001[Music] good evening everyone it is tuesday april 6th 2021 i am going to call this meeting of the anchorage school board to order i i have all members present in the boardroom with the exception of board member hildy who is joining us by zoom and i have dr bishop here with us as well um we have a quorum everybody's here next up is our flag salute uh member holloman welcome back to the boardroom if you please get us started and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we want to welcome you to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the anchorage school district in this board the board thanks our students parents teachers staff school business partners and the
002entire community for your investment in our district with your time your talent and your tax dollars before we begin i would like to acknowledge the gratitude the denying of people both past and present who have lived on these lands since long before anchorage was here may we all be good stewards of these lands next up is the approval of the agenda are there any uh changes modifications uh anything like that that any member wishes to propose in this moment remember marsette [Music] yes i would like to add um to the non-action items i would like to have a discussion on the proposed discipline policy is there a second [Music] okay second is there anybody opposed to adding a quick discipline policy update to non-action seeing then we have an amended agenda is there any board
003member in opposition to the agenda as amended seeing none let's do this next up is our community engagement uh we do not have a military report today student advisory report i do not see where she coming uh emily oh yeah i see her as a guest so i'll come back to her i'll circle back around here just a quick second give her a chance to get on our student representative to the board board conference and committee reports they have not had any meetings uh the next meetings coming up communications meets on tuesday april 13th from 4 30 to 5 30. finance meets from wednesday or meets wednesday april 14th from 12 to 1. governance is scheduled for tuesday april 13th from 3 30 to 4 30. community outreach for uh written reports uh there were
004none hosted but i was there a conference uh was submitted by uh margot bellamy actually i think there were two conference reports on legislative uh the aasb legislative academy and the council of greater schools uh legislative session thank you perfect thank you and those are all written those are all attached to our board docs agenda student advisory board report i don't believe uh there was one i know you have one coming up but emily if you just wanted to say hi and if there are any updates that would be wonderful thank you for joining us tonight yeah so yeah we haven't we haven't met very recently but the last time that we did meet um we assigned some homework for having our each school go over the anti-racism and equity policies and so um we
005have some news from our schools and um some feedback for those when the time comes and i will send the pdf copy of that to miss grant as well to share thank you so very much looking forward to seeing all of that and thank you for joining us tonight next up we have public testimony we have quite a list so we know we're going to be utilizing both segments we have an hour up at the top and then we have more later on in the agenda so i will read a quick statement the board welcomes public testimony we value public comment as it ensures that we remain aware of public thoughts ideas and concerns and informs our decision-making process there is a one hour time slot at the beginning of the meeting testimony in excess
006of one hour will be heard at the end of the meeting or may be submitted in writing each person will have three minutes to testify when 30 seconds remain a time will ring to inform you so that you can finish your sentence and because we have so many people and quite an agenda i will call out when time is up but if i have to i will end up having to mute you and it is not personal it is just to keep our um everybody getting a chance to speak uh looks like our first few are in person so the first one up speaker number one and forgive me lena lafferty and then i believe speaker number two also in person right behind that would be jeff lafferty hi there so i believe uh how
007are we doing mike's okay perfect and then you should be able to see we'll get a timer started for you you have three minutes thank you for joining us okay critical race theory we have so much more to deal with than critical race theory i've read the paperwork demographics by rape and ethnicity where does it stop where does it start i married someone from kentucky i'm colombian i wasn't born in this amazing country you guys have to be so proud of this country what blows me away is it's like you're trying to pull it down and i don't understand why race does exist and i understand it but you guys are delving into my into my parenting no one needs to delve into my parenting i know how to raise my kids four kids three
008through asd bartlett service service service it's my job it's my husband's job proficiency by race and social economic status so what part are you going to talk to my son about if he does bad in school the white part of them the spanish problem which i just don't understand why you why you guys are doing this our grades they need help my kid does body does good we have kids out there that need help i get it and i understand we should be trying to do this instead of worrying about race i don't know how this is going to help because it seems like you're breaking people apart again my child gets into a fight with someone who's more minority than he is what are we going to do are you going to blame him
009more so than the other person because he comes from a different group i it seems like you're separating instead of putting together kids are doing you know it's hard enough with this with the pandemic my child guess he's lucky to go to school four times out of five days you know oh i'm off friday i'm off this he has three classes he's got to go to college in three years he needs he's got a foundation but i need more i need you guys to do more and not worry about this it's my job as a parent to teach my child about this yes this country was you know founded and there's some issues that have happened and it's horrible and i do and we can't change it what happened in the past we go forward
010with what trying to teach them my job not your job to tell him this is bad this is good and [Music] [Applause] and dr bishop fifteen thousand dollars you're getting a raise i mean with that amazing fifteen oh well i want to be respectful and talk to the person because i i understand okay well fifteen thousand dollars it's ridiculous our grades still suffer when we're still at the bottom of the barrel fifteen thousand dollars is a lot i wish i had fifteen dollars as a hero supposedly from what they tell me because i'm a nurse i you know no it's not the same you get paid quite well you have a lot of you know education and you should but 15 grand during the pandemic seems a little excessive thank you very much guys thank
011you next up jeff uh lafferty afternoon good evening board members and uh superintendent i'd also like to speak to the amount of money that the superintendent was seeing her salary increase fifteen thousand dollars so from 235 000 to 250 000 plus 100 cell phone stipend 400 for travel you know there's parents out there over the past over a year and a half that have not worked who've seen their hours cut who've seen their wages cut and you see fit to give the superintendent a 15 000 raise and as best as i could ascertain from reading what i could find you gave it to her because of the great work she did during the pandemic well if you talk to parents like us and other parents and some parents who are teachers that i know asd
012did the first few months were abysmal and it still it was still abysmal my son basically who's a freshman in high school said we're covering the same stuff we did in middle school i'm very disappointed also that you didn't have a prior plan in place to deal with something like this you know we live in a huge earthquake zone i think that if we had a major earthquake asd probably never would have recovered so for the superintendent i don't see why she accepted the fifteen thousand dollars and if she did accept it as she did she should give it back this is ridiculous we're living in hard economic times here in alaska in anchorage uncertain times we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow financially the legislature who knows what's going to come out of
013juneau the land of mordor so shame on you guys for doing that and just real quick critical race theory i looked at the reading list the suggested reading list on the equity page for asd have any of you read those books have any of you done any research in the critical race theory or you just paying lip service to this great movement that we've seen over the past year and a half you know critical race theories found it comes from the frankfurt school which all those guys came over here prior to world war ii they were all marxists so if this is what asd is pushing and if critical race theory is implemented we've already planned to take our son out of asd we will suck it up and we will pay for private school
014and i'm not the only one thinking like that other parents will go to homeschooling other parents will go to private school and i think if you do implement critical race theory at the level that you want i think you're going to see a huge backlash from this community one that you haven't seen ever before if you think the blm demonstrations were bad last year well go ahead and open up that can of worms i really appreciate also one last thing i find it ironic that you stand and do the pledge of allegiance to the flag but we don't do it in the schools man he does something thank you next up on the telephone is speaker number three danielle kemp danielle are you with us can you hear me yes we sure can thank you
015for joining us you have three minutes where's yours all right um good evening uh to the board and thank you for this opportunity to speak my name is danielle kemp i'm a retired army combat officer music teacher here in the asd and father of two asd students i'm also the co-founder of a brand new non-profit called the alaska coalition of by public educators co-chair of the aea's human and civil rights committee and chair of the naacp anchorage's education committee tonight you will hear support for the asd's new anti-racism and instructional equity policy from organizations from people in organizations who represent those populations most negatively impacted by racism and inequity our black community hispanic community asian community indigenous community uh and our pacific island community uh organizations such as the naacp alaska coalition of black park
016educators and the anchor education education association you will also hear opposition tonight from those who are also negatively affected by the racist and inequitable status quo but who wish to conserve it nonetheless these regressive attitudes and actions must not succeed it is because of the status quo that the district has a high percentage of academic uh and achievement gap between its white and non-white students because of the status quo that the district has about an 87 white teacher cadre teaching an almost 60 percent non-white student population and it's because of the status quo that we have individual racism so bad that a white teacher thought it was okay to call the police on a black student for simply sleeping in class over zoom yes the police knocked on a student's door while no parent was
017around had to be called thank god it resulted in no incidences as you know black people are all too familiar with how interactions with the police can go deadly sideways in an instant the same white teacher now is still harassing that same black student going around spreading rumors about how he exposed her to covet even telling his name i could go on and on and on countless examples of both institutional and individual racism but i only have three minutes to speak right um so all three of the organizations i named and myself personally and professionally are in favor of passing both the anti-racism policy and institutional equity policy the naacp's education committee is grateful also to those members uh for attending our q and a session on march 31st they answered numerous numerous questions to
018our satisfaction and gained our full endorsement of these two policies anti-racism primarily addresses the institutional part of racism most people are not racist but sir i'm so sorry time is up that three minutes is done next up is speaker number four rachel samuelson rachel are you on the line with us this evening hi i'm rachel samuelson and i'm calling in support of the anti-racism and instructional equity policy and i'm a white woman a lifelong alaskan and i went to baxter elementary wendler junior high and east high school i'm also a mom with two small children who will eventually enter the asd and i want my children to have something that i did not have growing up a way to think about race and racism and talk about the ways the white people have benefited and
019people of color have not to say the least and i want them to be able to acknowledge racism and have words to talk about it i want the school district to acknowledge racism and the impact it has on all of our children not just those of color and then work towards improving the significant inequities that we know exist in our school today and so that's really all i have to say and i just really hope that this equity policy goes through thanks so much thank you next up in person speaker number five michael chambers thank you for joining us three minutes and the floor is yours yeah thank you uh critical race theory uh this is a difficult issue for me to address because of the color of my skin but i feel convicted to
020give testimony if the board passes this policy it's my concern that administrative regulations would be created that would promote an environment where groups of students are singled out and encouraged to articulate remorse simply because of the color of their skin the larger question is why here in alaska for 25 years i was a direct seller door-to-door i've knocked on over 300 000 doors in anchorage alone and i'm very proud to tell you that i'm not only in love with alaska but i'm in love with alaskans as we are the most diverse ethnic society on the planet earth on occasion i visit my daughter in southern california their society is massively segregated unlike alaska we should be teaching them race theory not the other way around additionally i was fortunate to be drafted in the us
021army the army reinforced a universal truth and that is the only skin color the army advocates is green later in life i served alaska as an educator in delta junction and fort greely my mission as a teacher was to do everything possible to meet the individual needs of all students no matter what race gender or income it was my responsibility to elevate their opportunity to learn purposefully i am certain if there was a hippocratic oath in education this is it if there is racial or gender bias in education the current board policy bp 1410 is substantial to address this issue at the teacher administrative level without any social manipulation of our children regarding the issue of equality versus equity equality is a universal truth for equal opportunity it is the foundation of our state constitution
022and u.s constitution equity promotes equal outcomes this puts equity in direct conflict with meritocracy i question this how would the military function without rank and achievement regarding ivy schools there's an overpopulation of asians in ivy schools would that mean that we'd have to give a pink slips to asians the major obstacle for equity is the reality in a free society we have free will with free will comes the full gamut of highly motivated or disinterested individuals and a whole host of bad choices in order to have equity i ask will administrative policy advocate the financial blunder of highly motivated individuals to subsidize the unmotivated in summary both critical race theory and equity are strategies of nature to divide we should have no refuge in this school system if these policies are enacted it is my
023prediction you will continue to lose students because of a vast number of parents who have had enough and they will remove their students from this biased form of indoctrination in conclusion if this board wishes to fight discrimination i encourage a resolution to the alaska legislature to work on eradicating the blame amendment from our state constitution its creation was blatant bigotry against irish catholics thank you for this venue thank you next up on the phone is speaker number six rosalind grady roslyn are you on the line with us tonight hello hi there thank you for joining us three minutes and the floor is yours hi my name is rob william gurdy and i'm an employee a mother of five currently working on a dual degree to be a certified teacher a member of the education committee
024with the naacp on the executive board at the totem association and the co-founder of the alaska coalition of bipolar educators for those that don't know or need to hear what bypass means that's black indigenous people of color i'm speaking tonight to many first thank you for those school board members that recognize the need for change the policy and committing to the work of building an anti-racist school culture our students are not being represented through education and staffing in a district that is heavily diverse but once we reflect that our kids will be able to say there's a leader that comes from my background or shares my experiences i can do that too we must continue to work towards dismantling racist policies and ways school-to-prison pipeline exists and that's a fact a lot of this does
025start with education education is not the root of all equity gaps but it can and should help to lessen those gaps equity gaps between students based on their race ethnicity and income persist and thrive at our district and the first step to closing these gaps are to realize where they begin and why there are differences in our district and our school board is ready to eliminate those differences this is a new jim crow airway we are in it is called the mass incarceration of the age of color blindness i heard before the ship is trying to put away the white culture that is impossible and ultimately not all white people are racist but when you see someone saying these policies will devastate our school and harm our children i can only assume that you are
026suggesting without this policy that those that need it the most don't matter this policy can't solve racism and societal inequity on its own but it can help the necessary steps to be a part of the solution this policy could advocate for the more support of early childhood education in k-12 programs which has proven to help equity gap this policy could help do more to support and help bypass students become teachers and provide the risk for professional development you say race isn't an issue but listen to the tone of your voice parents people and employees who say race isn't an issue listen to yourself you say that you want to teach it but you have so much hate in your tone one kid went to the school the rest went to these listen to your tone
027are you angry because we want change well let's bring it the united states of america is trying to implement and i want you guys to do this my five children and i are here to support please and thank you have a beautiful evening thank you next up is speaker number seven celeste hodge grodden celeste are you with us tonight hello hi thank you you have three minutes and the floor is yours good evening school board members and superintendent bishop my name is celeste hodge groudon i am the president and ceo of the alaska black caucus i am testifying tonight to urge school board members once again to vote in favor of the anti-racism and instructional equity policies the anchorage school district's own statistics show alarming gaps that can only be addressed by adopting these policies
028to combat systemic racism for the life of me as shared before i don't understand why we're continuing to discuss these policies over the past decade schools and districts both nationally and internationally have moved past systemic racism denial and have written and adopted policies to address racism discrimination and inequity as someone who attended school here discrimination within asd is nothing new in fact it's been here so long many of us are numb to it and see it as business as usual i'll never forget back in the day when my daughter salisa who is one of only a few black children attending rabbit creek elementary school came home from school in tears after her classmate and friend cared her grandmother who worked at the school said she couldn't invite salisa to her party because they would be
029getting in their pool and didn't want salisa's brown skin to rub off on them i can't tell you what that did to my daughter who still remembers it as a young adult we can't go forward without putting these policies in place to make change you know there's a gospel song and a key anthem of the american civil rights movement called we shall overcome that freedom activists saying this song is so fitting right now as we continue to fight for equity and equality it's exhausting fighting for what is right and what is just however we will remain in this fight until justice prevails we shall overcome is not only a message of hope it represents the certainty of a better future where everybody will have equal rights and equity and education no matter their race we
030are not going to go away or grow weary and doing good we are going to overcome we shall overcome we shall overcome someday deep in my heart i do believe we shall overcome today thank you next up is speaker number eight in person daryl mitchell thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you to the board members and those who are listening what is the purpose of education not only the education here in anchorage or even america for that matter but education as a collective global after all in every part of the world and every culture and every tradition whether it be the most sophisticated or the most primitive we are all being educated and i'm asking presently what is the meaning of this education for what reason
031are we being educated at all of course there is the teachings of language mathematics science history geography arts and so on and in some form or another all these teachings have a technical use for one needs to know certain things in order to function in daily life but apart from these fundamental aspects in our present day curriculum what is the role of education is the purpose of education to help prepare the student for life and if so what is involved in such a preparation is not the overall implications involved in this preparatory education conformity the parent or the teacher being the one who knows is to educate the child to conform or to yield to a standard to a certain way of doing things to a certain system and the adult has also been educated
032in the same exact fashion now is this the purpose of education to educate one another to conform to a certain pattern of thinking to a certain ideology to a certain way of living is our role as educators to mold in or shape the child to fit in within the status quo of modern society and to also strive to succeed within the so-called social norms being that we are educated to conform what exactly is implied in conformity is not what is implied in conformity the general compliance to a pre-established authority and when there is such a compliance to any form of authority whatsoever there is inevitable fear anxiety loneliness indifference competition violence everlasting conflict seeing that we are all educated to conform to authority is it it is clear to me that such an education does
033not give rise to the flowering of understanding it does not allow absolute freedom to discover something new for oneself it does not help the student or teacher to comprehend the fullness of life and human existence our relationship with one another in this marvelous earth in such a learning such a flowering such a freedom can only come into fruition through the means of serious and direct inquiry into every aspect of our lives which involves the questioning of all forms of authority i will close with the question and please ask this to yourself seriously and earnestly is not the true meaning of education to free the mind of all forms of authority so that the brain is unburdened and thus actively learning functioning and acting with supreme intelligence thank you next up in person is speaker number
034nine susan reed you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours good evening my name is susan wingrove reed and i'm a graduate of east high now proudly named betty davis east anchorage high school i moved a lot as a kid military family and i came to anchorage in the ninth grade after grad school i came home to make a life in performing arts education i'm a retired choral music and drama teacher from the asd 27 years 17 of them at bartlett and i'm honored to be back in in i am here to tell you that i support the proposed anti-racism and instructional equity policies i beg you to vote yes after the first and second reading process i attended one of the town halls last week and have engaged in
035lengthy conversations about these policies all i can say is it's way past time to take this step and after adopting them we must craft and implement an action plan and evaluation standards it's urgent to acknowledge and commit to end systemic racism upend systems that have historically allowed suppression hate crimes the very real school-to-prison pipeline racism in schools and communities yes even in anchorage feeling isolated during the hunker down as we all experienced i also felt helpless on the death of george floyd and the resulting international outpouring that is when i became an ally with the alaska black caucus and i'm now a member plus i serve on the education committee last february before covet hit i was lucky to be part of a project with the anchorage symphony shiloh baptist church and others to celebrate
036the life and music of florence price the first black female composer to be performed by a major orchestra i was then contacted for an interview by a group of roaming 8th graders for a history class tough questions we had an amazing dialogue and an intense discussion how people of color have been ignored in classical music and in schools and how that must change what hurt my heart is that we were having this discussion in 2020 we are all equal is not really true in america acknowledge racism expose our kids to silenced voices and new role models it's a big challenge and just as important we need to make it safer for our students to speak their truths you may believe that is happening but i know that some of our students are afraid to share
037their experiences the incredible diversity of our student population is a treasure representation matters and we need more teachers and administrators of color more inclusivity in the curriculum we can do better so that every child is encouraged by our hard-working teachers and staff to dream and to speak and inspired to work hard to pursue their passions and soar thank you thank you [Music] next up on the telephone speaker number aiden wheat white sir hello hi thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours wonderful good evening anchorage school board and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak my name is aiden weitzner and i'm a member of the alaska black caucus allies for change education working group i'm here today to commend your support and urge the adoption of
038the anti-racism and instructional equity policies now more than ever students and families of color in our community need to be listened to and not only that but action must be taken no student should have their education hindered especially not because of the color of their skin this policy is not about regulating the way our children think or behave but instead allows for the creation of a safe space to discuss issues that truly affect us all and are important to discuss unfortunately asd district data shows their significant racial divided graduation rates academic performance ap course participation and more all students must be supported we must work on honoring our diverse student makeup and recognize the immense potential we have to learn from one another acknowledging our differences should not include discrimination against one group or build
039up hatred instead differences should be celebrated biased incidents in asd still occur at alarmingly high rates and this is a sign of a deeper school culture classrooms must be transformed into spaces where biased incidents are dealt with swiftly we must show students that behavior such as racism cannot be tolerated to the slightest extent not only for the perpetrator but also so the victim knows they are able to feel safe in their own class incidents should be transformed into teachable moments and show that we hold our students to a higher standard saying that we will take accountability in writing is one thing but action is another this change will take time and these policies are urgently needed to begin the real fight to eradicate racism in the asd examples of how action is being taken in
040the district must be shared with the community and more open discussion with community members is needed beyond an annual equity report having the community understand what equity truly means is also a concern historically marginalized groups need more support in order to establish equity but this does not mean that white people will be at a disadvantage we must acknowledge the institutional discrimination that has been woven into our lives and that white people have historically benefited from it and we must take action to make change thank you next up on the phone speaker number 11 dr paula williams dr williams are you with us tonight hello hi thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you on good evening i am dr paula williams a proud member of alaska black
041caucus and one of the co-chairs of the education committee i am testifying to the importance of the anti-racism and instructional equity policies i call attention to the statement in response to the death of george floyd that the ancient school district circulated throughout the community in june of 2020 in paragraph two it reads this moment in our national consciousness compels us to reassure our black and brown students and families that their lives and experiences matter the only reason any school district came up with any kind of policy to provide safety and well-being for black and brown students and families is because of a national outpour of people of all ethnicities against racism happening to black and brown skinned people instead of being reactive ancient school districts must become proactive you can no longer bury your heads
042like odd streets in the sand and pretend there isn't a problem with racism and inequities woven with an ancient school district education system it's time to do as you wrote in paragraph four speak out stand up and take action against any form of racism inequities injustice or abuse of power if the ancient school district does not follow through with the anti-racism and instructional equity policies then you all have in writing blatantly lied to our black and brown students parents teachers and communities with your written and signed statement by seven members of anchor school board happiness anti-racism and structural equity policy is how a school district pushes back against racism as stated in paragraph five we are now in april of 2021 it is time that the anchorage school district take responsibility for your own actions
043and inactions in allowing racial injustices in our learning community it should not take another tragedy to realize that the anti-racism and instructional equity policies are most needed and must be passed into law and i strongly support these policies thank you for this time [Music] thank you next up is speaker number 12 on the telephone antavia hamilton and tavia are you with us tonight hi my name is antavia hamilton and i i taught with the anchorage school district from 2012 to 2016. i'm here tonight as a member of the anchorage of the alaska black caucus and a community member in support of the anti-racism and instructional instructional equity policies these policies are needed to establish a new foundation of inclusivity where all people in the anchorage school district are welcomed with dignity and can access opportunities
044to succeed having these policies in place will encourage an open dialogue where bipac and all people speak up against racism raising awareness understanding and is my hope leads us to solutions asd's data in the areas of literacy and disciplinary actions indicate the need to better support bypoc students within it within the district while the numbers themselves do not provide a full picture it does provide clues as to how subtle forms of racism is experienced by the bipart community regularly and the cumulative effects it has on success rates and specific demographics over time though these concerning numbers were reviewed by schools the school board and the district many times in recent years the data continues to suggest a lack of understanding of the needs of bipods or how systemic racism presents itself in an educational institution
045establishing a district right district-wide anti-racism and equity and education policy is a step toward celebrating the diversity in the anchorage community and providing an educational environment where all people thrive bypass representation at all levels is important for this to occur and having such policies in place such as the anti-racism and the instructional equity policies would provide support for bypass people who have much to contribute to the discussion i'll share my personal story when i first began at asd there was bip representation at all levels of the school that i worked where i worked was and is well known for its diversity those who facilitate facilitated educational activities for the betterment of the educational experience of all involved at the school were from various backgrounds at that time there were at least six black identifying teachers
046on staff today there is only one black identifying teacher on staff from speaking with my former co-workers i learned that several bypass educators counselors and auxiliary staff from the school identified racism as one barrier to success based by the diverse student population they were able to identify this as they had experienced it themselves during their career as did i some of my friends have spoken with evaluators union reps human rights advocates and school administrators only to note that they the more that they experience the more that they advocated for students and themselves and others the more they were subjected to hostility from administration in the form of microaggressions the downward trend of diversity and the hiring and retention of certificated staff and the department i'm so sorry your three minutes are up uh next up
047we have speaker number 13 megan holton on the phone megan are you on the line with us tonight i am hello good evening my name is megan holton and i am speaking in support of the proposed anti-racism and instructional equity policies i'm with alaska black caucus allies for change education committee i've testified before on the needs for the policy the data supporting these outcomes in my own experience however today i'd like to speak about how the town halls earlier this week showed me that the school board members principals and teachers are already doing good work on multiple levels to reduce racism and its impacts in our schools however it shouldn't be up to individual leaders to address racism that isn't the systemic change we need these two policies work together to provide a framework for
048the current work that's on that's going and the efforts of others to follow the proposed policies will provide guidance for asd procedures and the data needed to understand where that systemic change is needed it is racism and not race of the students that causes these outcomes that we've heard about in previous testimony therefore we need to explicitly work on racism to eliminate these disparities this is why the anti-discrimination policy isn't enough it sounds like from some detractors that their concern is that white students will be vilified in this policy this falls into the same trap that is the race of students that is causing the problem however as a white student who graduated from west high in 2000 i would have appreciated learning about systemic and institutional reasons for my privilege and how to be
049anti-racist through my actions without this framework individual students are less thinking one individual is responsible for the deep history of trauma in our country it takes collective action to address this history i have been taught by our dominant culture that anti-racism work is hard and these are tough conversations and racism is intractable and complicated but i don't think it needs to be the choice here is simple school board members please pass this anti-racism plan track how you're doing using the instructional equity report and take your guidance from students and people of color and we will start to see the change that we want to see thank you thank you next step in person speaker number 14 keith johnson no all right moving on on the telephone speaker number 15 polly carr polly are you on
050the line with us tonight hello hi thank you for joining us here three minutes and the floor is yours thank you good evening um my name is paulie carr i am a white mother to a white ten-year-old daughter in the anchorage school district i enthusiastically support the afc anti-racism policy and instructional equity policy racism exists in our society institutions and interpersonal relationships our country was founded on racism and the colonization of alaska's indigenous peoples that history continues to manifest today in the form of subtle aggressive or violent behaviors policies media and messaging and throughout our education governance and justice systems in alaska this has led to inadequate or absent coverage of the true contributions history and current realities of indigenous peoples and has created barriers and led to the unfair treatment of communities of color
051in the anchorage school district the impact is that all non-white subgroups have a more than four percent gap between their respective attendance rate and graduation rate the gap for alaska natives is the largest at 27.4 percent the collective dropout rates for students of color are three times the rate of their white counterparts this is not about motivation as i heard one other commenter say but it is unacceptable and it must change on june 16th 2020 in the aftermath of the murder of george floyd the asd board sent a responsive and caring message to acknowledge systemic racism and commit to taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable and underrepresented in our care learn and thrive in an environment that is just free of fear and filled with opportunities and systems designed to lift them up
052this week during the trial of george floyd's murder black and brown children and adults are re-traumatized this brings renewed urgency to pass these policies in reading these policies it's clear to me that they are about giving students and staff free comfortable and safe spaces to bring the diverse identities of our students and their lived experiences and examining the district's practices and policies to ensure everyone has equitable access to succeed that is something i want my daughter to learn about and be exposed to for those saying we should instead be focused on increasing student achievement these are the very policies that are the path to reaching that policies will look like and i look forward to the district engaging our community and implementing them let's take this critical step forward thank you all thank you next
053up in person taylor mitchell [Music] and hold on we'll get that thank you thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours my name is taylor mitchell i'm a member of the alaska black caucus serving on the education committee and bartlett high school valedictorian class of 2010. i urge the board to adopt the anti-racism and instructional equity policies and make good on the written statement from last june post george floyd's murder i've heard the concerns raised about the perception of hostility toward white people because of the policies we need to implement the purpose of the policies are not to teach hatred or distrust of white people i'm going to say the hard things that no one wants to say because of racial tension some white people are experiencing the hostility
054that people of color collectively experience every single day since before the inception of our country and for many white people it's the first time they've had to feel uncomfortable because of the color of their skin it seems we wouldn't we don't want to address racism because it makes white people uncomfortable understand that a lot of our american history we teach has little focus on expounding upon the positive history of people of color beyond the buzzword names try to understand people of color's pain when the history of your people is boiled down to what happened to you in various states of captivity as property where everyone got to be a citizen except you where laws and policies were made campaigned and backed by racist people and our own government when your people were freed and written
055law but then racist at every level didn't want to abide by those laws our education system is no exception the policies we need demand respect and justice for all our students we must teach far beyond slavery and civil rights for example black people weren't just stolen people made to be slaves who were later free given rights and now everything is good and equitable people must understand the decimation and theft done by some in our country that wreaks havoc far into the lives of many cultures here in america like alaska native american indian black chinese japanese etc and those affected cultures are still reaping the destruction this is history that should be taught to the good the bad and the ugly if students of color are expected to sit along with their counterparts and learn about
056the figures primarily white who decimated entire cultures in the name of discovery military prowess and the pursuit of life liberty and property and here one side then why students also need to sit and learn the full scope of gravity of the decimation of people of color beyond watered-down sections in our curriculum you may not have been alive to pull the trigger tighten the news or burn down entire neighborhoods and businesses but the rippled effects of such actions in our country are still rippling but we don't learn about that and we should we all have to take responsibility for our american history the policies we're needing support for will help us to expand the views of all cultures teach cultural sensitivity and provide a safe environment for our students students need to know the many positives
057of diverse cultures it's not about making white people look bad it's not about saying sorry and expressing remorse it's about acknowledging systemic racism in our education system and dismantling the racist ideologies that are subconsciously and consciously woven into our children and making good on our obligation to students and our community from that george floyd response letter do not make that response letter a lie again i urge you to adopt the anti-racism and instructional equity policies thank you thank you speaker number 17 in person dean cannon thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours i feel the radicalism call anti-racism and equity training by its real name critical race theory critical race theory is an offshoot of marxist critical theory yes it really is its purpose is to divide people
058along class and ethnic lines to usher in a workers revolution i've heard some asd teachers admins and candidates for school board mislabel this is critical thinking not critical thinking critical thinking came from the enlightenment which tells us things like the earth is round critical theory tells us that the enlightenment was racist there's a difference [Music] in alaska 60 of our fourth graders can't read at grade level lowering standards and expectations based on race would actually be the first form of institutionalized racism so let's hear from the anti-racist ibrahim kendri the author of anti-racist baby says of mixed race adoption white colonizers adopted black children they civilized these savage children in the superior ways of white people while using them as props props props in their lifelong pictures of denial one blm founder says white people
059are genetic defects and should be wiped out she goes on whites are subhuman and a genetic defect of blackness this she says is factual the founder says she is a trained marxist who wants to disrupt the nuclear family so these are the people leading the movement these are the people that are gonna bring us together these are the people they're gonna bring our children together madness the radicals are right about the hate you can hear it it's coming from them their hatred is for the majority but the majority is not defined by race the majority is defined by decency and most people are decent they are and you know that you're decent people the radicals are a minority they can only advance their agenda through intimidation i'm sure some of you figured that out they
060threaten harass and cancel those who oppose them conversations with them end up in either you're racist or not you can't change the mind of a hardened marxist i've tried but you can't turn your back on it either those up here turning a blind eye to this insanity are more culpable because you know better you know better and you know where this is going it's going to divide our society it's going to crush it i think you're going to go home tonight and this will just all go away someday it isn't going anywhere and you know it should know better thank you thank you next up on the telephone speaker number 18 sarah osborne sarah are you on the line tonight hi i am three minutes my name is thank you my name is sarah osborne
061and i'm a teacher with asb and a parent of two and i'm also a white woman i'm calling in to express my strong support for the anti-racism and instructional equity policies i have separately submitted written testimony but i'm calling in now to echo the voices of support heard today asd's mission is educating all students for success in life all students it is essential that we live up to that mission and begin to address disparities and relevance representation discipline and equity within our schools by passing these policies it is a long overdue first step toward fulfilling our mission thank you next up in person speaker number 19 kevin mcgee thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours good evening distinguished members of the excuse me alaska school board good evening
062superintendent bishop my name is kevin mcgee i'm a 20-year retired army veteran combat veteran i'm also the president of the naacp here in anchorage alaska this is not about indoctrination or convincing kids how to think but giving them free and comfortable spaces to have conversations about things that are important to them it is very important that these policies get off to a great start as they will provide the general framework and guidance that informs eventual anti-racism procedures listening at hand is not whether the asd needs an anti-racism policy and instructional equity policy but rather what will those policies look like this is not debatable as too many people of color have reported incidences of racism and or discrimination in asd i would also like to make it known that i'm the proud father of three
063children who all graduated through asd my oldest graduated from west high went on to graduate from johns hopkins university my middle daughter graduated from east high went on to now be be a senior master sergeant in the air force my youngest graduated from service boy boy west east service he is now living in an assisted living home because my youngest is severely autistic and disabled to just to dismiss these policies is to effectively dismiss the thoughts and concerns of all people of color in our asd community being anti-racist is fighting against racism racism takes several forms and works most often in tandem with at least one other form to reinforce racist ideas behavior and policy the end result of institutional racism and asd is that all non-white subgroups have more than a four percent gap
064between their respective attendance rate and graduation rates alaska native gap is the largest at 27.4 percent the collective dropout rates for our students of color are three times the rate of their white counterparts this is absolutely unacceptable and must change thank you thank you next up is speaker number 20 whitney vigrant e are you on the line with us tonight whitney if you can hear us it is star six to unmute hello can you hear me we sure can thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours great good evening my name is whitney and i appreciate the opportunity to voice my concerns as my questions during the town hall meeting there were not only addressed but not even published in the online chat box this seems to be um
065a common place for voices to be silent so thank you for not silencing me now as an asb parent i come before you today to express my deep concern regarding the proposed policies on anti-racism and instructional equity which are being considered by the anchorage school board both policies are overarching and based on critical race theories and post-modern thoughts regarding knowledge language and power structures the policy at hand will spin off administrative policies supporting the teaching that white people are inherently racist and the current curriculum is racist in itself we use the use of positive racial discrimination and institutionalizing the oppressor victim narrative is simply terrifying these policies will devastate our schools and ultimately harm our children critical race theory aims to set up a permanent group concept and it's working how do we know well
066turn on the tv pick up a paper or jump on social media there are more intergroup attacks and devices now than there has ever been how do we know it's authoritate authoritarian and anti-democratic because good and decent people have become too afraid to speak out against it have you noticed that the people who bring us the tolerance and inclusion also strangely happen to be those same people that fully intimidate and terrorize people who don't agree with them if not outright physical attacks the new tolerance and inclusion crowds seeks to have people removed from their jobs online platforms are otherwise discredited and cancelled in all aspects of life simply for the crime of disagreeing with them it does not sound inclusive or tolerant to me does it afd already has many policies that deal with actions
067surrounding racism for instance the non-discrimination and harassment bullying and zero tolerance policy we simply need to practice these existing policies instead i implore the anchorage school board to instead focus on real issues at hand with 500 with a budget of 572 million dollars plus additional cares money asd is at a reading proficiency in other words 58 out of every 100 children in anchorage uh school district are not meeting state averages english language arts proficiency even more concerning asd is lower in math with only a 40 uh proficiency that's pathetic my children deserve better anchorage school district students deserve better so anchorage school board members just do better instead of wasting time on the proposal of the hyper-politicized critical race theory fix the real problems ahead at hand instead of creating more thank you thank you
068next up is speaker number 21 stacy lang stacy are you on the line with us tonight we sure can thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight my name is stacy lang and i come before you to express my deep concern regarding the anti-racism and instructional equity policies and how these policies will eventually impact administrative policies that support the critical race theory last week i attended one of the town hall discussions where margo bellamy stated that she has read critical race to read books for her own personal education however she denied that any of the critical racery books influenced her when drafting up the anti-racism policy draft i find that really hard to believe considering the fact that all of
069the books posted on the asd's website have a bias towards critical race theory i was also disappointed that none of the five questions that i submitted during the town hall were discussed wasn't that the purpose of the town hall to answer questions about these policies from concerned parents not just ones that praised these particular policies for those that are uncertain of what critical race theory is the definition of critical race theory is that in america the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself instead of being biologically grounded and natural is a socially constructed concept that's used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of color critical race theory promotes the ideology of hyperracialism racialization that seeks to radically transform our inherently racist society by indoctrinating
070children as young as five under critical race theory white children are taught self-loathing and black children are taught to embrace victimhood and this is all taught under the guise of equity we can do better one of the books included on the asu's website is entitled by fragility for those of you that are talking a lot about inclusivity and equity i would encourage you to actually read white fragility and soon you'll find that it's anything that is equitable in white fragility we learn that all whites who reside in the united states are racist the author dr robin d'angelo states when i say only whites can be racist i mean that the united states only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color on page 63 we learn that traditional family
071values are racist d'angelo explains that the romanticized traditional family values of the past are also racially product problematic we can do better lastly we learned that capitalism and democracy itself are racist according to deangelo examples of ideology in the united states include individualism the superior superiority of capitalism as an economic system and democracy as a political system consumerism and as a desirable lifestyle and meritocracy these are just a few examples of the harmful rhetoric that is in one of the books endorsed i mean excuse me listed on the asd's website the asd has a credibility issue if you were really interested in imposing anti-racial policies that helped bring unity versus dividing then there would be other books that wouldn't just support critical race theory parents should be in charge of their children's moral and ethical
072education sorry your three minutes are over uh we've got time for one more speaker uh speaker number 22 on the telephone posey boggs posey are you on the line tonight ah yes i am thank you can you hear me okay we sure can three minutes and the floor is yours thank you my name is posey boggs and i am on the naacp education committee um and we've been working on a reading lab because the necessary impacts on people of color in education we do have a practice of racism in alaskan society remember the saying don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my shoes when you deny racism exists you're pretending everyone must look only out of your eyes and see only what you see what your lived life is so i denying racism
073is just ridiculous it creates a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers imposing second-class citizenship and it continues to permeate the social fabric of schools and districts and it often goes unrecognized denied and unaddressed here's an example of how insidious racism is even in educational curriculum even though anchorage does not use this curriculum i want you to have an fontes example pinellas leveled literacy intervention has a huge market share and yet it's been demonstrated to be infused with racial racialized representations of students that perpetrate these idol ideologies of racism it's an article a study from the journal of curriculum studies was titled the hidden curriculum of reading intervention a critical content analysis of fontes and pennell's leveled literacy intervention in may of 2019 the researchers found that a review of
074the intervention revealed that get ready for it it's a big number 70 of the fiction stories in fontes and canal curriculum represented people of color as inferior deviant and helpless that's the message these children are receiving while one hundred percent of non-fiction fontes and cannelled books present white as heroic determined and innovative and successful think of the message that is being perpetrated here on our children of any color on another front white kids with reading struggles get help they are identified as specific learning disability in special education or they have parents who can pay for tutoring yet black and hispanic kids get identified even though they have reading problems as behavioral problems and they never get help in reading to propose our time is up i'm so sorry um so that is going to bring
075us to the end of our first hour of public testimony we will uh pick it back up after our non-action items just want to remind everybody who is listening and watching as well as the board that we have written public testimony that we have received through email that is attached to uh the written public testimony out on board docs for everybody to read next up on the agenda is our superintendent update and at this time i would like to turn it over to dr bishop thank you madam president i just have a brief update for the board uh there has been some just general questions in regard to assessments and i wanted to update you on what is actually occurring presently and understanding uh our previous discussions in regard to uh the data that we
076can use for the board goals uh so uh right now we'll then i'll go into graduation updates but uh right now uh the there is an open window in the state of alaska for the peaks assessments and our kids are taking them uh they started on march 29th and these will be going through april 30th and it does have a larger window due to these assessments being taken online uh they are a requirement in regard to the state receiving federal funding and as you know through the pandemic there's quite a bit of um lobbying to not have these but i think that this is a way for uh the state uh to get a baseline of of where learning is for english language learners their uh state assessment is called access and it's open from
077february 1st to march 31st uh both of these again are administered in person per state guidelines uh and as you understand the pandemic will have a significant impact on the participation rate itself so if uh you're in at home learning but do not want to come into school to take them then you would have a waiver the dynamic learning maps is the testing window march 15th to april 30th and it is also required by the state for in-person only these are grades 3 through 10 for those statewide assessments but i did want to share that there's presently a survey out that is the partnership with the aasb which is the school climate and connectedness survey that asd participates with other districts around the state uh it's in collaboration again with aasb and it is for
078students in grades three through twelve if they want to take it as well as staff and parents it's uh definitely um uh individually optional uh to engage with with that uh climate survey the benchmarks are a little bit different and these are generally used for interim assessments to really see growth within the year as you know statewide tests come back generally late in the year if not into the next year the benchmark assessments really assist us with what kids need to to know now and how much they've learned fastbridge is the old ames web if you recall for curriculum-based measures and it's really uh looking at if kids are met the baseline if you will for their grade level and it's uh required this spring we definitely are going to do it in all our
079classroom because it is going to provide for a multi-tiered system of support what do we need to do uh for instructions to catch kids up and finish that unfinished learning especially exasperated by the pandemic it will support the student progress progress monitoring as well as summer school placement and understanding what we need to start with next fall that's in grades k through two in math and reading map growth is uh still presently an option now it's at the school level and then the school's determined individual level and uh the reasoning that this was um made optional is it really does come along the similar timelines of the peaks assessment and we in some of our secondary classrooms we've only had kids back for nine weeks so we just didn't want to assess assess assess without
080teaching teaching teaching and so we will get a stronger baseline moving into the new year as you know for the goals we've reached back to the year prior so that we could have a full beginning middle of the year and end of the year to show uh growth and what we're doing in asd that matters for children's learning and then finally the spring assessment that is going to provide some type of data in regard to learning this year is the iready and if you recall we gave this online from home when school wasn't open and that testing window is may 3rd through the 20th again it's on a computerized test it's in in school and it's required in the spring um this will be the only assessment that we've had throughout the year it will
081be a little different because in the past already at home you know we might have a parent might have assisted a child in setting it up uh but all the testing parameters uh protocols we don't really have an influence on those so this will be the first time uh within classrooms that the testing protocols will take place and it's k-8 reading and math and then grades 9-10 in reading and then grades 11 and 12 if they're in uh tier three we call it in multi-tiered systems of support really getting additional supports and we will share those data with with the board uh once those are complete of course the testing window uh really continues to be through the end of the year the student school year another item that was of interest is the graduation
082and we will have a formal request we've been meeting with um the mayor and the health department team and as you know we've shared there is an emergency order that really limits in some different areas in the gatherings as well as the major events uh limits the number of people who can be in one place at one time and it is specific to food being served food not being served inside and outside and so we're navigating these um our request is simply going to be to have some type of a waiver uh as an educational um activity uh although it doesn't fit into a sport and it's not a classroom uh certainly graduation is a culminating activity we feel very strongly that within our um stadiums the places that we are going to have the
083majority of these large-scale graduations many of the smaller ones with smaller number of graduates or smaller schools can still be held in alternate places rather than a field but we can safely distance family groups and so presently there are two tickets being offered but we look to uh make that greater capacity according to the stadium uh in which the activity is going to be held and so we will provide updates we are looking to hopefully get an answer within the next week but i know that that is really causing um anxiety stress additional stress hurt feelings uh we too want to be able to safely have graduation and we believe that we can uh you know given the circumstances um and we're just going to continue to work towards that uh they will all be
084live streamed we do have the capability for that as well as um the film and the streaming i will be available at a later date if you can't see it live we'll continue with our yard sign so hopefully everyone around the city can see those students that have graduated and that really concludes my updates just to provide the board uh information that i do understand that um our families and and students are asking of you so i wanted to provide you those data thank you did any board members have any questions for dr bishop regarding her superintendent report um just kind of along those lines i guess um i saw on our website about summer school or uh going on and it looked like it was for for middle school it looked like for those
085that just had incompletes but can they apply to attend summer school even if they don't have an incomplete yeah uh through the president to remember marsette uh we have a certain amount of uh capacity with teachers and so we're going to go uh with uh students that did receive an initial incomplete but if they uh turn down a seat for traveling then that opens up another seat so we believe with uh much of our uh summer school programs that we can um move into more people than just the the highest needs [Music] anybody else [Music] remember donnelly [Music] uh dr bishop at our work session you mentioned that uh on the office of equity and compliance website you've had a few additional publications are any of them critical of critical race theory through the president
086to member donnelly we can call those back up but um uh at this point in time i don't believe any of those books are specifically on critical race theory that we added well dr bishop can you explain why there isn't a single publication that is a contrary opinion to critical race theory while there are multiple that are proponents of critical race theory madam president point of order dr bishop dr bishop's report was on assessment and graduation how does it get now moved to that was not in her report i thought we asked her questions for her report point of order myself it's never been the policy that we were limited in what questions we asked the superintendent during this period i've been here for four years now we've always been open to be able to
087ask appropriate questions you know questions to the superintendent regarding what the administration's doing when would we ask questions if not during the following the administrative superintendent's report so there are ways to uh ask the administration you know questions and emails and stuff like that i think you're getting into specific books and contents of books um that i don't know if she's prepared to answer that right now and so it's something that you know can be answered at a later time though i'm sure thank you madam president i i feel as though really i i did cover that question in the work session and said that we are continuing to evaluate we added books um i don't believe all the books are on critical race theory i believe that a couple of authors mention that um
088but again these are recommended literature when you look up equity and not all of them speak to that one theory others speak to other theories and economic theories and so uh it is an uh a list of interest and um i'm not so sure i can continue to answer the same question [Music] remember hildy [Music] this is a pointed procedure there was a there was a point of voter called the chair said state your point she stated her point then mr board member interrupted and called a different point of order the board chair should resolve the first point of order and then it would not be appropriate to have another point of order to interrupt a point of order so if the board chair would resolve and decide first point of order the point is
089well taken we've moved to another way to answer the question and uh questions are to remain on this report thank you madam chair are there any other questions for the superintendent the point of parliamentary inquiry does that mean that from now on we're not allowed to ask the superintendent questions if they weren't specifically brought the issue wasn't specifically brought up by her report because that's new so the question was um board members do you have questions for the superintendent based on her report there are other places you know generally in the agenda for other you know conversations whether it's non-action or action items and then there's always email and other places and so this is not to limit your conversation but for right now for this particular section of the agenda that was the question
090so is that the ruling of the chair that in the future let me not ask the ruling of the chair in this right now and as a board which this board is going to have turnover and change and they will get to decide how their agenda is going to flow moving forward after the new board is put together well i appeal the ruling of the chair because it belies [Music] consistency first of all it's a change in our existing policy and second if it's based on just this one incident then it's not a ruling on procedure at all it's a ruling on this specific incident and not a ruling on procedures so it's not a procedural point at all remember hildy [Music] thank you uh madam chair at this point there's no board remember who's
091not fully familiar with our board policies on how to ask questions how to have them germain to agenda items how to get items on the agenda there's no every board member has adequate training on those you can see how to ask questions in our board policy if you're not sure on your private time you can speak to the board president i'm sure she'll provide additional training well i just want everybody to understand the significance of this ruling i've been multiple times over the past four years where i've had people call rules of order on me and then proceed to actually do the exact thing they said i couldn't do and i accommodated that i kept my mouth shut but in this case it's a point of order so a point of order is either a
092point of order or it's not and if that's the new rule then everybody needs to comply with the new rule understood next up on the agenda is our consent agenda yes uh madam president i moved to approve the consent agenda as listed do i have a second second is there any opposition to the consent agenda as listed remember marsette if i want to ask a question about something on the consent agenda is that after it's approved of course yeah i i'd like to pull um [Music] no sorry i can't see it on my glasses memorandum zero nine nine so we have a consent agenda with the exclusion of memorandum zero nine nine we'll move that down to action items is there any opposition to the consent agenda as amended seeing then the consent agenda as
093amended passes uh action items we have two however we have no public testimony for either the items uh madam vice president yeah sorry i moved to approve asd memorandum number 106 and authorized the superintendent to award a contract for the multi-site security vestibule upgrade group one season two project for denali montessori school and fairview and tarmagan elementary schools to a clutna construction and maintenance llc or total award of one million six hundred eleven thousand five hundred and eighty six dollars second first and a second are there any questions on asd memorandum number one zero six not seeing any katie if you could please do a roll call vote and is our student representative online for a student vote emily yes remember mitchell yes remember merced yes remember holloman yes remember hildy yes remember donnelly yes
094vice president bellamy yes president michaelis [Music] yes asd memorandum number 106 passes with seven yays and zero nays and that'll pop up on the screen for those watching at home um next up uh madam vice president that's item number four from the consent agenda [Music] um [Music] madam president i moved to approve asd memorandum number 99099 the personnel report [Music] second [Music] first in a second and member marcette you asked for it to be pulled if you have a question i do and i apologize for not posing this question earlier but um you know with talk uh with teachers leaving the district because the pandemic whatever i just kind of wanted to maybe ask are we seeing that are we seeing a higher rate of teachers leaving uh personnel leaving um it seemed like there
095were a lot on this list but i can never tell [Music] through the president uh to member marcette i would like to request assistance from our chief human human resource officer matt t ford thank you dr bishop through the chair to member marsette we're not seeing a significant increase over past years there is currently an effort to capture uh notices of resignation that typically come in at the end of march consistent with a contract requirement for resignations to occur by that time and those haven't fully been captured but the early indications are they're consistent with past years thank you are there any other board member questions on memorandum 0.999 [Music] not seeing any katie if you could please do a roll call vote emily for the student voice yes remember donnelly yes remember hildy yes
096remember merced yes remember holloman yes vice president bellamy yes member mitchell yes president mikaylas yes asd memorandum 099 passes with seven gays and zero nays next up on the agenda is our non-action items are there any items that members wish to pull for further discussion a member marsette um and these are non-action yes ma'am i'd like to pull um memorandum 108 to memorandum 109 and the one that i added on the discipline policy i called that item number seven all right is there anything else that board members wish to pull all right seeing that we will start with item number five asd memorandum number one remember madam president i oh my goodness your hand i'm sorry go ahead thank you could i pull 102 and 103 please [Music] got him thank you all right uh
097so i guess we'll start up at the top real quick with member hildi's uh i'm assuming the two go hand in hand um but address we're going to start with 102 which is the charter school amendment for family partnership thank you i just wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to discuss these and kind of what has happened and address any board questions that might be out there the superintendent's recommendation with this memorandum is to not increase family partnerships enrollment um it was doubled this past year and they are you know wonderfully trying to accommodate more students but the recommendation at this time is not to and um i guess my question would be to the superintendent to share some of the reasoning behind that from the financial and specifically to our board goals
098and really guard rails on lottery and choice application how how that fits in with them thank you through the chair to member hildy uh in first response in regard to um the board goals and guard rails uh to have a a greater representative representation or a representation that uh is representative of the anchorage school districts um demographics be in all of our specialized schools whether they're in a school in a charter school um immersion school all different types and so that's really going to be addressed because the manner in which charter schools operate is a little bit of a it's the charter between the board and the charter school apc and so uh specifically a few things came to mind in regard to my recommendation frontier and family have done and um our long-standing charter
099schools in asd very successful have done a really great job this year in regard to students during the pandemic but now we have our newborn goals we also have um both of these charters coming for renewal next year to ask for a 10-year charter and i think that that's an appropriate time to really have the charter schools assist with uh processes that will meet that board goal as well so other schools many of them that we can influence a little more than charter schools because there are some idiosyncrasies in regard to charter schools so that is one um you know one of the reasons a second one is when asd when we did our budget with the board and really worked through our demographics moving into next year we did estimate um so i i
100don't want to confuse anyone but if you look at this year there was a budgeted number that really was an understanding from last school year in november time believe it or not in in november um we proposed and worked towards what would it look like um or actually it was yeah in 2019 it was what would it look like in 2019 for um enrollment that next year or in 2021 so it would have been um 20s sorry about that so what what is it going to look like the next year um or the next school year so we budgeted on a trend that we've looked at over five years and so actually it would have been in october not october 2020 but october 2019 i was correct and then we we came up with a
101budgeted number and as you know the pandemic impacted that with students not only leaving the district but also moving among schools in the district moving into this year we estimated about three-fourths of those students would come back and be in schools but we would still lose a fourth however at the uh the particular schools of actually frontier and um family partnership we left them at their guesstimate of of their full capacity of what they are now so we did not estimate that they would come back so we left them whole and really changed students from other schools until we have [Music] more information trend date it's very difficult to budget and prepare for the next year we do not believe that the full capacity of students are going to come back from pre-pandemic time we've
102built the budget on three-fourths of those we're working to get them all back but um we budgeted on three-fourths of those students coming back that have left asd and if they don't um we have over expended ourselves overextended ourselves uh in the district as a whole and so keeping kind of our enrollments at a stable position is going to assist in figuring out until we can get a trend again what it will look like if we increase family partnership by 500 we need to look at all the other programs around the district and understand where is that where are those 500 students coming from because our belief as a district overall with the budgeting work done that it's not gonna grow district-wide it would just be a readjustment of students and so at this point
103in time having doubled last year having a charter renewal next year while addressing those board goals the stability right now with the budget is is i would say with the evidence that we've had and understanding where kids are would be to leave those for this year and not grow and consider those and i would i would have believed that ask will be in next year so you only have a cup of students and you have to disperse them into different schools and different budgets we're not 75 of the students that left asd we believe will come back but they're not they haven't enrolled now so there's a risk there already this would create an additional risk and frankly there r there just isn't enough information to be able to make the change in my opinion
104so having the alignment of the charter next year is a good thing and this request will come back to you my assumption next year when we do have more information it is not a judgment on education it's not a judgment on home schools there's other home schools in the district and nor charter schools it's simply working through our budget and our staffing for these two schools as well as the other 85. this question isn't necessarily specific to these two schools but um when you look at those students that left the district and i think there were what three thousand of them four thousand four thousand and you're you're anticipating three thousand of them will come back most of those fourth out some of them moved right physically moved but a lot of them went to
105um other correspondence and home school programs or and some went to private so all of those are correct all those things you said are correct yes so are you anticipating that most of the 3 000 that you're expecting to come back will go back to the neighborhood schools that they left originally not necessarily some of the students who went to our own home schools are transitioning back so whether that is padea frontier family partnership or asd virtual they're going to leave those programs too and go back so there's just going to be a shift of a shift of a shift and so um that that's why it's so hard to put a finger on thank you did any other board members have any uh questions or comments on asd memorandum 102 or probably at this
106point 103 since they are both the same ish and i regret just babbling on but it is a budgeted item and it's it's a pretty important thing at this point right now in in this how far along we are next up item number five asd memorandum number 108 pulled by member marcette um i opened this up because we um had a work session on this and the next policy and so i kind of wanted to um put out the the uh proposal that the last sentence of the anti-racist policy bp0400 um that there might be a change uh just to let the public know and i believe that change instead of saying instructional instruction should um and i don't know katie do you have the wording that was recommended just so that we can put
107it out there for the public board the board values critical thinking on history and so that would that would change that and so and that was really based on uh policy versus uh management um it was more of a technical uh change than it was for any other reason [Music] and then i didn't know if we wanted to as a board talk a little bit more about this because we have um been discussing this in our work session and i think we did say that we wanted to have a little bit of discussion here in a more public uh forum but you know i don't know yep um i'll find out if board members have comments um but just to be clear we have not voted on that change um but that was proposed earlier
108yeah that still has to go through the the process right now i just wanted to make that public um remember hildy uh thanks in our board work session we had talked about sharing some of the things we'd heard from our community and and really addressing them um during this time the time where we talk about things before we vote on them some of the concerns i had heard is how is this a focus on academics if our academics are so poor and i think we had public testimony well before so poor for some of our students um how do we have time to do these extra two policies and um i think that's a valid question for sure if the board is going to focus on academics that should be the the root of everything
109we're doing um this is the anti-racism policy i think the instructional equity policy directly supports academics but we talk about anti-racism um the other question is why is this needed if we have an anti-discrimination policy and i appreciate how remember bellany has answered that before so i hope she will speak to that during this time another question that i've heard is will this create racism against white people if we talk about race doesn't it just create more racism and i think those are all you know fair questions to ask i i what i've seen come out of this process and i appreciate the board's open participation and welcoming people with all different views is that nobody really thinks about race in the exact same way the reason to do this for me uh is the
110most significant thing i've heard in this process is children saying i don't feel comfortable speaking up if i experience racism in my school districts that's that's a big problem for me um so if this will support children and being confident that the school board rejects all forms of racism that's that's a win for children um in in accessing their academics um i've heard people say that you know racism really isn't a problem before i remember a teacher once i was in the portland airport and i saw this guy i thought he was like a sports person because he had on like sports gear and every single kid going on the plane was so excited to see him and they're like running up and high-fiving them the teacher or the parents on the trip are coming
111over and so excited to see him and so i go over i'm thinking he's a celebrity no he was an asd teacher he was a coach um and he had just retired and just seeing the impact he had well getting to talk to him he shared his experience unprompted you know just talking about his experience in asd his experience being labeled a token directly to his face talked about like it's no big deal at all racism happens in our in our district my own child has experienced racism i'm told to go to the end of the line because of her uh color of her skin you know thankfully that child had wonderful parents and we were able to discuss it um but making it very clear that it's not acceptable in our districts is a
112good thing i think there's been concern on whether we're starting to label everybody a racist and if you have a difference of opinion you must be a racist or something like that i haven't had that experience i i have been able to say where i agree and disagree with i don't use all the same terms everybody else uses in our family we don't say black and white we don't need to say people of color we talk about it based on faith and science and personal experiences um you know my kids were little we learned our colors and held it up to the skin tone and we talked about what color all of our different skin tones were um that there's room for that in this policy i'm not disenfranchised as a you know light-skinned person
113because of this um it means that all children get to come to school and be free from racial racism within our all components of our district i've seen it in our community i honestly think the school district does a much better job of addressing this because of our cultural responsiveness efforts but for alaska natives this is a huge issue i see it in our justice system i see it in hospitals and medical care with pediatricians even well-meaning people um not really paying attention to whether they're making uh how their words are coming across and things like that so i i'm thankful for this process i'm thankful that we had board members who could have just said here's a here's the policy that i came up with and let's get it passed last november now they
114chose to say let's take the time let's have everybody have opportunity for input i appreciate that you know i was able to give my input and be heard in this so thank you to the rest of the board members for that um so that's all i have right now thank you uh member bellamy [Music] so i i just like to uh make a couple of comments first of all in terms of the policy draft of the policy how we got here the journey for me started [Music] probably when we as a board and you've heard it mentioned tonight when we wrote a response a collective response to the death of george floyd we knew that the implications of that would not were were profound uh and and we had we knew as a board based
115on that statement and i'm not going to reread it because it's been parts of it has already been read it's still on our website excuse me still on our website but so in thinking of how do we create uh how do we continue the work first of all that's already being done in our district how do we as a board how do we um hold ourselves accountable for the success of all of our kids how do we support the work of course that's already being done how do we uh make sure that we are making the best decisions possible when it comes to our goals and our guard rails so the strategic planning process that actually started way before co-bid that was actually my first year on the board so the reflection for me was
116looking systemically at what you know what we're doing what we're trying to do and i was absolutely elated that it in the in the the foundation of our goals and our guard rails that foundation was an equitable foundation it had nothing to do with critical race theory it had nothing to do with with the division indoctrination it had nothing to do with that so one of my my my uh most uh heartfelt um disappointments is the fact that people combined critical race theory with the work of education so i can only speak for where how i came about it so why these policies these policies are necessary because all of our kids deserve to work and learn and collaborate in an environment that is that that where they all can thrive and they all have
117the opportunity to uh be the best that they can be now what does that mean in academics what does that mean in our in our schools the work is already being done but it's not it so it's not like this is not something that's going to impede or or um remove anything that we're doing it will enhance it if anything i mean that's the nature of the that that's that's the intent of the policy so when we look to see when i look when when we were trying to figure out you know how do we as a board uh at least uh remember mitchell and i were collaborators at first and then we brought it back to the rest of the board looking to make sure that everybody's voice everybody had opportunity everybody could get
118the understanding we struggle probably three meetings just on the definition of equity and that's important you will notice that both policies start with a definition so whatever so we didn't want people to do just what's happening now we didn't want people bringing their own definition we wanted to give a basis of a definition and so um when i look at you know when it's if it's whether student achievement graduation more kids graduating more kids having access to programs and services racism we attach it to people and skin color that is not the intent of the policy the intent of the policy if you read it is more it's systemic it's dismantling systems systems that are um unintentional in most cases but looking at our data it is very clear that treating our kids equal yes
119we have equality under the law these policies will not uh uh they will not take that away they will work in conjunction with those policies so um i don't want to take up all the time uh sharing my thoughts but at the same time i do think that uh every kid in this district will benefit from this from these policies it is it it it is it is n i see i i and i'm trying to understand and i'm sensitive to all of the testimony and i don't know how to say it any different i don't know how to say it any different i just don't so i will let other people chime in and then i'll come back with some thoughts later thank you [Music] thank you other board members have comments or questions
120remember mitchell so i appreciate all the testimony i appreciate the people who um understand the spirit of these policies and support them i unders i appreciate the people who are um worried and confused and the fact that they're willing to come forward and say and talk about what they're confused about and i guess um again i don't know how this got conflagrated with um critical race theory because i didn't even know what that was until it became a talking point here um i do want to say that the anti-racism policy there we've heard a few times where people say and we've gotten a lot of letters you shouldn't be focusing on this you should be focusing on teaching our kids reading and math and academics and that is what this does with the laser focus
121as member bellamy said when we started working on our goals and guardrails which i'm super proud of this board for passing um we started with looking at how are our students doing that's what we that's the lens we look at everything through so we started with how are our students doing overall not as well as we would like them to how has the progress been over the past few years we're moving better in graduation rates some areas we're not getting as much momentum in so how do we develop our goals for the next few years to really make a big difference um so that work was all based and we looked at student groups various student groups based on socioeconomics based on ethnicity and we have huge gaps in this district and it's if if
122one assumes that every student has a lot of potential then there it could be that our systems are causing those gaps to exist so what these policies do is they ask the administration to look at the systems and see if there are things as member bellamy said that are unintentionally impeding the progress of some of our students or if there are other supports we need to provide and as i said earlier in our work session in an ideal world every single student in our district would have an in an iep an individualized education plan because every student is unique and teachers really attempt to do that but they have a lot of students in their class but to the extent that they can they try to personalize the learning for every student and this takes
123this a little bit farther than that in terms of it being based on teaching kids that is what we are here for we are here to that's our core mission um so the board recognizes the negative impacts of racism on student learning and consequently i added that word on lifelong socioeconomic opportunities health and well-being it is the focus is student learning the board will work with the superintendent to identify and redesign any racially inequitable policies and procedures that limit academic opportunities that's for every single student we do not want to limit academic opportunities for every any student so this really i i'm hoping that by really reading the policy and understanding the intent behind the policy somehow we can separate this issue of critical race theory from these policies because they really are not related
124at all so um anyway i'm very very proud of the work of this board on these policies i really appreciate the input from the administration as we were working through what's appropriate for policy and what belongs in the uh ars and um i'm also very proud of this board for um every member's involvement with the statements that we issued back in june and every member voting for that so um that's all i have to say thank you are there any other board members with comments or questions on asd memorandum 108 remember donnelly um member marcet had requested comments uh about potential um amendments so i'm i'm run through a few potential amendments at this time since it was requested on the anti-racism policy which i very much want to support i would replace encourage critical
125thinking with provide an unbiased review that is very consistent with our existing board policy regarding instruction that should be unbiased and i think the utilization of those specific world words and i'm discouraged by the defense that's been presented on joe's specific words is so closely semantic to critical race theory that it's very troubling and problematic and i just don't think it needs to be in there i think a much appropriate language would be provide an unbiased review of the history of racism in alaska america and around the world and that bias is exhibited by our current website and the administration's choice to only put pro critical race theory publications there and nothing in crit any no academic critique of it um the second amendment that i would recommend would be to specifically state that in
126pursuing anti-racism the fundamental principles of the united states constitution including equal justice under law and no discrimination based on race shall always be maintained that would go a long way to i think alleviating concerns a third possible amendment would be in paragraph two following the board's rejection of all forms of racism which i think is particularly strong and and very well founded and i really welcome that being in here that anti-racism is not discriminating in favor of persons of one race to improve the state of prisons of another race that is the actual specific advocacy contained in this book which is on our website to discriminate against one race to advantage other races is advocated in this book which is on our website [Music] a fourth amendment that i would like to be consider is
127because of the district's placing of these books on our website which advocate for racial discrimination specific discrimination against race race based on against people based on their color that the use of race race theories including critical race theory is not approved by this policy that would clarify it all and i think it would go a long way to satisfying concerns in the community a fifth potential amendment would be to add to the end of the policy that the anchorage the district administration is not authorized to adopt regulations based on this policy if additional guidance is needed the administration shall propose such guidance to the board for adoption as board policy i frankly have it still befuddles me why the district will not allow any contrary literature to these books on our website and and and
128that unfairness calls into question the ability of this administration to pursue unbiased and fair administrative regulations based on these policies and as a board as the legislative body of the school district we have the authority to withhold administrative regulation authority in our policy and i would recommend we do so until the administration has proven they can address this question in a fair manner a sixth amendment that i would propose to the policy would be a recognition of just how amazing the progress this nation has made against racism in the last 50 to 60 years you know there's much literature out there showing the united states is one of the least if not the least um racist countries in the in the entire world in fact and i would state the anchorage school board acknowledges that
129since 1954 the united states of america has made tremendous progress towards racial equality the united states is recognized as one of the worldwide leaders in anti-racist policies americans are statistically one of the least racist populations in the world and that's all fact ladies and gentlemen that's fact look at our amazing progress we've made with the voting rights act and anti-discrimination laws there's a lot there to be proud of there's a lot more work needs to be done that's absolutely true but while we do that we shouldn't denigrate the incredible progress that has been made in the last 50 years which is exactly what this book does talks about how the voting rights act was just a tool of white supremacy [Music] but that's on our website so those are some suggestions that i have regarding
130the anti-racism policy language specifically and uh the adoption of virtually almost any of those would go a long way i think to satisfying and relieving some of the concern with this policy and the actual future pursuit of administrative regulations based on this policy thank you thank you next up member hildy [Music] thank you madam chair i wanted to address some of the critical race theory things that had come up i just want to clarify at no point did the governance committee discuss critical race theory nor was it a part of any discussion at any point it was not rooted in the policies formation we did not analyze that we did not incorporate it at any point into the policies um that some board members choose to disagree with that i can't control that part but
131i can say what i experienced and what i believe to be true and accurate i don't believe that this policy denigrates any part of our nation's progress in the last 50 to 60 years i think it's fine to say we reject all forms of racism i don't have an objection to that um whether we say it now or yeah i mean i don't have an objection to that um on critical race theory i understand this book is causing great distress um for some i you know as a lawyer we're trained to look at opposing arguments and the superintendent has made clear these books aren't endorsed by the anchorage school district it's a means for educators who choose to right choose to understand other people's arguments and then you can say i don't agree with that
132argument but you're aware of it and and it really strengthens yours right as an attorney i look to know the you know the opposite views to the full extent so that i can strengthen my own position or better advocate or in the case of education better educate educate children um you know what what is the world talking about what's the buzzword of the day as an appropriate professional development tool for any educator or really in any profession to know what's being talked about in your profession or in national discussion reading books is is appropriate for educators i don't there's no book that i would say don't read right that's called banning books i don't think that's appropriate especially in an educational setting for adults but once again that's a moot issue the superintendents put other
133books on there people don't have to read them she can put any it's not board governance to manage which books goes on our you know random page of a website um our our focus is on improving academics and how are we going to do that how are we going to be aggressive and focusing on improving math reading and college life and career readiness for our 40 000 plus students um so that's what i hope we are focused on going forward and not kind of these political hot button issues thank you remember merced so this is like beating a dead horse i think but um you know i'm just right here on the website it says these books have been recommended by staff as self and facilitated study resources on equity and race the authors represent
134prominent voices in the ongoing national discussion about equity and race these resources are not part of the asd student curriculum nor are the authors endorsed by asd and here's some of the other books that are on here the latinos of asia how filipino americans break the rules of race the uh tale of raven an alaskan native memoir the building of the great society lyndon johnson's white house the autobiography of martin luther king so these are just some of the other books that are on here and so i just want to make it clear that mr donnelly we understand your concerns about this but i i think we um need to move on understanding the concept here the other thing i wanted to say about books it's just like um you know when my kids were
135in elementary school a group of parents got together and wanted to ban a book in elementary school third grade and uh they didn't care i mean you have the opportunity as a as a parent to talk to teachers and that sort of thing about what your children are learning they just wanted to ban the book the thing about books is whether you agree with them or not they make you think they make you think about other people's perspectives when i'm on this board and i listen to other ideas of board members it may not be something i agree with but it makes me think and sometimes i might change my vote based on what someone else has said because it made sense and i would have never even heard it if we hadn't had this
136open discussion so it's important to look not just at what you believe in but to look at what you don't believe in so that you can always be educated and make sure that you just make sure that you have all the facts and that you are not just with these blinders on but you're looking at the whole world thank you uh remember thank you um this is another example where adult needs supersede the needs of our kids to tell you the truth i really don't care what's on the website for adults because they have the right to choose i care what happens in our classrooms and the the work that's already being done this is not new i don't know why it's coming across as being so new and so scary and so different um
137you know i will consider mr donnelly's uh amendments for the next time but we have struggled with this policy for nine months and even the slightest little thing is is is you know i mean we really i really this is we just need to do what's right by kids the adults will take care of their set themselves they can decide what they read or not read these books are not recommended for students although i am sure some students have already read them they're not sanctioned by the asc that i'm aware of and so you know i don't i don't know that any of us will always get our way but we air we air on the side of kids and making environments for learning making them making it safe making it so they can achieve
138making it so that they can be them their best selves their most brilliant selves in our schools under our leadership so i really don't care about the website i really don't that's a distraction and we need to move on next up our student representative emily i had her hand raised ms bellamy was saying how we should focus on the students and so i wanted to share our student perspective um we had our high schools all take a look at these and the resounding response was that they're very grateful that you guys are entertaining these discussions and having these discussions um and a lot of it has already been said tonight but one thing that i would like to point out from our students is that um they felt that these were very broad policies and
139they didn't have a lot of specific details on what this would actually look like for us as students in classrooms and how the board would like the district and the teachers to follow through on these and so that would just be so the one thing that i would recommend that you guys consider is maybe if you have more information to share on sort of the action that will come after this um i think that student leaders would really like to see that part thank you for that um and so in terms of the policy once it is approved uh depending on you know language and amendments and all that kind of thing is there might be ars you know the administrative regulations and that's what gets into the um the prescription of the how-to you
140know to how the administration and the teachers will implement that policy and so that would be the next step that comes i'm after that i think that's what you're looking for i'm happy to bring those back um you know when they're put together and so um thank you for sharing the student voice it's very much appreciated member donnelly thank you madam president um i'm i'm disappointed that member hilden remember merced continued to talk about banning books nobody's ever mentioned or advocated for banning these books it's that's what we talked about in our work session that's a straw man argument all i've ever called for is parity for fairness that this issue be dealt with in an unbiased manner and not to have only one point of view represented on our website at least three of
141the four books the member marsett mentioned were just added to the website haven't been there for over a month and in fact the disclaimer that was mentioned has only been there for about a week i can show you the screenshots where it wasn't there before just recently so yes that is progress and i appreciate that and i i have no concern actually with the new books that have been posted i think they are probably much more neutral and and non-biased but the fact is there remains a a complete lack of any critical analysis of the books that are advocating for critical race theory and that deserves to be on our website also i'm going to repeat it again folks i know people said these aren't for our children but what my 13 year old daughter
142said to me when i talked to her after a meeting where that point was raised was daddy they spent two months last fall teaching us how to use this school district website and now they're saying we shouldn't use it dr bishop thank you madam president to member donnelly with all due respect remember donnelly after our last board meeting we immediately put up this disclaimer as you had suggested and we reviewed it and we did that so that was more than a week ago we are listening to your points uh you requested a legal review and we demonstrated that a legal review was done and there is no misuse of taxpayer money and that that they're perfectly fine they are just books you did ask me to remove the books and uh hence uh the the
143articulation of of a disclaimer came up so that request you did ask me to take those books off and uh so i i want you to know that you are heard we've expanded that these are ideas when you look at equity and again um i've read a couple too and as a a human being i can disagree with things in a book they're just a book and it's just an author but it's a resource that staff had asked us to place up there for other staff i mean and the public to look at this isn't there's additional things and if if you um want to suggest a book about um a behaviorist theory or a psychological theory i mean that's what we'll do but this wasn't a place to have an argument over which books
144we like and which ones we don't like and so i just wanted to respond uh that i i have carried out your asks as the superintendent thank you all right everybody remember holliman did you want to weigh in before i move on to the next policy [Music] nope sir you have the floor but yeah with a mic though okay i'm gonna move on to the item number six which is asd memorandum number one zero nine the instructional equity policy also pulled by member marsette so i pulled this policy just because it kind of goes hand in hand with the other one and yeah one of the things i wanted to point out here is um you know all means all with our children and um that in this um it's a complete so you know
145with this we're asking not only the monitoring of the goals and guardrails but we want to measure equity both through the inputs that we're putting into it for the resources that our children need uh to be be successful and then what are our outcomes so i think that's an important uh part of this instructional equity policy um yeah so if anybody else has any comments i just wanted to [Music] argue any board members have any comments oh never healthy thank you madam chair uh this is one that i actually think is a strong advancement of our board goals especially for academic progress um the the challenge will be for this board is whether we comply with it if we vote to approve it you know the superintendent i mean we can support equity without a
146policy right this is something that holds us accountable and directs the superintendent to provide an annual report but what i added into that is it should be part of our ongoing goals and guardrails monitoring so throughout the entire year this board should be talking about equity that's something we've said you know who who is succeeding in our district and then why and how do we address it on an ongoing basis so you could sure do it without a policy but this is one that can um maybe hold us accountable and let the public hold us accountable um in saying are we really making decisions that are looking to advance the interests of all of our students not just the ones who in my three years on the board it's usually the people who have parents
147who can advocate for them who understand uh you know government or who are more comfortable coming and speaking in english or speaking before a board into a you know video and microphone and all those things um those are the people who get their voices heard in addressing equity we have a responsibly as a board to make sure we have equitable allocation of resources that's something that's inherent in this policy the superintendent has tried to do that in the past and the board did not support it um so we can pass this and i i expect that we will but if we don't actually do it in how we make our decisions and budgeting and program allocations um then it's not really going to do anything so i i hope that that commitment comes from the
148board and um the choices we make going forward thank you any other comments on the instructional equity policy [Music] all right not seeing any the next item up uh it doesn't have a number on it yet but it uh update on the discipline policy and remember marsette brought this up so i i thank you for the leniency on this because i know that it hasn't completely come out of governance yet but because this is my last school board meeting um i wanted to speak on this because it's been something that i think goes along with our anti-racist and our equity policy and um 2000 the summer of 2015 a five-member subcommittee consisting of myself dan laurin omar dramer charlay allen and barb churchill and we were all members of me cac at that time and
149what we did is we put together a recommendation for a change to the anchorage school district's policy statement of rights and responsibilities and this recommendation at that time fell in line with asd's destination 2020 every out of school suspension is a marked absence that our recommendation would be keep students in school and improve our attendance rate the purpose of school discipline has become increasingly associated with the use of punishment and school inclusion in fact a number of important instructional organizations underlie any school's disciplinary system they say that zero tolerance is to ensure the safety of students and teachers to create a climate of conductive to learning to teach students skills for successful integrating in school and society and reduce rates of future misbehavior the most dominant disciplinary approaches in the past 15 years have been
150the philosophy of zero tolerance zero tolerance is based on the philosophy of deterrence that is the belief that increasing the severity of punishment for both minor and major misbehavior will send a message that disruptive behavior will not be tolerated exclusionary discipline strategies should not exclude students from school even in our handbook now which i know has to be updated it says if students are absent or tardy they can be suspended it's kind of a oxymoron i think but they should be used as a last resort to preserve the safety of students and staff out of school suspensions can not by themselves make schools safer in fact the american psychological psychology association has found that these practices harm academic achievement for all students while increasing the chances that those excluded will be held back drop out
151and become involved with the juvenile and criminal systems these findings are especially coincidental for students of color and students with special needs who suffered discipline disparities it has been referred to the school to prison pipeline so on this paper there's several recommendations that we could have instituted i will say since i've been on the board i have seen changes in our schools but we if you look at the the um suspension rate and you really can't go by last year but before that you see a decrease in some groups uh student groups but you see an increase in other student groups we've got a long ways to go and because i think this is so important and it goes hand in hand with what we're doing and i had written a policy and then um
152the school administration came back with some changes and i just wanted to read my last policy and you guys will see this but student discipline is most effective in an environment where staff members are positive role models for students when considering matters of student discipline student administrators are responsible for determining the appropriate course of action following this policy anchorage school district system of student discipline is built on personal accountability for both staff and students which is understood to me recognition that misbehavior damages relationships between the person or persons who misbehave the person harmed by the behavior and the community as a whole having an opportunity to repair harm done and restore relationships whenever possible as opposed to exclusion personal responsibility by helping individuals develop internal control and motivation maintaining boundaries limits that preserve the safety
153and integrity of individuals with the community and understanding that behaviors can escalate when staff are not properly trained and de-escalating behaviors and restoring relationships when school discipline procedures are deemed necessary with the exception of criminal acts school staff are encouraged to use non-punitive approaches and discipline procedures that prioritize keeping our students in school you don't change behavior through suspension and that's what we have to look for and it is it's not cheap i know that but it's just another thing to keep our kids in school and to help them be successful and then the groups that we're looking at that this pertains to these are the same groups that have low graduation rates and the high achievement gap so it is important i just wanted to share [Music] this discipline with the board um because
154this will be my last opportunity to do that [Music] thank you amber bellamy thank you member uh marcette and yes that that policy the draft that you it's in governance and we will continue to work on it uh and i thank you for your um for your vision and your advocacy for our kids thank you all right not seeing any other comments that gets us through our non-action items on our agenda next up we do have the remainder of our public testimony i have had a request from a board member to do a comfort break a wiggle break so we're going to do five minutes i want to get this started right back on at 8 35 and it's going to be with taketa parker five minutes all right it is 8 35 we are
155going to get going with our public testimony first up in person is mr keita parker [Music] and thank you for joining us and for hanging out all this time you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you my name is takeda and i am the membership chair for the alaska black caucus and a member of the alaska black caucus education committee on may 25th 2020 george floyd a 46 year old black man was killed in minneapolis minnesota while being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill a minneapolis police department officer knelt on george floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds as he uttered the words i can't breathe on june 16 2020 a letter in response to the death of george floyd was signed and dated by members of the anchorage school
156board an excerpt from that letter stated this situation requires that we speak out stand up and take action against any form of racism and justice or abuse of power that threatens the success and safety of any student we meaning the anchor school board commit to developing an anti-racism policy that would translate into programs and practices that will eradicate injustice and discrimination in our schools so this leads to my questions what has changed why sign and date this letter and not follow through actions speak louder than words all of you on the anchor school board have a responsibility and a commitment to the children that you are voted on this board to serve we need to implement this anti-racism and instructional equity policy for our state our teachers our parents and most importantly our students thank
157you thank you on the telephone uh making sure she's here yep uh speaker number 24. via agnew thea are you on the line with us tonight hello we can hear you thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours okay uh my name is kathleen zwick i'm a former asd teacher of 27 years i'm extremely heartened to see the drafts of your proposed instructional equity and anti-racism policies and i support the adoption and implication implementation of both without reservation it is about time as a former teacher i have witnessed many inequities that impacted the so-called achievement gap among ethnic groups such as the amount of resources allotted to various schools the quality and expertise or its lack of principles appointed and staff assigned curriculum gaps the alternative school system even
158the way the school attendance boundaries are drawn have contributed to some of those inequities getting serious about equity will necessarily cause disruption to your traditional how things are done notions and cause discomfort but it must be undertaken i predict that the section the section that will be controversial for some of the public will be the last lines of the anti-racism policy quote instruction should encourage critical thinking on the history of racism in alaska america and around the world and the current structural explicit and unconscious biases toward people of different races truth telling has been a too rare event in our history and we are long overdue to correct that in the process care must be taken to select age-appropriate materials and experiences curriculum decision makers must include all racial groups affected and not just be
159a top-down exercise these are not easy policies to initiate but it must be done public schools an essential pillar of democracy must embody the mission of equal access and equal opportunity so let's get started with this messy and uncomfortable process and then from what i've heard this evening i would just add teachers know a lot about the nitty-gritty of structural inequity and as you set up your structures i would encourage you to have a liaison or someone that teachers can communicate with that would be absolutely free of threat because we can't always speak to our administrators without repercussions or payback and even though that's not true in some schools it's all too true for others so um you have a lot of observant and detailed detailed um observers in school please use them thank you
160so much for your testimony tonight um we're going to go back up to speaker number 24 via agne bemben are you on the line with us tonight yeah if you can hear us it's star six to unmute okay oh am i with you now you are absolutely here thank you so much you have three minutes and the floor is yours okay thanks for coming back to me um good evening everyone first of all thank you all so much for your service and for taking on this topic and for working so hard to um to come to something that that you can all support i grew up going to school in this district so did my husband and i have two kids currently in school in this district i'm committed to our community and having our
161schools be wonderful schools for all kids first of all i think it's important to remember what we mean when we say anti-racism is an action it's a decision a choice we take at any given moment to decide to do and say things that are not racist against racism so i think it the underlying belief there is that all of us are biased by our own points of view by the culture we grew up in by the world we grew up in and so it takes a conscious effort to decide to do things that are anti-racist i think we can see in our district's outcomes that we do have well-documented race-based gaps and so what this policy is is committing us to is really examining that it's saying why do we have that what are we
162doing in terms of our policies and procedures that are resulting in these race-based achievement gaps and as the school district data shows we also have gaps for children who are experiencing homelessness for children with disabilities with children whose link or home language is a different one than english so there's plenty of opportunity to create equity for our students around things that are not really tied to race but tied to other uh experiences they might be happening have it happening so i think it's really important that we support that opportunity to examine our policies and our practices i think it's also important to recognize that this isn't primarily about interpersonal racism it's not about policing people's you know interpersonal interactions it's about creating a system that creates equity and opportunity for all kids and i think
163there's some really obvious things in our community in our school district that don't do this yet so one of them for example is we have wonderful choices in our schools we have charter schools we have lottery schools can all families access them equitably not really unless you can drive your child to and from you can't really take advantage of these charter and lottery schools for the most part another one is our gifted programs which i don't like the name of that but in terms of do we have equitable access to them not really like if if a family can afford to get their child tested privately and bring those test results to school they're more likely to get into those programs even though asd also does their own testing so again there's lots of sort
164of structural ways that some families have better access to opportunity than others and i think um board member hildy also described a bunch of other ones people who yeah thank you so much your three minutes are up in person speaker number 25 uh gerald finkler is he still with us awesome thank you thank you for waiting with us got three minutes and the floor is yours well anchorage uh school district school board and staff i i thank you for a few minutes here to to talk about frontier charter school i'm the principal jerry finkler i'd like to begin with saying that other alaskan school districts have set up schools at anchorage to provide for the homeschooling needs of students in anchorage they provide anchorage families with a form of homeschool that families love in 2003
165the anchorage school district created frontier charter school to also provide this type of education there is a competition in anchorage between homeschool programs from various districts to offer students a better education and the winners are the students we all make improvements every year we have to we have to be on our a game in the past four years frontier family and pidea have created a better education we've pulled ahead of other programs to serve these students and we believe we're doing well what you created us to do it is hard for us to not ask to increase our enrollment finally i want to just say at the end of the day i ask for your continued support in every way that you can give it thank you thank you next up on the phone speaker
166number 26 sarah switzer sarah are you on the line with us tonight i am can you hear me we sure can thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours [Music] thank you i'm here to share my support of the anti-racism and instructional equity policies and ask the school board to support it as well racism is so embedded in our institutions of education law and government that our school system should share responsibility and accountability in addressing it asd can start by having commitment and curiosity to explore where bias shows up in our schools funding curriculum teaching and our learning environments this necessitates being vulnerable enough to look where system systematic discrimination may hide in our institutional policies or be influencing educational opportunities and outcomes our children go to school on
167denial and land that was unseated which serves as a clear reminder of how racism in colonialism government law and education has directly impacted alaska native people in our state and still affects children today our children need to have their education be based on historical truths not white whitewashed convenient stories asd needs to do the work of examining implicit bias and disparities if we're going to uphold existing standards around diversity equity and inclusion yes the work of anti-racism with our children starts with each of us individually and in our families but it doesn't end there our children's first and last education touch points in our community which i think of as our libraries and our universities have anti-racism policies and so i also believe that our elementary middle and high school children deserve this too creating
168an anti-racist school culture is possible and can happen collaboratively transparently and in a respectful way i believe our students and staff deserve to learn and work in a place that is committed to anti-racism and that our community is ready for a school system that will be responsive to the to this need thank you for your consideration thank you next up in person number 27 steve darryl thank you for joining us three minutes and the floor is yours hi good evening i'd just like to say thank you dr bishop and the board for taking the time and just for your service to our community i really do appreciate that thank you um my name is steve darrell and i currently have the privilege of serving on the academic policy committee with jerry a great wonderful principal
169and uh my family has been a part of frontier for 15 years my wife and i we've raised four uh four wonderful children here in anchorage uh with our last one graduating this year the primary reason we chose and have stayed with frontier all these years can be summed up in one word flexibility flexibility to choose one curriculum to teach multiple ages simultaneously uh four kids and five years um flexibility to acquire fluency in two foreign languages during high school flexibility to school year round in order to accommodate family travel or working ahead to finish school early flexibility to take king tech and university level courses simultaneously flexibility in life our hands-on approach in teaching our kids uh put us in the driver's seat to provide applicable real-life examples uh at the dinner table at
170the grocery store uh and even economics lessons at costco because we all shop at costco right at our other places um this made their studies um far more meaningful for them flexibility to tailor their education to each child's unique personality bolstered by what we call the frontier learning profile just identifies learning styles strengths and weaknesses one example is uh the frontier learning profile showed us that our son was a kinesthetic learner three boys we have and needed more physical outlets so we added an exercise ball and a trampoline to his study environment example number two uh frontier learning profile also showed us that our daughter was a random abstract learner which showed my concrete sequential wife that we needed a much more flexible approach um in her studies schooling um i just want to say
171frontier has proven it can be flexible wherever needed in a culture where people vote with their feet they will enroll where there is availability at their time of need we want to ensure there is space for them here at frontier before they leave our district in favor of other statewide homeschool programs on behalf of my family and all currently enrolled families at frontier we truly appreciate your time and willingness to consider the cap enrollment increase set before you thank you [Music] thank you next up on the telephone speaker number 28 heidi northover heidi are you on the line tonight hello hi we can hear you you have three minutes and the floor is yours wonderful thanks so much good evening i'd like to say thank you to the school board members and to all those
172attending this meeting my name is heidi northover i'm an asc teacher and a mother of two when you first become a parent you hold that baby you hold them so tight and you wish them the whole world as a teacher you have the utmost privilege and responsibility in being part of each child's growth in this world individually every kid in my class is someone's baby and at the back of my mind as always if it's not good enough for my babies it's not good enough for your babies we're here today because we know the importance of a good and truthful education for our children our children hold the future of the whole world in their hands it's easy to see the education system as just the people the teachers admin staff and kids and yes
173these are parts of the machine but today we're talking about the policies that fuel this machine the policies don't have a faith but they have an impact and that's what matters what really matters the most is that the policies are student-centered and have a positive impact on student learning and growth therefore having lifelong benefit and lasting positive impact on our community and society as a whole thus i ask school board members and our community to come together and support these policies that are data driven these policies that provide better growth and greater opportunity for every student in our district adding an anti-racism policy means we have the language and the framework to improve learning experiences for all students and families in our district incorporating instructional equity policy opens doors resulting in academic growth yes for
174every student to be clear anti-racism and instructional equity are not taking anything away from anyone's kids or their learning it's racism that takes away from our kids and it's inequity that takes away from our kids opportunities when we add a policy that takes away barriers and incorporates evidence-based practices all students grow my graduate thesis looked at the academic growth of over 800 public school students in alaska in the group that incorporated indigenous ways of knowing with the help of a cultural specialist all students of all races ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds showed far greater academic improvement on mandated grade level standards practices rooted in equity and anti-racism work and are needed as a parent and a career teacher with a master's in education i stand firmly in my support and unapologetically in my support of the
175anti-racism policy and the instructional equity policy thank you so much for your time thank you next up i'm just going to call maybe she came in person uh speaker number 30 andrea davis antoine by chance i don't see her in my phone list and i don't see her in person either uh speaker number 31 on the telephone annie massey annie are you with us tonight this is danny we can hear you you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you my name is annie massey i'm a parent of three children two in the anchorage school district i oppose these policies as written in the language of critical race theory can write two policies you can approve two policies but you cannot write and approve these two policies in the language of critical race
176theories and that is why these both need revisions i'd like to be clear to say the quiet parts out loud this is not about policy it's about your politics this is not about racism this is about your socialism that's what critical race theory is about and that's obvious because of the language that you used in the these policies both of them to hear members deny and deflect this is disappointing but it's helpful as it reveals how much more exploring discussion reading and debating is needed is urgent and is necessary as it stands today you've packaged up a flawed theory in a pretty box and labeled it anti-racism and equity this is the critical race theory language the language that is the problem and what you weren't counting on is informed alaskans to never look at
177its contents who would ever deny that with the selected strategically selected words that are attached the language you selected is illiberal and wrong even your quote commitments are practices that are performed by critical thinkers we ask you to pause explore all relevant literature to expose how you are misinformed and misapplying a theory and an idea as evidence where is the evidence of racism it's time that the educators educate themselves on critical race theory understand the five whys that dr stock revealed only with yourselves asked the first why why did we use this language where did it originate and why where did uh why did the equal opportunity office changed to an equity office and added the word compliance this is a new language and with it a new social agenda a sexual agenda and a
178political agenda these agendas are not why we send our kids to school it's these agendas that are the reasons for poor outcomes not the color of my child's skin annie your time is up thank you so much next up in person speaker number 32 rachel reese [Music] good evening and thank you for giving me a moment to address you i would like to thank remember donnelly's comments earlier on his amendments and i did write something i was going to read you but after the break i don't think that it would be of any benefit based on the comments that i heard in the ladies room it was uh very disdainful of the public that you are elected to serve [Music] you need to understand that equality and equity are not the same thing equity is
179a legal term something you get in a divorce equality is a civil rights term that deals with racism and interaction as human beings i teach my child equality and he no longer attends asd because i agree with the previous caller you are pursuing a social agenda not anti-racism i don't support racism i think you should have a policy against it i don't support these policies as written they do echo critical race theory they do preach socialism and marxism and that is not something for young children to be exposed to i will read you this children are the very heart and soul of our community they are our future and our community's most valuable asset they must be protected and educated empirically educated to have critical race theory and political ideology taught in elementary schools where
180there is no opt-out for us as parents or them as students is shameful and morally bankrupt you failed them during covid you're failing them now with this thank you thank you next up is speaker number 33 uh jessica parker joining us three minutes and the floor is yours okay hi my name is dr jessica parker i'm the principal at family partnership charter school and i appreciate all of you guys i wanted to speak to you today about the non-action item of increasing the enrollment cap for family partnership charter school family partnership is the oldest and largest charter school in anchorage we've served this community since 1997. i ask you to support the enrollment cap to increase to support increasingly the needs of our anchorage community and i have some data for you before covid alaska
181already had the number one highest percentage of homeschooling in the entire nation nearly nine percent after covid that number doubled as did all the homeschool programs in the whole state asd has three home school programs family partnership paideia and frontier and we all doubled this year to answer to the call to the need of homeschooling we grew so fast we had to close our enrollment hire more teachers an answer to improving processes to handle this new heavy load we did have to turn away hundreds of students what happened to these students they did not stay in the district they enrolled in other statewide homeschool programs such as idea raven and cyberlinks a thousand anchorage students went to idea 750 went to raven we lost five percent of our enrollment that is an estimated 18 million
182dollars of anchorage tax paying dollars that went to galena nana and the fairbanks school districts fairbanks excuse me family partnership and frontier are asd homeschool programs we are asd and our partnership with asd is our strongest asset our homeschool students have access to neighborhood classes we have excellent allotments we have partnership with local colleges uaa uaf hospitals treatment facilities and other local vendors that serve the unique needs of family partnership family partnership is not competing for asd students we are asd we are competing for students that attend other home school programs such as idea and raven will you allow us to enroll more asd students let's take back our students that belong here thank you for your consideration thank you next up speaker number 34 in person and i apologize uh shad shoppers okay uh
18335 carson brandon young and we've got the uh the podium with the light on it yep yeah and thank you for joining us three minutes and the floor is yours thank you uh so i didn't um prepare anything because i was kind of just more of a response to what i heard tonight and first of all thank you all for uh talking about these really difficult issues um there has been some lack of understanding for why people are kind of concerned about the anti-racism and equity policies that are being proposed um i wanted to share a personal story for how i first got my concerns it happened in 2011 um if some of you might recall in 2008 our economy got destroyed by some of the people on wall street and uh in 2011's people
184finally took to the streets to protest this in a movement called occupy wall street i was in seattle and i was part of a local branch and our meetings our local meetings got taken over by a group of um extremely revolutionary minded people whose strategy was to drive people away from the meetings by making them as unpleasant as possible they were exclusively focused on race they wanted to fight the cops as much as possible and it was very difficult to deal with them because they seemed very close-minded you were kind of with them or against them um one day i came back from work and i found that they had proposed they had passed a policy called progressive stack whereby the speaking order in our meetings was determined by race um but it wasn't specified
185what races go when or how how that's determined and what i realized very quickly was that they were the people who were facilitating the meetings were using this this policy to pick and cherry pick which people of color they wanted to um promote and i realized that uh when they said we need to promote voices of color and they really meant um people of color voices of color that agree with us and i realized that there's some insidiousness to some of these ideas that were being proposed they didn't call it equity back then or anti-racism but i've seen these ideas grow over time if you want to see some particular egregious examples you can look into the evergreen state fiasco i would encourage you to look that up um i see a lot of insidious
186possibilities here with these things and i'm very concerned with the language um i definitely think it could be improved if this is the way we're going um i definitely uh mr donnelly i know that i'm getting a feeling that you're not gonna get any of those works removed from the website given the current composition of the assembly or the school board um there are some people that i could direct you to that i would give an alternative perspective um and uh that i think people should also read if they want to delve deep into these issues um but we can go offline and talk about that thank you that was the last speaker that i had signed up in person was there anybody that i may have missed that wanted to speak tonight um come
187on up sir and please state your name for the record hello i'm marvin hipsack and i've got several grandchildren school but i was just taking notes as i went here and i have a few questions that i want you guys to just address i can't ask them now but how long will be taught and at what grade level and for how many years okay number two this is socialism the school district will tell kids how to think of other kids it's class warfare it will be taught about your color are you oppressed or you are the oppressor that's what we'll be taught [Music] four with us castle culture is dr zeus even in our schools anymore it better be we don't just follow the us lower 48 because they say so and also number five
188who is going to teach it are you going to have a seminar with teachers at a classroom and stuff like that will there be a special class with an assigned teacher just going to be a class once a week or a class every day or a half hour class once a week with an assigned teacher okay and one person said it's just a book no it is instilling socialism agenda that's what it is those books are white virgility is a socialism agenda what number six i got here what are you going to do teachers that push back on it when they see what is really in the learning manual what are you going to do with those teachers when they push back and say hey i'm not teaching this crap to our kids and at
189what age level are you going to start teaching it number seven are you going to send out a pamphlet a detailed pamphlet of exactly what you're going to teach in this critical race theory garbage you got going on and the last thing i'm going to say is this is socialism as it's best thank you [Music] thank you was there anybody else that wanted to speak yes ma'am if you could just kindly state your name for the record and okay my name is shirley hipsack and i've got grandchildren in the anchorage school district my children have all graduated from the anchorage school district and went on to college and graduated you know what i am going to get involved this just just makes me sick and from now on i don't know what to to what
190extent i'm gonna get involved before i'm gonna do something about it if i have to i'll go to door to door and i'll drag everyone here i'll drag everyone to this to these meetings and you know what this it just breaks my heart to see this and you know what you guys are talking about racism you know isn't the definition of racism just discriminating against someone because of the color of their skin give me a break this is just terrible and you know what thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak all right last last call for anybody for public testimony all right that concludes public testimony for the evening next up we have school board and administration comments i am going to uh kick it off with a couple of my own one
191of the things that we have per our board policy is to uh read a little bit or to touch on the um some elements of the superintendent's contract uh when we when it came up at the last meeting and we had the memo and everything was in it but i feel to do it per our board policy so that is what i am doing now so i'm just going to going to read um dr bishop has a positive attitude and keeps the focus on students while being realistic about the district's progress in student growth and achievement she has high ethical standards and expects that from the board the superintendent is quick to respond to calls emails and texts from board members her updates are consistent and allow for great transparency the superintendent encourages her staff
192to be proactive and work with the board dr bishop has shown great leadership over the last year an unprecedented times for education during the covet 19 pandemic she continues to do an excellent job making difficult decisions and keeping district employees students families and the general public as formed as decisions are made and schools are reopening for in-person education she and her administrative staff demonstrate reflective learning from every incident to improve on procedures and communication dr bishop has led a collaborative effort with the city and state vaccinating community members and district staff in an effort to keep anchorage safe and provide best possible education for asd students the superintendent worked cooperatively with the board in the development of a new district strategic plan integrating the board's new goals and guardrails continued work focuses on measurable and
193accountable student outcomes and equity across the district for all students and staff so just wanted to get that out there for our board policy and say thank you and we already voted on it so there's really not anything to follow up on at this point um just wanted to try appropriately followed up dude oh remember mitchell so i just want to um thank dr bishop and i um you know there's been some discussion about your raise and i have to say in five years you have not gotten one your salary is lower than almost all of your peers and similar schools in a place that is more expensive to live than some of those places and i think it is um appropriate um in light of you know everybody else in the district has gotten
194raises and you have had some really really really challenging years here oh my god so i just wanted to thank you for that and um yeah thank you all right so next up i have just one word star so before i turn it over to her i wanted to just um [Music] take an opportunity to share a few words and dr bishop and i have something for you and so [Music] as most people know or maybe they don't this is your last meeting um i think all of us when the we intend she did her resignation and she said i'd do it through the election cycle you know we thought she'd still be on for another meeting or two and it turned out this was the date in the letter so this is it this
195is final so we will actually be short your board member at our next meeting um and so this is where we get to celebrate you and what you've done um i the only reason i got on the board six years ago was because i beat you and the next day we got together and we talked and i said we had a great conversation i said you've got to come back and you did and i was just so happy when you did that we don't always see eye to eye on the same things that's exactly what you talked about earlier today it's how we learn from each other and how we grow and i just over these five years from my heart thank you you have done so much for kids and i just appreciate who
196you are and what you have done and i just yeah thank you and so um i didn't know if you weren't seeing anything and then and uh star uh on behalf of myself as well as the administration we just want to thank you for your leadership not only this year but the two years in which you served as president uh and but especially this year um i will just know that uh your assistance with supporting getting kids back in school was was unwavering and um as a superintendent i i just strongly appreciate that uh um you do good things for for people's young people for for kids and um i appreciate that and i know that our families in asd do as well you will be missed but here is um a gift [Music] so
197the board and administration want to thank you with this lovely gift yes very much so [Music] um looks like a me wall [Music] i think it's a oh nice [Music] very nice yeah thank you thank you you can't leave alaska without a gold pan star actually i have several of these from other places but um yeah you know i just wanted to say it's not about me it never has been about me um took me three years to get on this board and five years to leave it um you know uh andy here i became like his i'm sure when he saw me walk into school board meetings he was like oh my god there she is again because i was like just attached to him at the hip when i was trying to think
198about when i was thinking about running for school board and he was just so helpful and answering my questions and what was going on and mr donnelly i think we did vote on something together you and i so you know that's an accomplishment uh yes you beat me and uh dina mitchell was you know we go back to great alaska schools and has always been a good friend and a supporter and margot we go back to meecak um you know thank you um just for your insight and everything that you've provided uh dr bishop we started out together five years ago who knew what this journey was gonna bring i mean oh my gosh uh after two years as board president i was like yes you know um you guys amazing um i i couldn't
199ask for a better support group administrators you're we don't always agree but hey that's what it's all about right to agree to disagree sometimes and um you guys are amazing you're really intelligent i have counted on you for many years and i guess my hope is that uh you know we're not where we need to be and um we still have kids that are not reading um but i think we're on the right track we're getting there you know as i've heard over and over again you don't turn our ship on a dime um back in 2015 i used to testify about the achievement gap and um suspension policies and all those things and then here i am and i wish i could say i've done more but i think as a board we've done
200a lot i think as a district we've done a lot one person can initiate change but it takes a community to make change and i'm just so appreciative all the support i've received over the years so thank you and i'm looking at the election results all right are there any final last comments remember donnelly thank you uh madam president um i want to particularly thank member marsette former president marsette for her advocacy for our students with disabilities among the many many great things you championed during your time here thank you very much um i want to just say that i think the decision tonight to not allow questions of the superintendent that weren't specifically related to a report is a serious mistake we unlike the assembly do not traditionally interact with public testimony that comes
201so many times the only opportunity to correct some serious misstatement or some misunderstanding is through questions to the superintendent which may have nothing to do whatsoever with her report and i believe that the board should always be able to ask the superintendent questions on all kinds of subjects you know during that period i think that's really important healthy discourse we need here on this board so i'm going to hope that that policy is reconsidered and not be part of ongoing for this board because i think that would be a serious mistake and i further just want to be really clear that i am not advocating for removing any books i am advocating for a balanced um approach that all philosophies be represented and um i do i think that these books should appear by themselves
202on the website without any kind of critical analysis or counterbalance no i don't i think it's a public taxpayer website it shouldn't be only one point of view on there but that's not what i'm advocating for i'm only asking for a fair selection of opinion that on the contra on the contract side on the website and i have provided a selection of books weeks ago the superintendent requested i provide those i've already provided that and i provided more documents and articles today on the subject also so i would very much consider the consideration of all the materials that i provided so that maybe some of them might make it onto the website any other final member comments or administration comments seeing none i would entertain a motion to adjourn [Music] i move that we adjourn
203there we go you