2021-06-21 | Regular Board Meeting

001are we recording good to go kevin perfect thank you all right welcome everybody this is our uh june 21st full board meeting uh can i get a motion to approve the agenda it's all moved support who've been supported any additions or deletions all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries 7-0 second item tonight is public requests or comments so again just as a refresher for everybody [Music] anybody would like to make a public comment please step up to the microphone up here uh you will need to announce your name your address and any group affiliation when appropriate each person has a limit of five minutes for the public comment um if there's some type of delegation here representing any entity that that whole entity's delegation is limited to 15 minutes total in duration

002uh no participant may speak more than once we will have two public comments tonight the first one now and will be limited to 30 minutes there will be a second public comment later on in the meeting all comments should be directed to the board into the board only i should not direct them to any other employee member of the school or to each other public comments uh can be halted um if things do not stay civil um and uh please you know if uh try to avoid anything that's frivolous repetitive or uh obviously harassing in any way so with that we will open up public comment hello my name is amy sue hopkins i live at 784 hagedorn road here in mason i am a proud mason teacher and community member taxpayer i attended mason

003public schools and so i am a mason graduate i've been with the district for 21 years as a teacher i student taught in mason i substitute taught in mason so basically i've spent my whole 50 years here in mason and i'm very proud of that but it's not an easy thing being a person of color in mason there are times when that has been a big challenge and um i just want to make sure that we think about everyone and make sure that everyone is represented i know that's hard it's challenging but i had the opportunity to work on the revisions for the board policy 2240 and i feel pretty good about what we have i mean it's not perfect but it's pretty good and i feel pretty good about it and i don't think

004that there's anything there that shouldn't be there and i think that it's important that everyone know that the teachers did not know about board policy 2240 and yet we still managed to teach and do the right things because that's what we do we're teachers we care about our students we care about our families and that's why we're here and so i just wanted to say that and let that be known um and i'm i'm very hopeful i'm concerned yet hopeful that we as a district and as a community even though we go through some rough patches that we will be okay and i'm willing to do my part as my district knows i volunteer for everything i can that has to do with race and diversity because those topics are important and i need to

005make sure that all voices are being heard or as many voices as we can so thank you for all you do and that's all thanks great thank you very much hi my name is caitlin thomas 252 where street in mason tonight i am here representing the equity task force of mason alongside our new partnership with the lansing branch of the naacp we are equally interested in the full repeal of board policy 2240. the equity task force has established an official partnership with the naacp and will continue to urge this board to repeal this harmful policy in a collaborative effort it's our hope that the next headline that mason public schools makes displays an intentional effort and action towards change in the district at the most recent policy and curriculum meeting on may 24 2021 the

006president of the teachers union brought forward a request on behalf of a group of current mason public schools teachers urging the district to formally and publicly condemn racism this communication was very clear in response to the fact that mason public schools has notoriously chosen to stand firm in their neutrality i applaud these brave teachers while in the same breath feel a sense of deep empathy in the fact that they had to seek this through their union the fear of retaliation and intimidation tactics that are in place in supporting policy 2240 supporting a neutral stance on racism and doing a great disservice to our students has no place in public education a month has passed since that meeting and still the district stands firm in its neutrality despite community outcry and a plea from the educators

007that continue to serve this district so the question lies whose prerogative is it to remain a district that stands neutral in the face of racism is it the superintendent whose contract's being renewed the publicly elected officials who hold seats on this board or was it the recommendation of the diversity consultant that our tax paying dollars are funding for sixty thousand dollars each year i recall the moment that the second plane hit the world trade center on september 11 2000 i was sitting in a seventh grade homeek class throughout the middle school i attended on the east side of the state teachers stopped all planned curriculum for the day televisions were turned on to local news outlets class discussions were happening and priority shifted to support and presence that day my teachers prioritized student well-being and

008facilitated critical conversations about the history we were living through let's fast forward to january sixth two thousand twenty twenty one as a staff member for mps at that time we all received an email directing us to stick to the curriculum for the day and barring us from discussing the insurrection at the capitol january 6th was a moment of living history a day when our students entered buildings confused scare and seeking community mason public schools failed to deliver in fact the administration explicitly prohibiting these discussions on the sole basis of them being controversial and disrupting the learning environment is a clear picture of the harm and detrimental impacts that board policy 2240 has on our children our schools and our educators need to have the ability to facilitate critical conversations and provide adequate information literacy to

009our students in order to ensure that they enter the world prepared to navigate these topics and conversations as independent adults this administration needs to support the autonomy of the educators dedicating their skill and expertise to this district in order to facilitate these critical conversations and learning opportunities beginning in elementary school so again on behalf of the equity task force in the lansing naacp we urge this board to vote down a second read of the proposed revisions for 2240 and instead bring a motion to repeal the policy completely in the interest of our students our educators and our future my name is lynette and first of all i'd like to um tell you i have two children graduate from mason i have two that are still golden mason i'm sorry real quick your address um i

010was told i didn't have to share so i since we have people outside the district i i'll share that privately with you later thank you i'd first like to say thank you to the teachers staff administration board and community for coming together to care for our students thank you i had a senior in 2020 and a senior in 2021 and it was the most difficult time but this community rallied together through the street signs through the gift cards to downtown they really showed that that they cared about all the students no one was excluded from any of the signs everyone was included in that and i appreciate that and i'm thankful for that but i come tonight with a concern as well i speak for myself and many others who've reached out to me with

011the concern of the removal of policy 2240. the school's website requiring policy 2240 states for purposes of this policy a controversial issue is a topic on which proposing points of view have been promulgated or made public by responsible opinion letter a it's related to the instructional goals of the course of study and level of maturity of the students and b it does not tend to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view that's in 2240. last year my family had the privilege of going to the grand canyon and we were there and there were guardrails everywhere beautiful sights and as we were looking my youngest followed my husband right to the edge where there were no guard rails and i trusted him because he's an adult she was in crazy crocs i was

012sure she was going to be in danger so i instinctively reached out and i grabbed her and i pulled her close to me was she upset she was very upset she felt that i was just denying her the view but do you know the very next day someone in that very same spot was taking a picture and fell off the edge and died those guardrails are there for a reason and i feel that the guardrails that we have of 2240 are similar to that why do i mention it 2240 is a safeguard a safeguard for students parents teachers and administration it ensures that our district is consistent and that we follow protocol if we remove this safeguard of 2240 it would allow a teacher to push their agenda whatever that may be i have a

013degree in elementary education i happen to believe in literal creation versus evolution would it be appropriate for me to share that i believe that every child is precious and made in the image of god i'm sure that would cause quite a stir we believe that our school should focus on teaching our students things like ap chemistry calculus reading arithmetic leave the morality to the parents we've got this if you feel students are being marginalized start a voluntary club none of us are in opposition for people having support that's voluntary not a mandated propaganda factory we just passed a big bond for our schools we need to be more united than ever and continuing to grow we don't need to add more controversy and do you know what's not controversial teaching our kids what they need

014to know in academics so they can excel we need to expect them to be kind and respectful to every human and every individual whether they agree with them or not that's not controversial they need to be kind of respectful to all period keep 2240. let the teachers teach academics let the parents raise their kids thank you my name is kelly hannon 500 middlebury lane i am reading a statement on behalf of rita leolani vogel who could not be here tonight dear mason public school board i support the removal of district policy 2-2-4-0 our students today do not watch the news as habitually as their parents or our parents did kids today are often very aware of current events in the country in the community and in the world and more and more frequently students can

015access news information on their own thanks to social media and tick tock gen zeurs compute information faster and recognize patterns of social behaviors quicker than we give them credit for students discuss substance abuse abortion date rape sex racism intolerance self-harm suicide and white supremacy around the lunch table casually either from personal experience or repeating their parents points of view teachers have a greater responsibility more than ever before to discuss controversial topics in the classroom tempting as it may seem to veer away from controversial issues in order to maintain a calm and orderly classroom i'd argue that avoiding issues only leaves students without the resources to discuss controversy and without support in learning how to expand their points of view constructively by creating space in our classrooms for discussion and controversial topics our district can demonstrate

016how to maintain an open mind how to listen to opposing viewpoints and how to differentiate between different opinions and hurtful or exclusionary attitudes no matter what age or subject you teach there are ways to facilitate and support discussion of controversial topics in your classroom always be clear with students that you are not there to tell them what to think but that you want them to be open to many points of view keep yourself educated on different viewpoints teach your students the difference between facts and opinions establish a community of mutual respect our district is uniquely poised for future success financially we must also invest in the students while helping them learn to be good listeners and thoughtful citizens but we must be intentional we need to think of the classroom as a safe container to

017help our students learn to discuss controversial issues with respect and take this respect into the community in an actionable way with kind regards rita leolani vogel hi my name is jennifer and i live on harper road i'm here to speak mainly about the my safe safer schools plan i'm asking the school board to get a plan in place that is not the my safer schools plan you must not implement policies that do not support parental decision making the my safer schools plan includes testing our healthy kids in schools twice a week the two times i decided as a parent to test my child in the past 10 months she was sick and i knew she had a cold and we would get a negative result but i made the choice to test her so i

018could send her to school in lieu of quarantine we cannot allow the testing of healthy kids twice a week in schools these tests are not safe they're sanitized with carcinogenic material that does not belong in the noses of our healthy children twice a week you must not support or hold clinics on school property promoting the kovid 19 shot for school-age children these shots are available through emergency use authorization it is not safe and effective no matter how many times it is advertised on tv and radio it is not approved by the fda as a vaccine also the school board must not repeal board policy 2-2-4-0 i've spoken to other community leaders about my concerns and my voice goes unheard i'm finding other parents are feeling the same way and the formation of an ingham county

019moms for liberty chapter is underway moms for liberty welcomes all community members that have a desire to stand up for parental rights at all levels of government the founders are former school board members who witnessed how short-sighted and destructive policies can directly hurt our children and families we as parents will benefit from this group's first-hand knowledge and experience to help us fight against covet 19 shots for school-age kids fight against masks in schools and fight against testing in schools among other things the most ideal situation here is that you as a school board stand with the parents and fight for our kids and we do it together hi my name is ellen kerr dunsmore 2028 ice road leslie michigan but that is also in mason public schools district i teach fifth grade at north aurelius

020elementary i had students in my classroom all year from september onward to say that we wouldn't have masks until the children are vaccinated at least 70 percent go against cdc guidelines the reason that i can stand here without a mask on is because we have the numbers down because of the number of people that are vaccinated not everyone can be vaccinated but those of us who can be are vaccinated for those who can't be to stop the spread also board policy i do believe in following the curriculum that is given to us but on a daily basis students say things that you can't just ignore because your silence is approving those comments for instance teaching about settlers moving into land that was previously owned by native americans and that those native americans got moved out

021of the way i had a student say well we had better weapons so what okay i could just say yeah you're right they had better weapons but is that right to take land from people who were already living there it isn't like the land was empty and the trail of tears were the cherokees being moved from kentucky to oklahoma and the number of people that died along the way if you want to call that a morality decision we can't just we don't just teach math and economics and subjects we are also teaching morality by our example of our students hopefully you hire people that you think are morally responsible and we have to make those decisions i'm not there to push my opinion one of the board members has a student in my class and

022knows that i say we don't mention this we don't mention that because it's politics especially in a in a an election year but when a student declares that the former president won the election and it was stolen from them that is a point of fact that i will say no he actually did lose the election that might be controversial but numerous court cases and audits and other things in states showed that that is how the election was a legitimate election and a parent who has an appointment an opposing view on that may disagree with me on that but there are points when we have to say this is the fact and that is propaganda and politics and you know it depends on the age level of students also some of the things that were mentioned

023that students do talk about at lunchtime i would expect that to be a high school issue that you might have to talk about controversial things at the high school at elementary level of course i wouldn't bring up things like that thomas jefferson had seven children with an enslaved person but if someone mentioned that at the high school i would address that at the elementary level i would mention that maybe the constitution when it was written only white male property owners were allowed to vote and then over years you know african-americans were given the right to vote and then finally native americans and women were given the right to vote and some people might feel that that's controversial but that's just factual information and so the arbitrariness of saying anything that's controversial we can't discuss well

024we're given a curriculum the curriculum is looked at by the curriculum committees but on a daily basis there may be things that students say that we have to call them on and try to keep politics out of it but we can't none of us can divorce our morals and our opinions from how we interact with children we just have to keep in mind their age level and try to stick to the curriculum but we right now the the newest thing is critical race theory that isn't even taught in elementary schools that's a college level thing but a lot of people are trying to throw that in just like black lives matter last summer they tried to tie defund the police to that the two were two different things black lives matter versus defund the police

025one they are not one of the same so critical race theory is not one of the same with factual historical information thank you hi good evening my name is andrew murray i live at 38 22 cornice falls in holt i'm formerly as of last friday a former basin resident um i'm reading a statement on behalf of rhiannon klein who is the co-founder of the equity task force um so she apologizes for not being able to be present today she says i'd like to first thank the board for hearing our public comment tonight as always and especially in the face of recent unrest in our neighboring communities we value the public service of the members of the board and look forward to a civil discourse during tonight's meeting i submit comment tonight to reiterate the harm

026that board policy 2240 inflicts upon the mason public schools teachers and students this policy restricts a teacher's ability to speak on topics that support the student's ability to learn the important skill sets of critical thinking while administration maintains that bp240 protects teachers the reality is that teachers are consistently being unofficially reprimanded by administration whose prejudice or bias are empowered by this unnecessary policy much work is needed to make mason public schools a welcoming and affirming educational institution before i will feel comfortable enrolling my daughter it seems from our school of choice data many families in mason agree with me according to the michigan school database mason public schools loses more students to other districts than it gains my request is simple please fully repeal board policy 2240 immediately any work the diversity committee does in

027mason schools will fall short of its intention until this harmful policy is revoked thank you dear community members and members of the board my name is rachel brander i live on mark street here in town and while my family took a cove at home school year i have two children who will be back in mason public schools in the fall i'm an active community member i volunteer my time with meals on wheels the ptos the girl scouts and also the equity task force and while i am not new to michigan as i grew up here i attended msu i became an art teacher and while all of these things do not make me someone who is rooted in mason i am certainly invested in mason and i am here as a concerned parent thank you

028for your service on our school board and i say our school board because i believe in the power of a public education system and part of this education system is that this system works for its constituents it does not exist in a vacuum this system has been a place has in place checks and balances as a public entity and should not be able to ignore the very people that it serves or in the time and place that it exists you are here as civil servants of our community and you complete this job on our community's behalf so thank you i haven't been able to address this yet please forgive me with the board since february however there were several communications that were released that stated all opinions are respected and valid in regards to issues

029surrounding race and social justice in this age it is totally beyond me why the stance is that all opinions are respected and valid is still allowed i work in a mere 40 minutes away in a comparable district in size and they've adopted the learning for justice educational framework that gives educators language and skills to have tough conversations with students about current events this framework is published by the southern poverty law center it has 30 years of success as a free and open public curriculum this other school district they know full well that there are some very differing viewpoints in their population like mason and they still have bothered to research and adopt and provide very comprehensive professional development for their teachers and their administration so that they feel secure in their abilities to lead tough

030conversations i am a 0.2 employee and i have gone through five hours of training this year alone surrounding this guideline they have teachers that admire they have excuse me with my bad guys i couldn't print this school is where children come to make sense of the world and like it or not as a parent our kids spend more time at school than awake with us at home they have teachers that they admire and trust and these teachers are extensively trained professionals let's give them the appropriate training so that they can lead tough discussions to help our students process our complex world our school district needs a comprehensive professional development schedule that will address our complex social dynamics of today's world giving white supremacist viewpoints the same time and respect as we do social justice viewpoints

031is misguided and antiquated now you might have already provided this comprehensive and full scope professional development but how would we know working with a community group we've been shut out from the district to even know what steps you are taking to amend this issue it could be because you've done a whole bunch but it seems unlikely because you're unwilling to be transparent secondly i'm here because i'm concerned that the school board is going to uphold policies that in the long run will hinder our children's education as an educator i've taken countless hours of professional development and some of it was focused on the 21st century thinking skills these are 12 abilities that our students need in order to be able to succeed in the information age and while i think that all 12 are vital

032i think that three of them will be hindered from keeping board policy two two four zero critical thinking communication and information literacy they need our students need to be able to think critically they need a safe space in the classroom with a trained professional lending leading and introducing primary sources to their thinking as a place to discuss the differences of the world today if that trained professional is told not to discuss current events or even to present the full narrative how will my children learn to have connections made across opinions facts and sources to distinguish their own informed opinion an echo chamber of their home social media and peer circles is just not good enough our students need to be good communicators being a good communicator involves practice lots of practice guided by trained professionals

033those trained professionals need to be our teachers who have participated in hours of professional development that is centered in advancing the rights of all people a professional development like learning for justice which might i add has been vetted for 30 years and is free and lastly our students and adults for that matter need to be masters of informational literacy people need to understand the difference between fact and fiction opinions and facts understanding history and complex current events that are multifaceted our world is not clear-cut black and white it is full of gray and many points of view and our students need to be able to see those different facets of understanding in order to understand one another we don't need to create more division or misunderstanding in our kids they need to know that there

034are so many sides of a story and their empathy overflows for all those are oppressed our kids need a trained professional our teachers to lead these complex conversations with primary sources to guide them through civics history and current events and lastly and most importantly our trained professionals should be able to do this without fear of reprimand for leading a tricky conversation or for interrupting a racist statement or for questioning a student's reasoning or for educating our students on policies or history and that's why two two four zero needs to go our school board our administration and our teachers are uniquely positioned to be on the right side of history while we make some tough changes and the policies that were acceptable during our colorblind 1990s and early 2000s have proven to be ineffective and antiquated

035thank you hello good evening my name is tammy dianis my address is 923 sanctuary drive mesa michigan i have grandchildren currently in the mason public schools and i also had my children went through the mason public schools so i just like to put it out there that this district has a city and city has a history of racism and systemic oppression my kids attended mason public schools from the mid-1980s to 2002 that was before martin luther king day was honored with a school-wide celebration but columbus day was celebrated with a day off for the staff and students and this just discontinued as a maybe a year ago so i'm thinking about martin luther king jr's ideal of judging a man by his character not by the color of his skin as mentioned earlier at a

036curriculum board meeting columbus's character was not worthy of celebrating a day off and it's a shame that it took this long to install those values in our district malcolm x stated that he felt like a pink poodle during the time he lived here in mason sure people were nice to him but he was also told that he should not try to become a lawyer that a carpenter would be better suited for him that's systemic oppression the time is now to end the systemic oppression and racism in mason and through discussions and critical thinking conversations guided by professionals we need to teach our children to become anti-racist to stand up for marginalized students and we need to form friendships with others that are different than us i stand for the equity task force and its ideas

037and it's our deals please let the equity task force be part of our decision-making process in this district as educators we're encouraged to incorporate real-world situations in our lessons current events are real world situations it's not um we aren't to impart our beliefs upon our students but to present all sides and we encourage our excuse me we encourage our students to continue these discussions at home with their families so that they can hear their values as well so again i'm encouraging the board to hear out the equity task force and take their ideals to heart thank you thank you we've got time for one more to the first public comment can that be me hi everybody um i'm a i'm a mason parent of two boys um just to give you a really quick background

038of me i'm a college graduate i'm a u.s navy veteran i'm a mom entrepreneur a wife and a business owner um we chose uh mason just because of the schools for the most part when i was coaching sideline and competitive cheer i coached for about 10 years i'm sorry real quick full name lexie caldwell okay sorry um i coached for about 10 years and i actually brought my team here a few times and i'd met staff and and you know the other athletes and i really liked it here so um so we moved here a couple years well it's been almost four years now i think um so i'm not one to sit and complain without action so here i am i first want to thank all of you um for everything that you do

039coaching can be a thankless job and i'm sure that this might be the same so thank you for all your efforts everybody i know that some radical things are trying to be entered into our schools i would first say that i do understand and agree that there's always room for improvement and growth i don't deny that people can be mean and unfair but to say that the fabric and the very structure of our society is systemically racist i i don't believe that in the spirit of not taking too much time let me just be very clear i will not support our kids wearing any more masks i won't support them being taught about critical race theory i won't support gender discussion or anything else controversial controversial or not related to the subject of that class

040this is why we need to stick to the approved curriculum and keep the rule 2240 that you guys are discussing a good teachers student should not be able to tell what their beliefs are there's absolutely no reason for a teacher to be discussing sexuality or gender discussions with our kids if these type of topics come up i believe that the teachers should refer the students back to their parents let me again be very clear i don't i'm not going to keep my kids in this school if i have to continue to worry about what they're being taught here i love the school i wanna help i'm happy to help i do plan on running for school board so that i can serve but i thank you guys for your time and thank you for listening

041great thank you um we've got to move on into our agenda here we'll have another public comment coming up we've got public comment again later in the meeting we have two public comment sections at the meeting first one's limited to 30 minutes then we'll open it back up later before we go into closed session okay yeah we'll have more time special reports recognition yes we do have our a monthly extended coven 19 learning plan report uh this is the last one of the school year so i'm going to turn over to mr stewart who's going to share the uh final learning plan report okay as uh mr jabischi said this is the last reconfirmation of the extended kova 19 learning plan for the uh for the school year and so as all of you know

042we maintained the same instructional liberty method for the month of june as we did the previous month in may and so we had four days of instruction in-person instruction available to our students monday through friday with wednesday's remote for for students the students of our english language learners and our special education students had the same opportunity as the rest of our students as you'll see on the the second page we have our may two-way communication percentages by building and so you can see those dates there and then we also have it for the first week in june as well and you'll you'll note that uh for the high school the seniors were gone for that particular week in june and so that's why the percentage was a little bit lower so any questions okay thank

043you i'm trying any questions for matt just too uh just to be clear this when does this expire i don't know the exact um expiration date um i do know that this is the last one for for the school year okay but it applies yeah it's applying to our current school year yes through the current school year anything else all right other reports can you hear me now great we do have a report tonight on the work of our diversity committee uh an update to the board um this uh report is information only there's no action or discussion needed for the board um i am pleased to report that the diversity committee has been working for about two and a half years now hard on this particular topic and i think you'll see with our

044presentation here tonight how hard they've been working i do want to thank all the committee members over the last several years who have worked and dedicated their time and and commitment to the district in this effort uh we did hire a diversity consultant last july and it's dr carlin tischener he's here tonight who's going to share and provide an update to the board on our diversity committee work to date so i'm going to turn it over to dr tischner and mr jones will facilitate his delivery of this presentation via the tv screen in the back of the room so those of you in attendance if you'd please draw your attention there dr tishner it's all yours well good evening everyone it's a pleasure to be with you i apologize for not being able to be

045with you in person but i do seek and look forward to the opportunity to be present with you all to be able to first and foremost introduce myself in person to those who i've been working with for quite a while now and certainly want to be able to be more connected in person but also to the board and to the community as i recognize there's so much to learn from mason while being present with you all and so i look forward to the date where that would occur today we'll spend just a little bit of time giving a brief update to the board of education with regard to what the committee has done at this point recognizing also that we have significant work to do and so we want to set the tone for the

046work that we will work to do in the next year as well as provide some context for all the work that we continue to do and will do beyond the next year and so first and foremost thank you for having me and i look forward to presenting to you all our discussion today i want to start first with the vision statement of mason public schools committed to academic excellence in a safe environment where students develop critical thinking skills empowered to succeed and are encouraged to serve their community and it's important for us to start first with the articulated vision statement so that it can dovetail into the way that the diversity committee wants to lift up the intention of the vision statement but also to clarify with the context of diversity equity inclusion in mind

047thinking about the types of students that we want to serve the type of students that we want to support in their learning and ultimately the type of environment that we want those students to contribute to which is an adverse world that is equitable and fair and focused on justice for all students and community members beyond mason and within mason so here as you've probably seen on the website is the statement of the diversity mission and it is through authentic learning opportunities mps is committed to an inclusive environment where all students staff and community respectfully acknowledge and value diverse cultures lifestyles experiences perspectives and identities of each other and to me this statement represents an intention to create an environment where students feel respect regardless of their background and in many cases are able to contribute

048to a culturally diverse and responsive environment that supports their identities supports who they desire to be in this world and ultimately allows them to engage in a world that is complete with diverse perspectives experiences so that they can contribute to creating a better world but ultimately so that they can understand their responsibility within doing so and so as we've talked with the diversity committee and work to design our aligned intention with the work that we're doing within the subcommittees we identify these categories of focus areas i'll say that ron mentioned earlier that the work has been going on for about two and a half years and over the last year what we've done is to work to clarify and to articulate what are some important areas of focus for the work to really be sustainable

049and the work to be integrated into the efforts that the school district is taking and i applaud the district for its effort so far and i look forward to continued investment in this work supporting educators aligning your focus areas with the strategic plan and most importantly creating a community a culture an environment that is representative of your commitment to dei and social justice altogether so here are the five goals that have been identified by the committee thus far to create to increase to improve to invest in growth so goal one is to create a culture and climate and learning environment reflective of a commitment to values related to diversity equity and inclusion go to is increasing readiness and implementation of initiatives focus on representation of diverse perspectives for students staff stakeholders goal three improve conditions

050for culturally responsive teaching learning and student experiences four investing in sustainable and scalable dei engagement by improving institutional practices across all stakeholder roles and responsibilities and five increasing equitable social and emotional educational outcomes for all students i want to highlight a couple of these ideas so that we understand ultimately what our goal is within each of these categories when we think about goal one our goal is really to design a space where in all efforts and all initiatives and all strategies and activities that we're focused on creating our commitment and establishing our commitment in a way that is clear that is nuanced and that is well articulated as we increase readiness and implementation what we recognize is that it is important for us to have shared language and understanding but also a shared commitment to

051ensuring that as we move this work forward we are ensuring that everyone has a shared commitment and deep knowledge of their role within creating change in the context of this k-12 environment as we think about improving those conditions i see that diversity equity inclusion and social justice is really a culture and climate effort it is creating the conditions where students are able to learn to connect to collaborate and to understand through empathy the lived experiences of others while also recognizing their role and responsibility within supporting one another in learning and developing and growing in investing what we really want is to make sure that this is an intentional progressive process whereby we're not just focusing on one or two years but we're thinking longitudinally about how we want to ensure that the culture and climate

052we desire in mason is represented and is articulated in a way that is consistent with the values that mason articulated in his initial mission statement and then number five it's really ensuring that under the guise of social emotional and educational outcomes we are ensuring that access that support is provided through a lens of equity so over the course of this last year we've been working despite the challenges of the pandemic we've been working with the committee each month and between those meetings with subcommittees in order to really think about what do we know currently about the work that is occurring in mason what is the viewpoint of staff what do they believe they need more of and also understanding what are the gaps in the opportunities and the resources and the celebrations that exist in

053mason at this present time in order to identify that information we provided opportunities for staff surveys as well as focus groups board members leaders of schools central office staff teachers were able to engage in several focus groups across the fall semester to allow us to understand a bit more about what are those opportunities gaps and what are the statements that teachers are making around where they are how they feel and what they might need to do this work more effectively it's important for us to establish a baseline so that we can develop a plan in response to that baseline and so tonight i'm going to share a bit of data just to give you a high level view of some of the statements that teachers are making so that we can first celebrate the work

054that we've done to date but also to identify areas that we have to continue to grow and where we have a role within that growth as a district as leaders and ultimately as a community at large so these next several slides will provide you a little bit of data to give you that context and what i'll highlight in order to get you to the slide so that you are clear about what you're looking at so the top you see support educators to teach on critical discussion topics and again i mentioned that the goal here is to celebrate celebrate the fact that we are at a point in our history as a district where we are leveraging our commitment to topics that allow our educators to expand grow and support our students to understand deeply both

055who they are and also who the students are around them and how they exist within a microcosm of the larger world and so the data that we're looking at is a response to survey questions that ask the teachers how often are you encouraged to think critically about race diversity and difference related topics as an educator and what we see in the data in this pie chart you see a percentage who strongly agrees a percentage who agrees disagrees and then strongly disagrees and what we see here is an opportunity of growth we see that a significant group of teachers agree and we also see a significant group of teachers who disagree or strongly disagree and what we see is that there is room to grow in the area of increasing our commitment to critically discussing these

056topics but also ensuring that teachers have the necessary resources training and support to be able to critically engage in these topics while doing so skillfully what we know is that a skilled teacher has the ability to engage in these topics if they have the content support and the support from their central office and their board to do so great teachers have these conversations all the time what is important is that they are provided the necessary professional development to support their ability to articulate these conversations while balancing both the world of a facilitator and an educator simultaneously the goal of an educator is to teach and develop social skills in the context of any topic in addition to recognizing that students will have to contribute to a world beyond their k-12 experience and so what we

057see here in the state is that teachers are interested to be encouraged to do so more often and we have some room to grow as well in this category the next data point is students are often given opportunities to learn about diverse communities ethnicities cultures and subgroups and this is important when we think about racial social justice as well as economic diversity and other demographic differences that we've been hearing about and talking about in our conversations with students today but also in our diversity committee what we see here in this data is that 47 of the staff indicate that they agree with this statement that they are given opportunities to teach students about these areas and we also see 40 percent indicating a level of disagreement again this is a celebratory data point in that

058we see that there is room to grow and there are opportunities for us to continue to support our educators to be able to engage in these teaching opportunities so that students become more critically minded around these topics that ultimately their awareness expands their ability to understand the world around them expands and they begin to develop a strong sense of what it means to be an independent learner in the context context of these topics the next data point is i am comfortable having these critical conversations with students about current events especially those that are motivated by difference we see 52 percent generally agree with this statement while another 13 strongly agree and then we see about 33 to 35 who strongly disagree and again i highlight this as an opportunity that there is more teachers who

059are feeling like this is occurring and that they have support to do so and yet there is a small relatively smaller group of individuals who believe that they need overt clarity around these opportunities to engage in these topics what i read from these three data points is that educators are certainly interested ready and willing to engage in these topics and that they believe that they can do so with a couple of things support from central office and the board to do so effectively and then also the necessary capacity to prepare themselves to engage in these topics in ways that allow them to feel supported but also allow them to feel competent in facilitating and educating these topics so at this point i just want to share a little bit about the work to date aside

060from the data that we've just provided what we've done is a book study focused on developing and building independent learners we had over 40 staff members and central office staff engage in these book studies with the goal of helping us to think critically around what does it mean to build an independent learner what does it take to do so and what is the lens by which we have to consider our role as educators in order to create a space within the classroom where students are supported to not be dependent learners but to be independent learners which includes their ability to identify to critically analyze and to discuss topics that help them grow and expand their understanding about the world around them and prepares them to contribute to that world in effective ways while also being

061responsible for their learning independent of the teacher and the teacher as a facilitator of that learning we've also focused on professional learning for our leaders and that requires us to establish again baseline knowledge and understanding around what does it mean to provide a culturally inclusive restorative focused environment as educators while understanding how equity and inequity might show up in the context of k-12 education while also helping us to see our role within that as the leaders and making sure that we have the necessary lens to interrogate systems practices and the way that we educate while also being mindful of our role in order to dismantle support systems or processes that may create an environment where students are not able to be independent learners the third bullet is that we have been providing a district pd

062recently in february where we had all staff across the district engaged in a shared full day learning experience where we talked about cultural responsive education equity and social justice and we provided content around restorative practices as a way that we can create an environment where students can be supported connected and developing strong relationships so they can create a space in the learning community where they feel valued appreciated and supported to be those independent learners in addition to that we've provided coordinated subcommittee meetings and ultimately the goal across several topics was to develop logic models so that we can articulate a strong plan for how to implement our focus on diversity equity and inclusion in the district and within those categories the role of the subcommittee members were to design both the logic model to articulate

063the ultimate outcome of the work and then to establish some activities that could get us closer to that outcome and from there we've been having deeper conversations around how might that influence and support the development of not only the diversity strategic plan but also the overall strategic plan of mason public schools and so at this point i just want to present to you an illustration of what we come up with as a committee and this was designed with the intention to represent what we've done throughout this first year but also what is yet to be done within the second year and again i want to highlight that the goal is to ensure that we are in a better place as a district as it relates to creating those independent learners and what you can see

064is in the middle category really column five is that our goal is to increase equitable social emotional and educational outcomes for all students to create independent learners so we are stronger smarter safer together and the way we did this is to think about this as an implementation plan not as a timeline but an implementation plan and so on the left you see educator and community readiness at the bottom of that column you see commitment to diversity equity and inclusion within that you see these outcomes listed with check marks or a tool that crosses as an x the goal of this particular strategy in the plan is to increase educator and leadership knowledge readiness and commitment to dei and the way that we've worked to do that is to increase our excuse me is to assess

065readiness to assess commitment and buy-in and then to establish shared language and you've heard me say that a couple of times already and we did that by having surveys and focus groups and really engaging in book studies and professional learning workshops this is part of our continued plan again to establish that baseline and shared language so that as a district community educators have consistent language to use as they talk about these critical topics the second column is the strategic plan here we see that our goal is to establish goals and objectives that support the overall strategic plan this is really connected to our intention to establish scalable and sustainable efforts and we know that when that is embedded in the strategic plan for the district that we can see critical investment both in time and

066funding and intentionality around professional growth and development for all educators staff across the district and so our goal as a committee is to support that strategic plan in articulating how we will be committed to dei as a district the goal ultimately here is to increase readiness and implementation of key initiatives and in order to do that what we have been doing is working on a swot analysis of current district processes we've strategized implementation goals steps and approaches to improve systems and student experiences and that is ongoing work we are working to establish a scope and sequence for how we will go about implementing these key initiatives and then we have worked as i mentioned previously to establish those subcommittee logic models a draft of dei strategies and working with leadership and providing coaching on these

067concepts strategies and practices for the district as we move to the fourth column which is essentially the third strand our goal is to improve our conditions for teaching and learning when we think about conditions for teaching and learning that is really around the educator and the student experience simultaneously we often talk about conditions for learning and we do not necessarily think about what does it take for the educator to have the necessary skills the capacity and the frameworks and materials to create the context for a student to learn and here what we want to highlight is that is a requirement for us to do both establishing conditions for teaching and learning with the primary goal of improving instructional strategies for educator and student learning on issues of diversity equity and inclusion in order to do

068that what we've been working to do is integrating our diversity equity inclusion into our systems our curricula our instructional practices and materials and this is ongoing work that is our intention moving forward but first we have to understand where are we what is our baseline and where are our opportunities to grow second is to increase readiness and capacity of educators and leadership to create these learning environments with the lens of diversity equity inclusion and that's part of establishing that baseline of shared information shared knowledge shared understanding but also ensuring that as we are growing and learning as a district as leaders as professionals as teachers within the context of our classrooms that we are doing so with an intentional focus on that lens that is appropriate for creating those independent learners that was referenced before

069and then the last item which again is those cross tools as an ex we've done so by providing professional learning experiences student and community focus groups subcommittee focused on improving student experiences and those outcomes with the primary goal of approving culturally responsive teaching learning and student experiences and again this aligns with the subcommittee work but it is ongoing work with the effort of creating those conditions for teaching and learning and then the last column is district infrastructure so the goal here is to align our infrastructure to address issues of equity district-wide and again this is ongoing work but we want to establish our intention within the committee and within the broader district again as it influences the strategic plan in the fall to focus on these areas again with primary intention for aligning our infrastructure

070to these concepts principles and belief systems as a district so what we want to do is systematize opportunities for growth related to diversity in leadership and staff diversity and inclusion that ultimately suggests that we have to increase our representation within roles of leadership as well as within roles of instructional roles and responsibilities in the school community so the students are exposed both to diverse representation and who is in front of them but also as they learn and grow and develop skills to collaborate with folks from different backgrounds that they have experience with doing so in the k-12 environment especially as we continue to grow and expand our representation within our student population as a district it's imperative that we have representation of our leaders and our teachers and our staff who represent the backgrounds of

071our students from diverse communities we also want to align core mission and strategic goals to dei principles and again with this presentation tonight and what you've been talking about as a board we are hoping and continuing to support the need to align those concepts those principles and those ideas in a way that is meaningful for the work that is essential for mason moving forward for the types of students that we want to create and also the community that we want to design for our students and our community members with that we also want to engage community and parents in those dei efforts and that is represented by the role that the dei committee has we have representation from the community and parents in those efforts and we want to continue to expand that opportunity for

072parents and community members to engage either on the committee or through opportunities for shared learning in the context of communications as well as shared experiences for conversation that we will discuss through the subcommittee and engage community members in those efforts when those activities are scheduled and then last we want to establish and sustain the focus always beyond this moment so that ultimately we can create sustainable scalable dei engagement as a district that goes again beyond this moment in time but also commits to it in perpetuity within the strategic plan and beyond that date so what i want to just share quickly as we're coming to a close uh with a couple of last slides i want to share with you that over time what we've worked to do which essentially just highlights what i've shared

073so far is that we've worked to establish a shared understanding and knowledge and we've designed and developed a draft plan and what we want to do moving forward is to articulate that plan to align that plan with the infrastructure of the district and then to implement and evaluate the plan and so again the larger committee has done a great job of getting us to this point and we recognize we have a significant amount of work to do but we first had to establish a framework a theory of change so that we can move into an effort to create the sustainable change not just in reaction to the moment but also that is thinking about what is the long-term commitment to this work and how do we ensure that we don't engage in missteps but that

074we're intentional that we're methodical and that it is a lasting change for mason and the students and the community members that benefit from this educational institution so at this point with the last slide i want to just share just a little bit of highlights for what we know at this point and what we need and then maybe think about what it might take for the board at this point we know that teachers are ready and have demonstrated a high commitment of readiness to engage in this work what we know from our time with educators is that they indicate that ses and race are emerging as the primary areas of focus for supporting students and supporting the education within the k-12 environment from elementary to middle school to high school in mason what we need is

075board support and investment and a commitment to advancing these issues of diversity not only in racial and economic equity but also across all demographics and differences with a focus on equity but also social justice we also need support for the diversity plan and a commitment to this diversity plan and its alignment to the future district strategic plan which is coming in the near future and i want to invite you to just reflect on what it might take moving forward for the board and for our work to be able to be sustainable and scalable beyond this moment now i want to acknowledge that it is important for us again to establish a theory of change that is sustainable that is intentional and that is well articulated and well thought out but it also has to be

076a collaborative effort and so we all must recognize what it might take for us and our role within this process in order to create the outcomes that we believe are essential for creating students that can contribute to a diverse world as independent learners so i appreciate your time today thank you for engaging with me um as the consultant and we look forward to the work that is before us because we recognize there's so much work to do and we're excited that we're in a position where we can do that work within the school district of mason and we invite you all to think about how you might contribute to that and how you might support that effort even beyond the moment so thank you for your time and i appreciate the opportunity to present this

077evening thank you dr tishner um hopefully i provided you at least a good summary and overview of the work that we've completed to date we've got a lot of work ahead we know that um but we certainly have some building blocks and the foundation in place to move forward um from a board's perspective you're going to hear more and more about the work of the diversity committee at the committee level and certainly then back at the board level um in the coming months and the next certainly over the next year as well um so stay tuned for more and more updates um also too i do want to remind everyone that all of our information all the work the diversity committee is on the website if you click on our home page and click on

078the get involved link you'll get to all the diversity information which is there for all to see all of our diversity committee meetings are open to the public so come and join us and and there's a public comment session at the beginning of each meeting we'd like to hear your thoughts um this is a community effort we need to all be working together to provide the best learning environments for all of our kids and that's the goal here the best learning environments for all of our kids and so know that our committee consists of staff and community members as well so it's a broad range we have up to 30 members on the diversity committee and so um i do want to again thank them for all their efforts and encourage all of us in

079the community and on the board to get involved as we move ahead so thank you great thanks ron uh next item on the agenda is curriculum and instruction nothing tonight nothing tonight uh communications uh we hit uh several emails during the month i guess some of them up fairly reflective of the public comments tonight so um also we did have a letter from the isd on a resolution appreciation uh for the work that ron's done over the past year and i just want to uh mention uh president creamer in relation to that resolution um that's really a reflection of the work of everyone in the district all staff administrators school board who committed an entire school year and beyond to work through this you know unfortunate pandemic that we had to deal with and i

080believe in exemplary fashion so i just wanted to share my gratitude to all out there who have helped make us help weather the storm great thank you old business we have none uh can we get approval of the consent agenda i'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda including approval minutes of the may 17 2021 special meeting personnel report number 24 financial report number 25 including payment of general fund bills in the amount of 1 million 729 687.45 food service fund bills in the amount of three dollars and fifty two cents sinking fund bills in the amount of eighty seven thousand two hundred ten dollars and sixty three cents and capital project fund bills in the amount of one hundred nineteen thousand five hundred eighty six dollars and ninety five cents well

081support uh movement supported just as a point of reference uh the may 10th 2001 minutes were removed from consent agenda for mr kelly's request we will open up a resolution later in the meeting to approve those minutes so we can have discussion around them um so any other comments on the consent agenda all those in favor aye aye aye opposed carry 7-0 uh finance and property all right uh we have a bunch on the agenda tonight uh we met back on june 7th um i'll go through our meeting and then we'll talk budget and open this stuff up for discussion we received a budget update including finalizing this year's budget and first draft of next year's budget we also discuss summer tax resolutions we collect summer taxes from our townships and all those will require

082a resolution we discuss the sinking fund um that list has been pushed out to the board for information um what the committee is anticipating doing next year in the following year again it's the best laid plans but right now that's our best thinking and we discussed the jewel litigation um we'll be bringing a proposal forward for that that we can discuss at that point and we reviewed change orders um for the bond project um the meeting got over at 3 43 and any questions before i go turn it over to the others uh any questions on the finance uh property minutes after that we'll actually move into a budget hearing and then come back for all the motions out of finance yeah well our first one will be this year's budget amendment and i'll make

083a motion on that so we can have discussion and then we'll move in here so with that i'd like to make a motion to approve the amended 2021 budget amendment as presented in report number 26. uh moved and supported can we roll call please a discussion i'm sorry discussion tracy would you like to run are there any questions on the amended budget everybody reviewed it any questions on the final amendment to last year's budget just know that we've obviously mitigated through quite a few different funding sources this school year with different esser funds and of course added expenses due to mitigating through the the pandemic so there's a lot of moving parts certainly it's much more in depth than what we've typically had any budget year in in certainly my work but we feel very

084comfortable where we're at in closing up the 2021 school year and then obviously that leads us into the 21-22 budget for for next year any further discussion or questions all right let's roll call please mr o'connor yes mr creamer yes mr duane yes mr mummy yes mr bibi yes myself yes and mr kelly yes all right motion passes 7-0 all right mr president if you want to open the budget hearing all right i officially uh opened the uh budget hearing at 7 12 p.m so the summary of uh changes for the 21-22 budget is we maintained our flat enrollment of 31.79 estimated a 175 per pupil increase we eliminated the super blend because that is a one-time funding source for the covid year we updated all the covid funding um eliminated all the probability funding

085but did not budget for sr3 yet because that hasn't been released yet from the legislature we reinstated athletic revenues and daycare revenues hoping that we go back to school as normal and athletics and daycare will run as normal and we also eliminated a revenue source for the from series 2 reimbursement for bus purchases and on the expenditure side we reinstated 7.0 fte for teachers that includes a social worker a middle school elective teacher a high school core teacher a special ed teacher two k five distant learning staff teachers and also added three non-instructional positions two for custodians and one for director of support programs that totaled just shy of 700 thousand dollars so next year's also increased it all the retirement rates and updated the hard cap for health insurance and updated all the building

086discretionary budgets for teaching supplies and so revenues are just shy of 37 million expenditures are 37.6 so we're looking at a revenue shortfall of just 421 thousand dollars i do have to add there's quite a bit of additional programming in next year's budget so we're excited about adding some additional resources for our classrooms and we're also offering our online bulldog academy which will be in place next year so we've gotten some interest there we're working on developing that for parents who select and who want an online option for next year obviously we're going to be returning most students back in person face-to-face um started school year for the 21-22 school year we're excited about that but we do know that there are some parents out there that still would prefer an online option and we're

087going to provide that for them um but it's a pretty robust budget we're looking forward to getting a final per pupil foundation allowance sometime in september maybe early october um we never do find out from the state what uh we get per people for quite some time which makes it a challenge for us to budget but we'll we'll make it work so we're very comfortable what we're presenting to the board moving forward for the 21-22 school year great any questions on next year's budget i guess i'd just like to thank the whole staff i mean there's a ton of moving parts and it's been a challenging year and to have a budget a week ahead of time it's pretty good thank you just a quick question on the you know the revenue being under expenses

088and i see where you know last year we were quite a bit above on that and so our fund balance went up this kind of gets our fund balance back to roughly the percentage i think where we've been targeting and where we've been in the past um that the areas where we're going over this year are those sustainable year-over-year types of things so that's one time this year and therefore next year we won't have to worry about draining the fund again yes there's a lot of one-time funding with the covet funding so all that revenue and expense was eliminated in next year's budget but there is some pro some positions in here there are for coveted money that we know that's going to go away in two years as well once we get our next

089installment that's for three dollars that'll more than cover the the shortfall but we do have positions built in to continue for the next two years that will provide additional services but then at that point the the money will dry up and so then we'll have to make some some decisions at that point in time but they will provide additional resources for our kids to you know excel and get back to a high levels of learning for the 21 22 and 22 and 23 school year so primarily resource like social work support um additional classroom teachers aids a few other pieces there that that uh some of our support programs with uh oh our tier two and two tier three help um i'm going to go ahead and touch on that matt if you would yeah

090we've uh added a little bit of re well support at our elementaries in terms of our intervention supports and things like that we also have our director of support programs um you know that we'll be assisting um next year with a lot of things within the district to to help our students and our staff you know coming out of the pandemic in terms of you know social emotional learning and some of the other things that we have ongoing across the district thinking what you're looking for steve yeah more or less i mean i'm not a finance guy this is always a little voodoo for me in the first place but i just i just look at it and i see okay we're spending 421k more than we're bringing in we have a fund balance you

091know about 5 million we have 12 years of running this way until we run out of money or or what's going to change in the future and it sounds like we might have to make some decisions if revenues don't change next year right okay yeah yeah as in as in every year um you know you've got to make some pretty significant guesses because we don't know what the state's going to give us we don't know what our student count is those are two biggest drivers on revenue um once we get a you know better idea what those numbers are for you know october time frame we will come back for an amendment at that point um you know hopefully our student counts up and we get more money and we're budgeting there's also some covered

092money there upwards of what two million pushing two million dollars it's not budgeted in here because we hasn't been declared yet but it's again expected uh obviously that would cover any shortfall very quickly um and so again at this point it's our best guess going into it okay thanks yeah i guess i'd just like to add that we're very aware as a committee that you know spending money long term that we don't that's short-term money that's scary and i don't like spending fund balance and typically our november revision is really a true reflection or true or clearer reflection of our budget because the unknowns are now known and we'll work our way you know to our november revision on a month by month basis once we get more and more information and more things become

093clear from the state level other questions on the budget proposed budget i'd like to make a motion to approve the adoption of the 20 21 22 budget as presented in report number 27. our support uh moved and supported any further discussion if we can get a roll call please mr mumbi yes myself yes mr dwayne yes mr kelly yes mr o'connor yes mr creamer yes hey mr beebe yes all right motion carry 7-0 we have our starting budget for next year i'd like to officially close the budget hearing at 7 20. all right back into regular meeting i would like to make a motion to approve the annual summer tax resolution as presented moved and supported discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed ocean carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve

094the agreement for collection of summer school property taxes to alliton township as presented support movement supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the agreement for collection of summer school property taxes to aurelius township as presented support movement to support any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 like to make a motion to approve the agreement for collection of summer school property taxes to mason city as presented support movement supported any discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion carry 7-0 like to make a motion to approve the agreement for collection of summer school property taxes to vive township as presented support moved and supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye aye opposed

095motion carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve mason public schools participation in the juul litigation as presented support moved and supported do we have discussion i guess as a committee we were ambivalent i guess ron or no recommendation from the committee well really there's there's no cost to the district to participate in this litigation it is a class-action lawsuit for the smokeless tobacco products if the settlement is such in warrants we may reap some financial benefits it might have some strings attached um but at that point we can decide whether or not we want to accept any um uh litigation settlement but if we don't participate in the lawsuit then obviously we're out of luck so it's one of those things that i know the attorneys will be making a lot of

096money on it all that's a given but hopefully some will trickle down to mason i've heard some people say that there could be a little decent pot of money that could be awarded to schools because of the uh false advertising and other things that went along with this jewel litigation but it's hard to say and we're just at the infancy stages of the uh of the lawsuit i know there are several districts in the state that are going to be joining um in this class action lawsuit and we just feel there's no harm in us doing it and we feel that there could be some benefit to us and so we're recommending to to jump in i guess my only comments on this would be that um it would certainly be my intention if i

097was to support this that any financial benefits would be earmarked in some way to address related issues which might require us to do a little bit more investigation just to understand how it's affecting us you know but yeah other than that i would uh i should say in addition to that i would that's that would support um becoming a party to this anyone else all right uh all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 that is my report just quick further discussion on the on the financial uh committee thank you for fellow committee members for us working on that sinking fund priority list it was important to me and important to other school board members i just want to acknowledge we spent some time on that and kevin doty spent some time on

098that so thanks to staff for helping us with that anything else for finance uh commuting staff relations okay community and staff relations report out we met on may 17th 6 p.m was a call to order no public comment staffing update from mr brooks uh including staffing for the new summer k-12 programming and anticipated academic and social emotional support for the upcoming school year which is something we're excited about also there was discussion although not noted in the minutes the director of support position that we've talked about we did spend some time on that and a lot of support from the committee in that direction nice job notes we'll talk about in a minute i think they were presented and discussed superintendent javisky provided the latest communications update which i think you'll you'll see in the

099board packet diversity committee report out i'm sorry the superintendent reported on the diversity committee activities including committee and subcommittee organization um the meeting was as was adjourned at 7 20 p.m i referenced nice job notes um for our listening audience and our worldwide audience on on youtube what that is is uh staff to staff nice job notes that we share within the district if somebody notices something uh significant or just a little thing that makes the world a better place here for mason public schools these nice job notes are written up and shared with those people that did that did the good work it's been something that's been very popular our superintendent requests that we spend a couple of minutes talking about it our school board meetings um and and referencing a couple so people

100can kind of hear what's going on it's hard for us the school board members to see day-to-day things but we love reading these so i'm going to read a couple here and it looks like there was a lot of work in the pupil accounting audit and a lot of work that was done by by staff becky hinman wrote a lot of these carla harkness kelly martin called out on these melissa halstead all got kudos from from becky on that so we just go around the room real quick won't take too much time but steve if you want to go ahead yeah happy too um i've got a handful of folks here who are all involved in the kids read now program that melissa netzel is recognizing and this is a really cool program that uh

101you know supporting kids reading over the summer all the kids are able to choose some books that are going to be mailed to them they're encouraged to read over the summer and kind of keep some of that uh you know the the summer brain rot from from settling in completely right but i'll read off the names here and i apologize if i murder some of them but uh nicole rodavoz uh colleen uh rockfellow christie layman uh angie moore and uh tammy reiston uh were were all recognized for their their assistance in helping enter all of those different uh student book selections and making sure that all that got entered correctly so that all the kids get what they were hoping to read uh this summer so thank you very much to them all of these

102nice job notes are wonderful to read there were a number of community members that contributed to the steele family math night and the coordinator sent a nice nice job note for each of them and said thank you for your work during our steele family math night your efforts are appreciated by our students families and staff i would extend that to anyone that contributes in whatever way they can to our schools including those of you that come and speak before the board it is very much appreciated and i think that that is also an important aspect of what we do thank you oh i'll say a couple and i'll just i want to pick it back up with steve's really quick before i go on um i too appreciate all the work that they put into

103the kids reading now i must admit though my uh incoming fifth grader this fall has totally forgotten what book she chose so she's surprised every week when she gets a new book she's like i didn't pick oh maybe i i don't know so if they made a mistake she'll never know she's loved every book so far but the ones i was going to bring up tonight are both middle school related one is thank you to dana coat who manages the student services office and does kind of sounds like anything mr keefner throws her away so that's awesome and also mr lawson who is new to the middle school building engineer position and they said not only do we have a clean building but he's improved processes fix long lingering issues and solve problems and they're

104very happy to have them so hope i didn't take anyone else's because i just guessed it what ones might be appropriate for me but those are two that stood out to me uh likewise i guess you know the ones i was asked to review number one i try to review them all community was key and just our staff and administration dealing with the constant changes out of the state and out of guidance um the craig and greg show the the phenomenal work they did testing our athletes to get kids back playing sports and some semblance of normalcy and also included the community student athletes in that as well so that was an awesome effort i actually have several of them written by ron on my list but uh i guess the ones that still stood

105out to me and and we'd heard this already in some communications that the board got is uh what a wonderful job that mr berry hill and his team did at the at the middle school this year to to continue the uh student of the month program and what was other obviously otherwise a chaotic world but uh it meant a lot to the kids it meant a lot to the parents and for what they were able to pull off on zoom i guess they had some wonderful uh ceremonies for him so congratulations to ted and his team for for getting that done so i have a couple that i want to address so one i found just uh remarkable it was from jody drosha to yolanda combs and it was about helping a child with a

106disability over zoom who remained virtual and the the engagement that yolanda combs had with the student to be able to make sure that the student felt engaged during in the art class and a part of her peer group and really a part of the entire process so i thought that was pretty remarkable that that that occurred and also a couple of behind the scenes folks so lisa burka and miss ritter at the middle school who are the office folks here the middle school who make everything run smoothly in this building and and while these two were called out for the middle school it's all those folks that do the behind the scenes stuff at our buildings that are remarkable so thank you to them great thanks everyone um anything further on this year we're uh

107above 810 820 nice job notes to date and i'm sure we'll get a few more trickle in before june 30th but uh um it's uh nice to nice to see the recognition and nice to see the hard work that's going on out there benefiting all of our kids in our community so and my quick math me says 800 times six inches each card perhaps i'm doing rough math that's that's all the way around the the track field this year so good stuff good people yes thank you all board members for sharing thanks for our staff for keeping things going that's the end of my report from community and staff relations thank you any other questions for patrick policy and curriculum we met on monday may 24th we had a public comment from a couple of

108people in the community which was nice to have we heard a presentation first on two field trips that are happy to be back at the middle school first was the presentation on the eighth grade trip to washington d.c so that has been brought to board with the full support of the committee there was a change from those families that know the eighth grade trip and what it's been in the past that there may not be the availability to be at the capitol and so they were looking to implement the holocaust museum instead of the capital if that's not an option the other field trip that's back up is the seventh grade mystic lake camp um and so that would look like in years past where it's two and a half days so half of seventh

109grade would go monday tuesday half of wednesday as one's traveling home the other is traveling up the second half of wednesday and then thursday and friday a lot of science curriculum and social emotional growth would be discussed there that was also supported by full committee to come here for consideration uh the annual mhsaa membership um came before the committee to be approved that is also here before the board for approval and i have a resolution on that later uh the handbooks both or for all three levels were discussed for so elementary middle school and high school and so they are before you in your board book for first reading there are very minimal changes this year it was brought up and asked with the bulldog academy if there was any need to have a separate

110handbook for that entity at the time it was not deemed that it would be necessary however if that is something that would need to be in the future it would come about at that time but the belief is that the handbooks that are in place would be able to meet the need of that modality of teaching as well many policies are before you for first reading there was a robust discussion on many of them there were three main categories that were discussed so it wasn't just in one series there was non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies there was the education department general administration regulation policies and there was a local policy update as we've heard through public comment policy 2240 um did get vetted in several different groups and it was before the committee for for discussion

111it did come out of committee however there is a couple of items and some minor language to be vetted and so um it is appropriate for 2240 to probably go back to committee if need be to just discuss those couple of pieces of language it still gives time that we would be able to discuss because we do have a committee meeting next monday so we can discuss that as a committee and just make sure that that's fully vetted through the committee so that it comes then um it would be the july board for first reading and then the august for second and so that that could be in place um after one more vetting at the committee level before the start of the school year we did adjourn at 7 46 and the next meeting

112day is next monday june 28th at 5 30 back at city hall so i guess brian if you could help me procedurally on 2240 committee chair pulls it or do we need a motion to send it back i believe we need a motion to take it off the first train off the first reading correct yeah i believe so i'd like to make that motion to remove policy 2240 from first reading and send back to committee for further review and discussion i'll support uh moved and supported i need to make sure i have motion to remove two two four zero back to committee for first reading send back to committee first reading back to committee for further review further video thank you that right all right i mean you got moved and supported i did not

113get support who supported patrick patrick all right so any any discussion on that policy at this point yeah i mean i'd like to just start by saying so we reviewed this in the palestinian curriculum committee there was a lot of discussion obviously around it at the time the challenging thing with policy in general is that when you're trying to align it with some goals and we don't always share the same goals we don't always have a good idea of what everybody's goals are it's hard to craft policy that we're going to send to this committee to be approved so i would like to hear from folks who who have concerns about it and would like to see that changed what they're looking to see changed how they think we need to be working on that

114to align that so that the next time we bring something back it's it's what this uh what this board can support let me unlock my phone and i'll i'll publicly say some of the things that that um i thought maybe were opportunities to clarify anyone else can talk while i'm doing well he's unlocking is it is it okay if i submit my comments and writing to the the committee or is that is it okay to do it that way is that any sort of violation of open meetings act or should i go individually to each committee person can it be simple i do have two chair and we discuss it at the meeting yeah as long as you're not involved in the discussion yes yeah i'll go to the chair yeah just long's not part

115of the discussion in the comments because i'm still sorting through a lot of thoughts i have a lit a long list um but i i want to sort of get them to you the right way thank you my phone's unlocked but if the chair would prefer that i send these in writing totally happy to do that too you're fine i'm doing them here it's pretty brief yeah no um so um this may not be all inclusive if i think of more things liz i'll send them your way uh but some of the questions i have um or concerns um i i have no issue or uh or problem with making adjustments or or changes to 2240 but i i think as uh presented um and almost um shared as for first reading tonight it was

116too vague one of the things i think is that properly introduced and conducted which is described in that is not defined what does it mean to be properly introduced or properly conducted i think anyone can have an opinion on what that means no prior notice is spelled out in in that version of 2240 so while it says parents could opt out it doesn't say that parents will be informed of any planned discussion so i don't know how they could opt out after the fact and then the third thing was the principal would decide whether or not kids would be allowed to be opted out and i i wasn't super thrilled about that part so those are three um three areas that i was concerned with and i can send those in writing too if that

117helps i've also written them down so it's okay i i guess i'll just chime in for a second and and i reached out to chairperson evans with with any policy updates or changes or new policies i i guess i'd like to see the committee get better about what changed i mean you know track changes in word or adobe is a pretty easy thing you know because we have pages and pages and pages of stuff for first reading that to try to figure out is this new is this just a word change is this oh we referenced the wrong paragraph somewhere and especially i guess with regards to 2240 if we bring it back for first reading i i would love to hear a discussion out of the committee of you know why are we here

118why did the committee believe it needed the changes and what are the changes i also would like to see the track changes the guy with a bad eye it would help me immensely thank you one other comment on this and maybe it's a question from my fellow board members here the issue that i have with 2240 and it comes up in all the comments and although the feedback we get is we we hear a lot of scenarios that people imagine you know classroom scenarios where you're answering things on the fly um concerned about if we don't have a policy like this the the kind of uh brought up religious views are brought up tonight right they could be shared what's interesting about that is that they're all kind of right they're all valid and they're

119all slightly different aspects of what actually counts as a controversial issue right this is something i brought up in the committee at the time it wasn't it's a hard thing to define but i think ultimately if we're going to do anything with this policy we need to decide how we're going to address what's a controversial issue that's the only way i think you're going to know ahead of time that we're going to teach one right or that it could come up in the classroom so that folks have an opportunity to opt out as we put in that language you know and also i mean just generally as leaders right one of the key roles of leaders um you know of a team to make them effective is to remove fear doubt and uncertainty and this

120thing is full of fear doubt and uncertainty right you can't you can't act you can't um you know respond you can't uh prepare when you don't know how things are going to be viewed when you don't know whose view of controversial is going to rule the day when uh when the question comes up i think that's going to be a huge challenge i don't know how we address that and if there's some ideas on this committee i'd be glad to hear them now or as part of whatever you guys decide to write and send to us for next week just real quick one of the things that that concerns me is this first off it's kind of humorous that the controversial the most controversial policy is the controversial policy but that was a bad joke

121i worry about us having uh this policy is sort of this giant dam dam meaning you're trying to stop something and it seems that maybe some of the work up the river could solve some of this meaning how do we look at how we develop curriculum how do we start sorting through some of that how do we engage the staff to make sure we've got their input and what they're comfortable with and all that it just kind of seems like we have this big fly swatter in our policies and that's how it's maybe used or not used but if we can do some work on the front end in curriculum perhaps this policy could then go from being the controversial policy to the sensitive issues policy in other words we solve some of it on

122the front end perhaps and i don't know how to do that but that's some of my thinking um as i've looked at this and as i've thought about that again i haven't been i wasn't privy to your conversation so i'm anxious to hear more from the committee as you do your work but i'll submit these thoughts um i do think we have work to do uh i don't think we should be handicapping teachers but i also we do know that we need to inform parents there's this partnership this trust that we have as a school district parents the the teachers and how to help these kids become a worldly or as worldly as we can make them as they graduate from mason high school we want our kids to be aware of the world we

123want to be sensitive to the values of families but there are some issues that just seem to me that we got to be careful not to turn this policy into a fly swatter i guess i want to i guess i want to stay there without speaking too much out of turn i'm anxious to see the work done i think we take our time and do it right if it means some discomfort in the community that it's taking a little longer than than we want um the idea of not having this policy is curious to me i'll be honest uh but again that would mean work on the up the river as it were well if you're gonna take away the dam you better make sure you've got some work done up the river so you

124know me i i have silly stupid analogies at times i don't know if that makes any sense but i'll submit my thoughts i do want you to know so there so those things were discussed many of those things were discussed at the committee level had it been vetted to remove it and the conversation with removing it is that then there's no safeguard this policy does not prohibit tough conversations it does not prohibit tough topics it does not prohibit a teacher from talking about them in fact it supports the teacher in how and it supports the teacher and the district in the ability to do it in a fashion that presents the topic and all sides versus opinion-driven one-sided focus so those those conversations were had as to have that been discussed is this is this

125necessary um the concern of opening the floodgates means all sides are floodgated floodgates are wide open and um we don't want that like right we we don't want it from one side nor the other because that's that's not a fair and equitable education well the challenge of course is one person's controversy is another person's not controversy or you know what's controversial to me we can we can go through our district on every everything from uh meet on fridays on the menu for a catholic kid who might you know in lent to we may find um again not just classroom lives but everything we do you know there may be some in the community to say we are our cheer squads short skirts are too short you know it just everything's controversial when you're when you're

126dealing with fellow human beings how we come up with a a policy that doesn't hinder understanding and growth and education for our kids is the challenge so this is a tough one again i'm probably speaking more than i should i appreciate your comments i don't have a clear if you were to pin me down and say mr o'connor what do you think today it's not there i'm thinking and that's what i think we're being asked to do by the community so i appreciate the work that you've done so far and i appreciate the work that you're going to do and i only opened up because steve kind of looked at me when he said what are you thinking before you mail it in at the risk of maybe saying too much especially with the news

127media here but i think we all have good hearts in this and i think we all want to do what's right for the community for the for the school district so it's worth the effort it's worth the work and thanks i do want to go on the record too patrick i'm saying i love your analogy so good to go um i guess i'll chime in myself because um you know comparing it to the old version of the new version um probably the biggest thing that jumped out to me um was that we went from a policy that said the teacher may not express a personal opinion to explicitly saying that they can't express a personal opinion and i get while that came in and i understand that teachers are constantly being asked by kids for

128their opinion but i think there's some dangers in that you know i think there's two dangers that we reside in opening that up one is you're going to get opinions that we may not agree with and you know it's it it's too much too too wide open too much leeway the other thing is really thinking about it from a great perspective i understand a teacher being able to maybe preface a comment saying it's opinion at the high school level where kids are taught more to be critical thinkers but the teacher who says his opinion in the second grade or fourth grade those students hold those teachers up to a higher level and may not understand the difference between fact and opinion so that's my two cents i'm not sure which way to go on it

129but i thought that was the biggest change for me in there so again to send it back and have those hashed out some would be helpful very good yeah i following up on that i think that um the conversation as as ms evans did note was um was comprehensive in many respects and the point that you made regarding that change regarding personal opinion one of the concerns that i had in the subcommittee was that we one thing that we didn't discuss was why this policy needed to be changed in the first place we never really felt comfortable that we understood the genesis for that change this is this particular policy is one of the tried and true neola templates it hasn't changed in a decade and it's being utilized by hundreds and hundreds of school

130districts it served its purpose pretty well and it and and i don't believe that the purpose is to stifle um discussion and i think some very good points were brought up tonight by the public and and i think they need to be addressed in our policy if we're going to make changes um as you know what is controversial um i don't think that this policy is intended and i certainly wouldn't want it to be intended to prohibit a teacher from responding when it's when a controversial issue comes up i think that this primarily deals with planned versus unplanned um issues as they come up in the classroom prior notice is important i believe which which we're not addressing um quite frankly opting out as mr mumbi mentioned makes no sense if you have no prior

131notice so i do believe that that's important at a high level i think that the change that is being proposed here um i think sort of undermines the original intent of what a controversial issues policy is addressing and and it is providing a framework a guideline um and and it does so in two ways one would be what what could really be the purpose of a of an authority figure in these classrooms um you know presenting a viewpoint or uh and then and then pronouncing that it's their personal uh that that there's no point in that because you know there's nothing that would prevent them from pres you know offering that as an alternative viewpoint but why would it be necessary for them to suggest that it's my personal belief i think i think that

132sort of undermines the entire thing and realistically i think you've pretty much destroyed an open and objective discussion at that point you've certainly compromised it the other aspect the other specific change that we had talked about was the removal of this of the bullet item that says specifically does not tend to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view that and the the personal opinion of the instructor i think are fundamental to the purpose of that issue of this policy which is to provide a guideline and a framework that assures that we're going to be providing alternative viewpoints if you look carefully at the new policy it does a much poorer job of ensuring that we're that we present alternative viewpoints okay we pretty much eliminated it from a practical or from a

133procedural point of view that requires that as part of the of the lesson so in that sense i think we need to be we need to be aware of what the purpose of the policy is to begin with and make sure that we're not weakening it from that point of view and to the public comments the only other thing i wanted to point out here was um perhaps we can look at a better way of specifically defining what a controversial issue is and just and differentiating between what's planned and unplanned because we again we certainly do not want to uh um prevent teachers from discussing history just because they might think it's controversial history what's history and what's controversial so you know there's there's some things that i think we can do a little bit

134better job of specifying and defining um and there is a couple of points with the new policy that i like in that regard but um i think we also have to respect the fact that this this policy has served its purpose well and i don't think it discourages um discussion not i think it i think it encourages it it it gives us that opportunity to do so you know um so yeah those are all things that i think we can we can uh focus on yeah i mean i'll agree and keep it short you know we have neola that we hired to write policies we have those promulgated that policy has been working i guess the first step shouldn't be gee is this change right or is this change right it should be why are

135we changing something and what's the demonstrated need you know how did the system break down with the current policy or was it a anomaly or is it one time or is it a systemic problem great if it's systemic and there's all sorts of problems with policy great but otherwise why are we opening up a can of worms that's what we pay them for they're another just a final point um if there is some information that we could get regarding um how often we've run into issues with this reprimands for example um does i mean how often does that i believe that was already discussed and i believe there was none okay there it was never used in any teacher grievances any teacher reprimands any staff reprimands i believe it has never been used okay for

136like in any kind of um discussion with staff members of about something inappropriate being done and and yeah and i guess i'm not necessarily saying it would have to be official reprimand but just i'm kind of curious as when you know how often does the principal get involved in discussing these issues that sort of thing i think recently more frequent um prior to this year not so much but the the policy was not referenced in any kind of disciplinary way in any way or form so no one was disciplined for violating policy 2240. now it may have come up in some conversations when topics were discussed but no employee was disciplined for violating policy 2240 and that's been stated multiple times so that's very clear okay i just wanted to say something really quick um

137maybe i oversimplify when i think about the purpose of this uh policy but i think uh the current in place policy the way i interpret it is it is a way for uh teachers to plan education that is different from the approved curriculum and that's a process that allows them to do that but it is a process and it requires prior approval and planning it can't just be sprung at the last minute or a week or two before you want to do it but i think it is a tool that our educators can use if they would like to veer from the approved consistent curriculum so that's how i view it and i think um i think supplement would be a better word okay so sub to add to um or to supplement so i

138can i use i think of it as a tool rather than a barrier another discussion all right so we have a motion to remove it from first reading push it back to committee all all in favor right opposed motion carries 7-0 so it's been removed for first reading tonight all right like i'd like to make a motion to approve the middle school course proposals as presented support moved and supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the high school graduation requirements as presented that's important moved and supported any discussion a quick discussion if i could under graduation requirements i think it's just a typo it says each student must take on online course is that one online course or an online

139course i'm sorry i didn't catch this at the first reading but it's under graduation requirements so is it to take one online course or does it take an online course i guess that's kind of saying the same thing but you've got a typo there i just want to make sure we're aware of it before we it's under graduation requirements the second bullet point one is struck through so is it anna won i don't know but i just wanted to make sure that was so it's so high school kid didn't get it and suddenly figure out what am i supposed to do here because i was confused and i think i'm sure our high school students are much smarter than i am but they might get confused too yeah it's uh it's an online course or

140they have to participate in an online experience so we'll fix that online yeah okay an online course thank you uh further discussion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed ocean carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the fuse course proposal as presented support moved and supported any discussion just want to say how excited i am about this as a school board member that's as brief as i get any further discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed ocean carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the middle school washington dc trip as presented support moved and supported any discussion excited that it's back yay field trips it's a great field trip too uh all in favor aye aye ocean carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve

141the 2021-22 mhsaa membership as presented i'll support we've been supporting any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed ocean carry 7-0 any further questions committee all right moving on capital improvement committee uh did not meet i'm not positive we have enough items to meet the next time either so we'll be talking about that i think it's coming up on thursday maybe we will yeah we'll be sending out another email update as we agreed upon just a quick email update on so no capital improvement committee meeting this month either yeah not much happening just digging steel street there's a lot of dirt just digging a big hole you know finding unsuitable soils which seems to be the the norm for for digging big holes but it's exciting certainly to see earth being moved all right

142moving on uh executive committee meeting which does not happen often but we did have a meeting on may 17th called that meeting order at four o'clock uh there were no public comments at that meeting we did discuss the framework for the superintendent evaluation which we'll be doing later tonight in the closed session for the 20 2021 school year we did review superintendent's contract because up for renewal and we adjourned at 4 52. so i guess any questions on executive committee we do not have another scheduled meeting at this point all right the contract will come up later correct yes come up later so we'll move that on uh superintendent report we do have the extended covet 19 learning plan for your approval last one looking for a motion i can make it yes i'd like

143to make a motion to approve the extended coven 19 learning plan as presented support moved and supported any discussion i hope this is the last one all those in favor aye opposed motion carry 7-0 uh introduction other uh matters by members of the board anybody have anything for tonight um i just only only that um uh it's related what we were just talking about in some ways but i think it's a separate item um there were a lot of changes um with niola including anti-harassment discrimination policies um we're very well covered from a legal point of view with niola i think but one of the things that um neola writes policy they don't create policy and i think that moving forward there might be other areas in our in our policy that we may need

144to change or that we may need to take a closer look at and and regarding um like the consistency of the application of our our um of the language we use and that we adopt and we just have to i think that we need to be aware of that moving forward and that that's really all everything from athletics to um you know there's a host of others that i've written down but um which i'll share but there's a certain amount of consistency that has to be maintained um and with some of the changes to our harassment and anti-harassment discrimination policy um i think that we'll need to take a closer look at that we are at the um you know we're obligated obviously to handle bullying anti-harassment and discrimination based on state and federal guidelines

145for that so regardless of what we put in our policy it's not we're actually bound to something higher but um the language that was some of the language that's been changed i think is a reflection of the department of education guidelines which are fluid and they don't affect other areas of our policy at least as it was addressed as recommended by neola so that's that's what got those wheels turning in my head is we got to go a little deeper moving forward other matters from board members um i guess i had one just to make everybody aware i was contacted last week or scheduled not contact but scheduled uh my interview with plant moran to start the audit process because the way it starts every year is uh they reschedule 15 20 minutes myself and

146the auditors to just discuss the overall finances in any concern areas uh in the district and uh i believe that wasn't going to be ready for tonight but for the next board package will be the information and and the uh process by which any board member can report to them any concerns that they may have and i know tracy's underway to get ready for a first audit at mason and i believe what they come in september probably okay back in september yep so just let everybody know that's uh that process has started again so any other items by board members when were we discussing the may 10 that will be coming up we'll open a motion after public comment got it just i wasn't going to say anything but i'm going to say something mr

147geiske is retiring am i correct from the high school and i just want to commend him for all of his years of service he helped me immensely by teaching my kids government history all of those good things they bring it home and make me a better person so mr geiske through a ricochet effect i thank him i know we're losing other teachers to retirement but i just want to call him out and say thanks for his years as steady as a rock service especially the time of sort of chaos in our in our world um we need more people like mr guys teaching our kids so thank you any other matters other matters by superintendent no other matters all right we will open up public climate again i think there's still a few that have

148not spoken so again please step up to the microphone and state your name and your address and please try to limit any comments to three minutes if you would and if you've already spoken at the first session you can't speak again so i know you waited this whole time so go ahead hello good evening everybody my name is carmen i live here in mason i will disclose over my address at the end um let me put my glasses i'm blind my name is carmen i'm here using my freedom of speech to voice my concerns as a parent the same freedom speech that's been used by the name the members of this community that wants the repeal of the board 20 to 40. i came to the united states 22 years ago i was born and

149raised in puerto rico i'm bilingual my first language is spanish my second language is english i know what discrimination it feels like firsthand i know what racism resistance is firsthand because it's uh because of color of my skin my cultural background and my accent recently i had to leave my work because of discrimination and resist racism and single out and stuff like that and i'm here speaking up because i think it's not okay to be racist to discriminate against anybody regardless of the color of their skin i'm a minority i believe that people need to learn about other people's culture traditions under history especially of the history is part of our great nation we can rewrite history but we can omit but we can't omit part of history either now with that being said there

150is a push in our community that wants the policy 2 to 40 to be removed pretty much they are saying in order to mention schools an exclusive and social justice aligned the curriculum policy 242 for 20-40 must be repealed in this policy controversial issues connect to the program may be launched by students themselves as long as they're presented in the ordinary course of a classroom instruction and do not disturb the education setting significant significantly well you got it i may not be started by someone outside of school unless the principal have granted his or her prior approval a teacher may not oppress personal opinion during a debate of any difficult topic i believe this policy is in place to protect our children from international visits agendas they claim to they are all about diversity equity

151or protect them from things that are not appropriate in school setting but by removing this protection is allowing teachers to influence the student with their personal beliefs and affiliations they are going to be granted complete control of what is taught in our classroom regardless of what it is we trust our teachers teachers but when teachers are trying to push their personal belief political political expenses questionable material etc we should be very concerned and worried about this we should trust our teachers to moderate responsible discussions in their classroom how can we how can they be able to moderate a responsible responsible discussion when they are trying to push their personal belief for agendas or political abuse that is not being responsible that's indoctrination by eliminating this policy it is opening a dangerous door that will welcome

152extremist ideas and agendas into our schools but that does the sad thing about this is already happening the school district is using some recommendations from the blm books and other materials i want my kid to know our nation history even the ugly part of the history we need to have part of we need to apart from our our history they have been omitted for decades even longer than that that's for sure i'm from puerto rico like i previously stated but our history is part of america history for example did you know that people here in america and even in this town didn't know the puerto ricans are american citizens just like you all they don't know how is the taxation in puerto rico they don't know what is the young's act or how puerto rico

153became usa to the territory or how puerto ricans have voted uh yes three times to become a statehood a support teacher that want to add more to their classes because they want to enrich our children's knowledge with history history and that includes the media part history what can be done if their belief political views get in the way of education i believe we need healthy discussion in class about politics history racism and about current events teaching need to be there to moderate the dialogue between the students the students need to learn to listen each other and come to a common ground and respect each other in the process regardless if they agree with each other or not as support changes there are positive and don't create division among the community community if we repeal the

154policy 2 to 40 we are opening the door to the face it on the race a curriculum the favor of one race over another race which is racist they believe we live in a society made of oppressors and oppressed to a curriculum that is also also explicit also explicit state that all why people are either racist or conflicts of the system of racism because then your privilege that they cannot renounce a curriculum there is a flooding a curriculum that enables children to dictate hiring receiving racism in everything this is a way of looking at the world it's not a way of analyzing the world as it is a curriculum that it calls into question the very foundations of the liberal order including a quality theory and legal reasoning and i quote the defined question is

155whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequality if the excrimination is created equally then it's anti-racist if discrimination is creating inequality then it's racist the only remedy to racism racist discriminations is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination this is from the book how to be an anti-racist by iran candy page nine a curriculum that teaches students to use people by the color of the kin the skin but martin luther king say a look at the day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of the character we also should continue to promote diversity in the concepts of bringing our students together rather than dividing them we as far as need to stay vigilant

156about what the schools are teaching our skills it's our our kids even if the policy 2 to 40 is there to protect our children we still need to stay vigilant let's bring the community together instead of dividing it also segregating it every race has has a history full of hardships sadness but at the same time he freaks with cultural traditions etc that make them unique let's learn everything about them the pretty and the ugliness with our division a tinted agenda i can volunteer my time and help with that no doubt about it i have plenty of ideas how to unite community community through education inclusion and respect you can end racism with racism you can fight hate with hate you can fire with fire you can use fire with fire i love the italian melting

157pot call in america i love this town this town united with united never divided thank you i'll be quick so my name is edward i live at 302 red cedar i'm also a retiree from the united states army 22 years so the other thing i want to say is my daughter read this book in this school i respect the offer the offer starts out he worked hard and yes he experienced racism and all that stuff he's also a black african-american citizen he worked hard to where he get but somehow he lost the the ability to to love everybody if you read the book just read it well i'm going to say is everybody is equal no matter who you are and i will sit here and say i've read histories and everything else and i've

158learned a lot of stuff about history about african americans that i did not know because when i was in school i didn't know but now that i know on everything else hey let's give them the credit that they deserve let's teach it in this school give them the bad and the dark side and yes i'll go with the white bodies white americans hey we've had our dark times we've had our good history and everything else but not every white person is racist or a right white supremacist they're not i believe there is racism in this world i've been all around the world i've even been racism myself for example 9 11 happened i automatically hated muslims but in being in the army i had to work with muslims who worked for me not you know

159work for me we worked together to accomplish the mission and everything else so we had to learn our dues and our don'ts what we do not to disrespect him he learned what do not disrespect me and we all achieved one goal but i will say this united states may been founded on slavery and everything else but don't judge me for what something happened back then despite me saying that some groups will say that i'm racist but i'm not i can't say i'm sorry for what happened to everything else i wasn't there i wasn't born all i could say is 1844 a guy by william garrison and frederick douglass somehow got the debtor talked and everything else and found a way to motivate this country to start the freedom of slavery it took a long time

160and everything else it did african americans still paying for it depends on how who you talk to i'm not going to say where i'm at well there but all i know is we've had a first black president we've had so many senators congress people near the gallows we've had so many black african americans in our military leadership spots platoon sergeants commanders sergeant majors we've i've even met generals that are african-american and they're all wonderful people how do i know because i worked for them they've had some place in my training in my in gaining me knowledge to be successful in the army i've also had a platoon where we was made up of latinos whites and african-americans and we all had to grow together and learn each other in combat in iraq and then we

161had a mission in jordan where a year where everybody said that we weren't in jordan but we was in jordan but i believe that everybody's is equal my only problem with this book and i respect this guy because i can learn because this is the only way besides talking to african americans to learn what they went through this guy was raised pretty much the same time i was except for i was raised in ottawa michigan this guy was raised in queens and then he moved to jamaica uh new york so he had some hard times my dad was from bronx so i understand where this guy came from he had a fight every day walking down his door not knowing if he's going to come back so i get the some of the hatred near

162the gowns but this book also says the white people are the devil i'm not in the devil i'm half puerto rican half white my family is white they're christians they never owned slaves as far as my grandma and my dad and my mom's side never but together we're only strong as a country with everybody here everybody and i believe that african-americans have worked hard to get to where they're at have white people push him back and went backwards yeah there's been times and i'll say it last summer you know you could whatever you want to say and everything else but there's times where like oh here we go again oh why did i why the police officer shoot that guy seven times in the back why do you do that why we gotta shoot to

163kill i'm a firm believer and yes maybe not defund the police but maybe get programs in there to retrain them to get people to help about and all this stuff because we do have crime i'm sorry people break the laws and yes let's bring programs in here into amazing community to help if they need help and everything else help them i mean you guys are smarter than me like if they need help with getting a house a home because i have african-americans in our community near the council and i get along with them they got some good barbecue good barbecue and i bowl in jackson at jack 60 and those guys are fun fun yeah they're loud just like my hispanic wife over here but they're fun it is we could learn from each other

164this country is only good and it's only going to hold strong if we are together and that's it that's all i got to say thank you hello my name is hannah bieber i live at 3543 west kip road um as a caveat i know a lot about a little and that is midwifery because i'm a midwife and i know a little about a lot so i'm just going to give my little two cents there we go um and i've revised this probably 18 times because i get really nervous when things are conflicting because i'm a peacemaker so oh here we go my name is hannah bieber like i said i am a 2011 mason high school graduate i'm 27 years old and i learned about the impacts of systemic racism last year in my master's

165program at the university of michigan to become a certified nurse midwife similar to that of a nurse practitioner only i get to catch babies there are a few facts and figures or studies i would like to share with you that i learned in my program one study published in 2016 showed that around 50 percent of white medical students and residents believe that black people experience less pain than white which leads to an inadequate treatment plan regarding pain management in my field of midwifery this same bias has been shown as an increase in denial of epidurals to women of color who are in labor women of color are also two to four times more likely to die from preventable deaths related to childbirth than white women another significant finding regarding racial disparities is that when cared

166for by white physicians black babies die two times the rate than when cared for by black physicians i'll say that again when cared for by white physicians black babies die two times the rate then when cared for by black physicians when white babies are cared for by black physicians their death rate does not change the american medical association recognized in 2020 that racism is a public health threat and stated as i quote without systemic and structural level change health inequities will continue to exist and the overall health of the nation will suffer looking at this data it is hard for me to deny that there is a deep problem within the healthcare system i see a system that favors white bodies over black and brown i think it is a problem that i learned this

167only one year ago several years after already being a nurse a healthcare provider and unknowingly participating in a system that favors white people and in general people who look like me thin young educated straight cisgender able-bodied and list goes on i wish i could have started having these conversations that some consider controversial regarding race gender equity equality etc during my k-12 education in an age-appropriate way i want policy 2240 repealed so that my children future children i don't have any yet have the opportunity to learn from the information that was withheld for me and use it to make change for the good of everyone this policy being removed or revised i'm not sure however isn't going to fix the disparities that i listed above however i think that it is a step in the right

168direction ensuring that they become part of the past and our children have the opportunity to create a more equitable future there are plenty of other studies that i have done a lot of research on if you are interested in learning about racism in the health care system i'd be glad to support give those to you anyone here to me systemic racism is not a belief it is fact and i know that's controversial but um it's being addressed across the medical system it's huge in literature our entire midwifery conference this year was addressing systemic racism in midwifery and this is evidence-based to address these things and to try to fight them because people are dying mostly more more than um white people black and brown bodies are dying so i come at this from a healthcare

169lens and um i just wanted to share what i can bring to this table in this discussion and i appreciate all of you for listening to us and taking your time on your monday night to go pretty late i thought this was going to get over way later way earlier but anyway thank you very much hi i'm actually here to speak for somebody else my name is laura i live on holt road i have seven grandchildren at this time in the mason school district and just a real quick just because i've been in the medical field 26 years and just total disagreement so anyway this is from susie klingerman good evening board members and attendees i apologize that i'm not here in person but as a single mother my responsibility lies in being a parent

170first i believe that the policy 2240 should remain in effect each teacher brings a new perspective to the subjects they are teaching i believe that my child is there for specific subjects to be taught each subject is taught for specific reasons and should not enter be intermixed with a theory that is so controversial in nature does matt need to have crt introduced no the purpose of math class is to prepare my child for the next grade that will end up being the foundation of a college career and beyond the same with gym class science class etc the basics are not even being met if we introduce a theory that is so controversial the focus would the focus would be on the presentation of said theory into classes that is it has no bearing on as

171an individual with a master's degree i recall a literature course where we would explore minority women in literature it was a course that allowed me to read and explore lives that i normally would not have even thought to one difference between then and today i was not made to feel that my race was superior or that i was racist the same was true when i took a religion took a religion of the world course a modern art course in sociology we were taught that yes there are differences in cultures the experiences that include religion social hierarchy so shittle societal beliefs sorry so societal uh beliefs thus these plus many more make up one's culture when we explore other cultures we learn about each other and ourselves the idea of race is a social construct we

172are all one race with different cultures when looking at history america has a relatively short period of history compared to the rest of the nations in michigan going to mackinac island you learn of the french and indian war if you travel to gettysburg you learn of the most horrific battle of the civil war if you vacation you can learn about pearl harbor the first front of world war ii we can embrace our 400 years of history or we can attempt to change it by allowing theories such as the crt to be introduced by remote removing reminders such as statues or flags it will not erase the past changing it will not make the pain go away but we can utilize our different experiences during these periods in our history in a positive way to bridge

173the gap in our cultures when looking at the tenets of the crt the first is learning the historical content of current ra racial dynamics in the united states is that a negative no it is not when taught by the appropriate individuals would i expect my children to be taught the tenants of crt by their music teacher no but there are certain aspects that can be taught to appreciate another's culture and music class they're learning of other cultures music how it plays a part in their daily lives the symbolism in their music this is no this in no way devalues my whiteness nor does it devalue individuals of color it is a way for us to learn counter storytelling is that a negative not if done in a productive manner that does not include the interpretation

174of another voice or speech by learning of others experience you can move forward has there been historical racism yes there has by many of the various cultures in the u.s my grandparents came from switzerland and italy both my grandfather and my grandmother were first generation born americans their parents have traveled through ellis island my grandmother tells me of being mocked her language was different her skin was olive colored she spoke swiss and french yes she was mocked can i change history and pretend that it did not happen i cannot i can be proud of my grandmother for what she experienced how she rose above and became a respected member of the community addressing racism is something that needs to be done on all sides addressing racism is included in the tenets of the crt directed

175towards whites the mass destruction is in multiple cities over the past year were ways that the looters and riders felt necessary to feel vindicated instead they preyed upon the various cities they live in their neighbors local businesses and resources were affected by the selfish acts of those claiming to be a part of a terrorist group blm according to the fbi domestic terrorism is described as violent criminal acts committed by individuals and or groups to further ideal ideological goals stemming from domestic influences such as those political religious social or environmental nature if burning down city blocks looting stealing in the name of blm aren't examples of violent criminal acts then i do know not know what is america continues to evolve as a nation what we teach our children affects future generations the america that i

176grew up in is no longer there are both positives and negatives of said change we need to embrace all cultures when i say all lives matter am i being racist no if i say blm am i demeaning my puerto rican friend the asian friend at church that helps my children yes i am their lives matter too do they experience the social construct of racism yes it is always a white man or woman that is displaying said racism no it is not we need to accept the fact that any culture can show indifference towards others also the pushing of the agenda of the lgbtq movement onto my child is not appropriate if you are a science teacher math teacher or any other teacher forcing your ideology onto my child is wrong do i care if you

177are homosexual transgender no i do not what i do care about is you bringing your personal beliefs into the classroom do i force my religious beliefs unto others no i do not but i show respect to those that i know are of another belief system and do not push my personal ideology onto others simply said keep your flags literature etc in a social worker's office or an after-school group i will not discriminate against you but i will be respectful by forcing my child to listen to agendas that i do not support is an injustice to my child i do not believe that crt should be force fed to my six-year-old child she will look at a friend and simply say her skin is just a little darker than mine has dark hair like you and

178has hair curlier than mine yes the innocence of a child she looks at rainbows in the sky and giggles because she found one after the rain i believe there are different approaches we can take to unify our schools than utilizing such a controversial theory as crt according to merriam-webster the word task force is a temporary grouping under one leader for the purpose of accomplishing a definite objective would a task force be appropriate for ongoing change according to merriam webster it would not be thank you susan klingerman thank you hi my name is jennifer i'm speaking on behalf of amy and scott davidson i am a mother of three two in school here in mason so thank you all for everything you do um okay from amy and scott we moved to mason eight years ago

179we purposely chose this town we loved that it was a small town with a wonderful school district and a great place to raise our three our three kids and call home we settled in put down our roots and invested in this town we be we believed in it and told everyone what a wonderful school district and town it was over the last year or two we have seen a rapid decline and quick shift to division in the community and schools it it that is something we've watched with sadness there has been division over government politics division over covet views division over race and sexual preference and division over what is best for our children we long for unity and believe that even if our view opinions or values differ from each other they can't that

180unity can happen with kindness and respect for each other and meaningful conversations i wrote each of the board members last week about the recent situation where my daughter's third grade class was indoctrinated with lgbtq values without us knowing without our consent without our permission this was deeply disturbing to us that we were not made aware we believe school is a place for kids to be learning the basic subjects and not a place for controversial topics to be taught we believe sexual identity and different lifestyles are conversations that should be reserved for children and parents to have at home not at school we were very disappointed that there was no value placed on informing parents prior to the teaching our nine-year-old and her classmates were subjected to are these topics important to talk about with our

181kids absolutely but not at school it is our understanding that some want policy 2240 to be removed but i would ask you to please keep it in place it would be inappropriate for teachers to be presenting controversial topics without parental consent my goal in writing this statement is to protect our kids and retain parental rights not surrender them to the school or teachers i am not eager to homeschool or choose another school district but the recent violation of our parental rights has definitely expedited an urgency for us to look at other options we are not the only family in this position there are many who feel the same who feel the same way and are open to living mason school district with respect and kindness scott and amy davidson thank you evening all chad taylor

1821983 laxton road gotta start off with it's great to see everybody's faces for real i'm tired of staring at the zoom screen and just staring at you not knowing how bad i'm trying to read your face and read your eyeballs it's been challenging same thing today it's 8 30 we've covered a gazillion things it was efficient it was awesome to hear 20 240 we couldn't have this conversation in zoom meetings or anything our kids doing the remote learning that we just had fun doing for the last year um how can they do what we just did right now we're educated working class people we know what we want to say we've already learned what we want to learn and we can't even do zoom meetings how do we expect our kids to do zoom learning

183and that ties into everything that i want to talk about tonight is we lost a year of education superintendent mentioned it we got to catch up almost a year ago today we had meetings talking about what we were going to do face-to-face how are we going to fight this world pandemic we had plans about a month and a half later we should shift the gears and we said no we got to do hybrid we got to do remote we got to do high flex so we put it in high gear trying to figure out how we were going to do it what we did find out i hope is we are not good or we are not all good at re remote learning i know personally my children suffered d's and e's if the standard

184is now lower what are these knees they weren't acceptable when i was a kid how can they be acceptable today during the global camp pandemic everybody complained we complained that we had to go remote we complained when we had to go face to face or were getting pushed i think we had some some financial incentives to encourage us to go face to face we complain then i hope we're thinking about the future of this next school year face to face no matter what we have the lessons we have the experience we have the tools to do it we need critical race theory going on we need to have that in our classes i guess we need to focus but we can't do it remotely all this is for not if we're not teaching our kids

185face to face the media reports that lansing schools are exploring remote learning program for the regional areas can we let them lead the way in remote learning can we donate some teachers and some students to that program and have our teachers do what they do best and focus on face-to-face teaching we have the experience and tools no more talk this we can do this safely i don't know if i needed to i could talk to you later but i'd like to hear more about truancy rates let grades compared to our districts and others our failure rates from last year i want to hear a lot less about covid positivity rates and other medical stats that irrelevant to our job is teaching our kids education i personally can tell you this year from two of my

186daughters i've heard your kids are doing great keep up the good work keep up the hard work when i go on to skyward i look at these d's and e's and i wonder has the standards changed i've asked the teachers no we're doing the best we can that's what i like to hear the best we can but i can tell you this the skilled jobs that we deal with day in and day out now the technical jobs that are going to be in demand for us our kids in four to five years um those requirements haven't changed we aren't looking for d's and e's and as a school board and as school educators we need to make sure our kids are ready period lastly i've heard some rumors about the school board voting to approve

187a coveted hazard bonus or something i know it's talked about but i've never heard anything official i was looking i couldn't find anything um where's this money coming from and how much and thanks again for everything that you guys do and i hope to hear back in the next meetings this summer on how successful we're going to be this coming school year face to face thanks anyone else tonight all right i thank everybody for coming and now we're going to kick you out so can i get a motion i get a motion going to close session um where we uh can i get a motion um to approve the may 10th board meeting minutes support who've and supported all right discussion yeah i i guess um i think you're all aware of my concern um

188no question regarding the um no you're talking of your concern tell us the concern uh was the um regarding the hazard duty pay motion that was made i would like to add given the circumstances surrounding that meeting i would like to add to the minutes regarding the hazard duty pay which is pretty extensive there's a quite a bit in here regarding the discussion that took to confirm that the hazard duty pay was um not uh available for use in negotiations that's what we were told and that's what was part of the discussion when we voted on it i just i want there's some confusion and i'd like to clarify that by putting that in the minutes can i can i ask why why that verbage makes a difference um it makes a difference because there

189are some concerns about what was discussed in closed session which i know we can't go into closed session to discuss this tonight so that's as far as i can take it but but for my concerns i i would feel um that it would be important just if we just put it in the public minutes because that was part of the discussion outside of closed session as well that's and that's all i want to put in here it's just that um that as part of that discussion we were told that by using 2021 regular funding it could not be used as part of contract negotiations um i will stay in any way because i wasn't in the meeting so i have no idea i mean i remember the topic being you know being discussed about the

190relation to negotiations i don't recall there being a hard and fast this cannot i recall the discussion certainly in closed session with different directions on it and and but i i disagree with your well in open session i did make it a point that that that's why i voted no um i mean i did vote no that's not why i voted no but i did vote no and i did and i was concerned specifically um about that that was one of my concerns and i brought that up in open session as well but um again so if i recall correctly the concern that you noted was not based off of any verbiage what you vocalized your concern was you wanted clarified what the definition of hazard pay was and why teachers would get hazard pay

191that was what you asked for clarification of in open session when you talked about the use of this as a negotiation tool it was discussed that it was a completely separate entity that this was going to be full-time staff as of may 10th and that was it it was clarified it was done your your argument won't be but when we went back and open had nothing to do with negotiations uh well i i mean i wrote down my points that i went through but if if we can't if if if we're not willing to put that clarification in open in here then you know i do think it's something that we need to discuss as far as reopening um the minutes from the closed session to make sure because everything in that closed session was

192was you know obviously negotiation related and if we don't put everything that was discussed if we if we you know i'm just trying to tie up loose ends that's all because i think that again given the circumstances surrounding that meeting where we never we stopped screaming it was wasn't recorded um it wasn't on the agenda um those are all things that concern me and i just simply want because i'm still confused about um that topic and how it was utilized um and the basis for which we we passed it i want that to be your concern here but procedurally i mean in the past i don't recall us ever having included in the minutes an individual board member's uh justification for their vote no this isn't this isn't me i'm i'm saying you know we're

193talking about how this was presented to us hazard pay employees working partial school year of their payment prorated employees and what i'm suggesting is to put additional information that was presented to us in here just like the rest of this and that point being i mean there was a lot presented to us but that specific point i think is particularly relevant given the circumstances no there was discussion in open session after the motion was made and i i asked that point and they confirmed that in open session did you have a recommended sentence or two to add and those of us that were there the five of us that were there can see if we recall it that way the only thing i remember maybe you won't like this part but i i think i

194remember you saying what hazard are we paying them for um yeah i did yes i mean that i don't i don't know that you would want that that added to the minutes but that's the only thing that really stood out because i was i was shocked to hear that but um but what would you recommend to to add yeah that well like the hazard i was asking for clarification i mean what what what is the hazard how do we define the hazard um and that that's a perfectly reasonable question you want that question added to the minutes no i don't i didn't ask for that i'm suggesting that we add one sentence that says hazard duty pay utilize 2021 general funds and cannot be used for negotiations just just add that i did i do

195not agree with adding that statement i would approve as is is there i guess then i mean i mean i'll be honest the reason i'm concerned is because we're not making any account for this and i've heard um you know there's no record of us discussing this in you know anywhere else because we have to approve the minutes in order for it to be publicly posted so once we approve these minutes and then it goes publicly posted closed session meetings are never publicly posted that minutes right here as presented for the hazard duty pay i made o'connor approve seconded that paragraph would then be publicly posted as is correct so that those folks that worked the entire regular schedule for the 2021 school year they're that that's it i don't understand why have you have

196is there concern that i'm concerned that there's significa that there's particularly relevant information that's left out of our the recordings the the record of our meeting on on may 10th that i think is relevant to specific questions that i've fielded questions that i concern and concerns that i have okay so can you state this what would you like added to it yeah i would like to add one sentence that says hazard pay will be utilizing general 2021 school year general funds and cannot be utilized as part of contract ongoing contract negotiations who said that um two of our administrators that are here this evening two two two mention that and maybe one in open session i think there and i don't know if it was open or closed session but i think there was a

197question about what fiscal year the funding would be um coming from and i think i clarified that that it was current year um and that uh there was a question around bargaining bargaining for future years um clearly from future year um budgets so um there was a distinct line between those those two topics i don't have any objection to trying to add i think what you're asking in the way you said it i wouldn't have an objection to that either i still don't see a purpose i i guess i don't know why it needs to be in there why well the purpose i think okay i'll be i'll be frank the purpose i think is to um reconcile what was discussed in closed session ver you know with what we actually discussed and what was

198um we went into closed session to discuss the purpose the purpose of close session though is that it remains closed we can't introduce things from closed session in here regardless and we're still in open session and recording right now correct but i but i wouldn't i wouldn't even brought this up this evening if if the if that particular point was not made um in open session because i asked that specific question when we went into open session discussions so while i i also don't understand um why um i'll stick by i'm okay with adding a sentence or two if mr brooks can propose it i i'm not i don't understand why but i also don't object because what he's saying is true um just we don't normally make books we make you know condensed versions

199in our minutes um but if that satisfies your request i don't object to it i know unfortunately a bunch of us weren't we're here for the end too budget what's that right that that's fine to me to me but the salient point here is that we um i guess i would ask um to confirm this that they use the the implementation or the passing of hazard duty pay had no bearing on our contract negotiations i mean is that something that we can discuss in i don't know what the content was guess whether or not the teachers appreciated it when they negotiated i mean that would be circumstantial evidence whether or not they were appreciative of that well i would concur i would agree with what mr brooks said in the minutes of the meeting what

200happened beyond the minutes of the meeting i don't know what was stated was this has been paid would not be part of that it would not be part of correct me if i'm wrong but that's what i what i recall so those two statements right right right it was in independence well that that's clear but it can't be used as part of that or at the time we were under the understanding that it could not be used as part as a as a bargaining uh component but there's two statements i think you're looking for michael and i think we've somehow somebody's got to write them down but i think there's those two pieces what budget year and the fact that they weren't being used that they're not that they were not it was not to

201be clear though you're not looking for a statement that it's not part of negotiations you're looking for a statement that it was specifically withheld um i'm not looking for that to either of those statements i'm simply looking well yes that that that it was not withheld but it's not it wasn't um that it can't be used yet there was discussion on this in closed session we may need to enter closed session to resolve this i i don't know i can tell you without a doubt that the general public is completely confused by this discussion here here's the clarifying point okay my original intention was to remove this for consent agenda so that we could go and go into closed session to discuss this that being said the only aspect of this that concerns me that

202could still be addressed in open session is what we discussed in open session at that meeting and i and unfortunately we didn't continue recording we turned off the streaming we were no longer recording at that point so my i i made it a specific point to bring that issue up in open session regarding the availability of hazard pay being used as a negotiating point because that influenced my no vote because it you know it it would have made a difference to me okay i would like to make a motion to amend the minutes from the may 10th regular meeting regarding hazard duty pay to include the following sentence okay i mean up to that point it's blah blah to amend the minutes for the may 10th regular meeting to include a set this to include

203the following hazard duty pay will be used uh uh we'll use school year 2021 budget year 2021 funding budget and funding okay and cannot be used as part of bargaining negotiations support yes correct all right any further discussion mr brooks is that an accurate depiction of what was said in open session i do not recall what was said in open versus closed sessions specifically um i do know the direction that i left the meeting with um and and i was clear that this uh one-time payment would come out of the current fiscal year and and that all bargaining um that we were engaged in at the time was for future fiscal years any further discussion um all in favor aye aye opposed all right and abstain bye now we need a motion to prove the

204minutes i thought there were three eyes there were three eyes oh yeah okay i'm thinking four all right passes all right so now so that's it we're ministering wait um you don't need you don't need yeah i wasn't sure about that so now we need a motion to approve the amended minutes i believe that motion is already on the table yeah dwayne moved and mumbi supported okay well now i'm confused yeah that's right because that was the first one okay so you just need to call for any more discussion and then vote any more discussion all in favor of proving the minutes the may 10th meeting as amended everybody's in support opposed amended minutes uh pass 7-0 cabin we're now going to be entering in a closed session so just give me a heads up

205so can i get a motion to head into closed session so moved support we've been supporting got your roll call yes yes evans yes kelly yes yes yes all right we are officially back in open session at 9 31. can i get a motion please i'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the closed session as presented support we've been supported any further discussion all in favor um aye sorry i'm reading through my notes here uh opposed motion carries 7-0 like to make a motion to approve the mdmea tentative agreement as presented support movement supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the food service tentative agreement as presented support moved and supported any discussion all those in favor

206aye aye opposed or she carries seven zero i get a motion to enter back into closed session for the purpose of uh superintendent evaluation so moved support group is supported roll call please mr o'connor yes mr beebe yes mr kelly yes mr dwayne yes mr creamer yes mr mummy yes and myself yes all right board is officially entering into closed session at 9 32. my 10 59 back in all right we are back if anybody's with us we're back in open session at 10 59. um i'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the closed session is presented support movement supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye aye opposed ocean carry 7-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the super superintendent evaluation as presented support we've been

207supported any further discussion on the evaluation all in favor aye aye aye opposed aye no no i i don't approve of it of the evaluation yeah okay six zero or six one i'd like to make a motion to approve the superintendent contract as presented support moved and supported as far as discussion allow me to go through and highlight the changes from a prior contract obviously the dates have been changed throughout the contract reflect a new three-year time frame and we go to section four of the contract has added new base pay ranges we only had two years before with a year left open because we didn't adjust it last year during during the covet um and so this year has the three years built out again and so 1695 was for already from the prior

208contract correct and then the numbers the amounts for 2223 and 23 24 our new proposed numbers and uh we updated section 5 because the deferral uh to the plan is ten percent so that ten percent reflects the new baseline numbers there was also [Music] in section five right was it five there was a reference to coven uh days that was been removed from the contract correct and then the only other change is in number six um there were uh so this retirement bonus uh being proposed changed it was originally uh only in there at 20 percent after 10 years completed in the district we allowed a new category of fifteen percent of base pay after completing just eight years kept the twenty percent after ten years and then added a higher range twenty five percent

209if two more years are complete so after 12 years with the district so ron wants to leave a little early it just gets a little less he wants to stay longer with us that would be good so that was i think in essence all the changes from the prior year or prior contract correct that's their only it's only changes but as far as wording and language and the rest of it is all exactly the same so that's what came out of uh executive committee so any i guess any questions the um the five percent annual increases are on the high end obviously for typical increases um i guess my my only concern looking at this a three year at this point is that we're coming off a you know a year and a discussion we

210just had where we don't have information available to us about you know how we did this year um and obviously a contract with increasing compensation is going to be based on you know how we feel about the performance of that of that person um so i i guess i'm i'm not and i don't know if anybody else shares this i just think that a five percent you know increase each year for the next two years seems um seems like a lot to be putting out there yes as you know as a member of the executive committee i strongly support it i'm confused by the statement you know we just came off a i mean your vote to not support the evaluation that you were a part of confuses me but we came off as six

211to one vote of an evaluation well i'll clarify why i voted i didn't support the evaluation i mean i and this goes back to two years ago when i first dove into this evaluation process i took that document literally i took that process and i and i respected it and again this evening i didn't feel comfortable with and i didn't feel convinced that as a group you know i'm looking at these these things that are supposed to be taking place in a highly effective category and yet i've never seen any processes or or activities or results that are anywhere close to being in the highly effective area because in that's a big jump from effective to highly effective because it implies a lot of things that aren't happening in this community again that's not necessarily

212a knock on ron it's it's a it's a consequence of of no no school district i mean it's it's the ideal situation okay i'm just explaining you said you had no idea why i'm explaining why um and and for the same reason i'm uncomfortable with and we spent a lot of time in that discussing the lack of information that's available to us right in terms of in terms of evaluating what we did as a school district this year collectively you know um and so i'm i'm using i'm being consistent i mean it's this i have the same concerns here um you know i i would rather be making a three you know i'd rather do something similar to last year the last contract in that um before we jump to three-year extension of a contract

213i would feel much better uh making these decisions when we had more information for the record it's actually a one-year extension not a three-year three-year contract a one-year extension well it's true but it's okay it's actually technically a two-year that we're offering now we're offering two additional years that we hadn't clarified prior to we hadn't clarified one of the years before yeah and i would say that the pay ranges are consistent with districts throughout the county perhaps um as long as raises are consistent with what we're seeing and there's some packages that are bigger plenty so um you know that when we discussed it went through all the details we didn't think it was out of line with with other districts and again coming out of evaluation was highly effective um you know that was

214the board's take on it so well and i i um as the third member of the executive committee um i can just say that having having gone through the last year and a half i just can't imagine what it would have been like to have some green new different superintendent that wasn't you know intimately familiar with our district and our staff and and our student needs i think we're very fortunate to have an experienced leader and experienced staff and i value that a lot and i think i hope it's reflected in in this contract and that ron feels valued by by us because um you're a big part of the reason why we we survived and in some cases thrived the last year and a half and it wasn't i don't want to do it

215again but i'm glad you were a part of it thank you um further discussion all those in favor uh can we get a motion to adjourn right support we support it all in favor aye aye opposed we are past the 7-0 we are adjourned at 1109. thanks everyone so we have to go push a button right you