001it is 601 and i'm going to go ahead and call to order this regular meeting of the anchorage school board it is tuesday march 16 in the board room i have myself alisa vickalis board member alicia hildy board member margot bellamy board member dave donnelly this is your sound on this if you could turn it off on this one i have it on youtube hopefully i don't know if that helps um and i have uh dr bishop uh also the boardroom with us in our zoom room we have board member andy holloman board member star marsett and i don't see board member mitchell but i know she was having technical difficulties earlier so we'll note when she joins us again we also have our student representative uh emily hickox is also with us tonight we
002do have a quorum we are good to go next up is the flag salute and i've asked member donnelly to please do that [Music] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] and before we begin i would like to acknowledge with 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 [Music] and miss emily emily my name is emily hicox and i am the student representative to this board i was elected to serve through the student advisory board my votes are advisory only i and i offer a student voice to the
003body we would like to welcome you to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the anchorage school district and this board the board thanks students parents teachers staff school business partners and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time your talent and your tax dollars next up is the approval of the agenda do i have a motion to approve [Music] i move to approve the agenda second i have a first and a second are there any modifications or adjustments requested by board members seeing then is there any opposition to the agenda is written seeing done the agenda is approved next up in the agenda is our student advisory board report and emily did you have an update for us today not too much to update you
004guys on we have our meeting tomorrow um we're really looking forward to hear about how everyone's return to school has gone and then we will also be discussing the new anti-racism and equity policies with president michaelis so we're super excited about that and then also we are going to have more elections so hopefully next meeting i will have some more news thank you for those in the audience or out in the community attached to our board docs agenda is our board conference and committee reports our finance committee governance committee and our communications committee all have reports out there as well as anything that was submitted by board members for community outreach updates next up in the agenda is public testimony i'm going to read an almost brief statement the board welcomes public testimony we value
005public 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 of 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 chime will ring to inform you so that you can finish your sentence additionally it is not our practice that board members answer questions or engage in discussion with members of the public this is your time to speak an hour time to listen the board will consider all information shared by the public and when deemed necessary issues raised in testimony will be referred to the administration for follow-up we are going to
006kick this off we have uh three folks or the first three are in person with us today um board member mitchell has joined us also she's in the attendee side but she is here with us so um thank you um so our first speaker is daryl mitchell not here all right their next big will be dustin sherman [Music] three minutes glorious thank you very much and as you can see this time i came with some help so welcome to diamond high school team uh bowling team so uh i'm here tonight uh along with the two teams for the high school bowling program to hopefully get a few answers and actually mr donnelly had answered a few of those questions so i want to thank him for that and thanks for last night bringing up or
007the last meeting for bringing up the question whether or not the kids and the parents had the options of being able to go down without representing their schools i appreciate you doing that so i did listen whenever i left i also want to thank uh alisa for um reaching out to me after that meeting uh as well and so some of the the conflicts that we're getting is we had gotten an email from one of the high schools and then i spoke to another board member on thursday night to make sure that everything was good for them to be able to go down apparently some of the restrictions from kova 19 has been lifted and now they're able to go down um although one of the board members that i had spoken to apparently wasn't
008informed that that that was possible so um it looks like everything is back on track from what i gather so the high school bowling team is the the teams are here to not only thank you for being for the jobs that you do but to give you a little bit of enlightenment on what the sport of bowling means to them uh one of the things that i want to bring up is the fact that we are having a hard time in the bowling community being able to promote the sport of bowling to the schools themselves we're not allowed to go in and and hang things on the bulletin boards and promote the sport to build the sport we know that we know by seeing the kids and stuff coming into the bowling center we have
009a lot of kids that are inquiring about it but there's no informations that are available at the school so we want to try and change that these kids we we've had bowling programs to where they've had 60 80 kids sign up to bowl this year and obviously with covet in the mix it's been a lot less we want to try and build that back up there's a lot of scholarship opportunities for these kids whenever they get out there and not every kid wants to play football not every kid wants to to play basketball this is something that a lot of kids that wouldn't normally play another sport would be allowed to do um it's both individual and team so there's a lot of plus points to the sport of bowling so um what that's pretty
010much all i had i do want to thank the you thank the the members who had reached out to me and uh inquired about some stuff so keep doing the jobs that you're doing advocating for the kids because we really do appreciate that and uh i look forward to seeing who ends up being on the board after the election this year i'm sure there'll be some new faces so i'm sure we'll be back uh with that said i'm done again thank you for your patience thank you next step speaker number three in person garrett plum yeah three minutes sir thank you uh thank you for letting me speak today i just wanted to say how important this sport is to me growing up bowling is is just it's just really important i grew up bowling
011with all of these all these people behind me and to go down to ohio and bowl in this tournament with them i mean it would it would mean a lot and a lot of them or some of them won't have an opportunity to build this tournament again so if we were all able to go down there and pull it together it would would mean a lot to all of us and i'm sure it would mean a lot to our parents too if i mean uh putting out the sport especially representing alaska which is something we don't get to do as much as alaskan bowlers uh and going a big tournament like this it's good competition and it's a chance to make new friends because there's not many of us up here and that's all i
012really got uh thank you for letting me talk thank you for coming tonight next up on the phone uh speaker number four is roslyn weiss roslyn are you on the line with us tonight [Music] hello hi we can hear you thank you for calling in you have three minutes and the floor is yours hey so it's me once again roblin i am the vp for the alaska coalition of bypoc educators and i basically just wanted to talk about how important the equity policy is to me as well as those children on the east side and all over the world um undercover racism is a problem we need to stop being a part of that problem and become the change in 2021. this goes out to everyone of all nationalities acting as if there is nothing
013wrong and i think that all children that go to school in the asd district are being taught the same or given the same opportunities they need to be i have heard teachers ask about how do i teach these kids on the east side i have heard teachers say that they're dumbing their ways down because these kids just can't learn i have heard teachers say i didn't push myself because these children won't appreciate it children can't appreciate what they are being taught and they can't appreciate what they're not being taught children can push themselves if they're always being referred to children can always confuse themselves if they're always being referred through sst and put on replacement curriculum and lastly when they are when are their teachers going to be held accountable for not i always heard
014the word grace so much i thought i was at church but at what point is the word grace being abused instead of getting on here being in your feelings and saying i'm not a racist or we're not racist or we're not teaching this and that let me tell you how you can help you should go to facebook and join us the alaska coalition of bipark educators you could educate yourself on your own personal biases next you could build stronger relationships with your bipolar colleagues improve the culture and climate of your school use your privilege to speak up and argue against the racial and social injustice they encounter we encounter frequently both in and outside of the workplace advocate for your bipark employees when it may seem that they're being overlooked or they don't feel comfortable
015speaking up and don't depend on the school district to teach you go out and educate yourself with the reality of what's going on in america this isn't just a black issue this is an everybody issue that's all i have to say the equity policy means a lot to me and others as well as the instructional policy and i can't wait till we get this passed and there's a couple town hall meetings coming up as well as get out and vote these four seats mean something don't just sit by not we need to education we need to educate everyone thank you thank you next up in person and apologies if i don't say this right anthony van kuenberg [Music] um it's van gaalenberg but it's close enough um i just wanted to thank you for this
016opportunity for me to go down to ohio to participate in this tournament um i have been bowling since i was in kindergarten and have been getting better and better along the way and i've been very serious into bowling i've even gotten a thousand dollar scholarship and other scholarship money through bowling so being able to have the opportunity to partake in an experience like this is overwhelming and i am overjoyed that i get to have this experience and um being a senior this is my last opportunity to have this type of experience with my friends behind me so um being able to share this experience with them is also just something that is very heartwarming for me um especially considering that i've been bowling with some of these people behind here for many many years um
017and basically that's all that i needed to say it's just thank you guys tell you tell you that and yeah thank you next up with the same apologies in advance elias sargento hi it's elias argento good evening i am a junior on diamond and on the varsity bowling team for three years now i just want to say thank you for letting me speak and this opportunity for allowing us to go down there to ohio to compete on a national level competition i've been bowling for about 10 years now and i've been so this is something i have spent a lot of time and effort on it's something i'm passionate in through bowling i have been able to appreciate the competition and understand the values fortune sportsmanship leadership and friendship uh this sport has provided me
018many friendships that i have probably never been that will probably never be able to get otherwise i've made the closest and probably the best friendships with the people behind me and it allows us to come you know one-on-one allows us to hone our skills and what lets us compete together as a team [Music] and it's really all i got but thank you for allowing me to speak again and i don't have any other words to express how excited i am to go down and compete to and make memories with with my friends and my teammates thank you thank you so much uh and seeing that you are the last speaker i'm just i want to say just you know good luck to all of you guys um very very good represent for the district maya
019is is maya here oh okay we thought we you were doing in writing i'm so sorry we have one more in person thank you i had a different note um you have three minutes um so my name is maya aropoulos and i'm a sophomore on the diamond team so i'm actually the youngest one here but i've been on this varsity team for two years and belonging means a lot to me i've been born since i was seven so like eight years and one thing a lot of people don't know is that there's a lot of scholarship money in bowling it's for alaska kids it's harder to get because we can't go down to these national tournaments a lot so this one means a lot especially to people like anthony because he's a senior and we
020don't get this opportunity a lot so i just want to thank you guys for letting us go down to do this tournament because it means a lot and it's a big deal for all of us because i know that like anthony he will never get to do this again and i can tell it means a lot to him and it means a lot to me too because this is a great way to be seen by colleges and be able to use that scholarship money so i just wanted to say thank you that's all thank you next up speaker number eight on not on the telephone i don't see him no i'll keep an eye out for him speaker number nine is megan holton megan are you on the line with us tonight megan are you
021there [Music] now we can thank you so much you have three minutes laura is yours sorry about that um okay thanks thanks for allowing me um to speak i'm speaking on um in favor of the proposed anti-racism policy and instructional equity policy and i had the opportunity to testify um about a month and a half ago about my experience as a white student on an anchorage school district many years ago and how in retrospect it would have been better to leave school with the tools for talking about race and racism in its many forms and i feel like this policy will be good and it will create that opportunity for students of all of all colors and all races um because it will create a culture um within the school setting and expectations for colleagues
022to to talk in in every day interactions about how to combat racism and also have a concrete framework for addressing the like the direct experiences of racism that occurs and it's it's important to have a policy um in place that says explicitly that that's something that the school district values um so that's what i talked about last time but this time i thought i'd come back to share a couple of two case studies with data because i remember last time i testified the school district was the school board was showing a bunch of numbers and i know ultimately one of the things you're interested in is measuring those outcomes and improving educational outcomes for anchorage school district students so i just have two examples of places that put anti-racism and instructional equity policies in place
023and then and saw positive benefits from them so one of them is the album school district in charlottesville virginia and they put their policy into place in 2018 and then one of the tools they used was a culturally responsive teaching program for fifth grade students and that they found that the students who were taught by teachers who were certified in this approach doubled their pass rate between the 2016-2017 school year um and then the other example is from a high school which is relevant to my experience when i went to west i was tracked into a bunch of the ap classes and there were fewer students of color in those classes and there was not near the representation in those classes as the school as a whole and this is an example of institutional racism
024and i feel like a clear policy would support discussion around that but there's hope um so one of the examples i found was from evanston township high school which is outside of chicago and in 2010 they changed their curriculum for the incoming freshman year student so rather than tracking people in humanities and biology classes um they didn't do tracking anymore and then and then over the next five years they saw a 61 increase in the number of african american students taking ap courses with 91 percent of them earning a three or higher ap exam and then there's a similar benefit for our latinx courses a 48 um increase in latinx students taking ap classes with 51 earning a three or higher at exam so i just stopped for these two examples um you know as
025an as an example of like the of the concrete data outcome so i believe there's like obviously a moral reason that we should have the anti-racism policy um thank you so much tonight that is your three minutes thank you so much next time spike speaker number ten frank rizzo uh frank if you get star six to unmute [Music] hello can you hear me we sure can thank you for joining us you have three minutes and the floor is yours well i think it's the opportunity for me to speak um i want to talk about your anti-racism and equity policy um i understand that everyone has great intentions we all judge people based on the content of the character and not the color your skin [Music] but these anti-racism and equity policies create discrimination segregation and
026lawsuits from educators and faculty members specifically from people of color who are educators so i just want to say parents and faculty who are listening in go read the books on the district's reading list on the equity resource tab it's like five tabs in you gotta kick uh quick to five of these pages to get in there go read these books and i i i hope that all of you on the school board read these recommended books on that list too so on that same equity resource page there is a a tab that states how do racists work with nyc school communities well i'll tell you it doesn't because today columbia university announced they're offering racially segregated graduating classes that's where we're going that's where these policies go you want us to know what they
027ultimately lead i would recommend everyone research what happened at evergreen university in 2017 in washington these policies led to a student body meltdown and riots for days that's what is go you can go to youtube listen to exactly what happened listen to what these kids are saying and their attitude i i know like i said you have the best intentions but this is going to have the opposite outcome so for lawsuits we've got karen aids the 30-year educator in the bronx who's got a 150 million dollar lawsuit against new york city schools in an implicit violence training she was sharing her jewish polish grandparents holocaust experience she was told to shut up and check herself because this train's for black and brown people of color only seems like these anti-racist policies have a anti-semitism problem
028the same bronx uh school district got the uh dominican-american rafael espino she's got a 30 million lawsuit against new york city schools she's told she wasn't black enough she wouldn't do these wakanda salutes from that black panther movie she was let go one year before she had a pension so if there's any faculty in here keep that in mind in california we got asians asian americans in cupertino this school is 60 percent asian these parents are calling to school wondering why are they teaching their eight-year-olds to deconstruct their race and identity and rake their power and privilege that's where this goes the oregon department of education last month put out a course titled a pathway to equitable math instruction a training course for educators where it says if you ask your students to show your
029work that's white supremacy i'm sorry grace is racist that's where this is going frank thank you for your testimony your three minutes are up uh next up is speaker number eleven uh judy norton ellidge judy if you can star six to unmute hi my name is judy elijah and i am a candidate for school board and there have been many concerns and questions about equity in asd so i started researching as a retired educator with over 40 years experience in asd in rural alaska i am very concerned with some of the policies being discussed in asd on the issue of equity even more alarming are some of the books under the harassment policy references on the district website the two books on racism are extremely alarming neither seemed to be well researched they both poorly
030argued sloppily researched inefficiently fact-checked and occasionally self-contradictory as a result both failed to live up to their promise ultimately teaching the reader less about how to be anti-racist and about how to be an anti-intellectual it's also interesting that the authors have become multi-millionaires while at the same time stating that capital capitalism is racist i guess you're only racist if you aren't making if you're not the person making the money the author of how to be an anti-racist wrote as an undergraduate that white people were fending off racial extension extinction using psychological brainwashing and the aids virus what the book white fragility is a term used in the book uh white fragility is a book a term used in the title of a book called white fragility this definition says that a white person voices any
031disagreement such as disagreement and it is categorized as argumentation and it's it's assumed to be fueled by anger fear or guilt guilt therefore it is one's white fragility that causes him or her to disagree on the other hand if you don't voice anything he or she remains silent or chooses to exit the conversation this is due to white fragility this means that whatever one does he is termed fragile unless of course the individual agrees openly and submits to the label all this considered the term white agility undermines productive conversations about relation race relations in our country and it's a conversation we desperately need to be able to have we need conversations on race relations in our society and i for one would be glad to have that conversation with anyone who is willing to have
032a civil one regardless both of these books should be removed immediately since neither seem to be based on actual evidence but someone's opinion opinion i spent most of my career working with hispanic students on the border and in villages in alaska these books only silence discussion and i ask for their removal thank you thank you next up is speaker number 12 celeste hodge robin celeste if you can star six to unmute and join the conversation celeste can you hear us hi perfect thank you you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you good evening school board members and superintendent bishop my name is celeste hodge groudon and i am the president and ceo of the alaska black caucus as shared many times our organization advocates for black people in the areas of health
033economics justice and education thank you so much for the work completed thus far on the anti-racism and instructional equity policies i urge you to please vote in support of both of these policies that would finally allow the district to begin working intentionally and boldly to eradicate systemic racism and its traumatic impact from policies training lack of promotional opportunities curriculum teaching discipline and more these policies are something that is desperately needed and so long overdue why are these policies so critically important these policies will translate into anchorage school district programs and practices that will eradicate injustice what does this mean exactly black and brown children and other children of color will no longer be subjected to forms of racism as these policies will remove disparities and student discipline rates more kids of color will get opportunities
034to move into advanced placement classes something that is currently a rare occurrence we will see more diversity within gifted services and in hiring and employee training i am so looking forward to the day when teachers within the anchorage school district will reflect the diversity of our community and black and brown children can finally see more people that look like them in leadership roles in other words they can see themselves as a teacher a principal because they will see the teachers and principals around them that look like them this means so much to me as an individual who attended the anchorage school district decades ago and very i have very limited memory of black and brown teachers and principals but vivid memories of black custodians why is that maybe that's why i didn't become a teacher
035or principal we all know we need these policies because as shared racism runs throughout the anchorage school district as you can see within its own statistics i also understand these policies are being vetted more than any other policies in the history of asd receiving more reviews and opportunities for public comment why is that we just can't get around it it's mind-boggling to me how we can't see it even with the review process of these policies we've got such a long way to go but as in the words of the late congressman john lewis we won't grow weary and doing good thank you thank you thank you so much yeah okay that brings us to the end of our public testimony uh normally we oh perfect he was he is welcome to come up and join
036us thank you for that this is uh mr daryl mitchell he was our first person uh on our signed up list and he will come up and have three minutes [Music] outstanding choice three minutes your floor is yours according to the webster dictionary the word educate implies to provide schooling for to develop mentally morally or aesthetically especially by instruction to provide with information also the word educate implies to persuade or condition to feel believe think and or act in a certain way the etymology of the word educate is derived from the latin term educate which means to draw out or to lead forth in action what is actively happening in our day-to-day education whether it be at home at school or at work is essentially the challenging of the brain's capacity to gather and obtain
037knowledge as information and with this accumulation of knowledge one is tested in a relationship to see if the knowledge has been effectively memorized and or comprehended the effectiveness of set education is dependent on a measurement that is dictated by being rewarded or by being punished if you do what you're told you are rewarded if you do not you are punished and all of this is implied in our current education as we know it today the outcome of set education is our daily life as an entire species as i observe our daily life on earth it is rather clear that there is something critical that is missing in this process of education we have advanced technology that could end war world hunger homelessness and so on also we have an immense array of information at our
038very fingertips and yet our relationships with one another in the environment is subtly and or profoundly disturbing furthermore the continuous struggle and effort to accumulate knowledge has burdened and dulled the human brain and the outcome of this burden has led to an utterly mechanical and repetitive way of living so what is the critical aspect that is missing in our education all throughout the world as one asked this question presently it is abundantly clear that what is missing in our education is our capacity to question to inquire to investigate nowhere in our present education does there exist an actual space and time to seriously question why we're being educated at all nor in our education as human beings do we actively question the facts of our daily affairs the cost to why we're living in such
039a way we do not question because the challenge is never presented to us in our current mode of education or the challenge only is only geared towards the accumulation of knowledge and thus it is obvious to me that we as educators and students alike must revitalize this capacity to actually question what is happening not only what is happening in the world but what is happening within ourselves as individuals we must create a class of study within our education that challenges us to actually discover what it means to inquire into the nature of our existence we want us to develop a different capacity of learning that's independent of the process of accumulation of knowledge in a capacity that is independent of reward and punishment thank you [Music] thank you you do have a speaker that called
040in uh who was not uh previously lawn is speaker number eight which should round up our list this time uh mr daniel kim yeah mr kemp if you could star six to unmute [Music] uh good evening can you hear me you have three minutes and the floor is yours okay uh thank you thank you to the board for having me this evening my name is danielle kipp i am the um well i'm a retired army combat officer i am a teacher here in the asd i teach music i'm also a parent of two asd students as well as the co-chair of the anchorage education association's human and civil rights committee as well as a member of the naacp and the uh newly formed alaska coalition of bypoc educators uh where i am uh one of
041the founders and the president of that organization i'm calling in tonight to support the anti-racism policy and uh instructional equity policy uh wholeheartedly and i i have to voice a little bit of frustration tonight as well um not frustration and hearing uh uh some of the callers that can't call in tonight um i must say um i understand about some of their frustrations but i think a lot of the folks frustrations with this anti-racism policy is uh not grounded in um how shall i put it not grounded in fact all right and that's what we need to deal with i know there was a recommendation from somebody who's opposing this policy to read a lot of the the books that were on the uh equal opportunity website for the asd i would highly recommend reading
042those books as well uh they will be very insightful uh to all all folks here but i one thing that definitely troubles me uh is my concern with the amount of feedback that this board has gotten from the proposed policies not really the amount of feedback but the where they've gotten the feedback from because i can tell you right now i i i the board as a whole has not um approached i don't think they've approached native alaskan communities i don't think they've approached uh latinx communities certainly i haven't approached the naacp maybe not the alaska black caucus definitely not my organization we represent bypoc educators you know for feedback and we are the folks who are most negatively impacted by racism and inequity we don't get you know feedback so please if you're going
043to propose if you're going to criticize an anti-racism policy please get feedback from vote thank you all right now we have everybody on our list have an opportunity thank you um normally we have written public testimony today we do not uh so the next item up in our agenda is our superintendent update and at this time i'd like to turn it over to dr bishop [Music] thank you madam president and uh mike fleckenstein very short brief uh update wanted to just share uh with the board uh basically about secondary start and just an update on on the school start after spring break a little bit about graduations and and summer school again very brief and end with a good thing i just shared some photos that dr kirsten johnson sent we had staff out of
044course and eagle river high school they had continued to have good things like freshman orientation and uh west high school had a nice big welcome sign back for their seniors and diamond high teachers welcoming kids outside as well as um there's just a couple of gals here super excited to go to school in middle school and it was just overall a really great day again for secondary monday was an orientation day and kids were excited and things went very smoothly kids participated in school tours engagement activities learned new school procedures and got to know their fourth quarter teachers generally this happens in august on tuesday all students return uh that's today and it went smoothly uh the students uh today joined their sixth and seventh or ninth grade uh peers and face-to-face in schools and
045again at the secondary level we have about 70 percent of people choosing to come back and in elementary school it's moving up towards 90 percent the focus today was really truly incorporating new school procedures with all students and getting back in person instruction getting those routines down equally excited were the staff as well as the students in elementary school we continued with face-to-face that started in january and the return also made for an exciting monday uh schools uh are putting in place just so you know additional mitigation practices to bring back uh events and co-curriculars at their level even simple things like picture day have to be rethought out uh book fairs in the libraries and and clubs and things like that but they're working on those to bring those back so kids have the
046experiences of those this year and i do want to give a shout out to our special education department as well as our special education teachers and this of any group of teachers is asked to really meet the needs of their students in any general year but this year it's especially true noted is um the fact that really our special education teachers are uh really working uh at the same time in four different formats uh special education teachers and it could be the same teacher as meeting an in-school need a hybrid zoom need a correspondence need of students with ieps as well as a asd virtual need and so i i wanted to make that note and give a shout out to our special education teachers as well as the whole department really holding things together
047and making it work to allow that choice uh for families uh in what they feel safe doing so appreciation uh to those educators in a little bit of graduation update uh more to come but please know that our graduations will be set on the football fields at our large schools and then our smaller schools will either have them on football fields or other venues they will all be outside the board will receive a list for graduation sign ups we did have one change in a date which is a thursday because it was a religious religiously significant holiday um but rain or shine graduations will take place outside so there's a little different and and really um many alaskans aren't afraid of the rain it's when it's rainy and windy that we you know sometimes don't
048like that but if we can fish we can have uh our graduations tickets will be limited based on the stadium capacity for social distancing and tickets will be given out to each graduate to be able to disperse him or herself all ceremonies will be live streamed through youtube and on asd website and ceremonies of course will be recorded like every other year uh it's a little bit more difficult because the resources of our um contractors are dispersed now rather than being in one big and having the boom camera they're they're we're working with them early to get that set up and then one of the features that we're taking from last year uh asd purchasing yard signs um for all the kids to put everywhere that was a hit last year so a new one
049was designed and that just might stay with us uh throughout briefly mark is going to just share an update on summer school and then i'll finish with good things thank you dr stock um our academic teams are deep into correction um did you say thank you dr stock did i say that yeah that was bad i think no that was we'll chalk that up to a senior moment no no no i just want to say thank you oh that was crazy well we are deep into the initial planning for the most ambitious summer school programming that we have ever had we have multiple site locations being vetted right now and narrowed down and at this time we're you know working around everything from summer work projects to roping projects and all those things geography transportation
050trying to get the right spots that's underway right now we have some initial staff surveys out secondary centers elementary's coming out soon to gauge teacher interest this is one of the risks to our summer programming is trying to determine how many teachers will be interested in teaching in the summer school when it's been such a challenging year so we have some surveys out just to gauge interest and that will help us determine how large our summer school can get once we know the appropriate levels of staffing available then we will be working on invitations that will be sent out to parents and students we'll begin uh at those especially at the elementary level with invitations and those will be based on some student grades and needs that come from skill assessments and once we've identified
051those and we've looked at available slots we'll we'll be sure to open up to other parents and people who are interested we just want to make sure that those who need it the most get a shot at having a summer school experience there's going to be two major summer sessions we'll do a session one from june 2 until june 30 and then we'll run a second session that parents can pick from which would run from july 2nd through august 6th now the elementary they'll design a a what we'll call a skill development approach with engaging activities they'll have an arts focus on the first one and a sports activities focus on the second session and the goal there is to provide engaging activities that students will will have some fun to look forward to as
052well as those skill pieces middle school is going to work on great improvement primarily for those who had incompletes and they will also combine combine some art and pe activities to to provide engagement activities that students have not been able to access throughout the year uh in face-to-face secondary of course will run their original credit and credit recovery and they'll also run face-to-face courses that will also combine engagement and content that's face-to-face along with some of those computer and apex based things but be sure to make sure that there's face-to-face content-based engagement there as well april 1st is our planned communication date where the public will see the overall structure we'll be putting out those dates and some general information about how summer programming will look and that'll won't come out until april and then
053by mid-may we'll confirm the number of seats available and confirm our student enrollment at that point then further information specifics will come directly from sites to parents so i also want to mention that our normal extended school year for special ed our normal migrant programs our ell programs indian ed programs title 1 programs have all run programming and we some of those will continue to exist independently on site and some of those will be rolled into and combined at these sites as well we're working through those details now so that pretty much concludes it more information will be coming forward as soon as the planning starts to take finals final steps thank you so much and another good thing that i'm just going to move into now is uh the published uh document and published
054uh works uh of a book called the nest egg and it's actually our third grade uh social studies um well basil if you will or a resource book it was uh designed right here uh by a project team in the anchorage school district because we did not have any materials in alaska published about for this grade level to use for alaska's studies it talks about the regions the heritage the cultures uh all about the regions around alaska it's highly accurate that was one of the over the last two years of research uh the team i call them the fab five who put this together are dr bellamy dorian brown andrea johannes um for pmo um jennifer romer our social studies coordinator and nicole uh sinish um and she's the materials manager but this is an
055amazing amazing textbook that we get to use in our classrooms and one day i hope that we can sell it to other districts uh to be able to and this was um uh miss brown's idea to collect the money and put it in a field trip so that kids in third grade can go to the alaska heritage center to see it but it uh is just an awesome project in collaboration uh right out here in asd the very first book uh made for children um to study alaska history uh so hopefully it'll uh be it'll be in all of our kids hands so we're we're highly proud of that and and especially um it's it's uh no doubt from the testimony this evening that uh really what we're embarking on with equity and anti-racism is
056is complex and and deeply rooted subject not only in our school district uh in our state but in our country and world and as educators um we we had a speaker tonight that really shared about um you know educare and educate they're both words that talk about to draw out knowledge and that understanding and if reading um and learning about something that you don't know about and maybe haven't experienced isn't a part of that i don't know what is and so we do have uh on our website information uh for in school use for parents if you want to talk to kids but there's a section called self-understanding and it does have textbooks that were mentioned this evening it's all under uh the target of um promoting equity and this will be a journey for
057our school district and the best thing about it is that we do have um the the freedom to to speak uh how we think and this freedom to write about it and the freedom to learn and i'm fortunate i feel to to be in a position to allow that to happen and uh brought in understanding of of everyone and and this book will help us as well so on that note finally the last good thing is a video that we did not make but it was shared with us uh if we could just take um even if you need a break just to take a look at it uh the um campfire made it uh because they were just very impressed um with a partnership that really one of our principals reached out and saw
058a need in her neighborhood uh at the beginning of the pandemic in august and united way assisted in funding it um but it's just a good story that they are sharing out in the community so i thought the board would be interested to see it first so again this wasn't made by asd just shared with asd so it was this august when school was set to resume in person but remained virtual that the principal at one of our title one schools reached out to barb our ceo and said is there any way campfire could support our families and it was that moment that megan principal chester valley really helped launch this division bringing in united way and the anchorage school district and campfire leadership just to talk about what the need was how we could
059maybe help fill that gap and fill that need we had kids that had zero contact with the school their classmates for six months we started with chester valley just one site one location 20 years since november we've been able to run three learning cloud programs really when you talk about a whole child model of taking care of a community and a family it's the anchorage school district in campfire and partnership leaning and doing that together [Music] we are not just helping kids academically we also helping them emotionally what the rainforest accomplished was just we stopped that academic wars that was happening but also we were able to help kids emotionally by providing them a sense of knowing like how to be a kid and bring a aspect of enormously back into their lives we knew
060that the parents were trying to serve these apparently had two jobs or some parents who some guardians who couldn't afford it and so we decided to make a conscious effort to remove more barriers it was important for us to make the program free we had to make it decisive what was best for not just for campfire but was the best for those families [Music] and as they go on this is about a learning pod and so she knew that there were families around our city that could set up learning pods and she worked with campfire to set up the learning podcast educate the kids while everything was shut down and i appreciated that they got packets of work that they gave us and then things she could do on her computer too she loved it
061every time she got in the car she was telling me how fun it was and daddy i like campfire you know it helps it forced me to be able to work and the campfire is so flexible with the morning program and then the afternoon program and that's very very helpful especially being a single parent it was fun her reading has improved too significantly it was a it felt like a really dark time because we had so many of our children unable to access their education at all there's so many barriers this is megan's second year in our district that we had no control over but we knew they were out there and that just weighed on our heart it was really really hard to have that awareness that there were families and kids that really
062needed you but you could not reach them so when we put together this idea that someone could rent our building bring the children in we could hook them up with chromebooks and get them attached to their teachers and see them give them love who could we find that would love our children like we do [Music] well we can just end here and i want you to know we'll have this on our website uh but it's a a really a lovely film done by our partners thanking us uh thanking chester val valley uh for the idea uh to serve community uh thinking united way for funding this and um it was just exceptional and i thought um it would just be fun to to show you that so uh thank you and you might see it
063out in the community because campfire is just sharing their gratitude with others about asd thank you thank you so much dr bishop are there any board members that have questions about anything that dr bishop talked about tonight remember donnelly [Music] thank you madam president dr bishop i am very concerned about the publications that have been posted on our office of equity and compliance site um you know we have a board policy 6144 controversial issues and while it is targeted towards classrooms i think it ought to be what the school district complies with you know it's administrative actions also it states the discussion of controversial issues in the classroom shall be conducted in an unprejudiced and dispassionate manner teachers and or guest speakers shall not use their position to or influence on students to forward their
064own religious political economic or social views and unfortunately the publications that have been put on the the site for the public recommended to the public is self-educate are incredibly biased and one-sided and and there's no balance to it there's nothing from the other side there's no academic criticism of those books um so so so since none appears on the website i just i'd say take a look at uh what columbia professor john mcquarter wrote about uh the deangelo's white fragility he said i have learned that one of america's favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist trap the book diminishes diminishes black people in the name of dignifying us he goes on to say the angela's book is replete with claims that are either plain wrong or bizarrely disconnected from reality um the
065problem with white fragility is that it's a prayer book for what can only be described as a cult um colombia is not some hotbed of radical conservative thought and and i agree with professor mcwhorter it's very concerning the things that are in these books now if we're going to have these things on our website which actually i think they clearly violate our policy by some of the statements that are in there and they're very partisan also there's repeated attacks on one political party or politicians of one political party so there's no balance whatsoever so that makes these books partisan and yet we have them on our taxpayer paid for website and if we're going to have that we should have the other side represented also we should have criticism like professor recorders other criticisms it's
066all over the place about these two publications and the how faulty they are and how the logic is so horrible in them they redefine basic understanding of concepts and then twist them in a way that tries to make americans hate each other it's really despicable i think and if we're going to have them we should have the other side presented at least the criticism the scholarly criticism of them and we should also have a disclaimer on the website that this is not what this school district believes in in in white in anti-how to be an anti-racist the author equates white klansmen and white national shooters with people who supported president trump and tea party republicans now that's just that's just not right that's exactly what the book says in white fragility it speaks to the
067president's comments as being supportive or of neo-nazis and i don't think that's at all accurate what was said there was vastly misrepresented by the press but either way whether you agree with that or not to not have some counterbalance to those things on the website is clearly inappropriate for an educational institution and it would be maybe more acceptable if the books in any way were critical you know of both parties or some sort of general uh criticism but they're not they're very specific in their partisanship it's just super concerning i i'm shocked you know i spent a lot of time reading these two books these are the spots where i had concerns with the statements that were made so i don't understand how they could appear on our website without even a disclaimer or any
068attempt to have a balanced approach offered that's my question um through the president um to remember john lee you emailed me all those things and i i responded and um the board policy is is clearly written for students and it says students and so uh the the information is uh i said that i would take that back to our team and bring your thoughts to discuss it with our team and i'll have uh sonya hunt our senior director of equity and compliance to come forward but again when we share books whether it's in our library on our website i i love that you marked up all those books that you are utilizing what what we are allowed to do as an education institution to learn about something else and to question it and part of
069our courses are actually to learn about something else that we don't maybe know about and to be able to question it and to have dialogue and have discussion by listing a book or having a book in our libraries or shared that i would say that this is a resource for self-understanding um i i i as a public institution i i don't think that that's bad it is not in our curriculum to teach kids anything about those books that is for self-understanding uh for the adults you know and anyone really who wants to read that but they i agree with you that if it was curriculum we have a curriculum process for approved curriculum and those are not uh curriculum items they are simply books that um you know when i shared i was you know
070looking into your concern and i googled um books that teach me about equity and some of the names came up books that teach me about racism some things came up books that teach me about anti-racism names came up as well as other universities that had very similar so i i understand your point um the purpose was not to um you know find fault with a particular party uh simply uh to me a book is a resource that we can learn and so we your thoughts and your concerns i shared that we'll take them back and and keep them aligned we're looking at how do we share adult professional development because it is choice um this course is certainly choice it's certainly a choice to read a book or not it's not mandated again it's not
071curriculum and so um i've asked uh sonya if you could come forward and just share um the process there uh there's parent um toolkits that come from um just uh different you know pieces of information from council great city schools and and other places so i'll turn it over to sonia and hopefully that can answer and then again what we can't answer we're bringing back um to look into to to be able to respond to you in an appropriate way [Music] good evening to the president to member donnelly so i want to start by just sharing kind of like what led to the book study it was um there were inequities being highlighted by the pandemic of 19. after the killings of brianna taylor and george floyd there was a request of staff to really
072have a book study to discuss with their peers the events that were happening across the globe but particularly in our country they saw it as a right time to really to tool themselves to deal with all of our students but in particularly the 60 of our students that are of color and to familiarize themselves with the experiences of the various group right um so at the response of that um we developed a book study using the two books that were recommended by staff members they are very two popular books and again with any books um they are um they're written by two research scholars on race um and they share um their own story and um i just think through just even a humanistic approach i have to accept the stories of other people right
073and use it as a tool to really um gain a mind's eye of this the experience of our students and in saying that so we started the book study it's voluntary um and staff responded overwhelmingly to it um as a matter of fact we will have our third iteration of the book study coming up um in how to be an anti-racist for example candy shares his personal experience as an african-american boy matriculating through public school he does share some theorists that i'm sure may align with his research as many textbooks do i want to say also that these books are being used in institutions of higher ed and they're viewing being used from neighborhood book clubs to institutions of higher ed and so um i like that these books are actually starting this dialogue because
074i think this is critical dialogue that we need to have um in serving students and in serving our staff and um through the president you know to your point mr donnelly it's going to be valuable to read things that are absolutely on the opposite end and then our educators will understand all that's coming to us in in all of our kids and from all of our community to understand these are our classrooms of kids and all these different things are going on so how do we as a as um really to to have kids question and learn and open their minds like the gentleman said this morning i think that's valued um but to to me to um remove something um because it's controversial probably uh you know i think in public education for the
075adults to learn i think it's valuable to understand the whole picture so um we're moving that way [Music] so if the goal was to educate people why is there absolutely zero balance on what's presented on our website there's no critical analysis of these textbooks you call them they're the farthest thing from a textbook i've ever read in my life they're a collection of personal stories with radical redefinitions orwellian in nature of a common language to present a distorted presentation of historical facts and then to to make outrageous damaging to our society statements such as all white people are racist that republicans are somehow comparable to uh neo-nazis and it's if you're going to put something that up why wouldn't you put anything from the other side up if that was your true intention i've got
076other board members yeah questions as well um at this point um so i don't know if you'd mind if i um if i might remember madam president um this is not on our agenda number one number two if mr donnelly would like to have a work session that he would like to discuss this in detail i would like to suggest that we do that and the final thing is to equate [Music] one's journey in race or with whatever uh their journey is with it being a political agenda is highly offensive and i think it's very unfair but the point of order is that we move this to a work session and not do it here madam president this was raised in the superintendent's report this is the time to talk about the superintendent's report and
077this matter was raised by the superintendent's report all right so what what i'm also seeing also is a bigger conversation and um we do have you know an agenda and things to move on to i would highly take you know remember bellamy's um you know suggestion and we can work it into our planning to do this at a work session it's not to tamp down the conversation it's to have it but it doesn't have um when we have an agenda you know this is a good time i just want to say that i 100 agree with remember bellamy that this highly offensive but i'm not the one that said it it's the authors of these books that said these things all right and there's no counter balance on the website nothing mr tommy we're going
078to offer a balance of opinion mr donnelly we're going to schedule a work session and i do think that that will be good and we'll have our time to have the open discussion um in a little less format than the robert's roles part because right now it's um not as balanced for robert um thank you um for coming up and i look forward to continuing that part of the conversation um i had my hand raised because i had a question about summer school yeah not sure because that was a part um and it's just two questions um and i'm looking forward to the update um you know for parents and stuff like that with three kids uh do we know when you talk about two sessions do you have to pick one or can you
079do both depending on your students needs and grades through the president or to the president rather it really at this point in time is going to be based off of that need and it might be both it might be just one of the other but certainly flexibility for families we do understand that fish camp happens during the same time some other things might happen later on so we wanted to offer two sessions simply to meet family's needs but certainly space available we just want to offer kids courses so we'll have more information on that and again the the need part about students need and our ability to staff is going to have a cr those are the two critical components of what we can do and the amount so okay but yes is this yes
080if it's possible yes thank you uh next up in the qsc member hildy thank you um and i know you're gonna come out with more summer school but it's just exciting um is it like gonna be like full day and gonna be going and is it a chance where even kids who are doing okay but maybe didn't get to where we wanted them to i mean how robust are we hoping i guess striving for and then like i just saw that um chicago study saying that they brought in just regular tutors not teachers even but to do they had really like year and a half growth with just the tutors coming in at very low ratios you know is that part of the considerations uh through the present to member hildy um we the two
081sessions are going to be two separate sessions but there are families that could do both sessions so morning and afternoon uh and more detail because uh some of them are geared towards reading some of them are geared towards other uh constructs so they'll have that settled uh once they know and again um we want as uh dr stock said is to just make this and and the first target was 25 of the population what if we could meet that need what would that look like and again it's based off of uh staffing we have had success with trained tas that are trained and developed especially in reading in other subjects to really uh teach courses so we're going to utilize really the manpower that we can to make an impact and what we're calling it
082is that unfinished learning like we had kids out a long time and it was difficult so we're calling it not failing or incompletes but we had some unfinished learning that we need to finish so we're going to try to make it as large as possible and right now um other than that they really to just to publicly share it and then not be able to deliver we're hoping so we really need that teacher survey to go out first to know how expansive it could be thank you all right i don't see any other hands in the queue uh thank you dr bishop for that update next up is our consent agenda and vice president bellamy if you would kick it off yes madam uh president i moved to approve the consent agenda consisting of regular
083session minutes for february 2nd 2021 the personnel report which is memorandum number 8088 the award for the award of custodial supplies that's a term contract that's asd memorandum number zero eight nine and the award of contract bulk petroleum oils and lubricants asd memorandum number zero nine four did anybody have any questions on the consent agenda seeing done katie if you could please do a roll call vote remember mitchell are you able to uh here can you hear me yes okay i'm a guest thank you member marcet yes remember holloman yes remember hildy yes remember donnelly yes vice president bellamy yes and president michaelis yes you can send agenda passes with seven years and zero nays next up is our action items i do not have any public testimony signed up we have two items madam
084vice president if you would i moved to approve asd memorandum number changes to exempt employees compensation for the period between july 1st 2020 and june 30th 2023. again every first and the second do any board members have any questions on asd memorandum zero nine five uh seeing none katie if you could please do a roll call though and uh emily yes remember donnelly no remember hildy yes member marsette yes vice president bellamy yes remember mitchell yes remember holloman yes and president michaelis yes asd memorandum 095 passes with 6 yays and 1 nay next up please i moved to approve attachment a of asd memorandum number 101 as an addendum to the employment agreement between the anchorage school board and dr dina bishop for the period july 1st 2019 through july 1st uh 2022. i have
085a first in a second are there any board member comments or questions on asd memorandum number one zero one uh member marcet i just want to state um even as i'm leaving this board what a pleasure um it is to have had dr bishop well continue to have dr bishop as our superintendent um these have been trying times that i don't think anyone has had experience with the moving forward and her staff her and her staff have just done an outstanding job of moving this district forward in such a difficult time and so i just want to say how happy i am that we've been able um to keep her and continue to keep her thank you thank you see no other comments or questions katie if you could please do a roll call vote
086remember bellamy you hear me yes remember hildy yes remember marsette yes remember donnelly no [Music] remember holloman yes remember mitchell yes and uh member hellman just reminded me and i'm so sorry emily i forgot to grab uh get the student vote i please have your voice vote yes thank you and thank you member holloman um president michaelis yes an asd memorandum number 101 passes with six years and one nay moving on in the agenda to our non-action items are there any items that board members wish to pull for discussion tonight [Music] not seeing any we do not have anybody else signed up for our second public testimony and that brings us to school board and administration comments uh did anybody have any final thoughts that they wish to share for the end of the evening
087and dr bishop you're up madam president board thank you very much i appreciate uh the vote of confidence and uh remember marissa thank you for your kind words it's been a joy to work with you um my uh um respect uh is um in concert with yours thank you [Music] member mitchell yeah i just wanted to read or um a second what dr bishop said so far what i've been hearing from people is that their kids are the secondary students are really excited to be back to school there was a lot of nervousness but they're happy to be back with their friends and i'm just very pleased that our numbers continue to decline and that our kids are back in school and that our teachers and staff are getting vaccinated so um thank you to
088the administration and our principals and our teachers and our staff and everybody and our students for coming together after this very very very long time and um i'm glad everybody's where they really need to be at this point so thank you remember marsette i just want to say that i spoke to my grandson today and he just you know he he went back early but um he's just overjoyed he said things are different now that all the students are back and uh you know and has just been very happy with the turnout had no complaints as a student anyway and you know i just think about where we were way back when when we were trying to get students back into school and get school started back up and and how much collaboration and how
089much effort this has taken on so many individuals and i can only commend and thank all and thank everyone for their uh pursuit and getting our kids back into school so i just want to say thank you remember bellamy thank you i just wanted to chime in you know when we go back a year so much has happened and this board has has um has had the pleasure to work with the staff that never they never gave up they never lost sight of what was important and even when we didn't get all of the pieces we didn't see the whole picture and we pressed they stayed focused i've learned a lot this year and it's not just dealing with kobit it's about how to value the work of others and how we can come together
090as a community and as a team and just make great things happen for kids because that's what it's all about so i thank you it's just not big enough but i i just want to i just want all of us to know [Music] that despite our differences we came together for the kids in this community and you can like it or lump it we are going to keep pushing forward for what's good for kids so thank you because i can't find another word right now but thank you thank you thank you so like many others you know in the room and listening you know a couple of my kids went back to school and my seventh grader just thought middle school was really cool you know he was just so super excited a little bummed
091he doesn't have the whole locker experience but we understand it and as much as i want for all of our kids across the district that learning is their focus when they go back i had to take a step back this afternoon with my daughter and she said it was good but i have to get used to people again because when you're in your bubble all of a sudden it's seo and so i have to give everybody grace as we're going through all of this and just so happy that you know it's it's happening so thank you to everybody uh to echo the comments being said tonight looking forward to you know all of this um looking forward to graduation it's so exciting so thank you to everybody um and i do see uh member marseilles
092you got your hand up one more time i'm sorry i forgot to mention something i just want to put a shout out to uh whaley um you know i've worked with that school for many years and they you know as long along with our other schools in our sped community have had challenges but i think until you you know i volunteered at mount i for several year substitute amount i for several years and with the pandemic it just created new challenges that were probably a little different from general ed and um the um leadership in that school um and the teachers there i can't say enough uh for what they've done for these kids that um need so so much and have lost so much and so i just want to put a shout out
093to wayway i wanted to thank them thank you so just want to um put out a couple of dates for folks we actually don't meet as a board until you know barring any emergencies until april 6 which happens to be election day ballots are dropped in the mail yesterday everybody watch for them we all know the importance of elections watch for it vote get them in please um we have a couple of things coming up between now and our next meeting we have two town halls coming up to talk specifically about our anti-racism and our instructional equity policy we've tried to balance it between day and night so on the 25th from noon to one we have a town hall and we also have one in the evening on march 30th um from i believe
094six to eight or uh yeah somewhere right in there so hoping folks will you know join in and be a part of the conversation and give feedback and ask questions because that's what these town halls are for is to bring on more of that two-way conversation you know that we need um between us you know and the administration and the community and our families and our parents so um those are just a couple of the key dates you know coming up as we go forward uh remember along the same lines i'd just like to sorry along the same lines i'd just like to share that we are also meeting with uh meek we're meeting with the um native advisory committee and we're meeting with all of our ell families this week and uh we're hoping
095that they will all that that will we will get input and then we will also be inviting those groups to also join the town halls exactly um and this week as emily mentioned i'll visit with our student advisory board and we've got seahawk also so i can have some good conversations with the community looking forward and i may regret saying this but if there are other groups out there that would like to have a conversation that's what it is it's a conversation so please uh reach out to our board for that thank you so just want to put those dates out there for folks and um happy first and second day of school for everybody and have a wonderful night everybody drive home safely uh remember donnelly last hand thank you yeah i just wanted
096to take the opportunity to read a couple of the lines from this book that's on our district website how to be an anti-racist uh page 19 holds these gems if discrimination is creating equity then it is anti-racist the only remedy of past to pass discrimination is present discrimination in other words the only solution to the problem of racism is to discriminate based on race these are very troubling concepts they go as far as to say that if a white or an asian child is bullied or criticized because of their race that's not racism because they're white or asian that's what the book actually says so i am not asking for books to be banned i'm asking for fairness i'm asking for what we in law would call equal treatment under the law and that's that
097if we're going to have biased statements like these on our website which is a taxpayer-funded website we need to have balance we need to have the other side to these arguments and we need scholarly literary criticism of these documents of these things because they are not textbooks these have not been vetted by any kind of intellectual process these are pop culture that's very dangerous and offers some very troubling and disturbing concepts and they should not be placed on our website without any disclaimer that this is not asd policy even as board members we can't say anything in public without saying we're not speaking on behalf of the school district but we can have books like these on our website with no disclaimer that this isn't asd isn't endorsing these it ought to be the minimum
098we have for these books to be on our website exactly and there ought to be a fair balance so looking forward to scheduling a work session uh member hildy i'd just like to say i look forward to a balance of where we focus on reading and math and life college and career readiness for this board in our meetings look forward to going forward that that is our board's focus and what we structure our meetings around thanks everybody have a fantastic night thank you so much for joining us