's an important factor in my consideration thank you other comments yes remember halloween um i also support this i i do think we have to be concerned about creating different classes of testifiers but students are a special group and it's an odd thing we've had a lot of meetings where there was no testimony i remember some of those we've had other meetings that went quite late because there was so much i think it's reasonable to to prioritize our kids especially because we do have elementary and middle school kids that come and testify that absolutely it's it's a it's an imposition for them to sit for hours and wait and we still expect

218them to be at school the next day and perform high school students as well we don't want to keep them up late so i do think we should take this step [Music] as far as classifying different groups of adults i think it's too early and we have to wait to look at that but i do support this change and i hope it brings more students to the podium to speak thank you so as the co-maker on the memorandum i also support it with the understanding that student students will sign up just like everyone else the process still holds as it is they will sign up they will indicate that they are student and and uh from that they go through the same process the only difference will be allowing them to testify within the first

219hour now tonight we didn't have any second hour testimony and i agree that as we continue our goal monitoring we might want to uh make adjustments to our agenda and that's also possible uh but the process is the process as it stands now will and i think the thing that's got people a little it's not even a priority it's allowing them to stay you know use the process to sign up and and for our students you know we allow them to testify within the first hour we have two hours of public testimony so instead of allowing them to wait to the very end this will allow them to testify within the first hour so any other comments so let's call i call for the vote [Music] michelle yes [Music] yes thank you member wilson yes

220remember lessons yes remember jacobs yes vice president holloman yes remember higgins yes remember donnelly yes president bellamy yes and that uh memorandum number 22 passes unanimously and then we have item six member holloman madam president i moved to approve asd memorandum number 030 the selection of cornerstone general contractors as general contractor slash construction manager for the inlet view elementary school replacement uh gc cem project and authorizes the superintendent to enter into a contract with cornerstone general contractors for pre-construction services in the amount of 141 124 dollars [Music] is there a second second it's moved in second that we approve memorandum number zero three zero is there anyone uh wanting to testify on memorandum number zero three zero anyone not seeing anyone um [Music] comments from the board madam president yes remember donnelly thank you at

221our last meeting i raised my serious concerns with the last sentence on the first page of the memorandum that reads the building also lacks adequate physical space to accommodate the number of elementary age students residing within the school boundaries i was wondering if the administration had proposed any amendments or revisions to that and more accurately reflect the situation there dr bishop uh no i have not proposed any okay um madam president i think it's really unfortunate that a sentence like this found its way into this memorandum i think it's very misleading it's not on point of what the issue was in the proposal to construct this new building the issue has always been what is the actual capacity of the building the current occupancy of the building and not what the potential occupancy of the

222neighborhood might bring us the fact is that many of the students that live in this neighborhood go to other schools outside that area while a kind of an extraordinary number of students come into this school from other areas and if it wasn't for that influx of students this building would not be at capacity right now it was even it's even worse than that because several years ago there was a this building was not at maximum capacity but there was a revision to the standards that the district uses to assess capacity that created this capacity issue i believe it's really inappropriate for this to be in there i was hoping the administration would come forward with something that's much more accurate to the actual issues presented in this question and and since it hasn't been done

223then i would move to delete that sentence from this memorandum uh remember donnelly can can you read the whatever you want last sentence on page one the building also lacks adequate physical space to accommodate the number of elementary age students residing within the school boundaries [Music] can i uh give a point of information yes please can i i would like to hear the administration's perspective as to whether or not that um there's a a factual concern with that sentence being in the memorandum if you'll just so he uh mr donnelly are you making an amendment then i need a second before we go anymore further i'll second for discussion [Music] okay carl yeah i yeah so there was a point of information but it's i'm looking for clarity as to if the administration feels that

224sentence is inaccurate where it would need to be modified and i will uh madam president uh asked tom roth to respond thank you dr bishop through the president uh to member jacob so so if if if i might and and i acknowledge uh member donnelly's concerns but just just this this memorandum is really not about the inlet view project that that that matters coming up on on a future memo for the the bond and the six-year plan this is about awarding a um awarded contract to a gccm which the board approved as a as a construction delivery method earlier this year so i i i stand by the statement that's in this memorandum however this is about awarding a contract that went through a a process consistent with the voters guidance when they approved the

225uh funding for the design we're at a 35 percent uh designed state now uh that to continue this process uh the district is proposing that we award the contract to cornerstone based on a fair bidding process so that we can continue the design process [Music] other comments remember higgins i guess i'd like to make two points i appreciate the the the issue you're raising um remember donnelly but i think there's two issues to take in place here first of all in every school there are kids coming into the district into that school they are leaving if we were to look at the capacity of inlet view if you want to say if we didn't let them in then you wouldn't let them out either and you so that would make that statement honest and straightforward

226so i think the fact that the capacity is like that is is a trade-off you got people coming and going and it still is the same issue of the size that's a capacity for the number of kids in that district the reason the fact that someone leaving and some are going is true in every district we have every school we have in the entire district i think the the other thing i'll mention is sometimes the issue becomes one can we reduce capacity in schools can we do something else number of kids we did a pika sodom study here about 10 years ago and the pika sodium study looked at it and said if we had the same classroom sizes like 36 of the of the states in the low 48 where kindergarten to third grade

227was 1 to 15 above that 25. florida was the exception they had 18 for every grade but you look at that issue we we're under capacity so my concern here is that i don't want i like the flexibility that parents are being able to choose different schools that works for them they've got a lot of them because they work downtown you got some in that area are transferring out because they want to participate in optional programs that are different and they're you know so i can imagine offended the denali montessori is very close to there you've got kids that they like that particular program a lot of a lot of parents do uh from a social development standpoint it's really pretty good the the programs and i'm familiar with those very well but i just

228want to emphasize that if we're going to say gee if we just stop the people from coming in then i think that same argument has to be we stop all the kids from leaving and then i think that statement that's in there is very accurate that is under capacity and so i just want to you got you can't eliminate one without eliminate the other in my opinion and if you did that then i think the statement would be accurate thank you member donnelly uh member wilson [Music] i there there's some other information in this memo that that i would also like to highlight which is extremely important to me inlet view is in need of a fire suppression system has aged mechanical lighting and ventilation systems as well as structural and educational educational deficiencies and

229i'll i'm going to echo what [Music] member higgins said is i i absolutely support the many different optional programs that our district offers and many of our schools again i i actually went to inlet view to tour in libya because i knew this was coming up and i wanted to see for myself um structurally what the issues are you know what the classrooms look like and and learn more about the international baccalaureate program which i did not know very much about um so it was an intentional to educate myself um but that that sentence in this memo and me learning that there is no fire suppression system in that school and couple that with the aged mechanical lighting and ventilation system issues i would be concerned if there was ever a fire any kind of

230issue not having the fire suppression system that these kids there is an obvious safety issue so if we can and and that coupled with there wasn't very good parking there i mean there's there's many other issues that i saw beyond that that one sentence um that that member donnelly's has um has concerns about so i i just wanted to say that i actually got to go to the school tour it see for myself and there are many other issues um structurally and safety issues with the school that that would lead me to encourage um support of this thank you uh dr bishop uh thank you madam president i i really appreciate those comments and i do want to go on record that um fire suppression systems are for the um building to be retained and

231not be a total loss safety of students is paramount we wouldn't have students in there if we didn't think it was safe for students [Music] fire alarms are student safety issues uh water suppression is protection of the actual physical space so we would get students to put out within you know our goal is like two minutes or under so i just wanted to be clear uh and not have on public record that we would have children in a building that we thought was unsafe so thanks because there's children residing there now thank you but uh appreciate all the but the mechanical issues are the problems because they're so old thank you so we have amendment number one to remove that last sentence ma'am brisbane nobody else is scheduled to speak could i wrap up sure

232you may thank you yeah it's not a question of whether or not the school needs updated i support updating in the view many people came and testified from the neighborhood that that was their preference in fact was to do a remodel similar that the very successful remodel we did with the turning in elementary school which was one of our older schools also at the time and we did it for 10 million dollars less than what this proposal is which is to spend almost 30 million dollars for a brand new school tear it down to the ground and build a new school that's just not needed at this particular time i think a remodel would have been a excellent idea would have been save taxpayers over 10 million dollars um sure if you got lots of

233money why not tear it down and build a brand new school you probably save a little bit of money over a 50-year span but right now this community doesn't have an extra 10 million dollars laying around to put into property taxes to build a brand new school i think it would have been a much and i think the voters would have voted differently if this question would have been broke out on the ballot and not mixed in with the earthquake repairs now i supported the last bond proposition because the earthquake repairs were mandatory had to be done not because this school was in there and i think a lot of people agreed with me on that it was a very close vote by the school board it was three to four whether to break this

234project out away from the earthquake dollars and it's my opinion it should have been done i think that was a serious mistake at the time i believe something can be accurate and still be deceptive this statement i've never questioned its accuracy after it was explained at the last meeting but i do think it's still deceptive because it doesn't tell the full story and i think member higgins raised really quotient excellent discussion about the importance of parents be able to choose i support parents be able to choose schools but not for an additional 10 million dollars that we didn't need to spend to get this school up to code and in good shape you mr gundley so our last bond was 2019 um and i was perfectly clear on why i voted for it and i

235i know that we all have different feelings uh right now i'm going to call for the vote on the men amendment number one so do we change the uh delete the to remove that last sentence on page one yes okay thank you misha [Music] remember jacobs no [Music] remember lessons yes remember wilson no [Music] remember donnelly yes remember higgins no vice president holloman no president bellamy no so amendment number one fails three to four i can't see the thank you it fails two to five so now we're voting on the actual memorandum as as written misha yes [Music] is the main motion amber higgins yeah he said yes oh sorry vice president holloman yes remember jacobs yes remember donnelly no remember lessons yes remember wilson yes president bellamy yes okay memorandum passes uh six to

236one thank you that brings us to item h non-action items uh we will see these again next uh next week i mean next meeting not seeing anybody wanting to pull anything [Music] we do not have any additional public testimony at this time that brings us to j board and administration comments so we can start let's start to my right this time remember jacobs your final words for the evening uh so yeah thank you madam president uh just wanted to uh say since our last meeting um myself and uh member wilson had the privilege of attending a um september 11th um commemoration led by current former asd students um was definitely an honor to get to hear those voices cogently and eloquently speak on an incident they may not have been alive to witness and experience

237but still felt just the same um i also was very happy to participate in the asb conference um this weekend learned quite a bit and really enjoyed hearing from alaska deed and was pleasantly surprised at how closely our goals and guardrails align with state priorities and matters of education so i'm looking forward to learning more as time goes on thank you thank you remember lessons all right two things uh number one finance committee meeting is tomorrow at 11 30 uh right here right next door um second and i'll jump on the aasb uh bandwagon it was an excellent meeting it was a three-day training and in particular uh my takeaways revolved around the two outstanding presentations on mental health um i wanted to just alert the public that there's some great resources that we learned

238about um a joint deed and public health presentation on mental health shared important data on the burnout among educators and about resources for educator self-care it also shared the presentation also shared asd's profile which was embedded within a collection of profiles of districts across the state for what our district is doing to support student mental health and i thought both of those were new to me and i thought useful resources for others to know and the second presentation which was given by asd's own 2020 alaska counselor of the year underscored that the work that our counselors do is really central to the work of student success they help provide our elementary students with the coping skills that they need to navigate the rest of the k-12 education they help our middle school and high school

239students focus on meeting life goals and um we learned a lot about how they allocate their time and they were just both exceptional presentations and i appreciate the participants and the opportunity to be there great thank you all right remember wilson i also attended the aasb conference this weekend which was uh amazing tons of information and many resources that we will have the opportunity to share which i'm really excited about um i i would like to spend more of my time talking about my school visits i've i've begun um visiting uh and and what have actually another dozen schools that i plan on visiting the next couple weeks but i i just want to share my appreciation and acknowledge the work that our educators all of the staff has been doing it is evident and

240obviously one of the schools i visited was tarmigan and we heard from some of those folks tonight um i i spent early morning and i'm not a morning person um at chester valley where the principal greets every student every morning as they come in and they have their routine in the morning and she opens the door for this her students and welcomes them and i i overheard one of the moms saying oh my gosh she waits for you to open that door every morning so it was really awesome but the work that our staff is doing um i understand it's stressful with the lack of of many human resources um and and open positions particularly a lot of ta positions so i just want to acknowledge our educators all of our staff every one of

241them because every one of them is committed to our students and the work they do really truly makes a difference and and i got to see that in the classrooms in the hallways at the schools i've been to and i look forward to to going to visit many other schools coming up so i i really wanted to uh share my appreciation for that work i also just want to and i don't know if i'm stealing some of margo's thunder but acknowledge uh national hispanic heritage month the primary objective of national hispanic his hispanic heritage month is to honor the culture's traditions and contributions of hispanics and latino americans so i as a latina i had to make sure that i bring this up so thank you thank you member wilson remember holloman um i do

242want to say that i continue to support the superintendent's plans for mitigation and where we're at in schools i i know parts of it are controversial um i don't think the science on masking is controversial i don't um that part doesn't i don't see that as a controversy some of the things on which students we're allowing what we're doing as far as quarantining that there's a lot of concern uh i do understand the idea that we provide probably the safest place for a lot of students that may or may not actually have a disease and that's a gamble to a degree but it's one that i think pays off for the municipality and ultimately for our students as well so as things are what they are right now i think it makes a lot of

243sense obviously things can change in a week one way or the other and we're all kind of sitting um the news today that we alaska has the highest rates in the country is disturbing when we spend a year as one of the safest places in the country um we've we're in a much worse situation in a lot of ways um [Music] so i i do want to also thank the staff that's out there every day making the district function um it's gonna be a tough couple of months until we get this under control one way or the other thanks to everyone thank you remember higgins thank you i um i got quite a bit of discussion today with medical staff in regards to uh testing and and and um you know isolation and other issues

244and um and the real focus was that you know the biggest protection right now is the mask uh because you don't know when people have they get tested one day on friday they can be positive on monday and you still got four days and they'll be even if you test every week and there might be positive several days before that so it's really it takes time to get the results you test them on friday get back the results on monday or tuesday so um it's it's beneficial but the mask is number one so i'm proud of where we are on the mask issue and relative to other schools that are closing schools and and so the lost time there is much greater for the entire group and the impact is going to have my concern

245right now is two things one is putting everything on the table that we can do from an academic standpoint that might be significantly different than we do today i appreciate the discussion on classroom sizes what we could focus on what the cost would be how we would end up doing it but i think that to me the house is on fire i like the the thing here of 60 or at risk of of losing their educational growth opportunities because of their third grade reading scores their crisis and we need to act like it's a crisis i think we need to be willing to take bolder steps to be successful i think the public wants to see dramatic improvement and if that means more dramatic change i hope that we go in that direction i think

246you think it's absolutely critical um we're not going to be able to do everything we want because we don't have adequate funding for the issue of classroom sizes we the pocket social study was modeled after what court decisions did in the law of 48 to say what's adequate funding we are well behind that 115 120 million dollars plus and that's without any growth the last couple years and other changes so we've got a real crisis in that sense and the question is do we want to tackle that as well i hope at least we get into a discussion of that uh the board made a decision here when they first met with council of great city schools in regards to what level of involvement we wanted to be and we said level two not level

247one so i hope we get into a discussion with that and i look forward to a discussion with the national school board association recognizing what we requested at that point versus what may be going on and the last point i'll make is that we never have any attendees at our work session and that's something that's open to the public you know we never some people didn't know it was open to the public i thought that was kind of interesting but the work sessions are when we get engaged with that but we the audience is completely missing and some of that discussion is very important for them to understand the interactions of what the board is doing what we view our role and where the discussion is so i i hope the public is aware that

248that's an option out there for them in regards to our activities public meetings are definitely open uh except for executive sessions is wide open so um be interesting if we start seeing some interest in regards to what we're doing that way thank you hey and the work sessions are on youtube we live stream them so and i agree that um you know how making sure the public understands our processes that's part of our communication plan that we're working on with communications through the communications committee um and i would also just like to say that we um i also attended the aasb uh trainings on friday saturday and sunday uh they were awesome um i'd like to just thank lon and timmy and tiffany and jenny and their staff for putting together uh the first training

249face-to-face since um [Music] um since since the uh cobit and so um i just want to uh encourage other members when these opportunities do arise i think the next one will be in november it's how we connect with the rest of the state um and it's not about total agreement it's about uh we got some great ideas and and had some great conversations uh shared some wonderful ideas with other people throughout the state that do the same job that we do and uh remember donnelly did you have some closing comments you're muted thank you madam president thank you for the opportunity um i was actually quite saddened to hear during public comment this evening um advocacy for the use of critical race theory in our schools it really is a divisive racist marxist philosophy that

250i had hoped that as a community we had put this issue behind us as we all know the leading pop books pop culture books that were on our website by the way for a while actually call for the utilization of race discrimination as a basis as race as a basis for discrimination to somehow bring more uh equity into the process and we know that's both illegal under federal statutory law and under federal constitutional law and under alaska law also and if there is any question about that earlier this very year the u.s district court of massachusetts decided a case involving preferences for access to the boston school districts um some of programs within the boston school district and the court said the things that boston was doing were okay but the court also said this

251madam president had this plan unconstitutionally substituted equity of result for equity of opportunity along racial lines this court would not hesitate to strike it down that's the bottom line right there madam president thank you mr donnelly um who did i miss dr bishop do you have any closing comments thank you i would just like to uh echo uh member uh wilson's comments in regard to her visits and things like that i appreciate it too and see those same things and it's tough out there and so just to appreciate uh that acknowledgement of the the people doing the work um a friend of mine you know when they use the term says it takes a village um he he wasn't in agreement with that interesting enough because he said it's really takes villagers it's the people

252in in asd doing it so i appreciate that so thank you thank you uh what about staff any closing comments on the in the gallery see none i'll entertain a motion to this to adjourn we gotta get in the turn oh wow they're a second second