03-02-21 ASD School Board Meeting

001all right good evening everyone it is six o'clock on tuesday march 2nd 2021 i'm going to call to order the regular school board meeting for the anchorage school district in the board room today i have board member hildy myself myself board member alisa vichales board member dave donnelly and board member margot bellamy uh also in the room i have our superintendent dr gina bishop on zoom i see board member holloman and board member mitchell uh we're missing one person and when i see her uh join i will go ahead and announce that as well and we do have our student rep with us today miss emily hickox thank you for joining us today all right we have a quorum we can continue on miss margo for the first time back in the boardroom would you

002please do our flag salute [Music] 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 and miss emily would you please do our opening statement [Music] my name is emily hickox and i am the student representative to the board i was elected to serve through the student advisory board although my votes are advisory only i offer a student voice to the body 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

003with your time your talent and your tax dollars you emily next and i'd like to acknowledge that board member marcette has also joined us next up is the approval of the agenda i would entertain emotion at this time [Music] a second i think you have a first and a second are there any modifications or adjustments to the agenda yes remember marsette um in one of our i wrote it down i gotta find it uh memorandum uh [Music] is it and maybe it's not on here um os is um it's the one that has to do with the um [Music] donations and funding and i'm trying to find it i thought i wrote it down but i didn't do it under the consent agenda zero seven six and zero seven eight or seven is it zero

004seven nine it's a non-action item okay that's non-action items you wanna pull that to discuss it non-action yeah but i can do that later okay perfect thank you all right uh any other uh request or modifications seeing no objections the agenda is approved as is next up is our military report um i did colonel delemator join us today all right i'm not seeing him but if he does show up in a little bit i will circle back around for him if the board is okay with that next up would be our student advisory board report and miss emily [Music] all right we had our last student advisory board meeting on the 18th of february um we were super lucky ms michaelis was able to join us and then it was super great we set aside

005a period of time to just talk amongst the students to sort of see what people are doing how they've been what people are thinking about the school start we elected a new public relations officer cecily wheelis from diamond and then did sort of an overview of our resolution process and so we're hoping that through that new resolution process we can have a clearer way for students to bring resolutions to the board our next meeting is going to be the 18th of march i believe miss michaelis is coming back possibly with miss bellamy as well um so we're super excited for that and then we're also going to have more elections to elect our president-elect and hopefully another secretary so we're really looking forward to that and i think that's it for us thank you so

006much emily it was very nice to join your meeting and really get to hear the student voices from all around the district come together it was just amazing and just so how much i've missed it so looking forward to watching uh you guys continue on your process um next up um board conference and committee reports as well as community outreach they are on our agenda they are attached as written reports and so uh folks in the listening gallery you're you know logging into board docs can see all of the committee reports that are attached to the agenda out there next up is goal monitoring and dr bishop i would like to turn this over to you at this time [Music] thank you madam president uh for goal monitoring uh today we don't have data to

007share with you we do have however uh a mind's eye of the 30 000 foot view of the plan for next year and as stated through our training monitoring uh what students know and are able to do by way of your goals which state what students the expectation for what they should know and should be able to do and the board had selected these three primary goals and i just placed these in here and then we also have guard rails and each of these goals and guardrails will have interim goals and guardrails basically a plan the strategic plan on how are we going to get to that reading proficiency goal of 80 percent the math at 55 percent as well as the life and college career ready part of the goal setting and then the

008guard rails is for the board to be updated at each of its meetings in the subsequent year and years to come about the progress towards these goals so it isn't we say we want this and then we'll find out at the end of the year uh there will be data of student learning to demonstrate what students are learning and able to do data will be presented to you and so this i just want to review some of the items that we're going to be looking at that assessments that are here uh nape is the national assessment of educational progress and this is a national assessment and for those who don't know it the whole entire district does not uh take this test in fact it's randomly selected to represent the demographics of alaska we had

009over 60 schools selected in the last snape assessment and they pick particular grade levels and they come in uh four eight and uh twelve sometimes not all the time twelve and they look at primarily reading and math sometimes they come in and do an assessment in science to take a look at what kids need but the longitudinal trend is really in reading and math and it looks at again students across our entire nation and it will give a report by alaska but we will share that uh i'll share in the uh calendar when that will be but just wanted to show that now peaks will be utilizing the peaks assessment the peaks was written in to the board's goals several times and that's the performance evaluation for alaska schools which is the selected test for

010alaska and last year i know um years ago member holloman really uh talked about on the measures of academic progress which is also another district assessment uh that they were looking at to be able to not only provide um st you know a standardized assessment but also an assessment about growth and they're uh working on that last year they did an rf rfp um actually and i i was on the team to look at the proposals but it did not go through at the end of the year with the pandemic they're sticking with peaks another year um but peaks could change other tests that might be familiar this uh um standards-based assessment the sba we had amp uh alaska's measure for progress so alaska has jumped around quite a bit which makes it difficult for

011us to really look at longitudinal data i would um concur with member holloman that if the state ever did go to map we would really have more data to look over time and it'd be much easier so but the peaks assessment is grades three through nine and we will be taking the assessment this year as best we can with students back in school they're asking for it to be administered again nationally as well as statewide they just want a picture of children's learning and or unfinished learning that has occurred this year during the pandemic so i do want to share that there was action to possibly postpone it for another year as you know last year at the beginning of the pandemic many states similar to ours went online we really didn't have a lot

012of information we are still learning about cobit 19 but we will be taking peaks this year again that's an alaska test that meets the federal requirements for testing to receive federal funds the alaska developmental profile i just put that in there it may be used at some point but uh a few of the board members had asked about that and it's really for in the incoming kindergarten or first graders if you didn't take it in the kindergarten and it really gives alaska just a overview of how kids are prepared coming in district assessments really are these two and i'm going to share a little bit because you'll see these presented to you more often uh because they're there are the assessments that we use that um are really they're interim assessments to what we can

013give uh three times a year we get the results very quickly they assist us in pivoting our instruction to know what next do kids need to know and be able to do and so while the peaks happens once a year um fastbridge we have a total assessment in our grade levels at three times a year the fall the winter and the spring but for progress monitoring as well weekly you could give um and and get some information off the fast bridge fastbridge is what replaced you might have heard aims web or dibbles those are some tests that um went through some um renewing if you will in another company fastbridge it's a curriculum-based measure simply stated you're actually using the curriculum what you want kids to know and be able to do to assess what

014they know and able to do so these would kids would read a passage they would say their sounds perhaps letter sound fluency and it gives a fluency measure as well as some other simple measures it does not tell you comprehension we do know that fluency is linked to comprehension but this uh fast bridge is not designed for comprehension map growth and that's the new name for map the measures of academic performance it's called map growth now and it's uh demonstrating what it can do in its name it will uh assess a student's knowledge and the beauty about math map growth for this board and will revisit this all the time is that it really shares a student's learning level and when a child takes this assessment generally they all feel equally successful because the test

015actually stops the administration when 49 to 52 of the questions are right or wrong because it's demonstrating what the kids know what they don't know and kind of finds that um it's a goldilocks test it tells you exactly where students should begin their learning kind of on the edge of their seats and what next they need to learn that's given in the fall winter and spring for both reading comprehension as well as math knowledge and uh english language arts and math so this test uh if it does change in the future it would i would embed it in uh the criterion reference test it would actually have um the standards embedded for each grade level but right now i could be in second grade and if i was a quick learner in advanced i might

016be getting fifth grade questions and it just does that on a standardized test if i'm in second grade or third grade i'm getting only those grade level questions so that's the beauty about map growth because it uh can move into the future there so additionally for the college and career ready uh we will be presenting s.a.t and act which will be built into those interim because remember uh those are assessments that kids choose to take but that's also one of those is an indicator whether kids are going to be college ready workkeys is a workforce development assessment and the state administers it and it will give you a bronze silver or gold certificate that lets you know if you are work ready and uh it uh tests you on work place problems uh critical thinking

017things like that and uh because our college and career ready uh the board's goals really speak about what kids know and are able to do it also includes just account of successfully passing a class uh that we want such as financial literacy but also we're going to be taking a look at third party certifications because you're also going to be career ready if our students pass these over a thousand asd students leave our school system a year having one of these certificates and they're given by a third party so we don't control the test we don't have anything to do with the test other than just teaching this kids the skills but these are work ready certificates that they can go out there and get a job they're great the multi-position welding can really give

018them a livable wage job right away we have vet tech we have emt cna electronics and telecommunications certs that really i'm not only leaving school with a degree a high school diploma if you will but also i have a certificate that demonstrates that i can do something and uh lots of kids have these so these will be built into our reporting as well so this is just a snapshot it is not a deep dive uh each of these assessments that i'm sharing in these months will be determined what grade level will we give and and how are we going to talk about it uh dr stock and his team have outlined uh when tests and assessments are given the reporting period because sometimes they come back immediately such as in map sometimes they will take

019six months to get the report back and so these uh proposed outcome monitoring months with information are our best thinking right now when we present this to you next year and begin after the work with our strategic planning task force september might drill down peaks to another level that might just look at third grade peaks so we will of course the board will always have access to all the data but our monitoring might really answer specific questions at along our journey to meet a goal but these are designed around uh when assessments are given when they're reporting and then when we have time to communicate them so just for a mind's eye uh nape will just share in july along with any other board uh information that the board would like august uh that's when

020we're just starting up we have the prior year's assessments that we'll share with you um this year it would basically be a baseline but that's when we begin our other assessments that are in school so september we'll share the peak from the prior year october and november we'll share the beginning of the year assessments for math and reading for our our students to meet those goals december will share graduation rate monitoring and in the spring uh january and february will be devoted to our high school students non-assessment indicators such as completion of courses things like that we had a checklist that we presented to you on college and career so we'll really work around there january and february is a time during the winter assessment window that they're taking fast bridge and map and so

021they'll take it uh in january the first week of february we'll be able to review it present it to you in march and then they actually take it again in late april and may uh then we'll present to you in may and june depending on those scores but again uh reading proficiency math life college ready those are our primary goals up top embedded in those if you think about the guardrails and how we're going to update you on those as well those will be embedded in some of these topics those talk about different student groups different uh diversity the data will also be uh presented to you for those but as far as the goals the outcome monitoring will be by these students assessments and student work our guard rails are really built around adults

022as well and with that if there's any questions again this is our first uh presentation we had it was a little tricky this year because we're not on a normal assessment window uh so we're looking at them in the future and uh the different companies actually set assessment windows because you can take a fast bridge and a map and you can correlate it not only to our own district and our own kids but in our state as well as nationally so all of these are set for what we believe those testing windows will be for those assessments if you want to do a fall assessment you can't test outside of that window um if you want to compare it to other schools same score and and other you know around the country so we really

023are um we're tied to those assessments themselves all right so opening up to board member questions and remember hildy how's her hand raised thank you this is you know i'm very excited about the progress modern calendar so thank you so much for anchoring our work to our board goals that's very exciting um just talking about the who in all of this um where do our ell students where do our um special education students fit into some of these are they going to be in all of these um assessment components are we going to be seeing them throughout the year or um are there any students that aren't going to be part of this [Music] through the board uh chair to member hilda that's a great question actually because our goals are about all students we

024will be reporting on all students there might be a time that we specifically um fastbridge has multiple assessments so what we might pick one of those and drill it down to lots of different students but our students on alternate assessments will be provided uh students on our state assessments uh but in our district with the goals and preparing all students for success we will include uh those those different student groups as well as the demographics thank you next up is board member bellamy uh that was really one of my questions but i have one more uh thank you dr bishop um and i guess uh madam president we are going to infuse or embed this into our board calendar for monitoring correct awesome thank you thank you and then i have my hand raised for

025a question as well um i know one of the we've adopted our goals not guardrails but we haven't done our interim goals in our guardrails and i know part of that is waiting on a data component you know the here's where we are to hear where we want to be um when do we anticipate some of those being able to be adopted by the board uh that's a great question as well and um this year again to be able to start those smart goals uh with where kids are we're struggling because the original assessments now that we're back in school uh we are finishing up and uh getting done our fast bridge and map by the end of this year so we'll have those for you so it's not only based on the data but

026we also dr stock uh is working with a group of uh folks that are really focused around the board's goals and guardrails and the strategic plan we provided some interim ideas for the board just to give you a picture of what it would look like at our level and um they're going to take those but that the group those groups are actually made up of additional stakeholders and there might be some suggestions from them about what else to monitor to be sure that you're going to get to that goal so we'll provide those uh for you um frankly right now we're designing a whiz-bang summer school uh advan unfinished learning school uh and as soon as that is deployed then our next work is this this really coming down to those interim uh pieces that

027you need so um it's based off of this year's data uh and we'll have those at the end of this year to see where our kid's learning was during the pandemic but also there might be additional interim goals that the board hasn't really reviewed as a sample that's coming from the strategic plans task force thank you next up board member marsette so i i'm not sure if this is the appropriate time but because we're talking about um what we'll be looking at at the start of next year um with our monitoring and so on i know that there's going to be other changes within our departments affecting our students when are those going to be released to the public as we bring those about through the present to a member marsette uh we're just um

028i i believe um remember marsette you're talking about some of the uh redesign that we're doing in special education if the board recalls uh really to ground our work we redesigned uh ell to best practices right and uh right now um our senior director of special education is working with uh the teams there to wrap around best practices into our work so as those get um completed we can share those as well and even do written reports for the board great just transparency yeah thank you absolutely next up in thecube board member mitchell thank you for that update i am super super excited about that monitoring calendar um it'll really ground the work as you said in our goals and and guard rails so one of the things i'm curious to see and um is

029you know with the growth of asd virtual and the thousands of students we have there taking a look at how they're being assessed this year um and how they have performed versus the students who are did the zoom and are back in school now so is that something we can expect to see um next fall through the chair to member mitchell um actually we sent that out in the last board connect that was a question and we sent that to you their achievement actually mirrors the larger district ase virtual does as well as their population and demographics our other homeschool programs their demographics don't necessarily mirror asds general but we shared those data for you but we can certainly with asd virtual as well as with any other school breakdown schools that's what just so

030the board knows uh we're going to share share student populations with you but when we work with our principals and our teams we are digging deep and looking at where are things working in schools where are they not kids we're successful here and not so we really dig deep into so that we can answer the question what can we do um to set up the uh parameters for student success uh because um i wrote it down i love this quote um the adults in our school system uh create the conditions with which children will succeed so we need to continue to assess children's learning uh so that we understand where are they succeeding and and we have some awesome highlights in our district in regard to different schools different programs different classes drill right down

031to the teacher we go ask teachers what is happening in your class that's very different than this uh so we're going to need all those data and those discussions the data discussions uh and the student learning discussions to to make that happen so i know that in the board connect we took a look at the grades the the um notes that the students are getting but i was more con i was more interested in the you know what we get assessed as on a federal level more the peaks testing and the the um summative stuff i know we don't get peaks on the individual students but um we do anyway yeah i'm looking forward to seeing that stuff next up in thecube board member hildy thank you um just on the interim goals one thing

032we had talked about when we did our superintendent evaluation you know timeline is that in the fall once you have all the data from the previous year then we would say what is the goal for this year what is the interim goal the board would discuss it and say yeah that sounds like it's on track um so that's that's when my expectation for those are um but i don't know in the past with destination 2020 we did see strategic goals kind of laid out over three years or interim goals laid out over three years is that something you anticipate doing a multi-year and then you know looking at it every fall with the board to see if we're still okay with that um but still planning multiple years out through the president's member hildy uh

033the answer is yes because i i believe in in my experience is that some changes we're going to look for year to year uh but some would be a two to three year depending on the amount of time to change a system if you will so for reading and math i see year to year we're going to make this much you know have a smart goal and um but for some of the career college ready if it takes redesigning it might take over two years to see a change and we might spell that out so that would all come from uh the stakeholder group understanding what are the necessary changes to be able to come about to be able to meet that interim piece so it might be two years worth of work and we

034would report that um in the past with destination 2020 um excellent goals six absolutely wonderful goals that we've had uh when i um arrived at asd there were not smart goals written for each of those so it was we wanted this but there was no capture to say this is the progress towards it so that was an attempt to really write small smart goals with those data and uh they were really written in different departments and different and and the idea for strategic planning is you know when we know better we do better now and so this group is going to be tied together and understand the different levers and what the capacity is to change so there might also be a time when the the interim goal for one item might be greater than

035the interim goal of another just because of the capacity for people to do the work and especially our our folks in schools so long answer i always give more than i need to um yes is the answer that some might be shorter than others and some might be two to three years or longer period of time all right last chance for any board members to ask any questions regarding our goal monitoring section of the agenda tonight all right not seeing any uh we're going to go ahead and move on in our agenda wanted to just note for uh board members and we'll get this uh posted online as well that colonel delameter did join us uh just briefly uh and he did submit his report in writing so we'll get that out for folks um

036to read we always welcome that next up is going to be public testimony i will read a semi brief 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 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 i will also try and i get your attention if it goes over three minutes but if i have to i'll ask it to hit mute additionally it is not

037our practice that board members answer questions or engage in discussion with board members this is your time to speak and our 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 and i believe we have 10 people plus maybe i'll go see who signed up in person but right now our first person in person is takita parker thank you for joining us you should see a timer right below on the screen hopefully it's on and you've got three minutes and the floor is yours okay can you hear me good evening my name is takita parker and i'm the program manager for partners reentry center with the department of corrections i volunteer as a youth safety advocate

038advocate for covenant house alaska i am also the membership chair for the alaska black caucus and a member of the alaska black caucus education committee the anchorage school district has received numerous reports of racism and discrimination toward people of color what is the purpose plan and goal for the anti-racism and instructional equity policy will it ensure that black and brown youth have equality in regards to education will teachers have to abide by the policies and procedure procedures on anti-racism within a school district anchor school district will it foster a safe environment for a black and brown youth to report racism in their school will it show teachers how to engage in conversations in their school community that will lead to anti-racist actions how will the anchorage school district stay accountable and committed to this anti-racism

039policy we've lost more than 71 437 black lives to covet 19 to date black and brown people make up 15 percent of covert 19 deaths where race is known how can we trust that the covet 19 safety measures implemented within the anchorage school district will protect black and brown youth from contracting poverty 19. i asked this question because it was a picture posted on social media that showed one of your colleagues reading to a group of kids and they were not practicing social distancing these are my questions regarding the anti-racism policy and the covet 19 safety measures within the anchor school district thank you next up i believe speaker number two on the phone is mr danielle kim are you with us tonight yes can you hear me we sure can thank you for calling

040in you have three minutes and the floor is yours all right uh thank you to the board for having me tonight my name is danielle kemp i am uh the president of the newly formed alaska coalition of bypoc educators i am a co-chair of the alaska education association human and civil rights committee and i'm a retired army combat officer and teacher here at the asd as well as a parent of two kids who uh are members of the uh anchorage school district uh tonight i want to testify testify about something that kind of has me a little worried um and that is the the plan that i saw for middle school and high school return all right now before i get to uh the high school teachers and students uh i would like to start

041with elementary because i'm an elementary school teacher all right so right now after i enter the building in the morning right uh i use the restroom only twice a day once for lunch that i get 30 minutes and then at the end of the day um and you know that's it's not that easy all right because uh you kind of suffer from chronic dehydration uh which is not cool at all and i would like you know i mean god help our poor high school teachers who will have apparently zero breaks per day zero if anybody did not hear me first time zero breaks per day uh apparently the only way they can get a bathroom break is to radio in someone to stand in for him each time i mean that's just pretty embarrassing right

042i mean also i think it kind of borders on abuse now how we're going to subject our teachers to this right our students will also be uh stuck in one room all day no lunch break at all you know from five and a half to seven hours a day confined to a single location with the same 17 30 people well kind of sounds like prison right um so you know high schoolers uh they they breathe more and farther and with these new covert variants that are popping up all the time it just makes it even more difficult right it's difficult of a situation so you know i just don't see how we can do this to our teachers or to our students to put them through this and i would respectfully request that this board

043address this before moving forward with this plan of action now so um thank you very much for your time uh and consideration on this matter and i look forward to uh the board's response tonight on this thank you thank you next up on the phone speaker number three roslyn grady waish rosalyn are you with us tonight yes i am and it's roslyn white thank you for watching having me speak you ready yes ma'am go for it okay so i'm rosalyn weiss i am the vice president and co-founder of the newly forming non-profit the alaska coalition of bipod educators i am an asb employee apparel educator for special education resource at mountain view elementary school i am also a proud member of the board of directors for the totem association now and a mother of five

044i have three preschoolers king and queen who is four years old winter who is five years old they are enrolled in the asc neighborhood preschool program aj who is 11 kennedy who is 13 both being homeschooled through paideia where i have learned that one of them are on their own process her own pacing guide as she calls it and another one who actually has an iep and who has who i have had to supplement a whole lot of work for some reason because he's nowhere where i expected him to be no shade covered right um but i was his mother and an asb employee who is also working on her degree a dual degree in elementary education and special education k-12 i will make sure through the support of my village i will do what

045it takes to make sure my children are receiving a fair equal and equitable education oh did i mention i am a single parent too as you can see someone like me benefits from an anti-racism policy and the instructional policy as well that needs to be passed what are we waiting for oh okay i would also like to shout out women's history month to all the women educators in our district all over alaska and all over the world i didn't speak last month but i am black 365 days 24 7. so black history isn't just a month for me it's forever a history implanted in my culture that i or we as americans should never forget you can't just brush that type of stuff under a rug because of that history we are who we are

046as a culture and once again that can never be forgotten last but not least i would like to give shouts out to my preschool squad that takes care of my preschoolers online because i am currently still uncomfortable with sending my preschoolers to school those would be miss babylon miss aaron mr kyles ms hilda and miss kayla their speech pathologist they're an awesome preschool team over at mountain view who go above and beyond to meet my children where they need to be met because they're not in the building i appreciate you guys for listening me i just felt like you guys should know who some of your employees are me particularly because i am coming through here you guys have a beautiful and blessed day thank you thank you next up on the phone speaker number

047four niall williams niall are you on the line tonight hi yes niall sherwood williams if it may please the school board i'm a candidate for seat number e as in edward i would like to speak to the school board through the school board president this evening i would like to draw attention to the last public meeting a gentleman named david boyle member of the public tried to testify he was thwarted over the phone and submitted his documentation in writing so i would like to follow up on his testimony today i would like to draw the board's attention to anchorage municipal code 29.10.060 subsection a 11. and what that is is the attendance policy of school board members school board members are required to attend physically in person 75 percent of the time over a 24-month

048period that is also fortified under anchorage school board policy under page 2 attendance number four says school board members are required to attend physically in person 75 of the time over a 24-month rolling period so when you go online to public dot tableau dot o r g which is a secondary reporting source it lists the attendance of all the school board members and you see physically present there are four members that are in violation of this it's a breach of the public trust those members names through the president are andy holloman dave donnelly both those members have 59 attendance dina mitchell 65 attendance margot bellamy 69 percent attendance through the president miss vichales yes are you cutting me off our board policy states that you cannot call people out directly by name and so i'm

049trying to make sure that you're following our board policy please he can finish up for the last minute if he keeps hello hello you have one more minute please continue according to policy yes so as members of the public heard anchorage municipal code 29.10.060 subsection a11 anchorage school board policy 99-23 that fortifies the anchorage municipal code the required in-person physical attendance this dates back to member pat higgins who was shamefully unpresent and living in the marshall islands while a member of the school board and collecting salary from the taxpayers of anchorage so school board president miss michaelis you have two choices this evening declare those four seats vacant or demand the resignation of those four members immediately as you allowed for betty davis a former member of the school board who served for a very

050long time and was sick and starmar said and miss michaelis you should remember this you allowed for her to resign and not be shamed so members please thank you i learned that at forums next up speaker number five celeste hodge grodden celeste are you with us tonight yeah i am thank you for joining us you have three minutes thank you good evening members of the anchorage school board and superintendent bishop thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight i am celeste hodge groudon president and ceo of the alaska black caucus we are a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of black people and the bipart community in the areas of health justice economics and yes education first happy women's history month yes it's important to recognize the contributions of women who have accomplished great

051work in this country state city and yes including within the anchorage school district we had and currently have teachers teachers assistants principals like dr elfeldra davis first black woman teacher and principal at fairview elementary and betty davis former founding member of the alaska black caucus the first black woman elected to the house of representative first black senator a trailblazer on many fronts who accomplished so much and the alaska black caucus is so proud to have played a role in having east high school renamed after her now parents children and others can learn and hear about davis and her work as they enter the school or drive by we look forward to the ribbon cutting and to hosting the third annual betty davis african-american summit the purpose for this testimony we are applauding the efforts of

052the governance committee in its work of the anti-racism and instructional equity policy there is a common misconception that equity and equality mean the same thing and that they can be used interchangeably especially when talking about education but the truth is they do not and cannot yes the two words are similar but the difference between them is crucial we must have equity in the words of our newest alaska black caucus education committee advisor former superintendent lee cloone equity is not a place to reach in your own reality and rest there equity is not a place it's a mindset which must be a bridge between and amongst all levels of education and communities thank you thank you next up um speaker number six don buckleman don are you on the line with us tonight hi can you

053hear me we sure can you have three minutes and the floor is yours hi uh good evening my name is don bochman i'm both a teacher and parent with an asd i'm here tonight to address a series of questions that were asked during the last board meeting by another asd employee first question quote why were they school board members trying to sabotage the new anti-racism policy install the federally mandated external equity audit unquote i don't believe that questioning the motive of a biased company to perform such an audit is either stalling or sabotaging in fact i think it was brave and honest thing to do i think it's deceptive to perform such an audit without the entirety of the voting and taxpaying population that funds the school district knowing who this company is and knowing

054exactly what critical race theory is citizens should not be signing a blank check to any company without knowing the details just because you claim sabotage doesn't make it true second question quote what have they done to shrink the bicoc teacher death with less than one percent of all teachers are indigenous and a city with about 23 percent native alaska population that's a 22 percent gap representation matters unquote it's not a 22 gap this is an irresponsible misrepresentation of statistics on your part you have to come up with something far more detailed for this to be taken into consideration what part of that 23 is neither elderly or youth and inside of a potential future age range what percent already makes up the population of other skilled positions they've trained for and worked hard for like

055every other racist people in acreage your gap comment takes none of these details into consideration and are only a few of the problems with it following this you make a lengthy claim and states that quote we need the school board members who will look out for all of the asd and not make excuses just to look after the white or wealthy unquote in this claim you've written off all conservative board members as those with lack of empathy and desire for understanding which is simply an opinion and in no way measurable i see no valid measure either of your claim that they only look out for the white and wealthy when one of the school board's many driving factors for getting kids back into school was that parents could go back to work to support their

056families going back to the white and wealthy comment he started the sentence with we need school board members that will look out for all of the asd while simultaneously implying and correct me if i'm wrong that no conservative member should be on the board period you may find this hard to believe but the school board does not serve you directly sir nor me as a teacher directly instead they must do the best they can to serve the community our children families and yes even just general taxpayers who want to see our city thrive your voice is not the only voice your ideas are not the only ideas like teachers the school board cannot be everything to everyone all the time nor should we ask them to our goal is education and i would argue equal

057opportunity in education not some an undefined idea of equity with no end point as a solution lastly i would direct the public's attention to asd's recommended reading list for self-understanding on racism which includes authors such as the usual and kennedy which is kind of ironic because both believe white people are inherently racist as jordan peterson said the idea that you could target a collective crime regardless of thank you i hope folks understand this is to keep it you know fair for everybody that they all get the same three minutes it's not to cut anybody off unintentionally just trying to work with technology right now for those that don't get to finish they can always submit their comments in writing number seven uh dr paula williams dr williams are you on the line with us tonight

058good evening i am dr paula williams a proud member of alaska black caucus and one of the co-chairs for the education committee i testified to the of equity versus equality and parent trust in this pandemic equity and quality are not the same equality means everyone is treated the same or given the same resources it assumes that everyone starts at the same place equity means making sure everyone can arrive at that same point no matter where they start and this pandemic has not been good for trust and education the cdc stated that families of color are more likely to have negative interactions with their children returned to the public school system and feel that without constant vigilance their children will be neglected underestimated and treated harshly for decades many of us have been uncomfortable talking about

059racial inequity issues however we can no longer afford not to address the issue of racial inequities in our educational system towards people of color what data does the ancient school district have to support the safety measures that have been put in place to protect students teachers parents returning to in-person learning especially those of color and what is anchor school district doing to acknowledge that there are underlying systems within its learning curriculum that deny people of color equal starting points and where can the public access this data thank you for this time thank you next up in person is speaker number eight edgar latchford thank you for joining us you have three minutes tonight thank you very much uh madam president my name is edgar blashford i live at 50 43 silver circle which is not

060too far from here so easy distance i would just like to say thank you for a couple of other a couple of things i think are very very uh very very critically important in this uh national turmoil that we seem to be at and first of all is the recognition of black history month and the honoring of a person i called the voice or the conscience of the senate and that was the late senator betty davis i thought it was a great move to uh address the issue of how do you honor someone who is very substantial in the community and that was a brilliant move the and so when i go around i look for evidence of uh that reflects the growing diversity of anchorage and i was pleased when i come into the

061headquarters here is to see the picture or the painting of the alaska native uh teacher with alaska native students hanging above the administrative offices i i again i i think it's you need to have evidence around anchorage you need to have evidence around the state and i think the the country is becoming incredibly diverse it's not only in the united states it's all over europe it's all over the pacific rim countries we have to accept diversity and respect fairness and uh justice and equality a couple of things i want to say and i i posted i took a picture of the painting above the administrative office and i posted it on facebook and i got a lot of likes then i began to feel guilty because maybe they thought the people who saw the picture

062thought i painted it or i was responsible for it i am not responsible for it so i carried to you a great big thank you thank you very much thank you next up on the phone is speaker number nine reagan brooks reagan are you on the line with us thank you can you hear me you sure can you have three minutes and the floor is yours thank you i'm going to keep it short but i want to thank you all for your service on the board and thank you to the educators who are here or on the phone today and who are currently working so hard to support students um my name is reagan brooks i'm a mother and a parent of two children in the anchorage school district i'm testifying today to echo the

063calls for equity versus equality and to express support for the adoption of an anti-racism policy i wish there was no racism or inequity in our schools but as too many people or many people have shared in previous school board meetings and elsewhere and as the district has illustrated with its own data it's simply not true please do not ignore problems that create trauma and undermine access to learning there is racial inequality in our system i know that none of you wish to support that whether or not i agree with you politically on everything i do know that none of you wish to support that and i urge you to do all you can to make asd a safe healthy just equitable and anti-racist space for all thank you thank you i do not see speaker

064number 10 on the line tonight um was there anybody in the audience that i missed that may not have gotten signed up or did did anybody want to you know yes and if you would just kindly um say your name and um uh dustin sherman for the record thank you i think i'm on a list maybe for later tonight i don't know you can take me off after this but um so i'm here actually speaking on behalf of uh the anchorage the high school bowling program um about a week or two ago um we had a couple uh young young bowlers that run the bowl and the anchorage uh school bowl for the anchor school district here in anchorage and they had actually broken a couple state records that had been around since at least

0652013 some of them even further back than that well they got an invite to go down and go the national um high school bowling championships down in dayton ohio well the coaches decided to call in and find out what would what they would have to do to be able to go down there and they found out that there had been a uh i guess some kind of a ban on travel right now for high school or high school sports well that's kind of a shame and how they were addressed is kind of appalling honestly they they were told that if they proceed and they were to go down there that they would fire the head coaches which is honestly a volunteer position anyway which is completely ridiculous okay these kids work their butts off for

066four years to get to this point and you guys are gonna tell them that they can't do it okay now i don't know if you've ever heard of sean rashornat he's one of our local celebrities here he's actually a pba champion like 10 times over he's in the hall of fame okay to take that away from these kids is completely ridiculous and then once they told the head coaches that they would be fired if they went ahead and proceeded that they were going to ban the entire high school bowling program period this doesn't cost you guys anything it doesn't cost the school board anything it's outsourced so to come up with something like that is completely ridiculous and i'm gonna make sure that every bowling family that's in this city understands what you guys are

067doing you're dashing the hopes and dreams of these kids you're taking away a chance for them to get other scholarships down the road it's completely completely ridiculous so you know i don't know what needs to happen but in my experience i've been in the bowling business for 30 plus years and this is this is literally the worst thing i've ever seen happen i know that we're going through covet and i know things are happening the tournament is in june the the the ban on travel ends in july what's to say that things change between now and then what i'm asking you to do is to reevaluate that okay at least give them a chance to go down and compete this is in dayton ohio they're not having the same problems that we're having they're they're

068all the bowlers that are bowling high school bowling are wearing their masks they're getting checked they're getting tested whenever they feel like they're sick in the entire year that we've had coveted we've had two or three kids that have come down with it and actually only one of them to test the positive i believe the other ones stayed away and we got through it everything worked really well and i i want to give you guys props for that but at the same time we don't have a pandemic when it comes to bowling okay so please reevaluate that thank you thank you oh and speaker number 10 has joined us it is uh andy massey are you on the line with us tonight it is star six to unmute annie massey [Music] i think we're having

069technical difficulties all right if you want annie you can try um calling back in if that might work and i don't have anybody else here though hello yes there you are thank you you have three minutes the floor is yours well i feel very ill prepared for this evening but thank you for taking the time to listen i and my name is annie massey i have three children and two in anchor school district and i wanted to phone in tonight to go over a few points that i had the pleasure of presenting to our local legislators recently there are four points to what i spoke about the first one was asking for our leadership and this includes the anchorage school district and this board and our superintendent to please protect the rights of parents in

070education and to remind them that the supreme court has upheld five times the fundamental rights of parents to and that they possess the fundamental rights to direct the upbringing of their children and this includes their education and so i ask that this board consider a proposal to have a policy that protects parents rights and education and the domain of the home and the second the second point that i made was that after hours and hours and hours of research trying to understand 150 years of philosophical nonsense i want to ask our board again i've asked you all in email but i haven't received a response and i really would like to understand that each of you understands and have been instructed on what critical race theory is and the damage and divisiveness that's involved in

071these theories and ideas and i want to tell you that that's what it is it's a theory these are theories and ideas that want to be taught to our children and so therefore they're not safe at school with these theories and ideas that are being infiltrated into policies being proposed right now and that would be the anti-racism policy and the instructional equity policy now that you've altered the instructional equity policy a little bit more it's better i would say but i have a lot of questions on both of which i still need to hear back from some members i have many many questions unanswered the third point was please open schools in full all grades and that it's also a catch 22 because if we open schools our kids are at risk oh thank you

072thank you all right uh just remind folks um listening online and board members in the room we do have uh a few written public testimony that is also attached to the board box agenda for everybody to um also read as well next up in the agenda is our superintendent update and at this time i'd like to turn it over to dr bishop [Music] thank you madam president uh today i have uh three items uh with for which i'd like to update the board these items are really sharing with the board as well as the public the plan for our secondary schools lunch also our director of health services is here to share about the travel advisory and then i want to update you on the alaska native cultural charter school and uh its move of

073its building so with that i'd request dr johnson to come forward and just share a little bit about uh the design of our secondary lunches and kind of the impetus for that thank you all right thank you dr bishop through the board president to the board um i'm happy to be here to talk about secondary lunches i know that this has been a topic um that has crossed your desks uh recently with the start of fourth quarter coming um and so i just wanted to first um start out with a little bit of just a brief description of what our plan is um and then talk about how we got there um and how it serves our student needs so first the first part of the the lunch schedule that um we are gonna start

074employing during fourth quarter when students come back really has the goal of of trying to keep kids in smaller groups um so they're not intermixing with um you know 1500 or so of their their best friends at school right because we have really large schools at our secondary level um we want to reduce their exposure by reducing that intermixing of students and and we really have some space limitations when we have that large of a number of students and part of that comes from having a closed campus lunch that we typically don't have at high school level it's different for middle school but in our cafeterias they are not equipped to fit every single student in there at one lunch hour so there's some logistical issues around social distancing if we were to have a

075traditional lunch period and and or having multiple lunches throughout the day which would really drive the whole entire schedule during the day and really interrupt class time so there was a lot of thought put into it and the current schedule just for awareness is that when students arrive at school if they would like to get breakfast at the cafeteria they go to the school cafe they get their lunch they can also pick up a snack they can also bring their own um if they would like to which is cool so all of the food is free when they they arrive because we have a special exemption around free and reduced lunch this year so any student who needs it can get lunch or breakfast when they come to school so they would take that breakfast

076to their first hour their first hour teacher would allow them to eat in class and then they would proceed with their first hour class they would then get to their second hour class um they have a 15 to 30 minute time frame in in their second hour class depending on school to eat either a snack or or if they wanted to bring a lunch during that time they would be allowed to eat it during their second hour as well although it is labeled smack time on our on our school schedules so then students when they they would proceed to their third hour and then at the end of their third hour most schools um that are larger are doing a staggered release of students so that we have less students in the hallway at one

077time and they would go to the cafeteria and pick up their lunch um at the cafe and then proceed either to get picked up from by parents or get on the bus to go home if students are participating in a sport after school they're going to be given time to eat before their sport or activity after school as well so all all of those things have been kind of accommodated for within the schedule it's just not spelled out as a individual lunch time um on their course schedule so um i talked about closed campus lunches that is a logistical kind of feat for us with so many bodies at our secondary schools um so that we really want to make sure that they're distance and not all together um and then the other thing i

078just wanted to point out is that this has been our schedule all year even via zoom so students are accustomed to it um and they've been doing it all year so the good news um is that we're feeding more kids um through our lunch program and our breakfast program than we ever have um so i i know some of the feedback has been negative like how could you do this to our kids um and i really want to kind of dispel that myth that we're we're really feeding more kids than we ever have and we really are accommodating them within class time so um i also just wanted to assure the board all of our meals meet student nutrition federal guidelines they are free like i said and then i talked about sports earlier as

079well so students that are are not attending face-to-face instruction if they're opting to stay at home and and complete their year they can still go to our distribution sites as well and and get lunch um and then the last point that i just wanted to point out to the board is that we did really address our request by aea um and worked collaboratively with them to just support our staff safety by limiting the exposure um by mixing kids so so it's probably more than you wanted to know about lunch but i thought it was really important so back to you dr bishop thank you it's making us hungry now so uh the main point and dr uh johnson shared as well kids are not gonna go hungry it's actually plenty of time it's a half

080an hour a lot of times more than they have now it's just done in those small groups to work through that mitigation i appreciate that dr johnson uh the next item is our travel guidance and i want to uh we cut and pasted the red band that is on our website that anyone can look at the travel guidance that's published this has also been uh a question that i have received often so uh jen patronus if you could assist [Music] good evening everyone so in the mid the absence of a travel requirement from the state and the muni asd adopted our own travel guidance and essentially all travel travelers regardless of age will have to present a negative covid test before returning back to school or work that's for both employees and students if a

081traveler chooses not to get a coveted test then they must so strict social distance for 10 days and they can return to work or school on day 11. now the only exemption to this is if someone had tested positive within 90 days of their travel and then they'll be exempt from the cova test by providing a proof of that positive test to their school nurse or their supervisor and also be asymptomatic if someone travels outside of alaska for less than 72 hours as long as they're asymptomatic there are no requirements thank you i appreciate that and again we did make the newspaper we are we actually have some expectations on travel uh where other districts don't um but we have been hearing um you know from from some members of the public to go beyond

082what the state has declared for safety and our city because our city does not have any of those requirements either uh so lastly we have um the alaska native cultural charter school and i've kept the board president vice president up to date but wanted to share with the whole board uh what's happening uh through the process of us monitoring every school building prior to students returning we did find that the air flow in the alaska native cultural charter school uh was not up to our standards and we did uh go back to the landlord and ask for it to be corrected and our landlord is not a very good landlord they did not make any corrections and and we're not going to um we've had adults in the building and um the airflow for the

083amount of adults in the building is fine now but we felt as though uh bringing students back into there and more students breathing the air we wanted to be sure that we just provided a better place to learn so moving off of the board authority last year when we had another issue with the landlord the provision to move the school into east high school if needed or to another facility we utilized that to be able to really provide a fourth quarter of learning for the alaska native cultural charter school so by the graces of uh betty davis east anchorage high school administrators as well as staff they have left a part of the building the benson part of the building and allowed for teachers for a and ccs to move in and as you see

084they're actively moving in this week um the principal spinella and sweetzer gave an initial tour of the facility to staff back in february and uh we're looking forward to welcoming our kids after spring break as well to be able to have a face-to-face opportunity in a safe environment and it's been a great team effort i cannot say enough to uh the uh kirsten on the instruction side who assisted daryl vinsec as well as um our folks on our maintenance and operation side were absolute leaders to be able to get this done and so uh we have um mr hargraves here if you have any questions as well and he spearheaded the actual operational side of this tomorrow i wanted to let the board know that our elders are giving a blessing a native american blessing

085for the school at east betty davis east anchorage high school tomorrow so that a nice celebration and certainly wanted to invite the board as well as the people involved in supporting this move it is a temporary solution to a long time problem that the board has heard about their facility and we are working with the apc to come up with resolutions for a long-term planning for a school for the charter school but i i just don't let schools fail schools that are are good for kids should be the schools we support and our support was offered to alaska native cultural charter school uh to be able to have a face-to-face opportunity and so we're looking forward to this um you're certainly welcome and again dr johnson and mr hargraves are here everybody's really here to

086answer any questions that you might have but these three were a particular interest for the board uh as you may have heard um you've also received questions about these three items so that completes my report and again staff will assist me as needed [Music] thank you dr bishop are there any board members with any questions for dr bishop or her team uh some member marcet um yes i am curious um i know we've looked at lunches and i'm wondering what will school look like when our students are back will they be changing classrooms are they going to be in one classroom will there be any zoom or will this be in person learning through the president to member marcet dr johnson can you please share the daily schedule and and just or know our parents

087should be receiving from their own schools their schedules uh this week uh as we plan but uh here it is for the public sure thank you dr bishop through the president to member marsette um so when students come back fourth quarter they'll be going physically to their three course periods face to face so they'll be changing classrooms in a staggered method that is individualized to each school and the physical setup in that school um so not all of the kids will be out in the hallway at one time um they'll be staggering their release and and entry into classrooms to limit um kind of just that social distancing factor and limit their physical interactions so that so that we can stop the spread of covid within our schools if if it's there um so they

088will be attending face-to-face um they they won't necessarily be doing zoom during that time they'll be engaged in in normal school activities in those three periods in three different classrooms thank you and i i do want to apologize to the board uh for um i noticed an e missing from betty's name on our slide so we'll get that fixed uh to post it i apologize for that thank you next step in the queue i head member donnelly thank you madam president um is there any way for the bowling um students the students that are doing the bullying to just travel on their own not on behalf of the school district to attend the events they want to attend [Music] through the president i'm going to ask dr johnson to come forward as well i didn't

089have any detail on this this was the first i had heard about it as well but i'm going to turn it over to secondary ed uh for um the process of of what that looks like and the the to answer that question sure yeah through the president to member donnelly um so families do have the option if they'd like to travel on their own um the difficulty is that their coach wouldn't be able to coach them as an official asd student um through you know all of the asd coverage that we provide in case something goes wrong so parents would have to go the coach may not be able to go with them as a school coach and they'd have to do it completely independently with their parents that's what i was hoping for i

090understand the liability issues with any asd employee even if they're a volunteer conducting travel at this point in time but i i hope those options were provided to the parents and the the bowling folks and they were just told if you go you're gonna be punished right i um i wasn't a part of the conversation holly zumbro um in my office was the one that spoke to the gentleman that was here before and and i plan to have a follow-up conversation with him probably tomorrow um so we can kind of work on some options so thank you next up in thecube board member bellamy yes thank you madam president uh thank you uh dr johnson for um clarifying the lunch i think the title of that article was just so misleading and it just caused

091a lot of questions so i thank you for for clearing that up um one of my the other question has been answered you can sit and then i i just i would like a an uh update uh miss patronus on dr bishop you missed however we do that on the um title of how how we are capturing the community data i understand that it's it hasn't been updated at least that's one of the letters we i could actually ask answer that through the um president to uh member member bellamy a couple of weeks ago we actually when the cdc guidance came out we uh charged our webmaster to redesign that page it was in a review process uh with everything else um going on we just missed posting it and given their final approval so

092it should be any day now it was just um he designed it right away it was done within a day it's just that um you know given i think this week probably having about 3 000 people coming in that we just didn't um get it so we'll get that update because we should have had that so thank you all right both for michael thank you next up in the keyboard remember hildy um it's live actually right now because when we saw that email they had already had it done so they said it's already live i just got a text thank you all right thank you on the alaska native charter school being in um the betty davis east high school what is there like a new wall put up is it like at pedeo or

093in central where it's like two separate schools i'm just you know picturing kindergartners high schoolers that kind of through the president um to to member hilda yes uh actually uh the high school was built um and the benson side of it actually used to be the middle school side of it it was the benny benson junior high that was attached to um the uh east uh high school and so this was uh in review this was a year ago of uh where we could place a and ccs if the um lisor uh didn't come up with a better lease if you recall we had this was one of our um contingency plans and it is separated this fall or this spring rather we are not going to make any adjustments other than primary safety adjustments

094that we need to do for uh students the furniture is coming from a nccs so the size of furniture matches all those things but if our solution is to keep anc see us there for a year more to look for a permanent place we would then address playground equipment and other facilities for for youth for younger children but presently um the school is pre-k through eight uh and a little over 200 students and we have a good safe place for them that is separated from others i do foresee though um what generally happens is when we put schools together they start to cooperate and and look for ways to tie their learning together and dr johnson if there's anything else that i had missed you can jump in or mr hargraves um i was gonna

095thank you dr bishop i was gonna say i'm darryl vincent's on the line um and he has a lot of details he's been actually on site working with both principals in the school program so i'd like to turn it over to him to share some more detail thanks dr johnson uh through the chair um i do i would like to point out to the board that we've done this before when i was a principal of russian jack elementary the school was destroyed by a fire in 1997 and night uh that winter break so in 1998 we moved our uh preschool through third grade into the benson wing we were downstairs now they're upstairs but um we have done that so uh we are taking uh security very very um uh paying close attention to it

096uh making sure that things are done well but as dr bishop mentioned what we found when we were there was the high school students just rise to the occasion it's a great opportunity to uh for to give kids meaningful jobs and work and they love pitching in and they love helping we had nothing but a great experience there um dr johnson will be providing an extra security person for the first uh quarter to see just to make extra sure that we're okay and principal spinella and principal sweetzer are working through things such as mitigation plans evacuation routes all the different little safety nuances uh where to eat lunch where the kids are going to pick up lunch this has been a huge lift for two weeks and a great team effort so uh principal spinella

097and the east half east staff are to be commended for their willingness they left little packages for the anccs teachers of welcoming them little little gift packages which was really sweet to make folks feel feel welcome and uh a part of that school so we were the tiny t-birds back in uh back in 98 so i look forward to east uh east and the nccs relationship that will come from this thank you mr vinsec really appreciate all the work you've done on that all right are there any other last questions for the superintendent um remember donnelly if everybody else is gone um madam superintendent is is the district planning to offer participating in any critical race theory training for district employees through the president to uh member donnelly i am going to ask sonia hunt

098our senior director of equity and compliance to come forward thanks um to the president uh to member donnelly uh critical race theory is one of the theories that is presented in the book study that we've done equity and anti-racism and education it was discussed um in terms of how it evolved from identity theories um so we're talking from helms um all the way through to critical race theory to what we have today which is antar so basically same theoretical framework different names that was discussed in the book how to be an anti-racist by dr kindy so um in terms of its journey yes um any other detail other than that no um i i appreciate that thank you for that explanation um my question was is the district planning to offer or participating in any

099critical voice theory training for district employees maybe you could through i can address that um so we have book studies that we provide uh for teachers on at their time and we have in the evenings we have our employees who want to teach them can teach a book study so uh for professional development for adults uh the book study of uh how to be an anti-racist was one of the book studies that we did and the other half of my question is there any plans to do anything additionally in the future um through the president member donnelly if there is interest by employees to uh have another book study yes i foresee that um that interest would be granted thank you thank you miss hunt um remember hilde just to follow up on that for

100my own clarification um so my understanding in a book study is just uh you know i read a lot of books and i like to learn about a lot of different things that's not me taking a class in that that i'm going to incorporate into my instruction but understanding the history of how things develop in our country lots of different things is that what i'm understanding through the president member hilda yes yes we have had other book studies in the past that weren't about um anti-racism so uh just it's uh generally comes from a group of uh staff they could be teachers or other educators uh or support staff that have an idea to move forward and we have an application process through our professional development to be able to assist uh with registration things

101like that they occur outside of an employee's day and they credit if they are credit that would have to be approved by university so it goes through their processes next step board member bellamy i just wanted to add as well uh to member hildy's comments i think one of the things we do really well in this district is to provide opportunities for people to engage to have conversations and i i will state again that i really don't think the board need to dictate to employees what they can and cannot read i think it's optional and i think um whatever the book title is people get to decide for themselves whether they want to participate and i like that about this district i like that people are are excited about some things uh and i like

102that we give them opportunities to engage and to have those deeper conversations that's all i want to add thank you [Music] thank you and thank you to everybody that's helped at this time i don't see any other questions and so uh unless you had any final thoughts dr bishop we can keep going on the agenda no madam president thank you that concludes my report thank you so much all right next up is our consent agenda and madam vice president if you would please get us started sure okay i moved to approve the consent agenda consisting of asd memorandum number 087 which is a personnel report the regular minute meeting the regular session minutes from january 19th 2021 and asd memorandum number 076 acceptance of grant award the carl d perkins grant award for professional development

103funds and memorandum number zero seven eight acceptance of continuation grant award uh alternative schools coalition grant need a second i think that was andy but it was a quiet andy yeah all right um any questions or comments on the consent agenda seeing them katie if you could please do a roll call load emily are you on i'm not sure if she's still there yes yes she's there and thank you is that your yes vote for the yes okay thanks um remember mitchell yes remember my set yes remember holloman yes remember hildy yes remember donnelly yes vice president bellamy yes president michaelis yes and the consent agenda passes with seven years and zero nays we have no public action items therefore no public testimony on action items tonight we do have a a host of things

104on the non-action items i know that member marsette had wished to pull item number two asd memorandum 079 were there any other items that board members wish to pull to discuss from the non-action item list remember hildy i just have a question on why the um operating budget transfers aren't just like grouped as one memo for multiple months just going forward for voting next agenda if that's possible i think as non-action they could just be lumped together well they're information only so we don't even vote on them oh okay just want to make sure thanks all right seeing no other uh questions on the non-action items remember marsette you would ask for item number two to be pulled turn the floor over chiefer yes um the reason i pulled this because there's several instances where

105there were donations made and i wasn't sure exactly on those donations because one of the questions i've asked is on our school board connect or that newsletter that we put out it has that button up top that says um if you'd like to donate to the school district and then it takes you to a site where you can do a monitory um contribution or donation and so i was just curious if this would reflect that in this report or is that something totally different madam president uh i would request our chief financial officer jim anderson uh respond please sure to the president or through the president to uh remember marsette it does in fact include that we have uh a variety of different ways where people can donate some of them are sometimes they'll call

106the district or they'll email the district but putting it on the webpage we've had a lot of people start using that as a mechanism and when we do get phone calls we refer them to that as a mechanism so we can carefully keep track it's not just the dollar amount that we want to track it's the donor intent to make sure that once we get the money then we meet the intent of the donor and then of course we follow up with the donors for future potential opportunities okay yeah i just wanted to clarify that because i wasn't sure i'd ask that question before because i never noticed that donate button and so i just want to know where we're reporting that and so it's reflected in that report then thank you thank you next

107up on the agenda is the second opportunity for public testimony which i don't see anybody or have anybody signed up so now it's 7 35 and we're at school board and administration comments are there is there anybody that would like to share some final thoughts remember marsette um it's not necessarily final thoughts but i haven't been able to bring this up at the work session or anything else um at in the governor's committee and i this uh but i i thought i would do it here since um the proposed discipline policy we were waiting on feedback from the administration and i just didn't know if we had received anything or if they've had a chance to even look at that uh through the president to remember marcette this is dr stock um i have a

108draft that's been typed up uh katie grant has put the touches on it it's in draft form it's going to share it with the governance committee it hasn't been widely shared among all the administration yet to see if there's any more that we want to do to it but i have made some suggested changes to it and given a copy to katie okay thank you dr scott you're welcome next up in thecube board member bellamy yes i just have a couple of um first of all a huge thank you to dr bishop uh and i thank you to the board i was i'm a member of the council of greater city schools cohort group and my first assignment was done tonight thank you and that was the outcome planning having an outcome making an outcome

109calendar outcome monitoring calendar so i really appreciate that selfishly uh the other thing is tomorrow is uh testimony for the uh uh sb8 so if that starts at nine o'clock and if i'd like to invite people to join me in providing testimony uh in support of that and then uh the other uh just an announcement the anti-racism and instructional equity policies uh have moved out of governance they are post they were posted today and they are available for review and more information will be on the website soon regarding um when we will uh how we are going to engage with the public around those policies and my final uh suggestion or yeah suggestion is to ask for a format for our reports so we don't have a format i like elite uh member heal these

110format and that work if that works for everybody then that works for me so if we can do that in maybe communication okay great that's it thank you and dr bishop uh thank you i i want to uh thank you and thank my member bellamy too and if um if i think i know your teacher you're going to need a lot more detail on that and just tell them that in another month we'll have more detail on that that is the general overview of the monitoring calendar uh you have a pretty stiff expectations by teachers there uh but i i wanted to um just share with the board thank you for your support in uh getting us back to school and certainly thank you uh for our elementary who've been in school and our secondary

111who are honing their practices with their small groups um and i especially want to just thank uh the administrative team uh that work with me to assist in getting that done it has been an effort from school-based people to district-based people to parents at home and i look forward and i'm happy that we're having a week off um for you know just the anxiety and everything to just you know to get back and we will finish strong this is going to be an excellent last quarter i'm confident in the people of asd uh and so far as our employees as well as our parents and students we've had success thus far and i um while this is ending a week and ending the third quarter i just can't wait to get back so thank you

112thank you i just wanted to make a couple of quick announcements um for those that are listening in next monday on march 8th first day of spring break is our joint meeting between the school board and the assembly it's in the evening time from five to seven uh the next day on the ninth between 3 30 and 5 30 we've got two committee meetings uh governance and communications uh also in the middle of spring break and then our next regular board meeting all together is going to be march 16th and it'll be after our kids are all back in school so looking forward to some fun updates from there but um again just want to say thank you to everybody for attending the meeting from the board to the administration and have a very happy

113safe spring break and at this time i would entertain a motion to adjourn i'm president vicaylus president michaelis yes i'd be remiss if i didn't remind you that we have a finance committee meeting on right on the 10th um you didn't mention that so i thought i'd throw it in there from noon to one oh is it tomorrow it says that oh it's tomorrow tomorrow thank you i missed our word it is tomorrow you're right it is tomorrow thank you so much everybody have a fantastic