School Board Meeting

001what's that kelly yes sorry [Music] do we have the slide deck perfect thank you kelly okay it's 6 30 so i'm going to go ahead and call them the meeting tonight is the sorrow public schools board of education regular meeting tonight is february 4th 2021. do i have uh can i have the attendance please sure mrs giftus yes dr gill here miss casalonas here mrs lindstrom here mrs scyther here mrs leighton here mrs turner here mr bennett here and miss giftus here excellent agenda item 3.0 is the pledge of allegiance please join me 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 before we go into adjustments to the agenda nick i know

002that you had wanted to say something quickly yes i just wanted to say very quickly that i i've had a pretty serious back injury um and i just say that because i hated getting up and moving around a lot during this meeting and shutting off my camera and appearing in a different position and so if you see that i'm i'm listening and i'm paying attention but i i'm in a lot i'm a significant amount of pain so i'll leave it at that and just say i take tonight very seriously but if you see my camera pop on and off that is why thank you nick and i'm sorry to hear that okay uh agenda item 4.0 is adjustments to the agenda are there any adjustments to the gen agenda this evening sandy yes i'd like

003to add one to the new business area and it would be the scarborough high school program of studies okay um i will move to and sorry i meant to say this before um been brushing up on my parliamentary procedure uh in my infinite spare time and um just trying to get better here and and you know facilitate meetings and one thing i realized is that i had made an agenda an adjustment to the agenda a few weeks ago and we didn't vote on it um and so tonight we will do it correctly and i will make a motion to add agenda item 10 uh let's put it in front of um approval of the 2021 board goals so this will become agenda item 10.2 approval of the shs course of studies do i have a

004motion second discussion okay and diane could you please call the vote huh mrs giptis yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss layton yes mrs lindstrom yes is it either yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes perfect thank you guys okay um agenda item 5.0 is public comment um for those um in attendance who have never made a public comment or for those who would like to make a public comment tonight who are unsure how to do so um we take public comment via blue little raisy hand in the zoom window which can be found if you go to participants you should be able to see the list and next to yourself there should be a little blue button that says ray's hand and so for those of you who would

005like to make public comment if you raise your hand we will be able to promote you to speak additionally if you would like to make public comment and you are struggling to figure out zoom or navigate zoom you certainly would not be alone you can email the board at public comment at scarborough schools dot org and those public comments can be read into the public record i have a few hands being raised and so i will call on people in the order that they raise their hands um as a reminder please direct your your comment to me the chair and each speaker should limit their public comment to three minutes please and with that i will promote you one at a time you may go ahead hello my name is michelle shupp and i live

006on holmes road in scarborough i am also a teacher of color in the scarborough public school district i'm here today to support the students of scarborough public schools i'm here to lift up and amplify the adjustments required by the civil rights club the reducing violence sexism and violence club and the scarborough anti-racism coalition students this is the work of my life community members students and staff from across the district have contacted me with concerns about the uniform nature of our staff and student representation on the dei steering committee is the asian voice needed in these discussions yes should our voices be the only bypoc voices clearly not we know that you the school board care about students we know it we've watched the members of this board stand up for what they believe to be

007right and just at great personal cost over the years what the students are asking you to do is this listen to them my god we are so fortunate we have a group of students who are educated practiced and involved students who are trained in equity practices some of them for five or more years students who have listened to their marginalized peers students who sense of justice and righteousness has led them to say no more adults do better we just need to get out of their way i think about my parenting i'm a voracious reader i'm a teacher i know a lot about child psychology and behavior i try my best to apply that knowledge to my own three neuro divergent gender questioning multi-racial children how however despite my intentions intentions i screw up a lot

008a lot my children will say to me well ma i just can't do it the way you want me to do it this isn't right for me sometimes they're just being defiant most of us are parents sometimes they're just being divided but i mean they're human often times though they're right it's not gonna work for them the way it's written a book so i have two choices as a parent i can dig in and say but hey this is what the experts say this is what's worked for every other group of people so you just go to your room listen to mom or i can sit down with him and say look i've been a parent for 11 years i'm gonna mess up i'm ready to listen nobody knows you better than you how can

009we do better together our students want to know if we are building this table of equity why can't we just make the table bigger why is there a fence around the field we need more students on this committee we need black students on this committee if not enough applied which is like a classic statement that a structures make systemically we need to reach out to the student leaders of those student-led groups and ask how can we do focused outreach we need black student voices at the table how can we keep them safe how can we make them feel safe enough to apply can you help us i'll tell you our students can they can help us why are we telling them no our civil rights history every civil rights victory in american history has been

010built on the backs of black activists sojourner truth ida b wells fannie lou hamer marsha p johnson pride started with a riot folks malcolm x james baldwin angela davis martin luther king jr coretta scott king breen newsome melissa thompson and an extraordinary disabilities advocate for black around black and brown people opal to many and yet every time black americans are the last people who receive the benefits of their efforts by punk people are tired tired in a way that sleep can't cure we haven't been fighting for equity for three months we've been fighting for equity since we were born look in this kid in this the kids don't care about being right they want to do what's right turns out they're doing both thank you thank you um isabel i'm going to go ahead and

011promote you and kelly if you could help me or diane by demoting our previous speaker um so isabel first please thank you um my name is isabelle liu i am the president of the civil rights club at scarborough high school and i'm also a member of the scarborough anti-racism coalition i was selected to be a part of the diversity equity and inclusion committee and i chose myself to decline the position after seeing the results of the selected members i was deeply concerned with the lack of diversity so here is my message to the board and those who formed the members i will never feel comfortable moving towards an equitable community without black voices leading the change without that no action taken will be truly understanding and supportive of black people i was deeply troubled to

012find the disparity of black members and minority members in general within the selected group you all know how many black representatives made it onto that committee do better asian students like myself cannot represent all bipac students especially not black students who are the most marginalized group our experiences with racism are drastically different similarly adults cannot represent all k-8 students if a child experiences discrimination or racism they will not tell their white teachers it is exhausting and traumatizing mentally and emotionally to vocalize these things therefore much of the inequity that this committee seeks to fix can only be brought to the table directly from students of color or other marginalized groups or else it may not be brought at all additionally think about this the dei committee would not have existed without the civil rights club

013rsvp sarc all student-led groups advocating for equity within the community this shows that students are more than capable of directing the change as the president of the civil rights club i can safely say that our club and all the students within it we work in collaboration towards every single one of our goals we come from all different demographics and we know that in order to battle the social constructs created against us we have to stand in solidarity and that is exactly what we are doing now my words and my voice directly reflect the voices of my fellow civil rights club members we recognize and truly appreciate the growth that has come from the school board and administration thus far but in regards to the dei committee we need you to do better thank you jay

014you're next uh my name is dre christophers and i live on holmes road i'm a senior at scarborough high school a member of the scarborough anti-racism coalition the k-12 seo steering committee the shs civil rights club treasurer of the hhs producing sexism and violence program and the only student member of the southern maine partnership equity and excellence community of practice i have also been selected as one of two student members of the dei steering committee which is the problem i would like to address today it baffles me that only two students were selected for a dei committee which would not exist without the activism of stark and the civil rights club both of which are student organizations it further baffles me that only two students were selected for a dei committee and district where the

015only equity initiatives existing for longer than two years i've been entirely student-led not to mention the students in question isabelle and myself are both asian and simply cannot accurately represent the lived experiences endured by black students in this district i implore the board to add a bare minimum of three more students at least one of whom must be a black student to the dei committee if this condition is not met i will be forced to reconsider my acceptance of a position on this committee thank you for your time thank you jay mackenzie hello my name is mackenzie stimson i'm treasurer of the civil rights club and a scarborough high school student as someone who was at the present and who was present at the meeting with the superintendent and the rest of crc a few

016weeks ago i was very confused and deeply troubled to see the list of selected students for the dei committee this entire school year especially back in november and a few weeks ago we've been told by you that student administ that scarborough administration and scarborough school board want student input and student ideas especially in the realm of social justice to only have two students on a committee that is specifically for equality in our own education system is just baffling student voices are absolutely critical to this community committee's mission as students we often have the best understanding about issues in this education system because we're living through it an experience that just cannot be replaced while izzy and jay are wonderful representatives and deserve a seat at the table there need to be more seats for students

017moreover it is completely unacceptable to not have a black student on the diversity equity and inclusion steering committee it's not right i know you said in your previous responses that race wasn't the only factor in this decision but race specifically black students should have been a primary factor many of the issues surrounding equality in our education system and in the larger world are centered around and really against black people there must be black students on this committee in order for it to be really for diversity equity and inclusion we are requesting and strongly recommend that at least five students total including at least one black student beyond this committee thank you for your time thank you mackenzie alexa you're next hi my name is alexis stromsky i go to scarborough high school and i am

018the secretary of civil rights club i am deeply disappointed upon the lack of diversity black people specifically and the student representation in the dei committee first and foremost it is unacceptable for a committee centered around diversity and inclusion to not have a black student representative especially when there have been problems in the past with administrative decisions directly impacting black students black students make up a small portion of our school population which causes their voices and concerns to oftentimes be muffled by the white majority making their presence on the committee to be crucial after all how can the committee tackle topics of diversity inclusion when it when it lacks diversity itself the students picked for the committee are extraordinary choices but this presents another problem that there are not enough students on the committee to make

019sure that students of all backgrounds are being heard i like to make it clear that i understand the importance of parents being on the committee and i'm in no way trying to remove their presence but students don't always tell their parents everything which can affect the problems being addressed within the committees i also feel that with only two student representatives among a largely white and adult majority committee may cause them to feel intimidated and less inclined to share their thoughts therefore student representatives should increase by at least three more representatives with five students total and of course these representatives should be diverse and include black voices due to the actions taken i fear that the creation of this committee is for performative purposes only without any desire to address the real problems at our school

020please prove me wrong thank you for your time thank you alexa priscilla [Music] hi i'm priscilla galamulamay a member of both the civil rights club at the high school and sarc in the scarborough community upon seeing the members of the newly constructed dii community committee we find ourselves disappointed and deeply upset in a committee that serves to ensure inclusion and equity we were confused to find that there were only two students in total and very few black identifying or lgbtq plus members on the committee while we are not completely aware of all those who did apply the ones we do know and whose voices matter greatly towards these issues do not have a seat at the table my experiences as a black student at shs differ from that of my non-black peers and cannot be

021spoken on by those who do not share them in the same way i am in no position to speak on the racial experiences of my non-black classmates while i do believe time is of the essence when tackling great injustices hastily putting together a team to work against these injustices does not ensure they'll be done in a manner that'll benefit the minority black students were guaranteed a voice on such issues and we were completely shut out from the conversation entirely without black voices no action taken will truly be understanding and supportive of black people this is why i find it baffling that the dei community which was said to be such an equitable equitable group had so few black members black students should be the ones driving the change while the committee may not have been

022highly selective while the committee may have been highly selective the fact remains that the results were not equitable because it obviously did not center people of color if it's truly believed that black lives matter you should know that it is about centering and uplifting black voices and initiatives and should never be used just as an empty statement thank you very much is there anyone else who would like to make public comment this evening quickly monitor the email [Music] i'm not seeing any new emails um thank you all very much for your thoughtful and well-spoken public comment and we will certainly take your comments into consideration later during our discussion um of the dei formation committee formation with that i will go ahead and close public comment agenda item 6.0 is the superintendent's report thank you

023we're going to be talking about enrollment and we do this every month so i'm going to start with the high school and go from left to right so at the high school um currently we have 947 students and then a year ago we had 988 eight students are being homeschooled 203 of being 100 percent remote and 744 a hybrid as we go to the middle school currently we have 703 students a year ago we had 701. we have 21 home school students at the middle school 137 are remote and 566 a hybrid at wentworth school currently currently we have 615 students a year ago we had we have 19 students being homeschooled 81 being 100 remote and 534 hybrid at blue point elementary school currently have 198 students a year ago 205. if we look

024at all three k2 schools we have 33 home school and we have 52 at blue i'm sorry 37 at blue point for 100 remote and 161 hybrid at eight corners we have 224 students currently a year ago we had 243 and we go to the remote column and we have 52 students at eight quarters being remote and 172 hybrid pleasant hill we have currently 185 students a year ago we had 204 we have 34 students 100 remote and 151 hybrid if we look at the grand total currently this year we have 2872 a year ago we had 3010 we have 81 total students being homeschooled 544 100 remote and hybrid we have 2328 and that's our february enrollment i could go on to talking about the tur field update i'd like to uh just take

025a few minutes here to kind of put this in perspective so on january 18 2021 the sports labs company that conducted a field condition assessment of the turf and track of mitchell sports complex i believe the town provided that contacted with with the company to do that assessment and on january 20th the test results were finalized and then on january 26 town officials met with school officials to discuss the assessment findings the town did request that the management of the complex be transformed to scarborough public schools and i know this has been a conversation in the past so it was not any new information data nedu and kate bolton and todd souza and tom hall were there as well as paul johnson the chair of the town council as i got into the meeting i

026realized really what they were requesting um and they they're at a point and i know the board's heard this before but i think they seriously would like us to consider to take over the fields on the campus and so i wanted you to be aware of that obviously there's a process to having this conversation we're not going to make any decisions tonight obviously they also would like us to consider to put this on a referendum in june so i wanted the board and the community to know that this conversation came our way and we thought that it would be helpful tonight to go over the field condition assessment again the town paid to have that service conducted and todd seuss our community service director is here tonight to talk about the condition of the fields

027again there was an assessment report that was completed by the town and in addition a key player with all this work throughout the years mike legage is our athletic director so he's kind of hanging out there um listening to this and i just wanted him here tonight just in case we had additional questions that mike might have the answer to given his historical perspective so hopefully we can get todd souza to come in and go over that report good evening everybody just realized that my wife's reading glasses on so um it is what it's going to be i'm comfortable with myself so here we go um so yeah um mike and i have been a lot of conversations uh since the turf track project didn't pass last november looking at and strategizing how we're going

028to serve the community community service programs but then also high school and middle school athletics um and so he and i chatted about getting a um field assessment done um i brought on board sports lab which is an independent contractor and they sent somebody over and to do a complete um assessment of the field um in the past some of you may recall recall um the big concerns of being um head impact gmax results everybody's concerned about concussions and that's kind of the um the piece that was kind of the metric for everybody's response and concern before um the one thing that i found that i liked about this company sports lab they do what is informally called a fifa test fifa is a governing body for soccer across the world and they deal with

029force reduction rotational all the other things that go with an athlete being injured um tearing muscles knees ligaments um on top of the impact and so this report was done in that fashion and so it gives us a little better picture of the um you know of the field itself the results are pretty obvious but they kind of lay into two areas the field because this field system has what it's called an underlayment pad in it it's the turf and then there's a pattern beneath it this field will probably never i shouldn't like never as a strong word most likely never fail um impact testing pick and um and gmax because you can always put more rubber on there and smooth around and so this test shows that a couple areas um it was tested

030in ten different areas of the field that there's some spots that need to be addressed um and so that can be that can happen um but that is gonna be an ongoing um maintenance piece um you know a lot of the rotational stuff is is right in the middle of things uh force reduction which is how hard the term feels underneath you those who are walked on a brand new earth feel squishy and soft and there's a break-in period to them you walk across our field right now you can feel the firmness underneath your feet and so um it kind of measured those things but ultimately the the not the request the field needs to be replaced based on the recommendation uh for two things one is safety the whole big picture and two just

031the visual condition of the field uh is obvious to even the untrained eye when you walk down there you can see the seams are all busted up whether it's on the rolls of the turf whether it's where the lines are around the s and the center logo there you can see in that picture all those things become trip hazards unfortunately over the past year we have not been able to really do the maintenance that we would normally done to get this field ready for our athletes um and what i mean by that is because if we took our groomer and went out there and and put um put the rubber in the field we can't drag it around because that field will just blow up seams will bust you'll literally need somebody there behind you

032cleaning it up so all we've done is this you know the sanitation the disinfection we've hand raked out stuff we've had companies come in every season to prior to the season check the seams glue down anything um you know we spent anywhere from ten to twenty thousand dollars the last couple years just doing seam repair and maintenance uh on this field and so now it's the point where um a lot of these things are immediate repair um talking with karen the general manager of this company um he he recommends that there if we're going to use this field one in the spring um that we need to commit to do some uh rehabilitation uh address those two areas on the report that have high levels for impact do some hand grooming in certain areas and

033then address all the phrase and um and split scenes that we see on the field and so that's something we've been doing um seasonally um but he sees it as a real risk if we don't do it this season it's to that point um and his recommendation is to um make sure that this field this project um and i know we're talking about the turf but the track is a whole separate piece connected to it that's um at that critical mass point as well um but you know but he said you're not going to get another year out of this you know out of this facility without throwing good money after bad i mean theoretically if he's quoting now he doesn't do the field maintenance those are all separate companies and that's why this company

034is great they have no skin in the game they're not they're not barking for work if you will um he's like you may have to do these restorations in the spring and do these restorations in the fall um and so when you're talking you know 15 to 20 000 a season just to maintain the field on top of everything else that goes on it that's a lot of money so that's where this field result he is comfortable um if we do the maintenance to it that it'll be as as safe you know as it needs to be um but if you've if you guys have looked at this report all those metrics are really sliding on the end of that comfort level um so i think the report does a good job of laying that

035out for us so we're in that window of um you know and i know mike and i have had a lot of conversations we talk a lot about liability and risk um and so it's uh it's really time for that conversation of how we're going to stabilize this field make it safe for all the users but then put a plan in place to move this forward as a group to get this project underway so i'll take any questions on the report if anybody has any i'm not seeing anything odd um thank you so much for giving us this update um you know to speak briefly about the meeting that we all had as sandy mentioned paul and i were there with staff when we first reviewed the report and i think it's important from a

036board perspective to keep in mind that we're having two separate conversations here one one part of this conversation is what todd just presented and this data and the fact that this is really a pressing need um for our students this is not something that we can afford to not have time for um and so you know getting this to referendum and making sure that we plan for this in our fy20 22 budget sorry um you know whatever that looks like is going to be a big priority for us this year and then the second piece of that conversation is this idea of transfer of ownership and and all of the responsibilities that come along with that um and i want to share with the board one thing he i'm sure he won't mind if i

037share it publicly that chairman johnson had suggested was that we discuss um putting the turf in our cip but then there's an agreement or an acknowledgement that any of the other facilities charges would not transfer to the school district for the fy 22 school year and that we would do a thorough analysis of what all of those costs were going to be for the fy 23 budget for example and so i i say that not to you know lock him in or put him in a place where now i've made it public but i i think it's important that we know that you know town council is all this is also on their radar um and you know that there that there is room for a lot of discussion here that being said i think

038a lot of this discussion needs to take place at the staff level um and then those recommendations and those numbers need to come through our finance committee april if i could you know in chatting you know again being in that meeting and having conversations afterwards you know the intent of the town is we're not going anywhere we're still a partner you know what i mean um we've done most the lifting on this project in coordination with school staff mike especially and so our intent is not to go anywhere we really truly believe that to get this to pass it needs to come through your vehicle it just really really does considering probably 95 percent of the user group is direct student use and so who better to move this project through um you know and

039regarding you know maintenance of i totally agree i think it's a discussion needs to be had but it's something that's going to take a while to put together you know and understand truly what's the best for scarborough as a whole as we all grow how as we all have financial challenges and so i think an assessment we may come back to we're doing it the best way possible and and that's what it is but i think we need to commit to take the time to work that exercise through over the next year and then say okay we can do this it makes sense or not or you know where we're at so um i think that exercise will be worthwhile for everybody um but again we're not going anywhere as far as helping this project

040along um and using our resources to help you so thank you todd nick you have your hand up i just wanted to ask a quick question because i mean um you know the finance world is not my uh forte that's my husband's world and so i just wanted to ask a question about you know you mentioned moving it into this cip i assume you mean the the replacement of the turf and so how does that change the dynamic as far as how this moves forward so if that were to happen and i'm just trying to think this through my head so i can understand it if that were to happen then we wouldn't need a separate referendum vote it would go through as part of our budget no so sarah can sarah can hop in

041and help me here but um what what happens is the the town presents a municipal cip for capital projects and the school presents our own cip the the town council when they vote to approve their um second reading budget the entire cip gets passed at that point so whether it's municipal or school cip the town council passes the cip as a bundle what needs to go to referendum are any expenses that exceed a four hundred thousand dollar ask so whereas the turf would be well in excess of that it whether it's in our cip or the town cip it has to go to referendum okay that helps thank you can i make one more comment april i just want everybody clear this is a two-part project i know we keep focusing on the turf because

042that's what gets everybody going but there is a track portion of this and then there's a strong user group there where you know as soon as the weather breaks we'll try to plan a meeting to get everybody out there and see it but you know you could do the things separately it's not recommended just because of pure cost savings and timing wise i mean to replace you're in a 12 to a 16 week window to do replacement um i just want to be clear when we're talking about this it's a turf track project theoretically so you know that's a whole different user group and a different supporting group if you will your your point is well taken todd i will make sure that i say turf track from now on thank you no problem sarah

043go ahead thanks i just have a a comment and a quick question which i think you might have clarified the the what went to referendum before last year todd that was turf and track right yeah that was a turf track and then also some amenities that go along with it some peripheral stuff long jump hit new safety fencing to meet requirements so things that make sense that while we've got the ground torn up so yes gotcha okay and then just a comment to let everyone know sort of what's happening with finances we have a meeting next week i'll give this as more as a committee update but um one of the agenda items is to discuss the placement of this project within our cip um i think kind of to next point the the one

044of the main concerns or considerations that we have as a board to consider is if this goes into rfcip do we have to take things out in order to get this in like what are we sacrificing and hopefully the answer is nothing because it's kind of semantics whether it sits in ours or town but that's something that is top of mind and that we'll be working through great thank you sarah does anyone else have anything they'd like to add okay with that thank you very much todd for your attendance tonight we always appreciate it thank you thanks guys looking forward to working with you on it and with that i will turn it back over to you sandy so you can continue superintendent report yeah so um dr nader is going to talk about the

045school calendar proposed for 2021-22 yeah so um we just wanted to give you kind of a starting point of where we are with our work for next year's school calendar um and and i'll start by saying one of the key things that we have to do every year because our students some of our students attend regional programming is we have to coordinate calendars with those partners and each year in january those five districts get together and by state statute we have to ensure that our school calendars are no more than five days apart and that really is to ensure that as our students go to regional programming that you know they can provide a program that makes sense for all five districts because if we were 10 or 15 days apart imagine from a teacher's

046standpoint trying to figure out which town is here today and who's got today off and this school starts at a different time etc and so um the calendar that you have in front of you tonight reflects just that first element and so we met as regional partners i believe it was maybe two weeks from um today um that that happened and this is where we landed and so um these dates are static in terms of the first staff day the in-service days that have been selected the first student day are the timing of our vacations and so those are things that at this point are cemented in our calendar because again we need to make sure that we're within those five days um and i believe we ended up landing on like four days um

047when we all were done with our comparisons and and what we were looking at so the next phase of this calendar work is um really at the local level and um i i have come to learn that we actually have a policy on the formation of the school calendar policy ica and per that policy the leadership council is supposed to be tasked with putting together a school calendar recommendation that then goes to the policy committee and takes into account um staff and community feedback and so we have a sub committee uh that we just put together at our leadership council yesterday so we're going to have representation from each phase um then we have our first meeting on monday and we're going to talk about how to get some feedback so that we can have

048information necessary to bring forward a proposal to the policy committee certainly not at the policy committee's meeting next week of course but at an upcoming meeting and so the pieces that really are still under development are um you know what are the details of what that first week for students will look like um you know certainly we have a long-standing tradition of how school has opened in the past but i think we're also very aware that as we reopen next year if we bring all of our kids back which is our 100 intention um if we're able to do that it certainly is going to be somewhat of a change uh we also want to get a little bit more information about what november voting is going to look like and whether we should have

049our high school students be remote that day so that's another piece of information we need to collect and finally we really want to do some some thinking about the use of either late start or early release days those have been a long-standing piece in our calendar and certainly this year having those at a much more regular rate has proven so instrumental during this time when we know that our teachers are basically doing handstands on a weekly basis to ensure that the programming that they're offering for students whether it be in person remote um our teachers have shifted incredibly and so we want to be thoughtful about what might be necessary as as we return for 21 22. so we'll certainly keep you posted but um i know this is the time where people start wondering

050about what the calendar might look like and so i thought if i could give you a glimpse um at where we are in these early stages that that could be helpful thank you very much diane does anyone have any questions or comments um i just want to make sure that everyone is aware um that this is a non-action item this evening so this was just an update from um administration great thank you go ahead sandy um continue on with your superintendent report thank you uh principal catch is going to speak about the high school program of studies for 2021 promoting you right now sue good evening um so we're bringing forward tonight the high schools program of studies um i just wanted to highlight a few pieces for you and for the public just so

051people know um how we've been working on this this year we're very excited in the visual arts department to have our first eight ap level course being offered and that's going to be ap studio art our visual art staff of three teachers are super excited that we're bringing this to the program of studies and it will be um a way for some of our gifted artistic students in in visual arts to really get that college level ap experience so we're super happy about that um i wanted to just remind i know the board understands this but for the general public i want to remind everyone that scarborough high school's schedule is built on student requests and we aim to meet student needs for that so we off try to offer a variety of things to

052see if there is interest and sometimes we put some things in the program of studies and it really doesn't get picked up by students and so we do have a few courses this year that we are pulling from the program of studies at this point because we just have lacked the interest in student requests for them at this time it doesn't mean they might not come back again another year but um we have um taken out a couple of classes for that reason namely quantitative reasoning the visual art and the nazi era course in robotics um automation and that's because we've combined that um with robotics building and we're gonna do that together so it that one really hasn't been dropped it's just been sort of retooled um there have been some small updates to

053some of the courses as you got a version with additions and deletions to look at um i i it's important for you to know that our departments review and revise their courses to be current and relevant and they do that work regularly and so um there are some examples in the program of studies under english and math where some of those small changes were made in in english perhaps um some of the book choices for different um grade levels are are moving and and changing a little bit things like that in technology engineering and business if you recall um three years ago we built a pathway for for this department and in year three we are still fine-tuning and making a few changes there that better meet student need and one example for that would

054be the robotics automation and um building we're combining that um students have told us they they would rather be working on that type of thing together so we've we've done a little work to make that um update and the last thing i wanted to talk to you about we're going to see it in a few courses this year and i don't know if this will expand a little bit along the way but in some of the courses you will see level three slash level four being offered and um that again that that would be in robotics it would be in community-based stem course and also our piano two level two course and the reason we're doing that is we're hoping that giving it both levels within the same class that students with varied interests and

055backgrounds would feel confident um signing up for that course so in other words um let's just use robotics building and automation we could have some students that come in and really feel like the college prep level three would be really challenging for them to try it they they have no background in it and they really feel that level three would be the right choice for them and then we could have some students that maybe have been on our robotics teams and have done some other coursework and really would like that challenge and they might come into the class and really want an honors level course develop specifically for them because they feel they're ready for that and the teacher feels that he would be able to do that um within the same classroom at both

056levels and then hopefully we would have more students feel confident in taking it at either level um the same thing my my example for piano would be that at the piano two course we have we could have a student who's taken piano one and that's their full um piano experience and we could have a student that maybe has had piano lessons for five or six years that wants to take piano two and they really would like to be challenged more and take it at a more challenging hard level and get that honors credit and our our new music teacher mr mosher feels like he could um do do both meet the needs of both of those level of students so we've done that in a few classes this year where we feel like that might

057open opportunities and confidence for students and i'm not sure if we'll see more of that in the future but um it made sense to me to try that and um really let students take the course at the level they feel um confident at so those are really the big um pieces of changes um i do want to just thank jen um adams for her work with me on the program of studies and i do want to really thank the staff who has taken a a hard look and done some tweaking of these courses in a very busy year um they really felt this was important work to do to keep this really up to date and current and i appreciate all of their efforts thank you sue we always appreciate when you come and highlight

058all of the amazing things that our kids are able to do within the walls of the high school and i know i say this every single year but i cannot believe the difference in some of the things that these kids get to do now so this is awesome does anyone have any comments or questions for sue seeing none sue thank you so much again for joining us this evening thank you very much for having me have a good night thank you oh this is me agenda item 7.0 is the chairs report so i will be very honest i have like six pages of notes here um to go through during my chairs report and i will try and keep it as concise as i possibly can but i'm not great at that um so to

059begin my chairs report tonight i will be brief because we have discussed our board goals and protocols multiple times to get to a place where we are tonight we first workshop them on december december 17th we also discuss them at our retreat on january 23rd and so really this is just one last final show of our 2021 20 20 21 um goals the new thing that has not been presented publicly is that we decided at our retreat to add a protocol to our list of protocols that are on our main web page and so i'll read the new protocol to be added says we agree that the committee chairs will act in good faith to schedule meetings which can be attended by the full committee as well as relevant staff committee chairs are responsible for

060providing agendas to be published to the website all committee meetings will be recorded and or live streamed whenever possible in accordance with freedom of information act laws so this is our commitment to the community that for as long as we are using this technology and 100 of our meetings are being zoomed that we will record and get those posted um and it's it was something that we discussed um as a board really to eliminate some inconsistencies in in which committees were being recorded and which ones weren't and things like that um and so i think that this is a really great um step forward for us just to kind of all be on the same page moving on we set two goals goal number one is to promote and grow a district wide culture of

061trust inclusion and collaboration i'm not going to go through all of the steps that we agreed to take so if you could advance the slide deck kelly that would be great and goal number two is to establish a plan to address current facility needs for our future service capabilities and again i'm not going to go through the steps that we agreed upon because this will be the third time we've had these but they do appear on the agenda tonight under new business to be voted on by the full board next slide please i wanted to take an opportunity during the chairs report to discuss the steps that led us to tonight as far as the dei steering committee as everyone knows that is an action item for us tonight and so i thought it would

062be good to give the community an overview tonight on the night that we vote of just how exactly we got to where we are um i have shown this graphic at a previous meeting when we were way back um on december 3rd and i want to congratulate my fellow board members for advancing us to february 4th because we have essentially established we had essentially established a series of steps to take and through the commitment of all of our committee work we were able to achieve a place tonight where we could put this on the agenda as an action item down below is uh we had said we that we had a delegation of duties the top row being the the duties that the school board was responsible for and the bottom row being the duties

063that the staff was going to take care of um and they are well on their way as well um we've been getting the emails notifying us and letting us know that community surveys are going out that school surveys are being conducted and so they are our partners in this and and are progressing their pieces as well next slide please part of our action item tonight informing the dei steering committee will be to approve the charge this was drafted collaboratively and so it will be put forward later on as as written scarpa schools are committed to creating a welcoming and safe environment for all scarborough students and staff the diversity equity and inclusion committee in collaboration with the mid-atlantic equity consortium maec will promote the goal of diversity equity and inclusion for all students in our

064district regardless of their identity i.e race gender age sexual orientation gender identity religion disability or socioeconomic status to further this goal the committee will and these right here this is the action items that we are charging the dei steering committee with following through number one review data collected from climate surveys school equity audits and listening tours number two make recommendations to the board of education for the development of an action plan that outlines next steps for our district and number three monitor the action plan progress for a period to be to be determined by the committee next slide please i wanted to give the community an overview of our applica our application and selection process um in full trans uh in full transparency we got some questions about this um and and not to overuse

065the word transparency but there are some requests for more transparency um from the board in how we made our determination and our in our selection and so i'm going to attempt to put that information out if i'm being a hundred percent honest i'm i'm worried um that i might be talking past some individuals um and so in my attempts to be transparent i'm not actually addressing the questions that were that are or concerns that are still floating around in the community and so my request is that if i still am missing the mark to please email the board um and we can readdress questions about concerning or related to transparency so the applications were made available from december 18th to january 20th our amazing communications team was able to put together the survey as well

066as a letter that went out with the survey our communications chair leanne did an interview with the scarborough leader and we were able to get a lot of really great coverage in terms of distributing the survey swift district and town newsletters social media and again that that great article that appeared in the leader applicants were asked for their name and email and they were asked to check all that apply from a list of check boxes that included community member student parent or staff next the applicants were asked two questions why would you like to be considered for the dei committee and what skills or life experience would you bring to the dei committee in total we received 53 applications from 48 individuals the application didn't lock you out if you applied more than once and

067so some people submitted an application more than once and we combined their answers if they provided different information in one response versus another we had 16 parents community member or parents and community members uh we had 15 teachers uh and administrators which broke down to 11 and 4 respectively we had seven students apply next slide please in consultation with the maec we were tasked with selecting a fairly small steering committee of approximately 15 members we knew that we needed to have board representation as well as district staff community members and students each board member was given a matrix with which to apply the to the applicant to the applications prior to meeting together to discuss who was going to be on the committee the matrix included race religion gender sexual orientation ethnicity disability and socioeconomics

068we only used information that was applied in the open response questions as you can imagine this is challenging for a number of reasons because people filled out their survey questions with a wide variety of answers in further attempt not to talk past anyone i understand now that upon seeing some of the results of the survey we should have considered why some of our respondents didn't supply certain information or didn't supply enough information for us to give their application the full consideration that um maybe they were hoping for uh community selection was done in executive session on january 21st uh for transparency purposes because it was after 10 o'clock at night we did not return to public session which is why we are now having we're now bringing this forward even though the executive session was

069two weeks ago next slide please on the table you will find our proposed list of individuals who we have selected to participate on the dei steering committee we have a facilitator from maec we have two board members two administrative staff five teachers or staff six community members and two students this is the selection um that was made in executive session and that is what i am presenting to you tonight oh i have another thing to say before i go on um you'll see that um i have put down lower chair next to shannon and at this point um i would be remiss if we didn't highlight shannon's involvement since appointing her liaison way back in november she has been dedicated to this work she has been on countless phone calls she participated in the cultural

070competency institute and just today she asked me for permission to register for a free seminar offered by the ns mnsba which is the national school board association to participate in an online symposium and so it is my hope that the board will approve shannon as chair of the dei committee tonight under new business next okay so with that i know that um all of us are eager to discuss the dei committee further um i hope that i did the process justice during my cherished report um everyone will have the opportunity to speak and make comment when we bring it up during new business for now i would like to move on to agenda item 8.0 committee reports communications starting off um the communications committee our next meeting is monday february 8th at 11 30. we're

071currently working on a lot as april had mentioned we were a little we've been busy with a lot of dei communication but we're starting with some information about the crf or the corona relief funds that we have getting that communication out to share with staff and community the money that we got in grant and how we have used it to help get students back in and keep them safe throughout the pandemic also doing a lot of work with the superintendent search working through a survey building a commun committee application and we've been really excited about the ability to send out information through the district newsletter and the town newsletter i think that has been a great way to get what the school board is doing out into the community um so if there's things that

072you want to hear about let us know and we'll try to get them in and that's everything thank you leanne finance um cool so we have our next finance meeting is um next week on monday um we schedule it for the main purpose of being able to discuss and prepare um some information for the town council who has their the finance committee has a budget workshop next wednesday the purpose of that workshop is for them to develop goals for this budget cycle uh so we want to be able to discuss and answer some of the questions that they've already provided us with in advance and make sure they have all the information from us to make informed decisions on their goals so that's the primary purpose as i mentioned earlier we're also going to talk

073about the turf field um and then uh well i asked you guys all for your availability in march earlier today so the for those of you who were on the board last year you'll remember that we did the leadership council workshops at the very beginning of the budget cycle and it was also the very beginning of covet and we did three i believe there were three two hour sessions over the course of three days um which was a lot it was a lot for our staff to put together and it was just a lot of virtual time so given the the differences in the budget this year and sort of the focus on sort of must-haves and making sure that we can get our kids back to school as safe and as healthy as possible

074um obviously given other restrictions um and also knowing that it will definitely be virtual um we've made a recommendation that we actually shorten it to just two sessions that are like 90 or 90 minutes might be too short so we might go two hours um so the invites for those will hopefully be coming out shortly but that will sort of really kick start the budget process with those present presentations cool that's it thank you sarah negotiations i thought mute myself uh that's me so this slide has not changed much one thing i will add is that we've um it says here we did an outreach on on tuesday the fifth um i did not reach the sca leadership um we followed up on that outreach throughout january just trying to get the process started we

075know how busy everybody is and so it's hard to get the group together but i did want to emphasize for the board and for the public that it is still our goal to work collaboratively with the sea team to produce new contracts for each affected group because remember we have three groups listed there at the top whose contracts run out on june 30th and it is our um fervent goal to have those contracts in place on or before the point of the current contracts expiration great thank you nick sarah do you have a town council liaison update for us um i'm actually meeting with john anderson tomorrow so other than the finance committee i don't have much update but april maybe you have an update on the um workshop for the school i do not

076discussion okay so um as my role in the downtown committee we had a meeting earlier this week and one of the questions that came up from that committee was just an update on where the school is and so i'm due to give that update to the downtown committee in two weeks and i thought that i would just basically hit them with like the facts and kind of just leave the politics out of it and just say like here's where we are here's what's been approved and here are the next steps um so maybe being able to have like a town council workshop on the agenda by that might be a good thing to share sure absolutely and i can definitely you know touch base with town council um too to see what their calendar looks

077like um and to talk about timeline with them okay thanks no problem okay and with that let's move on to agenda item 9.0 student representative reports perfect thank you so much so we're going to start with the middle school um congrats to sixth grader bailey grondin on being selected as the winner of the middle school student council's kindness poster contest they had so many fabulous submissions and bailey's was anonymously chosen by the student council though all of the posters that were submitted will be displayed throughout the middle school just to add a little bit of cheery demeanor to the school it's great also at the middle school there's going to be a spirit week starting tomorrow and the days will include a sports day tomorrow and friday another day on monday for wearing your own

078sports jerseys and then on holi on uh tuesday they're gonna dress like their favorite holidays and then thursday is gonna be throwback thursday and friday's gonna be pj day so that's really fun awesome so this slide is done we can go to the next one okay so now for the high school winter sports are starting back up that's so exciting things like basketball volleyball hockey are coming back and i'm really excited to see students get back at it you know it just improves the culture and the air at our school so much when students are active and able to do what they love so i'm really excited even though i don't play sports to see our athletes be able to do that again also midterms happened two weeks ago at the high school and you

079know what that means my therapist got so many phone calls from me that her weight her race went up which is great and all jokes aside i think midterms went really well in the virtual format and i'm glad that this is an option for our school in the future you know one of the positive aspects about this pandemic is actually how flexible it has made us and i'm honestly glad that we've been able to explore lots of new options for education so yeah that's my report thank you um so in honor of martin luther king jr day um students at eight corner school participated in a hero day um during this was during the week of january 22nd and they dressed up as heroes such as firefighters doctors nurses police officers um vets and grocery

080store workers um not only did this day show respect to martin luther king jr but it also to the front line workers during the pandemic those are some pictures of the costumes and this past month students at wentworth participated in the yearbook drawing contest um there were over 150 students who participated and submitted a drawing and teacher teachers votes narrowed it down to ten finalists um then the students voted and these are the top three drawings so they will be printed out as the front the back and the title page in the 2021 wentworth yearbook so congratulations to adriana stella and bella they look great excellent thank you gabby and max agenda item 10.1 formation of the dei steering committee before i make a motion i just want to stress that the job of the

081steering committee will be to engage the community in this work through community forums and focus groups we genuinely believe that every single person who wants to have a voice will have an opportunity to have a voice and that is our honest intent i know everyone no one is questioning our intent here um and you know we we want this to be successful so with that i will make a motion to approve the dei steering committee and building and steering committee charge as presented second discussion max you have your hand up first then leanne then nick all right perfect thank you so much so um i decided that i was going to make a statement tonight at the meeting because i'm a student and i feel like i need to be involved when students are involved

082so i just wanted to share my feelings on what's happening i know this is a really complicated issue and i very much want to look at both sides i don't want to seem like i'm just catering to one person because i that's not who i am that's not what i do so um i just wanted to give this statement for you guys okay so slow along just warning you um for the past week or so i've been admittedly uncomfortable as i'm sure you can all appreciate i sit in a very awkward position as a member of the board but also a member and ally of the groups that have been critiquing board decisions regarding the dei steering committee i've seen countless screenshots of emails responses to emails responses to responses to emails the list goes

083on and honestly i felt kind of lost in a sea of people trying to do the right thing i just don't know if anyone has tossed me the right life preserver yet and if you can't tell my analogies really aren't my thing from my perspective i feel like this has become an us versus them issue he said she said battle for the superior argument if you will however this is not an us versus them issue this is in all of us versus our own bigotry issue no one is an exception to this i am a natural recipient of white privilege and the racist prejudices that come with it as are all of you and i take responsibility for th for the mistakes that i've made we are all at fault and are all responsible for

084correcting our own bigoted practices the best place to start this is by examining responses to our own actions which has been very prevalent this week in a discussion about racism in schools i heard a quote that i wrote down and i've been thinking about ever since no one knows what the people need except the people who need it as obvious as it is we all seem to catch ourselves glossing over this principle of life the students have spoken on what they need more student representation in these conversations i wish i could provide them what they needed but we need students we need more students than those who already reside in the inner circle of scarborough public school student representation i believe that this goal of equity is equally attainable as students demands are met adding

085more students to the dei steering committee in my opinion the board has done a really good job and thorough job up to this point i can appreciate how proactive mrs snyder has been in her response attempting to give the most honest transparent and articulate articulated explanation and recognizing that there are some apparent issues however that decision is not fully might to make the main charge of this committee is to give equity to marginalized groups in scarborough schools and any one student could recognize that the most marginalized in the scarborough school system is black students i am a student at scarborough schools i know what it's like to be a student at scarborough schools better than anyone on this board because i have spent the most time in the schools as the ways as the way

086that they are right now and i have so much respect and admiration for everyone here because frankly i get more words than i expected into like i get more words in the conversations than i expected to before i came into this position but that doesn't mean that my position in the position of every other student that hopes to improve our schools isn't immensely tokenized no one expects perfection from any adult they know not to expect for perfection they expect open ears and honest discourse with adults and adults who welcome student voices not reject or dismiss them in this fight for diversity equity and inclusion that this sport has devoted itself to there will be setbacks many coming from the board and that's just a fact i would argue that responses to those mistakes to recognize

087the error and actively stop it is more important than the outcome of any committee that being said i cannot support the formation of a steering committee no matter how diverse or equity or including inclusivity focused the committee says it is until it actually is those things we need equity for marginalized groups for black students for disabled for queer students for all students who have ever felt like they are removed from any large sense of social unity because of something they can't control they need a larger voice and if this committee is going to claim to be equitable it cannot deny the marginalized a voice as priscilla said earlier students would rather see a job done right than a job done fast take the time to select more students give students the voice that they deserve

088and need in order to be the board that we claim to be thank you thanks max leanne before i give you the floor i'm gonna promise you all that i am going to try very hard to be fair to people as they raise their hand in order as well as maintain um good parliamentary procedure so here we go the floor is yours leanne thank you first max incredibly well said um this week has been there's been a lot of communication there's been a lot of feedback a lot of self-reflection um so i'd like to offer a motion to amend the main motion is that a good time all right i moved to increase the size of the dei committee by six members the new members will include all students who previously applied and one community

089member from our alternates whose focus will be on students with disabilities second okay discussion parliamentary procedure wise leanne has made the primary amendment to the motion on the floor now people had their hands up to just because they wanted to speak but now leanne has made an amendment um and so the order of hands um may not be as relevant which this was the part i was concerned um so alicia and nick um nick had his hand up before you did alicia if it's relevant to leanne's amendment i have a feeling that all of the discussion will be relevant to leanne smith then we'll let then we will let nico first then alicia please okay um i didn't write anything uh nearly as eloquent as what max wrote which is a little bit i usually

090write things down but i'm going to speak from the heart for this because obviously um i've been involved in different levels of advocacy for the lgbt community as a member myself for at this point 20 years which is frightening to say um and i've been part of many challenging conversations and the one thing they all have in common is that there's a great deal of pain and there's a lot of experience that needs to be shared and nobody truly knows the journey of anybody else none of us knows the journey of anybody in this room or anybody that spoke tonight are all the different populations of diversity we have in our town um i know that as a member of this board we worked very hard to build this committee in a way that would

091represent that lovely list that april had up earlier and there's more groups than than even are listed there to try and have all of those different groups as part of this collective educational enterprise to to to show us and teach us because even after 20 years of doing advocacy i know there's still a lot i have to learn because there are journeys that are very dissimilar from mine with that said i originally had an amendment but that's okay because i actually like liam's better um and i i completely support adding uh student voices um to the steering committee i think initially how i felt we were doing this this kind of building of the committee was that there would be opportunities for students to be involved in the listening tours and some of the different

092work that the steering committee was going to do and that's where their voices would be so powerful not really not maybe on a committee that's going to spend a lot of their time sifting through data however with that said if if the students have been anything it's clear that they feel that seats at this table is what's warranted and so i'm a little concerned honestly about adding all of those seats because everybody here has learned how much i love big committees um but if that's the will of the board i'm willing to support it but wherever this goes i think we at least need to add three more seats to have equal representation for our students at the table that would be five total but whatever direction this goes in as long as we uh

093give them the voice that they're so um passionately championing then um i'm gonna stand right beside it because this work is critical thank you thank you nick alicia thank you um so a couple of pieces of information that i just wanted to clarify and then i guess advocate for and then i'll advocate for my position um first april you went through um the selection process for the committee and um others may have noticed that the um process did not include a way to identify yourself as a minority it it gave you um the ability to identify yourself as a community member or a parent i think and a student um and a staff member but it did not give you the opportunity to die to identify yourself as a minority um and so i'd like

094to say factually that that made um the selection process difficult um from my perspective so i did want people to know that um and you know i i don't know if we could have asked that question on on the the application process or not um whether that's something that's permissible even and so you know every time we go through one of these um you know a forming of a committee or or new some new process we learn things about the process itself but i would like people to know that for me that made choosing applicants more difficult because it was not necessarily always obvious in the response the minority group that an individual represented um i'd also like to respond to max's statements sort of prompted me about um uh to think about the us

095versus them um it did feel that way and and um i wondered if the if people uh posing their comments to us thought that this was a done deal um we hadn't voted on it yet and tonight we will vote on it so that those were the applicants who were chosen through the initial selection process um and i think actually it was great fortune for us that we had that break between the the selection process and voting because we i've learned a lot um i'll say that um some of the comments um and feedback we got put me in a place where i felt defensive and my you know i think it's natural when you feel defensive to want to say no um and that that would be really counterproductive wouldn't it um so i

096did have to work through that but i i realized um that probably what precipitated that was pain um and experiences and so i can understand that and respect that um it doesn't feel good to be on the receiving end of it but um i do wish that i had um insisted early on earlier before even getting those responses that we include more students and certainly black students [Music] and again i think some of that is can be attributed to the way in which we selected the applicant so i would like to highlight that for people that um some that there was some very um non-intentional um explanations for how that occurred and so i think that personally i made a mistake and not advocating for that earlier i'm happy to be um educated i'm happy

097to learn but through myself about how i react to sort of the that challenge and it was interesting to sort of go through the progression of being um upset and defensive and and and i did feel that up us versus them um but i don't feel that anymore if we are all part of a community um i want exactly what everybody who's contacted me wants and that's for us to to make headway um on this issue and i i think that the students proposals are reasonable i i i also don't enjoy working on committees where there are a lot of um people because i think it's really difficult to resolve issues i suspect that's why um mid-atlantic equity consortium made that recommendation about numbers but um i'm certainly not so step set and processed that

098i can't recognize when something is so important to um the group of people that we're supposed to be representing and so i um think that it would behoove us to approve the motion as amended and um get to work and learn more i guess and that's something i look forward to thank you alicia sarah you're next thanks april um i have a couple comments but leanne i tried to type it down quickly can you just repeat your amendment real quick for me absolutely ei committee by six members the new members will include all students who previously applied and one community member from our alternates whose focus will be on students with disabilities and forgive me but are we know that one of the alternates specialty is on the demographic of students who are disabled um

099her answer was very much about that okay okay um thank you for that um i think just kind of following off on what alicia said and you know i wasn't really planning to say anything at length tonight i think max to said it really well and i don't know there's much that needs to be added to that max so well done i think the thing that just has been front of mind for me this past week is these are really complicated and super sometimes awkward and really uncomfortable conversations to have and i feel nervous speaking right because i don't want to say something that's wrong and that is not the kind of culture that we want to have so i commend the students who have come forward and spoken up and um ultimately you're right

100at the end of the day like i think we made a mistake um we're going to correct that and we're going to move forward and i think we're going to do that in large part because of your feedback i think um the one thing i would caution all of us and this is the board as well and anybody in the community who wants to participate is words in language matter and i think the reason why we were feeling defensive was potentially because of some of those words and in order for this committee to be productive i think everyone has to feel safe and everyone has to feel safe to speak their experience um but also to say something that may not be correct and get corrected or educated in in a really respectful and understanding

101appreciated manner and obviously if someone's being a jerk we should tell them they're being a jerk um but i don't think that that's gonna happen because i think everybody has the right intent is really wants to see this progress made and so i'm i'm grateful that you guys all came forward and spoke up um i think it's really admirable and hopefully you know we'll we'll make some corrections tonight and be able to move forward so leanne thanks for offering the amendment thank you sarah gabby you're next sorry that means i need to mute so i need to find my new one okay sorry about that um i just wanted to say as a student representative i feel i haven't i haven't done as well of a job as i should have as being on top

102of things and making sure that all the students were represented and at a place in this table and i'm sorry for that and i'm learning and moving forward i will make sure to do better and i just also want to applaud the students have who have come forward and express their concern and it takes guts and it just makes me feel happy that there are people out there in scarborough who are willing to do that so that's what we're going to say thank you gabby leanne back to you please and if you oh sorry i didn't need to drop if you've spoken in your and you don't want your hand up go ahead and put it down for me so uh leanne and then shannon i just wanted to address two quick things that alicia

103had brought up um in building the survey we actually spent a lot of time with maec and one of the things that they had cautioned us on was to not have please check off boxes um and the reason for it was that people would write to what their passion was that they would be very they would talk about why they wanted to be part of the committee and that they wouldn't have to feel the need to speak to specific pieces or be um i want to use the word label and i don't know if it's appropriate to use but that we wouldn't see them as only how they identified on there um so it was very purposeful from them i do appreciate the feedback and i think that we need to make sure that we

104are adapting to what works best for our community and not minimize or look over better ways to communicate so that feedback is really important um another piece that mac had talked a lot about was making sure that we did what was best for the community and the feedback that we've gotten really has been important and if we're going to heal and if we're going to work collaboratively and if we are going to move this initiative forward that was really where i came from on why the amendment came back um and i'm really hoping that to sarah's point that some of the words that we've heard in some of the comments that have been made whether they were intentionally or unintentionally through social media or direct messaging that people know that we really are trying to

105do the right things so with that i'm all good thanks leanne shannon thank you um i i didn't prepare remarks for tonight either i um i like nick plan to just speak from the heart but first i want to say max thank you so much and thank you to everybody who attended this meeting and spoke to us in public comment um i think words are very powerful and i think that we all have heard the message loud and clear um leanne thank you for bringing the amendment forward um i think that we we recognize that you know this is new this is new for our district this is new for us and we're all learning just like nick said even if we've had experiences um and we and we've read and we've researched and we've

106done our due diligence we're still learning we're always learning and um i think it takes a lot of bravery to speak up i don't know that as a senior or a junior or even as a teacher i would have had the courage to speak up like you all have spoken up tonight so thank you very much i i look forward personally to working with you to for us all to do better to make this a welcoming and inclusive inclusive environment for everybody so thank you shannon uh max go ahead and then i'm gonna hop in this is just really quick but i would just like to point out that you've all said like wow you have so much courage but i would just like to say that it takes a certain climate for students to

107feel like they can speak up and i'm glad that scarborough has that climate where students feel like they can call out individuals who they feel like who have done wrong so i thank you all for being receptive to um any kind of critiques thanks max um you are all kind and well spoken and honest being on measure so thank you for your thoughtful discussion tonight um i think that we need to offer a second amendment to shore up leanne's primary amendment in that we i would not feel comfortable if we left the meeting without a plan for how to um appoint the additional member from the community um since leanne's amendment is to allow all students who applied um that is something that we can just authorize right now um but so we but we

108need a process um to add that additional community member so if and i don't see anybody's hand shooting up i can i can make a stab at it kristen go ahead um i don't know if they want this job but can we give it to the two board members on the dei committee to choose we absolutely can grant authority to shannon and alicia to make that selection um as part of this overall amendment that's that's definitely something that that we could do alicia no thank you what would you be more amicable amiable to it if it was you and me and shannon i guess my preference would be that it the it's offered to whoever leanne identified who was next on the list i don't know if we identified that person by name or i

109mean that's why we had an alternate so i i would feel that i mean for what take it for what it's worth that's my opinion i know that i don't want to be responsible for that in a vacuum um and um that was my understanding of the reason for having an alternate and if we have an alternate who fits that category my um preference would be to just identify that individual kristin yeah i mean i agree with you i i was i was assuming we were going with liam's suggestion and that it would just be you guys making it official but if it's easier to just say we're going to go with the alternate that's fine if we can do that proceed shannon as a just a point of clarification can we um is it

110permissible for us to hold a quick meeting and discuss the last um seat as a board that's a great question um in all of this process and in all of the learning that i have done over the last two weeks um one of the things that has come to my attention is that we should not be going into executive session as a full board to discuss committee to discuss the appointment of individuals to a and so the recommendation from legal is that we appoint a um small committee from the board to make those recommendations um and so in the future and then i'm actually going to have legal come and do a workshop with us um so that we get it right when we do the superintendent search committee um but in the meantime she

111advised me not to leave this meeting tonight without a process um in the event that it's the will of the board to add additional members so that would be like the you me alicia group that you're that you mentioned i was right so i was trying to take a little bit of the heat off as chair because i am a um whatever it's called member of all the committees um if if needed i could be that third person and the board could give me that authority in addition to you and shane and you and alisha that was just one possible avenue for doing that i can i say one more thing i guess my only um concern is the conversation um we had a few applicants that expressed desire in this area and i'm worried

112that um [Music] i feel that we should give all of those that express this particular concern equal consideration if we're going to add this position that's my concern so just to um from a procedural standpoint um a leann's amendment is specific to the alternate list so we would only be if we approve leanne's amendment then we would only be selecting from the all from our list of alternates sarah i think just for my clarification and maybe for those in the public because we did state in our selection process that we were like considering um sort of the disabled demographic as a consideration for this committee we have selected somebody who we have a teacher who is a special education teacher is correct so this would be an expansion of an intentional expansion of that group

113okay in addition to the students okay um then yeah april i don't really know i personally i'm fine with with the three of you guys appointing you guys to make that that decision as well given that we've already discussed it at length okay so i go ahead nick yeah as i was sitting here listening to this i the first a committee to establish a committee kind of made my blood my skin crawl a little bit and then second it was i feel like we have one of two choices that doesn't send us on a slippery slope one is that we just do it with the students because basically what we're doing is we're saying well we're going to establish that there can be seven students on the committee and oh only seven applied so here

114you go i feel like like appointing appointing another adult in this way sends us down a slippery slope of well how do we really do that and did we identify that as a need and as sarah pointed out we do have an individual who does serve that committee plus we have our our amazing staff that work with those individuals that the committee can call on to get that expertise and those perspectives when they need to be um expanded upon so part of me is like maybe it's just cleaner if we go the student route and not do the um the additional adult but if people were really for that i would also be comfortable with the mini committee appointing another person to the big committee which is now bigger than we ever imagined uh so

115i'm comfortable with that either way but it feels like it feels slippery a little bit with adding more adults in one particular category um i i just thought of this too um and then kristen i'm gonna go to you and then alicia i i think you guys probably could grant me the authority to um appoint the second or the the other person um and so i could have discussions with individuals about who they would like to see that person be and then you could grant me the authority to um appoint that person to the committee so that would be another avenue that we could go kristin and then alicia um i would be good either way with however we decided but well i had two things and one i don't even know if this is

116the appropriate time to ask it but that's my second question but to the point of adding this adult i actually think it's important because it is another need that was brought to our attention and i agree with it i think there is a fairly big hole there and i'm not sure that staff will necessarily have the same perspective that somebody outside of the school might have be it a parent or just be in another community member so that's i i want to see that other position added for that reason but my other question is i don't want to approve the committee without getting a chance to ask it but i think you know nick talked about it earlier what we had in mind with the steering committee versus subcommittees and focus groups and all of

117that if someone is on this steering committee and accepts this position can they then serve on future subcommittees if those have particular interests to them or does being on this steering committee preclude you from doing additional work so i certainly can't you know don't want to speak out of turn here but my impression would be or my understanding would be that the dei steering committee would establish their own set of rules and norms and so if they as a committee said if you're on the steering committee you cannot participate in you know a subcommittee then that would be their rule and norm that they establish or maybe they'll say you can you must serve on one of these breakout you know so they they i think they'll establish their own um rules around that okay

118good i just want to make sure people knew what they were accepting yep great question alicia so i just want to make sure that we um i i think it's important that we conclude this decision making process tonight so i just want to make sure that whatever route we choose concludes this process so that the committee is formed and we can start the work so i just want to advocate for that and um i i agree with leon's motion um i i do want to point out that i feel like we're sort of teetering on analysis paralysis and worry that you know not everybody is represented in not all minority groups are represented by this committee and um one of the things that i've found to be uncomfortable with this discussion has been the way

119that it seems like we are um analyzing which minority group is more worthy of representation over other groups and that feels really awful to me to be honest um and so i just want to point that out i guess i i worry that um if we don't conclude the process that other groups are going to say um you know we we're not represented you know and that we can't have every group represented to the extent that we want them to be represented i think that we need to put some faith in the process behind the the the consortium leading it and that we can make recommendations for subcommittees as necessary so um i'm i'm in support of the motion but i would like some finality because i think it undermines the process in general and

120in the future and so i'm happy to sort of make this change for the students because i think it's the right thing to do i'm a little bit worried about leaving it um open-ended and what that means for the future uh to your point alicia i think um you know just as we are being open and flexible and trying to adapt when necessary and pivot when necessary in my mind if the dei steering committee forms and you all get to work and there are and there is a need or there is some um issue that you know you are just feeling like you are not equipped to handle as a committee because you need more voice then we'll pivot again you know and and so to your point let's have some finality finality tonight um

121but then also with the understanding that this is not going to be the first time we we have learning curve okay so i still need somebody to make a secondary motion to grant authority to somebody or somebody's um to to make this happen nick okay so i may say this wrong but i move to make a secondary emotion emotion this whole thing is emotional uh a secondary motion to grant our chair april the authority to appoint an appropriate alternate to fill the role that's been identified through lian's motion second do we have to second that yes discussion seeing none think diane could you please call the vote on the secondary amendment okay everyone knows what is the motion that's on the table the secondary amendment motion is to give authority to april seither the chair

122to appoint an additional member to the dei steering committee from the list of alternates chosen okay thank you this is giftus yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss layton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs either yes this is turner mississippi yes thank you mr bennett yes and miss gectus yes okay excellent so now going back to the first amendment to the prime sorry the primary amendment to the main motion which is leanne's um and i think probably it's beneficial or helpful if leanne reads it one more time or sarah if you wrote it down because i just saw leanne drop i think i'm back oh perfect leanne would you mind reading your amendment one more time sure increase the size of the dei committee by six members the new members will include all students who

123previously applied and one community member from our alternates whose focus will be on students with disabilities is there any further discussion of the primary amendment okay diane i think you can call the vote please mrs giftus yes dr gill casalonas yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs scyther yes this is turner yes mr bennett yes and thank you guys and miss giftus yes okay and now we need to vote on the main motion as amended is there any further discussion of the main motion just that you really you really not this parliamentary procedure out of the park april this is a master class it's so natural in the way it flows too well diane could you call the vote please absolutely mrs guptas yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss leighton yes mrs

124lindstrom yes mrs scyther yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes excellent the motion passes agenda item 10.2 is approval of the 2021 board goals and operating protocols do i have a motion to move right is there any discussion okay the only thing i will add is that pending approval um i will send these to cali to get posted okay this is giftus yes dr gill yes miss catalonis yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs scyther yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes thank you guys the motion passes uh agenda item 10.3 is approval of the 2021 high school program of 2021-2022 um high school program of studies do i have a motion so moved second discussion i'm just wondering if i can go back to high

125school for a little while now that aaron's graduating because there's some great classes in there so [Music] agreed diane i think you can call the vote please okay mrs skiptis yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss layton yes mrs lindstrom yes this is either yes this is turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes perfect the motion passes thank you everybody um agenda item 10.4 is the approval of a consulting firm to assist with the superintendent search and i had asked leanne ahead of time since my zoom is like the most basic version if she could please do a screen share of the contract that was sent to us this was all sent this was sent to the board in advance um and so everyone has had this in their packet um again

126for transparency purposes we met and discussed our scope of work and what qualifications we were looking for in a superintendent search firm we received five packets of from interested firms three of which i solicited and two of which came to us unsolicited um we laid out what we believed like i said was our um requirements for our scope of work and in front of you is a contract from ddnm educational leadership llc um they are excited to work with us they are going to um only take us on they're going to take us on as their as one of their if not their only client um for this search which was something that was very appealing and exciting to us of the board um they have extensive experience and history with scarborough um and so

127with that um the last piece of the compo the last piece of this conversation that we need to have publicly is a discussion of which tier we fall into and which tier we're going to enter into a contract with them and so if you'll remember they had kind of a first level service which was um listed and it had all all of the services that came along with that and the price for that was four thousand dollars um they had a next level which they consult they considered their consultant level which was all of the services from part a and then we it kind of offered us an a la carte option to add services at the cost of a hundred dollars an hour um for their time and then they offered us um a

128third package which was kind of an all-inclusive hand them the keys and ask them to just take care of this for us and that package was ten thousand dollars uh we as a board discussed that um we've done a lot of the leg work five of the seven of us participated in the search in 2019 we have a tremendous amount of resources from that search that ddn can review for us to make sure that they are current and relevant but that some of the things that were included in the ten thousand dollar package was just above and beyond the services that we thought we were going to require so the contract that i am presenting is a contract to enter into an agreement with them at the four thousand dollar level plus consultancy so if

129there's anything that comes up that isn't covered by the base package um they will be available to us at an hourly rate does anyone have any questions leanne and then is there a cap um where we have the consultancy fees would they cap us at no more than the 10 000 all in if we hit that number that is an excellent question i do not know the answer to it off the top of my head um i can't imagine that it's good business practice to enter into a contract in good faith um with a school district and anticipate that the cost will be in excess of the all-in package um but that again that might just be my opinion i would agree i just want to make sure that we're protected as all yep nope

130that's a that's a great that's a great question alicia do you can you um uh let us the public know what the um cost has been for the past two superintendent searches i sure can so in 2016 the school board entered into a contract with the company nezdec and the total cost where the search was fourteen thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars in 2019 the board entered into an agreement with uh the search firm msma and the total cost for that search was five thousand five hundred and seven dollars and fifty cents thank you so you all pl praised me for my parliamentary procedure but i should have put this um to a motion before we had the bulk of our discussion so with that i would like to make a motion to enter into

131to allow um the scarborough board of education to enter into a contract with ddm as presented second now discussion and i apologize i did that backwards are there any other questions or comments okay seeing none diane could you call the vote please sure mrs giftis yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs seither yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes everyone the motion passes next is agenda item 10.5 which is the appointment of board members to the superintendent search committee and so i will make a motion to approve alicia giftus and leanne casalonas to appoint rather um alicia giftus and liam caslonis as well as myself to the superintendent search steering committee do i have a second second discussion nick just for clarification i remember

132in this conversation before this which which committee is this the the steering committee and there's the search committee but there's gonna be another committee right that's like the interview committee right so this is not yes this is not a question without distinction so thank you for bringing this up and i tell you how much you lost so so what what what i could have done was i could have granted authority to alicia and leanne um at the same time as we did all of our other committee approvals back in december um and that would have cleaned this up a little bit given how many moving pieces we had and how much commitment we had at the time we weren't 100 positive um what who was going to be able to commit um and so this

133really just authorizes me and alicia and leanne to now meet with ddnm to iron things out like the timeline and the survey and you know preparatory work for aligning us to have a successful search committee there will be um the formation of a superintendent interview committee and the superintendent interview committee will have community members faculty board representation a student representative all all those kinds of good things so there will be another committee coming down the line but that's not what this is this is just granting authority for the three of us to be able to work with dbm thank you you're welcome any other questions okay uh diane please call the vote mrs giftas yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes mrs layton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs either yes mrs turner yes mr bennett

134yes miss giftus yes excellent the motion passes last we have agenda item 10.5 10.6 agenda item 10.7 and agenda item 10.8 which are the meeting minutes of december 17 2020 the meeting from the workshop we have meeting minutes from the december 17th business meeting as as well as meeting minutes from the january 7th regular business meeting and i'm going to go ahead and bundle those all together do i have a motion to approve as written any discussion hey dianne mrs giftis yes dr gill yes miss casalonas yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs either yes this turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftus yes gender item 11.0 is adjournment do i have a motion to adjourn second gift yes dr gill yes miss castellonis yes miss leighton yes mrs lindstrom yes mrs scyther

135yes mrs turner yes mr bennett yes and miss giftist yes thank you everyone enjoy your evening you too thank you bye