Board of Education Regular Meeting No. 1533

001the lindbergh schools board of education meeting number 1535 is now called the order meetings are now fully open and in person as well as live stream on the district's youtube channel uh and just as a reminder to everyone in attendance and according with the st louis county cobin 19 guidelines fully vaccinated individuals are not required to wear face covering which includes the group up here and face coverings are still required for all unvaccinated individuals so 2.0 do we have any additions deletions corrections we do not okay uh so approval of the agenda do i have a motion to prove the agenda as presented so moved questioned by jen second by mike or matt mike all in favor aye opposed motion carries 7-0 uh and now we will stand as you're able for the pledge of

002allegiance and i'd like to call up our ece students who are president forrest and amelia cardwell if you'd like to come up front and help us with the pledge there and they're adorable if you can't see them you guys ready turn and chase your audience i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right great job and now we'll move to 4.0 which tonight we are recognizing ece a couple of our fine students there and gifted education as well so first i'd like to introduce dr charlene ziegler principal at ece and she will present our ece recognitions okay we have our teacher of the year and our support staff of the year

003and we also have two of our pre-k students who are headed off to kindergarten and they represent ece very well first of all i'm going to talk about tracy austin she's our support staff member tracy has been at ec almost as long as i have since 1996 and she's served in many positions over the years and has done an amazing job in every position she's currently the lead facilitator in the two and three-year-old classrooms and what i consistently hear when we have visitors in the building when we used to have visitors in the building is how amazed they are at how quickly her two-year-olds learn how to do those things that we do at school to follow directions and sit in a group and to be independent she does an amazing job of that and

004we're really lucky to have her with us she has a great relationship with her families and her students and she's certainly a leader in our building tracy will you come up and thank you for all that you do for our youngest learners we really appreciate it we'll get a picture real quick oh you want me okay and next is our teacher of the year katie tharina katie has also been with us for a very long time but not quite as long since 2008 katie started with us as a part-time staff member and has continued with us over the years she teaches in a three and four year old classroom three and four year old classrooms are pretty tough and katie has the energy to keep up with those guys she is constantly doing some sort

005of dancing or action movements with her kiddos her kiddos love her she's great with active learning and supporting students to help build their confidence she sees all of her students as the individuals that they are helps them grow make friends and become leaders in their play scenarios her room is always doing something fun and her students and families love her katie will you come up and finally last but not least forrest and amelia cardwell come on up guys we have the whole cardwell family here the cardwell family is an ece family we've had the cardwells with us for eight nine years through all four kids forests and amelia are in the hippo room um they were together this year and i'm sure that they loved being together miss janice would have loved to be here

006tonight but she was unavailable so forest and amelia are headed to kindergarten at concord and they are representing ece for us tonight so i asked them earlier what they were looking the most forward to for kindergarten and do you remember your answer amelia recess recess boris do you have another answer for us what are you looking forward to in kindergarten is it recess recess seems to be the consensus and the older sisters i think have helped them out with this all right well thank you forrest and amelia for coming here tonight for us and being our ambassadors so here's this for you forest thank you and amelia this is for you and thank you for being hang on i got something else for you amelia of course i got something else now you guys may

007have to grow into these a little bit but we got you some flyer t-shirts that's a tough act to follow right there so now i would like to introduce teresa bednarick she's the gifted education coordinator and she will present for gifted education tracy thank you for your continued support of gifted education at lindbergh i'd like to start with recognizing our support staff person of the year for a 2019-20 and that's mrs kathy page so if you could come on up we're not roasting you so it'll be fine so okay so kathy has been with the district for 27 years and currently serves as the gifted department administrative assistant i'd like to share a few things that members from our department shared regarding kathy's hard work and commitment to the gifted program kathy does so much

008for the entire gifted program i don't know how we would function as a group without her she's our go-to person for any questions or help that we need she really is the hub of the gifted program she's amazing kind friendly helpful and always willing to step up for whatever needs to be done her focus is on our children and she constantly works to make sure that they have everything they need she does the same for our teachers and her support makes our job easier and improves the opportunities for all students personally i'm so fortunate to work with kathy every day she knows the history of our program and uses that knowledge to help guide the program toward a promising future she is present physically mentally and emotionally and so reliable and finally she knows that

009play and fun are important she's always willing to give my fun ideas or a try even if they're a little bit weird and i ask her to dress up as a gnome but we're also grateful to have her as part of the gifted program so thank you mrs kathy page kathy congratulations and again we have a certificate and a gift certificate to our online spirit i know i think there's one you can get an adult [Applause] and for our 2019-20 teacher of the year i'm proud to introduce dr mike kuhn if you'd like to come up [Applause] i'll move back a little bit but okay so mike has been with lindbergh schools for 29 years most recently serving as the elementary leap gifted teacher and gifted department testing coordinator we are happy and sad to

010announce that mike just recently retired but we know that his influence on the gifted department will be long-lasting these are a few things his colleagues said about him that speak volumes to the impact he has had on lindbergh gifted students mike is a trusted colleague he values interpersonal relationships and has strong connections with students parents co-teachers and others in the district he models the importance of being a lifelong learner and regularly seeks out and shares resources and ideas to supplement and enhance our curriculum he develops and provides engaging courses and lessons to meet the diverse needs of gifted learners he's an effective communicator and reflective practitioner he uses his vast experience and continues to involve as a teacher and pushes himself to grow in pedagogical knowledge and practice they said a lot mike never backs

011down with dealing with a challenge or a difficult conversation he put students first while acting with empathy and professionalism and on a personal level in my role as testing coordinator mike has been such an asset to me as i took on this role as gifted program coordinator his guidance patience and insight have been invaluable mike carries those skills to the work he does with his students he teaches them to understand their giftedness and helps them develop strong self-efficacy i'm very thankful to have to learn from him in the past two years thank you dr kuhn all right so congratulations first of all to all the recipients it's it's so great when we see the work of the amazing educators and you know the students and staff and frankly that's what we're all here for so

012congratulations again to each and every one of you well deserved and with that i will allow you a few minutes here we'll take a little break so you can leave and not um yeah you can go straight out that door so we'll take a couple minute break and allow you guys to leave and enjoy the rest of your evening thank you all right so we'll move now to 5.0 which is consent resolutions and commendations we have three consent resolutions this month 5.0101 which is teacher of the year dan doherty from lhs 5.0 102 support staff person of the year which was jessica franklin the district league nurse and 5.0103 which is uh the resolution for the graduation class of lindbergh high school so do i have a motion to approve the resolutions honoring teacher of

013the year support staff person of the year and graduating class of lindbergh high school so moved motioned by kathy second by mike all in favor say aye aye aye aye post motion passes 7-0 that'll take us to 6.0 which is citizen comments regarding agenda items uh and we do have a few here uh and before we get to that we do have one item that people are speaking about which is an agenda item when we received questions and comments from the public about under item 9.09 which includes a contract for professional learning with core collaborative so before we bring the speakers up i just want to address this to the entire community the facilitators of this learning are floyd cobb and john cranapple who authored a book called belonging through a culture of dignity these

014individuals have spent many many years studying and implementing equity work and our administrative staff has dedicated significant time and i've heard about it and seen it researching and vetting their approach so what they appreciate and what we all appreciate about the core collaborative is their approach has evolved over time so crown cobb and cron apple openly admit that traditional approaches to equity and inclusive work including critical race theory are outdated by contrast their book explores what it means to support a school culture where every student feels a sense of dignity and belonging and every student feels equally included they enforce the importance of building meaningful student relationships which is extremely important and they focus on that so all of us on the board we care deeply about lindbergh students and what to give them every

015possible tool to succeed every one of them we want every single student to feel appreciated validated accepted and treated fairly in their schools and in our community so that's all what i have to say about that so now we'll hear citizen comments regarding topics that were on the agenda when i call your name please come forward repeat your name if if you don't mind and the agenda item you will speak about we will limit it strictly tonight to three minutes when you come up here we should be able to uh put the clock here on the board uh we will take any comments under advisement and respond at a later date so we will start with let's see here we have limp is that okay right so mackie randleman yeah she's going to speak on

016the core collaborative matthew randleman um earlier today the board the board and i had emailed communications where i raised serious concern of this new program also being crt thankfully the president mr shamaya shamia responded back and explained to me that lindbergh will not implement crt program so mr shamia thank you for clarifying this to me earlier as you can see dedication of my children is very important for me i found this district nine years ago on schooldigger.com while we were still in israel we searched for a house to rent in this district according to that academic excellence i am grateful for the best education that i could provide for my children i came across the video of core collaboration where mr chronopol mentions that ap classes are part of traditional school culture where students could

017feel excluded this comment might be a personal opinion and not in the program that lindbergh purchases but i would like to clarify that we are here in this district for the best education um i would like to the district to confirm that it will it will not eliminate ap owners and challenge classes to me it is elimination of academic diversity we all look different we all have different abilities skills interests and needs schools should meet the students where they are and bring each one of them up schools should teach students to honor their classmates although they look different or have different abilities i would like to ask the border board to provide the actual curriculum of the training the phases plan or also oversight committee of parents from different different groups would guarantee transparency after

018what we went through with eec and identity activity i would like the district to provide the transparent information as much as possible for our community members maybe it might be wise to postpone the vote until such transparency is achieved thank you okay next uh and i just want to repeat if uh you if you're speaking on the same topic and you don't have uh some sort of different perspective uh you can let us know but we'd appreciate if you are speaking on the same or similar topic just bringing a fresh perspective to the podium so next would be martha duchamp also on core collaborative thank you i am a lifelong learner so i take responsibility to educate myself on issues where my understanding is weak which is how i came to read this book cynical

019theories how activist scholarship made everything about race gender and identity and why this harms everybody it gave me perspective on the cultural phenomenon of social justice theory and allowed me to read the proposal from core collaborative in a new light especially given that john crown apple's approach focuses on social justice social justice theory has evolved from its roots in post-modern scholarship and academia to social activism and finally to its current status as a full-fledged belief system that has thus far avoided vigorous debate in part due to the social stigma of challenging its tenets and asks instead that we take its assertions on faith the authors of the book point out that quote because the social justice movement is not officially a religion and because genuine social justice aims are in keeping with anti-discrimination legislation it

020has been allowed to bypass the usual barriers to imposing one's belief system on others as liberals with a small l we must object to this imposition and defend people's right to disbelieve in social justice without incurring any form of punishment while all public institutions and organizations have a right to require their students employees or users to refrain from discrimination and uphold equality they should not be able to require an affirmation of the creed of social justice while reading the contract i was struck by how much the section on leadership and outcomes resembled the structure of a religious organization with its own disciples preachers church gospel and faith the contract isn't so much a proposal for professional development as it is a proposal to evangelize lindbergh school's employees in social justice teaching just recently the district

021was challenged on its use of sex education materials provided by thrive a religiously affiliated organization what implications does this previous challenge in the district's response have for the contract with core collaborative a company aligned with social justice belief systems popular culture's new religion social justice syria spawned a billion dollar industry supporting diversity equity and inclusion training no doubt there's lots of money to be made in imposing the social justice belief system in institutions but the question for this board is whether spending 47 thousand dollars on core collaborative contract is the highest and best use of taxpayer funds please consider tabling this vote until after you've had a chance to read this book gainer will regain a more robust understanding of the origins and implications of social justice theory and learn about alternative prescriptive solutions that

022rely less on dogma and more on scientific and practical methods thank you thank you martha [Applause] next speaker is kayla vaughn i hope i said that right social studies curriculum on communism yes um thank you um my name is kayla vaughn and my son attended lindbergh schools um in the pegs program and received a wonderful education and i appreciate that and he did learn a lot about social justice as a student here and i'm grateful for that and i'm trying to get my head around all these terms that are being thrown around because to me it's pretty simple it's like do we want to have children educated about the truth we have a lot of things that have happened in our history in this country that um are not pleasant but they are true i

023grew up not in this locality but in a place in the 1950s and 60s in the deep south i no longer had my accent because i wanted people to take me seriously when i came up here but i want to tell you that it's only been as an adult and as a retired adult with time to read that i've learned about literal massacres that happened practically in my neighborhood post reconstruction era i've learned a lot of information that i did not learn in school you know and i understand why you know because i grew up during a time that you know our social studies teacher talked about communists hiding under every bed our social studies our american history text where i went to school a public school was masters of deceit by j edgar hoover

024it was a travesty i experienced a propagandistic public education there's no excuse for that today okay there's no excuse we know what kind of things happened in our history do we want to hide this from the children do we want to hide facts do we want to hide history because it i mean that's ridiculous we want our children educated so that they don't make these sorts of mistakes so that they know the kinds of things you can't build for the future without learning from the past these things happened they did you know we're not talking about dwelling on it to make people feel bad we're talking about educating children so that they know what happened in this country's history so i would really encourage you not to be hoodwinked by a bunch of non just

025googly talk about people being upset about changing the curriculum i mean teach the kids what they need to learn all right uh our next speaker okay if we get the hold up pause just a little here for our next speaker kathy lewis same topic the social studies curriculum yeah i moved to the lindbergh school district after my kids were out of high school so my kids didn't go to school here but i do live in the lindbergh school district and i was a teacher for 36 years and i feel like it's so critically important for diverse voices to be heard and i you know as i look around the room i just see so such a majority of white faces and i feel like all voices need to be heard and i feel like that

026teachers need to have some freedom in their curriculum because these teachers teachers are educated to be able to broaden people's perspectives so that we can learn from each other's experiences and learn from history and learned what has really happened i didn't learn about the japanese internment camps until i was an adult i didn't learn about juneteenth until i was an adult i didn't learn about the tulsa massacre until i was an adult i didn't learn about the east the riots in east st louis until i was an adult and i i continue to read too and i am so grateful to the people who are writing both children and adult books on history in the united states so that we can have a critical perspective on what happened here and have discussions with diverse voices

027so that's really what i'd like to say thank you kathy and uh our last uh agenda item speaker is dennis i don't have a last name here on uh 8.02 the social studies curriculum as well is dennis here he might be in the hall still kayla kayla's going over give her seat up yes okay perfect thank you all right so again i want to thank you everyone who spoke for coming tonight and addressing the board and it uh we will respond to everyone's uh comments and at this time we'll move back further with the business portion which 7.0 is communications 7.01 is calendar of events so board secretary christie watts all righty so there's not a lot going on school is not in session um starting june 11th our district offices will be closed on

028fridays through july june 14th high school summer school begins june 30th we're having a special meeting for the board of education at 10 at 10 a.m it is here and then for the july 4th weekend july 5th the district office is closed as well our next board meeting will include a workshop the workshop will be starting at 4 30 our meetings on the 13th starting at 4 30 and then our regular board meeting will follow at 7 00 and both meetings are open to the public if anyone would like to attend i think that's it perfect thank you uh 7.02 is the time when any board member can essentially report on any meetings they've attended whether virtually or in person those being state meetings other meetings parent group meetings uh anything related to the business

029that we do here so if anybody has anything they'd like to talk about so last month i attended the st louis school board's community learning or the sorry professional learning community meeting which was a group of around 38 regional board members within the area meeting to talk about ways that we can collaborate together to do what's best for all of our schools and all of our students and so it was just an opportunity for all of the school board members to come together and learn from one another and a lot of the things that we spoke about were current legislation and moving forward kind of post covid and what that looks like in our schools and just really keeping ourselves informed to understand especially with the legislative legislation that's impacting public schools in a way

030that we can come together within a region to um to just protect our public schools and and the systems and the students within them and so just looking at unifying efforts for advocacy and it was really great to see so many board members within our region that just really care about students and really care about the schools and i'm excited to continue learning from all of them so thanks good stuff thank you uh anyone else kathy yeah i just wanted to publicly thank especially since dr cochran is here for a fantastic graduation i know it's uh different than we've had in the past but it was great and thank you to dr lake and all of the personnel who were involved in there it was a wonderful evening thank you it certainly was thank you

031anybody else okay we'll move to 7.03 which is announcements we do have one announcement regarding our board advisory committee and applications for those in dr link sure so about three years ago we established board advisory committees to engage our community and our work in the district to be open and transparent um when this board interviewed me except for megan she's new um that was that was a a priority for them to engage our community to listen to our community and so we created uh five board advisory committees that have patrons on them have teachers on them have students on them they meet pretty regularly six to seven times a year and they really guide and help us with our work these conversations that you are here speaking tonight about publicly there are parents and teachers

032and folks sitting there having conversations and we don't make decisions in a vacuum we make them very public because that's what we want and so i would encourage you that these opportunities to be on these board advisory committees applications will come out in july and then we'll select those and get those new committees set up it's a two-year commitment of service so that way we can kind of get some momentum with people we don't turn the entire group of the advisory over it's about half the advisory group every other year and so we've we've been very pleased with that work over the last three years since we've been here about really getting more involvement with our community and making sure more people know what we're doing and why we're doing it so mike anything on

033that no yeah well i will reinforce in what i said earlier there's other ways to get involved and this is an exceptional way to get involved i we've all up here been part of these committees and you know we appreciate the residents parents whomever that get involved and participate and provide their input because it's it's valuable for the district and it's a really great learning process for all those people to get involved especially for the first time so i encourage anyone to to apply and get involved where you can uh 7.04 review of upcoming board of education meeting agendas again board secretary christy watts all right so we're going to review those meetings we just talked about the next board of education meeting is scheduled for 10 am on june 30th and our discussion topic

034will be the 2021-22 budget so we'll be voting that in on june 30th at 10 a.m in july as we talked about before the 13th is starts with a workshop and that is where we will have our conversations about the district's equity work we will have floyd cobb and john crown apple from core collaborative here talking to us and they're the authors of the book that mike showed you earlier belonging through a culture of dignity following that workshop we will go into session for our regular meeting at 7 00 pm and on there we have three for the record reports library media services title 1 evaluation in the transportation program evaluation items will also be presented to the board seeking approval to include approval of minutes human resource personnel report financial items and then our

035board of education calendar events for the 21-22 year again all these meetings are open to the public and you're more than welcome to attend perfect thank you 7.05 we have no board member appointments that takes us to 7.06 which is i'm sure why everybody has attended tonight the msba board report uh which we will now watch the june report [Music] hello everyone and welcome to the missouri school boards association's board report for the month of june we thank you for the opportunity to share some news and information during a few minutes of your board meeting we begin with a look at the recently completed regular session of the missouri general assembly a session that included the passage of a bill establishing the state's first ever tax credit voucher program the bill initially authorizes 25 million

036dollars in tax credits for donations to what's called an education assistance organization that would provide scholarships to students attending home private virtual or public schools msba strongly opposed the bill for allowing taxpayer dollars to be used to pay fees and tuition to private or home schools that are not accountable to the public despite that disappointing vote there were some successes during the session including the defeat of legislation that would have expanded charter schools beyond saint louis and kansas city and attempts to move school board elections to the november general election date msba associate executive director for advocacy mike reed says school board member contacts with legislators made a difference on those and other issues and and i really appreciate all of our members going out and hammering their representatives and their senators about that bill

037and in fact hammering them on the esa bill after the esa bill passed the house i was told by more than one representative you know that's it we're not going to pass another education bill because we don't want to be hammered by our constituents so our people our members did a great job in getting the word out we just need to keep holding representatives and sender's feet to the fire to make sure when they say they're representing education and they they're trying to help your district make sure that they are msba's positions on state and federal education issues are determined by the delegate assembly that will be meeting this coming november if your school board has a position statement on an issue you would like to submit to the advocacy committee for consideration you can

038do so the advocacy committee reviews those proposals and makes recommendations to the delegate assembly that determines msba's positions on the issues the deadline for submitting a new or revised position statement is september 1st economic development tax abatements given to businesses cost missouri public school districts more than 130 million dollars a year in fiscal year 2019 according to data collected by a group called good jobs first msba has advocated for many years to reform tax abatements that have a significant impact on school district revenue including allowing local voters the opportunity to opt out of tax abatement projects impacting funding for public schools and giving school boards veto power over their portion of any tax abatement project good jobs first executive director greg leroy tells us that rather than granting tax abatements investing in schools is the

039smart economic development strategy if you disinvest your public sector and obviously at the top of the list is schools but it also means infrastructure and parks and quality of life and public safety now with the pandemic if you disinvest the public sector you make it hard to attract reinvestment in the private sector right because if you're expecting to attract companies with good jobs in the information age technology now you got to have great schools you're not going to attract families to transfer into an area with marginal schools for example or marginal quality of life leroy urges school boards to advocate for their revenue sources i think that school board leaders are uniquely positioned to become business climate crusaders for missouri i think you can make a very compelling case that by defending funding for schools

040and in protecting the quality of your schools by protecting your funding base you can grow the state's economy better than giving away the store good jobs first is a non-partisan non-profit group that promotes accountability in economic development it's no secret that teachers are the biggest school-based factor in student success and the single most influential component of an effective school and it's also no secret that recruiting and retaining teachers remains a significant challenge for school districts throughout missouri and the nation that's especially true as we emerge from the covet 19 pandemic to help address the issue the department of elementary and secondary education has announced a 50 million dollar investment to grow missouri's teacher workforce that money is available through federal covet 19 relief funds deci will make ten thousand dollar grants available to school districts

041to establish or expand grow your own programs that encourage high school students to consider teaching as a career along with grants to implement strategies designed to improve teacher retention we recently spoke to a graduating senior who plans to become a teacher marion benion from the camdenton school district i've loved being at school and just experiencing that i've had a lot of opportunities being able to teach other people and being able to help other people reach their full potential has just been really insightful to me just helping people find their passions is just what i've been really focused on and that's what i want to do marion was among the students who participated in a signing ceremony for those graduating seniors in camdenton who are pursuing a college degree in education msba encourages missouri students to

042consider pursuing a career in education make your plans now to attend the 2021 msba annual conference in cooperation with the missouri association of school administrators to be held november 4th through 7th in kansas city the event will once again feature more than 100 sessions and workshops many presented by school leaders from districts throughout the state all in our new location at the kansas city convention center registration information for the conference will be posted on the msba website and don't forget the 2021 safe schools and colleges forum sponsored by msba's center for education safety that will be held this year on november 4th in conjunction with the annual conference in kansas city that's it for this month's edition of the msba board report thanks for allowing us to have some time at your board meeting and

043so long from columbia [Music] all right so 8.0 is special reports this is when we get our cabinet updates uh regarding the committee meetings that they uh chair so joelle i think you have a finance meeting yes we did have a finance committee meeting that's held the week before the board meeting where we have members of our committee that have made application and are really in the finance world come look at our board items prior to the board receiving the agenda packet we have board members on that committee as well it just is a preempt to be coming to the board for official at this meeting this was a busy month for our finance it is the end of the fiscal year and the beginning of starting to get ready for the next so we

044had quite a few bids some construction bids some change orders and the committee reviewed each one of those we go through all the items and this month i took an item that i'm planning to bring to the next board meeting to get their input even earlier um so that's what that means about it went well all right thank you and dr mckinney hr hr did not meet this month we did uh email out the personnel report but we are scheduled to meet on july 8th which is the thursday before the july board meeting we'll resume our meetings then thank you so 8.02 we have a curriculum update it's the limerick high school social studies curriculum related to communism and dr zagora lee thank you well thanks for the opportunity tonight to share the work of

045our excellent social studies teachers recently we received communication and resources from a group called victims of communism and thought that we'd take this opportunity to share the work that we do and share it through a lens of how our social studies curriculum is structured um and in particular how we can take a singular concept like communism and really show our community how it is that that we engage our students so i'm excited to highlight the important work our teachers do to ensure that our graduates become advanced critical thinkers next slide please i thought it was important to start with why we teach social studies so what you see here are what we call lifelong learning goals these are goals that were drafted by our social studies teachers in grades 6 through 12. these have been

046in existence for a handful of years and if you have students in our schools they've probably seen these on posters in the on the walls of their social studies teachers classrooms so our why and when we talk about teaching social studies i think for for those of us that are educators in a public school we recognize that there is a civic purpose to our public schools and so especially when we talk about our social studies curriculum in those classrooms our goal is really to develop a citizenry that is knowledgeable and has the skills to carry out a system of government and a nation that is built upon the power of the people and so in in providing this kind of education for our students we make sure that our students are likely to become engaged

047active citizens but i think even more than that not just that they are engaged but they are that the type of informed citizenry that can make sound decisions can make evidence-based decisions can support their claims with evidence and strong reasoning can sort fact from fiction and can understand a very complex nation and world that we live in and so what you see here in these lifelong learning goals is that this is who we want our graduates to be if they've spent their education here with us in lindbergh schools that by the time they graduate from high school they can go into the world and they can make informed decisions because they have these skills here next slide please so our curriculum is of course built upon the missouri learning standards and if you've ever looked

048at the missouri learning standards they are many many pages long so what i have here is really just a sample of a handful of standards that apply specifically to teaching something like the concept of communism so these standards are taken from the 6th through 12th grade document these show up in all grade spans 6 through 12. some of them show up multiple times and they show up for specific courses like world history us government united states history and so i in highlighting just some some key pieces there first of all you'll notice that they don't mention specific concepts or topics they don't even mention specific events in history what they really are broad understandings of how to interpret the world around us so we can take a topic like communism for example and we can

049see how it would fit into a number of the missouri learning standards everything from understanding different economic systems our government's role in that econom those economic systems what happens when our governments or economic systems fail to do what they have promised to the people and i even put the example in there but causes and patterns of human rights violations and genocides because one thing that we understand and that we teach to our students is that those events don't occur in a vacuum that they're very closely linked to very broad systemic issues where they they occur um so when when we get into the specifics when we develop a limb curriculum we start with these missouri learning standards and then we develop our own local curriculum that is full of the evidence and the skills that

050our students need in order to be able to do these things and that's what you'll see on the next slide please so here we have some examples and i i selected these courses in particular because while um concepts like communism and socialism are introduced in middle school by the time our students get to high school it's a much deeper dive into understanding these topics and in particular with our high school curriculum and state requirements our limber graduates are guaranteed to have completed these three courses so these are courses that all of our students would take they take a world history course in ninth grade a us government and politics course in 10th grade a u.s history course in 11th grade and then the vast majority of our students go on then in 12th grade to

051take any one of a number of social studies electives that they can choose from from psychology to contemporary issues to law and many students take more than than just one of those electives so i've provided some examples that you would see in our curriculum for each of these courses so in our world history course in ninth grade which is more of a modern world history course they will start with a comparison of economic systems and it's in particular in advance of learning about something like the russian revolution which is a major world event with impacts far reaching beyond the nation in which it occurred and then also a broad coverage of the cold war from a global perspective so for example in a world history class you would may have students that are doing a

052deep analysis of churchill's iron curtain speech um you'd have students that are learning about many events throughout the cold war like proxy wars in korea and vietnam um a study of the killing fields in the khmer rouge in cambodia all the way up to modern issues like the united states relationship with china today and the struggle for freedom in china so um that's just an example of what you would see in a world history course again we're talking about covering a lot of years in a short period of time so um you're going to get events and topics related to communism quite a bit in that course in the us government course we again do a comparison comparison of economic systems but the example here would be how does it apply to the united states

053so we're in 10th grade this is where we really dig deep to make sure that our students understand what does it mean to be an engaged and informed citizen why is it important that you understand the principles upon which the nation was founded so when we talk about the development of the united states into the the nation that it became we talk about the economic system and how uh the founding principles of the united states of america are what align themselves with the type of free market economy that developed here as opposed to the types of economies that developed elsewhere we also spend quite a bit of time in 10th grade talking about students civil liberties and those civil liberties are often tied to their economic freedoms as well and so that's another place where

054these economic systems would would show up in our curriculum and then in united states history again this is a survey course so we're covering a lot of ground um in a short period of time but here you would see some of the similar themes from a world history course but from an american perspective and so the impact of the rise of communism on american culture and american politics so the red scares that were in the post-world war eras the cold war again but this time like i said from an american perspective and so um taking a look at things like mccarthyism um looking at the wars in in korea and vietnam all the way up to contemporary foreign policy and so how our foreign and economic policy today relates to nations whose economic systems are

055very different from our own and how that plays out in uh foreign relations today so again examples of places where these show up in our curriculum and as you can see spiral through over the course of of a few years next slide please i also wanted to take some time to make sure that we address how we teach these things so like you saw in the missouri learning standards you didn't see specific concepts or events listed that that needed to be covered when you look at lindbergh's curriculum you will see some of those specific concepts and events but again they're all tied back to those lifelong learning goals and those standards and so we pull from a variety of sources and we use a variety of instructional strategies to make sure that our students aren't

056just consumers of information but that they can use that information to develop their skills to become that informed citizenry that we want them to be so that can the consumption part of it the read listen watch this is providing evidence to our students but we are also asking that as they're consuming that information that they're doing the other things you see here they evaluate that information they deliberate you can walk into any social studies classroom on any given day it's very likely that you will see some kind of discussion happening some kind of deep analysis of the information that has been provided to the students and also most of that information is not handed to the students the students are finding it on their own because we ask them to research we ask them to

057write we ask them to create and we give them the skills and the tools to do that knowledgeably so an analysis of a document or comparing something or developing some sort of presentation for an audience that's going to be work that the student does with the support of the teacher to make sure they're doing it effectively responsibly that they are using reliable sources and so again when our students leave us they're on their own they need to be able to do those skills on their own and so we make sure that when we have them with us that we are guiding them through that to where they can become people who can consume information and sort out what they need to know to make informed decisions lastly i put on their explore because i think

058um and i have a personal bias here as a former social studies teacher but i think this is one of the huge advantages of a social studies curriculum is that when we give students those tools to do things they can do go research on their own um and we can set up experiences for them that are um experiences that may be a little intimidating that they wouldn't do on their own we can bring in people for them to meet we can take them to places to see things we can introduce ideas that they may have never existed and so with all of these things some of our strategies that that are very common in addition to just working with reading and writing and talking about um history and government is that we have students do

059service projects we have them engage in their community and put these skills to use we have students create projects for an audience so increasingly and this is true across the board pre-k through 12 the audience is no longer just the teacher the audiences your peers the audience is your community and so we see that playing out in our social studies classroom quite a bit um and many of you are probably familiar with the history alive project that has occurred in this district for many years where we are bringing veterans from foreign conflicts or other global events live in person pre-pandemic into our school so that our students can meet with them one-on-one in small groups and sit down to a table and have a conversation with a veteran who fought in vietnam and talk about

060that experience and so those kinds of experiences are what excite me about moving forward and the future of our curriculum and our instruction is that the the opportunities for those that face to face engagement or even virtual remote via zoom engagement um to talk to people that have had these experiences so it's very exciting work and i appreciate having the opportunity to talk to you about it tonight any questions thank you thank you nice job ronnie great job all right so 9.0 is our action items by consent we have action items by consent 9.01 to 9.13 would anyone like to remove any of these items for individual consideration hearing none do i have a motion to approve the action items by consent 9.01 to 9.13 as presented so moved motioned by megan second second by

061matt all right so now we'll open for discussion or questions hey thank you mr president and i also wanted to thank dr zagora as somebody with academic background in history and social sciences that was an incredibly jam-packed i mean information-rich presentation in such a short time congratulations on that i did want to speak to one of the action items in this consent agenda and i know it's the one that's been spoken about already by we've had several speakers come up and discuss it and that is what lindbergh is looking to do in terms of engaging the core collaborative uh group now we have as a board and i think this was mentioned been discussing this for quite a while now several months in terms of you know where might we go with this uh we

062have looked at a variety of resources i know a principle one has been this book okay which i actually encourage you if you can you know find it in the library find it on you know get it wherever you can online to take a look at it it's called belonging through a culture of dignity uh the keys to successful equity implementation but what grabbed me about this was uh in terms of the ideas presented inside uh was that the approach of these authors cobb and crown apple and they are basically the founders of the core collaborative they're kind of the brain trust and they're the ones who are going to be speaking uh in july what i found appealing is you know their method and their approach to discussing when these discussions come up about

063differences that they do it in a way that promotes more unity and dignity and not division okay i think we can all agree here and as i look out and i see so many people i see a lot of parents i know i see a lot of people in the community that i've known for as long as i've lived here for quite a while now uh i don't think that's anything we would want to see happen in lindbergh is this creation or encouragement of more division i think this could be and the ideas in here uh could be put into practice uh to help uh encourage you know i mean you know a culture of as they say belonging but just as a culture where everybody feels respected okay what i'm also very impressed by

064is that what in in their method as i've seen it they're not taking people groups of people that is groups people dividing them out into groups and for comparative reasons contrasting and then oftentimes and in some cases even uh you know following up with judgments leading to condemnation and dehumanizing okay uh they're they're not about dehumanizing and i know that has been a concern of many uh who you know hear about the issues going on now that are being taught in our schools and you know i would say that you know as we proceed tonight and we engage this group in a very hopeful way i mean we're going to be cognizant we're going to be watching what goes on we're going to be watching because you know we're a board that was elected by

065you and we owe it to you to be accountable okay and to build trust in this community not division trust okay so we're going to be doing this in a way that's going to see constant public engagement and i encourage all of you be involved get involved come to these meetings come to this presentation and you know i we're not here to teach what is you know sort of the term now out there uh critical race theory is something that is gonna you know promote oppositional uh relationships we're not here to do that i will always oppose that and i know this board and this administration does not feel that way so going forward again we have a great deal of promise here let's look at it as we as we move along if we

066find that it's not quite aligning with what we had envisioned we can always make changes we can always make adjustments okay um and i would also say this i mean i if if any of this i know we keep hearing that so much of this is is going on in many school districts but if i know there's parents and there's parents of alums and so forth out here but if you hear anything uh saying that's going on in lindbergh or something's brought to you that it looks like something is going on where somebody because you know they've been told that you know because of their background and simply who they are uh you know they have less worth or value than somebody else let somebody know about that if you see that going on in

067a classroom let your building principle know uh if you don't feel like that's being redressed for whatever or addressed i should say i mean i mean let others know i would even say let us know because we're here representing you we're here representing parents we're also here representing a larger community as well we often call that community the patrons right all right i the old term was taxpayer as i was growing up but um but if anything like that is found out i mean you know please let somebody know but that is not that that is not what we're doing going forward at all so uh i just wanted to certainly mention this as a sort of a reassurance for purposes of building trust in our community so uh with that i'll pass it back

068okay anything else discussions questions and i will add to that i know christie also mentioned that prior to the next sport meeting in the workshop you know they're gonna fully engage and they're gonna show what their program's about and what it will involve and uh we believe it aligns with where the district wants to go and how we want to get there and it's open to the public public and so i encourage anyone who wants to attend please do so so hearing nothing else we'll take a vote all in favor post all right motion carry 7-0 10.0 individual action items uh we do have one action item dr mckinney the 21 22 calendar adjustment sure a fairly minor adjustment to the calendar but this year christmas and new year holidays fall on weekend days and

069we have a contractual agreement with our staff to pay them for certain holidays those two are included and so to resolve this we're reducing the end of the year by two days reducing the calendar year by two days at the end of the school year unfortunately we had inclement weather emergency makeup days built in we have an ample amount of those and so we also have the re the resource of ami instruction virtual instruction if we do run out of emergency days and so we felt like this was a a change that wouldn't impact the school year to any significant degree so we're just asking for a motion to approve that minor adjustment all right do i have a motion to approve the calendar adjustment as presented so moved second by jen second by christie

070all in favor say aye aye opposed that motion carry 7-0 uh 11.0 reports we do have one for the record report which is the board calendar activities for 2021-2022 uh that's presented for your review it'll be brought back to the july meeting so if you have any questions you can contact i believe dr lake if you have any questions regarding that 11.03 we do have some review of some board policies looks like three policies that's the first reading and it'll be brought back in july also so for that you want to contact dr mckinney if you have any questions regarding those 12.0 now we move to the citizen comments regarding non-agenda items we do have several people signed up here and again as we try and uh do the best we can to limit time

071if you are signed up for a similar topic to somebody that that somebody's already spoken on and you don't you're not bringing a new perspective uh please let us know uh respect the time if you're with a group maybe find one person designated to speak i do notice there's a lot of folks that have signed up again for to speak on critical race theory with the inclusion and equity and uh just keep that in mind you know it's a hot topic it's been a national topic lindbergh is a locally run and governed school district these elected representatives that set up here their primary goal is to do what's best for all students i want to be very clear lindbergh curriculum is not based on critical race theory doesn't promote division of any groups for any

072purpose and limber curriculum aligns with missouri's learning standards so that's important to know and i did write down here uh things that we talk about which is important for you guys to know providing students with high quality education one that reflects and celebrates our diverse and student population committing to creating and maintaining a welcoming equitable and inclusive environment while upholding high academic standards so those are covenants that we hold dear so we'll start here and get through as many as we can of the residents and those who haven't spoken already jason frye history and english curriculum and then next just to let you know will be katie schlereth just so you're prepared when you call my name i thought it was like the price is right and everybody was gonna cheer and it was totally

073silent um so i uh i live in limburg school district my kids are in dressel and uh my son is moving from sparring up to lumber high school this uh this next school year um this morning i got a note in my mailbox uh because i have a black lives matter sign in my yard i got a note in my mailbox overnight that told me that america is not racist because we voted for obama twice i i got a feeling the person wrote the note didn't but i think that they intended to mean that we as a country elected a black president and therefore racism is solved i don't think racism is solved and i grew up in a town in lawton oklahoma which is next to fort sill which is an army town my

074best friend when i was a little kid was korean he moved here in preschool and my best friend a few years later was a black kid and then i moved from oklahoma up to the suburbs of saint louis and discovered that racism was real because i didn't even know it i didn't know it was real so i moved up here and i heard my white friends call my black friends the n-word and my black friends couldn't speak up because there were 20 white people and only one of them and i was silent because i also didn't want to get beat up and i was afraid and i think our world has improved since then in the suburbs of st louis a little bit but i don't think racism is solved yet and i want us

075to live in the kind of world where i don't have to let my kids expect my kids when they're to find out that every southern state that seceded from the union before the world before the civil war wrote a letter to the u.s government explaining exactly why they seceded and all of them mentioned because white people are better than black people and i had been told in high school that was because of states rights and i found out as an adult that it was a state's rights to allow people to own other people was the main reason i want my kids to learn that in school and so i'm here to just say what you're doing to be to be more inclusive i totally support it but we still have a school district that's like

07695 percent white and or or more and that whatever we can do to support inclusion of everyone regardless of their color race creed ability i i support it i'm part of a group of other parents that support it critical race theory is a almost 50 year old academic theory that really is old school now but anything we can do that helps people talk about race and meaningful ways and learn the whole truth of history uh rather than having to find out when they're adults and that so they will speak up in defense of their friends who are not in the majority who are not the dominant group and they won't feel bad about it but they'll feel empowered from their privilege to do something good in the world thank you thank you jason we'll move

077forward and now uh katie has a statement from lead emily hello my name is katie chalereth i'm just going to read a prepared statement for lead dear board of education the members of the lindbergh equity and diversity lead coalition appreciate the opportunity to once again affirm our support of diversity equity and inclusion work at lindbergh in our prepared statement to the board tonight we as an organization would like to emphasize how important this work is to support learning and the success of linberg students maslow's hierarchy of needs a long-established motivational theory in psychology states that humans must have certain needs met before they can function optimally these needs are physiological safety belonging and love esteem and self-actualization we recognize that for many students schools play a vital role in meeting these needs during a typical

078school day we simply cannot expect a student to learn optimally if they are hungry if they are being harassed and bullied at school or if their social and emotional needs are not being adequately addressed in the classroom just to name a few examples diversity equity and inclusion work in our schools is a vital way to support student needs to foster optimal learning when students from diverse backgrounds see themselves in curriculum materials when they are given an opportunity to share with their classroom and school community about a holiday they celebrate or a family tradition they feel seen and valued by their teachers and classmates learning and celebrating individual differences as a group helps foster a sense of community curiosity and creativity what better environment in which to learn an in-depth research review of dozens of other

079studies on diversity conducted by the century foundation found that having many that found that having different and divergent perspectives can create positive learning outcomes some of these learning outcomes include improved cognitive skills and critical thinking and increase in civic engagement promotion of creativity and increased confidence when preparing for life after high school leed would like to once again applaud the lindbergh administration for making this work a priority for higher i'm sorry a priority by hiring a full-time diversity equity and inclusion coordinator we also recognize that there has been much confusion abroad around de and i in schools nationwide and in our immediate area therefore we would like to ask the district to publicly remind our families of their dedication through an email or statement so that all families feel safe and valued in the upcoming

080school year with respect lead coalition thank you next uh i'm not sure this uh first name or last name but roll rolliss okay speaking on limburg and ssd services and diane dragon be next my name is marcella um i had a full educational evaluation done of my daughter this year but i didn't share it with lindbergh nor did i share it with ssd instead i gave it to her tutor i don't trust lindbergh or ssd to appropriately remediate my children you have consistently failed them and every other child who struggles to read or write first in general education classrooms and then again if they do happen to qualify for ssd for a district who pays a lot of lip service and a ridiculous amount of money on equity and inclusion you are leaving behind the

081most vulnerable children that you claim to protect what good is a mountain of books about diversity equity and inclusion if our kids can't even read them your balance literacy curriculum fails most children but especially the underserved in our district our low income and minority children have the worst literacy rates in the entire district how are you going to help these children i'm paying for my children to have private tutor but because you're not doing your job unfortunately i can't pay for all the other children some students are being victimized by your refusal to accept that your curriculum is failing students at an alarming rate why are we building a brand new gifted center when half our first graders can't read at a grade level does no one see the inequity in that the graduating class

082this year had 25 percent of the students reading below proficiency those rates would be even worse if our largely upper middle class parents couldn't afford for tutors to inflate those numbers for you virtually everyone i know has a tutor for at least one of their children not we are not one of the best districts because of quality education but because parents are paying for outside help when i reached out when i reached out and requested an ot evaluation the school's response was to send me a scathing email and refuse to follow the law and conduct an evaluation i was berated for asking for help rather than wasting time on a money and a lawyer i chose to pay for much needed ot services privately with effective services in six weeks my kids made amazing progress

083and i had to take my educational goals in their hands in my hands to ensure their success as i see it your strengths are parents willing to fit the bill to make you look successful your weaknesses including unneeded administrators and doubling down on terrible curriculum that is currently banned in several states our kids are not given the foundation of basic skills and sadly parents actually trust you when you say wait and see while you wait our children are becoming more demoralized anxious and falling further behind we should never wait stop protecting a broken system an ineffective literacy coordinator and do better your literacy rates graduation college acceptance rates act scores are all dropping take note and acknowledge the weakness and fix the problem before another generation of children are saddled with the burden of illiteracy

084that is how you become equitable and inclusive right diane dragon and then uh next would be felia davenport my name is diane dragon last month we pointed out the community book study being done in this district on the book overcoming dyslexia despite being called out on your lack of attendance last month not a single one of you attended again last night for the one hour zoom with another local expert it is disappointing that no one on this board can be bothered to listen to the experts being brought into this district discussing how to ensure all of our kids are taught to read your apathy towards over 50 percent of our kids struggling to read is why we continue month after month year after year showing up and waiting for you to acknowledge that you are

085the kids that you are failing i want to take a minute to speak about the lindbergh schools and ssd program evaluation by dr lawson i found buried in the board docs i'm not going to go through it in its entirety and i don't believe it was ever presented publicly it's clear a lot of parents do not feel they are equal voices in the iep meetings i have attended dozens of iep meetings in this district and i can say with a high level of confidence that laws are broken in every single one of the meetings i've attended parents whose children should have been qualified for services are left in tears when they are told their child is not quite bad enough to get supports others are dumbfounded when they realize after years of unmet goals and

086lack of any meaningful progress the plan is to simply stay the course with the same goals and the same ineffective programs other parents are told ssd does not have to and will not discuss the nature of services that are provided to their child i have recorded coordinators telling parents fidelity requirements embedded in programs are mere suggestions that will definitively not be followed by ssd it's embarrassing the harms we are allowing to occur to our most vulnerable children while lindbergh's staff looks mutely on the survey ends with some action steps step one organize and or facilitate iep training for staff i personally sat in this building at the front desk with dr hamby in february of 2020. and actually propose to provide these services to your staff i offered to train your staff then and i'm

087offering again to train your staff now step two training with ssd and lindbergh attorneys on that iep process with school admin i offered that too i would be happy to sit in on any such training by the school attorneys to both further educate myself and to make sure the information provided incorporates the parents rights of these meetings and to make sure the focus is on what our kids are entitled to not simply what ssd wants to provide step three was a parent speaker series again something that i would be more than happy to head up and lead for the parents in this district for 24 years as a criminal defense attorney i've had a front row seat to the end result of the school-to-prison pipeline lives are destroyed when our future adults do not learn

088to read you have the power to stop that pipeline in this district and create real equity by ensuring every child regardless of race or socioeconomic status learns to read i can have a lot more impact on a child's life by ensuring their access to literacy today than trying to mitigate the damage later as they sit in a prison cell thank you next we have uh felia and then following her will be jessica huff so good evening i'm felia davenport i'm a mom a multi-racial woman of color and a professor i want to give my perspective of why we need to have a 360 perspective to our educational system i've been a professor for over 13 years and have encountered and embraced students from all walks of life however i have had students in my courses

089who knew nothing about buffalo soldiers the massacres of indigenous tribes or the fact that there are over 562 federally recognized tribes and only the plains indians wear headdresses which are sacred that african-american women were also suffragettes or about the origins of voter suppression with the fact that indigenous and african americans were not allowed on stage so instead white people blackface and red-faced themselves to recolonize the colonized or that it was illegal for interracial marriages up until 1967 loving versus virginia or the fact that george washington did not wear wooden teeth but slaves teeth we care more that our children know the capitals of the 50 states but not the origins behind the names of our states notice i said students not black students not white students not asian students not latinx students but students education

090should be about the mind body and spirit and to fully educate our children you must educate with a 360 perspective so students can see the full image of our history how will they thrive in this world without without an inclusive and inclusive and diverse education we need to embrace what our america looks like what our community looks like and what the world our children will live in looks like we cl we keep glorifying and deifying our history versus living in its truth we are all imperfectly created so why do we want to be perceived as perfect our history does not show our ugly truth instead we tell a beautiful lie how can we evolve as a nation and as a people if we can't sit in our truths accept those truths teach those truths and

091learn from those truths this land that we stand on this nation was created on the backs of and the blood of indigenous people and enslaved africans accept it respect it and honor it stop changing the narratives that whitewashing the history of this nation stopped bearing the pain this country has inflicted and continuously inflicts by erasing by eradicating my ancestors contributions to the creation and sustainability of this nation telling this full perspective through the various lenses doesn't erase white people white culture or white history but rather enriches it elevates it and encompasses the full narrative i am scared i am scared of people who continue to see other people or create these generalizations many of us do this and we think on we're on the righteous path but in reality we are no better than the

092one we oppose i'm scared that my daughter's education will suffer and me sacrificing my family financially to live in this district will have been for nothing i ask that we cast our generalizations aside and come together i ask that lindbergh school district continue the course for a diverse and inclusive education for our children so they can go out into this world and thrive i ask that you see me hear me and know that i will not give up i have grown through this pandemic and see through a different lens now i hold no hate in my heart for those who do not agree with me or those who do we we each walk our own path i leave you with this quote from dr maya angelou i've learned that people will forget what you said

093people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel and lately i feel erased now we have jessica huff and that will be followed by chrissy wegman good evening and thank you to the to the board for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is jessica huff and i'm the proud parent to three autistic children in limburg all who receive varying degrees of support through special school district if my kids were school aged 50 years ago before the inception of the individuals with disabilities education act their right to a free and appropriate public education would not exist in fact if they were born before 1970 it is likely that doctors would have encouraged us to institutionalize them upon diagnosis as was fairly common up until the disability rights movement

094helped pave the way for community integration in the 1970s and 80s this history is not so long ago if you really think about it while we have come a long way much work still needs to be done to create a more equitable and accessible society for disabled people this is why diversity equity and inclusion initiatives in school are so important to my to our family i have had the wonderful opportunity to give presentations to my kids general education classes on neurodiversity how brains can be wired differently and how it's simply okay to be different i've watched young students listen to these presentations with great interest and ask how they can best interact with my child and while it's true that disabled students have much in common with their neurotypical peers pretending their differences don't exist

095is ignoring part of their identity and denying the accessibility they need to thrive i am certain that diversity equity and inclusion initiatives embedded into the school community and classroom setting have allowed for greater acceptance of individual differences and students are better prepared to collaborate with people of all backgrounds throughout their lifespan so on behalf of my kids i would like to applaud the lindbergh administration for making this work a priority by hiring a full-time diversity equity and inclusion coordinator and i look forward to the great work that will be done in this area thank you all right uh chrissy wegman followed by holly swift okay holly swift okay okay thank you uh julie egan and sorry again for any mispronounced pronunciations of names it's difficult hello my name is julie egan thank you for the

096opportunity to speak i have a child in the district and i would like to thank the district for prioritizing the essential work of equity diversity and inclusion in our community i've been disheartened to see the backlash in neighboring districts as well as our own surrounding this subject every child in our district deserves to be represented seen and celebrated that can't happen if students are not exposed to the diverse lived experiences and perspectives of those in their community each student's history culture and experience helps to shape them into the individuals they are if we ignore these aspects of one another we can't fully begin to understand and celebrate each other the ugly reality is that racism does exist it can take many shapes and forms and we have families and students in our district that are

097impacted by it they deserve to be represented seen and heard i want my child to be a part of a community and district that learns honestly and empathetically about this problem and why it exists rather than sweeping it under the rug this includes learning about how our country's history has impacted non-white students how can we expect our future generations to do better if they don't know better how can we expect them to know better if we're not brave enough to teach our children both the good and the bad about the country they live in we have a responsibility to show them the whole spectrum of the world around them our children are resilient enough to learn these truths our job as parents is to support our children in working through tough feelings should they arise

098around these subjects but we can't demand that our schools teach a curriculum that erases the experiences of some so that our children don't feel bad so again i'd like to thank the district for doing what is right for supporting all students and for trying to learn and do better which is the only way we'll be able to move forward from past mistakes thank you so next um michelle yepez and then scott colbert good evening in the board document legislative update blurb about the now defeated reading success bill explained that the bill would require all schools to provide structured literacy instruction to those children not reading proficiently k through four instead of current non-evidence-based and ineffective reading programs used as intervention in most schools dr lake personally along with the school board coalition adamantly opposed the

099bill i have questions why is it so inconceivable to acknowledge that structured literacy program is the most most appropriate method for students who are failing in the current curriculum balanced literacy has been repeatedly proven to be ineffective for children with reading disabilities so why do you keep insist on it for an option for intervention who benefits from this refusal to follow what has been proven to work to ensure all students can read and write proficiently one administrator who testified against the bill and jeff said he complained that it would cost him hours and hours of extra work to learn something new are we really so afraid of putting in the work so all children can learn to read the opposition to the bills use scare tactics and lies to a to oppose it on twitter

100a good friend of our literacy administrator sarah walter talked about how the bill would cost millions and millions of dollars to implement she suggested that all she really needed was more time to figure out how to rebalance the current faulty curriculum to improve current failed literacy rates the reality is that structured literacy curriculum is available to low cost and some programs are free virtually all the programs are less expensive than the flawed programs we use now the bill was not removing local control for core ela curriculum only to require evidence-based interventions the people who were tasked to kill this bill are more interested in protecting the failed philosophy and work of an agent professor lucy calkins and those of her kind conkins has never had the skills or interest in teaching struggling readers like my

101son to be successful she's only interested in keeping her cult-like following and maintaining a steady cash flow from her failed products which are currently in every one of our elementary classrooms the best result her program was ever ever able to deliver was a proficiency rate of 75 i'd rather see mr dr hamby talk about a fail or a success rate of 95 for our you know students k-3 instead it's not enough that lindbergh has started to utilize some structured literacy curriculum in our district we should be pushing to ensure that the benefits that we are seeing are acknowledged and advocate for change at state level for all students this is how lindbergh can work to inc to ensure equity for all kids to get effective programming instead of those who can pay for it school

102staff administrators in this board are public servants paid for by our tax dollars and elected to serve in the best interest of our children we fully expect your vocal support for this bill next year that is designed to help the 20 percent or more students that are currently being failed by this district and districts all around the state if you don't support struggling readers we can no longer support the board in this administration so our our next speaker is scott but we have sixth and after that are individuals who are residents who and who have not yet spoken but it's on the same topic of critical race theory so please be mindful of time and if you're not bringing a new perspective to the podium maybe or if you're involved in the group together send

103one representative thank you all right scott kolberg here um i'm switching topics to masking the uh question great show of hands who has children in high school on the board who has children in middle school who has children in elementary school who has children in the district right now okay so the rest of you need to be replaced so let's go ahead um i'm going to go ahead and read a statement dated april 2nd 2021 from the department of justice got a couple paragraphs here i'm trying to get to the point the department of justice will vigorously enforce federal civil rights as we continue the process of national reckoning recovery and healing civil rights protections and responsibilities still apply even during emergencies they cannot be waived federal agencies state and local governments and recipients of

104federal financial assistance are an integral part of our shared effort to uphold civil rights so let's get to title 21 u.s code 360 bbb-3 no emergency authorized medical product can be mandated that includes masks you must require consent from every legal guardian children we already know the children are not even vulnerable to this virus we know that they don't really pass the virus either tired of it absolutely tired of it you want to bet i got the science bud that's science too because i've been emailing these people for months so if we can't keep it respectful we have to cut short i'm just you know keeping the peanut gallery in check so in addition to 360 bbb it is illegal to mandate an unapproved medical device that includes masks that um i see a lot

105of these people wearing there's a reason why it says on the box it will not stop the virus because it won't they already know it doesn't there's hundreds of scientific studies that have proven it doesn't stop the influenza i mean this is just getting ridiculous so i have a letter in which i sent you all today and i have copies here that gives the backup of the science that even gives back up to the u.s title code and i do not give consent for my children next year it's just an fyi this is all for you right here sergeant arms anybody want to distribute this thank you all right our next uh person on the list is dennis roach speaking on critical race theory he may have opted out earlier so we'll move to susan

106murphy and then jennifer byrd would be next yeah i just have a different perspective as far as the equity i just want to point out i hope you all we all could agree on character that's my whole i mean i appreciate what you said tonight it should be about character we shouldn't reduce people to melanin in our skin or body parts it should be about character and like my son had people this is a pretty diverse actually just because we don't look that different if we're all kind of white or whatever but my son had a lot of friends that were from albania bosnia serbia and um yeah and he looked at people as for what they're about and and diversity all this diversity garbage it's about your perseverance your character your background your experience

107your ingenuity it's not just again our thin veneer or a mountain bell and it's ridiculous and i'm just saying so i appreciate everything you guys said tonight and i just hope you focus on character because i think we all could agree on that because i mean isn't that what it's about and then another thing um i heard dred scott's great great granddaughter speak and she said i mean i and i get tired of hating not not you guys or the district but just the country bashing america i just you know i'm sick of that but she even said her own people sold her people out from liberia so if we're gonna do history okay let's not just bash america so um that's all i wanted to say i just appreciate everything you do jeffrey bird

108and then virginia ash pole would be next and then last speaker would be julie week i believe sorry if i mispronounced that thank you for taking my comments incidentally i was i thought this was an agenda item because i thought it would fall under contracts and social studies so but that's an aside so i have a lot of concerns about this idea of bringing critical race theory conspiracy over our students i don't think there's anybody that would stand up and say no we don't want diversity and inclusion how many conservatives are on your board while we're talking about diversity and inclusion and then we're worried about equity equal opportunity is what i'm looking for i think we should have equal opportunity and i think it's kind of sad frankly that we haven't been having more

109black history in school for a longer time i'm fortunate i grew up in university city i mean we had tree savers and then started aluminum recycling way before anybody even considered recycling paper i was almost always in the minority in school and within my group of friends don't care because it's my understanding that people are born with two fears the only two we're born with fear of falling sudden loud noises defensive every other fear is learned and that's what racism is based in fear more inclusion more diversity more black studies and certainly why we don't have uh more discussion about asian uh and african contributions to the building in this country i don't understand that and i'm all for that the critical race theory the conspiracy against our children to teach them to be racists

110to teach them to divide and compartmentalize people and then treat them accordingly that's ridiculous let's talk a little bit about what is critical race uh theory's main ideological dogmas designed to divide and conquer predicated on racial divisions in a social dichotomy of victim versus oppressor all of a particular group can be oppressed while ali of another particular group are the oppressors seriously okay uh persons are not individuals having unique identities a person is only a representative of a unit of group like a race okay other oppressed groups are categorized by sexual identity disability religion socioeconomic level so on and so forth and of course identification with more than one oppressed group is called intersectionality this is what we're teaching our kids so we can teach them to divide and conquer why don't you just get

111them all blood tested and they can figure out their percentage of victimhood with that and if you're going to teach inclusion let's teach why don't we teach about a tuskegee experiment so maybe our students will learn why they should always very carefully watch their government especially now you want people to to participate in an experiment but you know while we're including things to be taught teach them about the tuskegee syphilis experiment okay thank you why don't you be quiet you next up is virginia hi my name is virginia virginia asheville gosh this sounds hello um i wanted to talk on a variety of things i guess my introductory remark would be i'm a 20-year veteran and i really do believe we live in the greatest country in the world i think the thing that makes

112our country great is the bill of rights we have freedom of speech isn't this great we have freedom of religion we have freedom of assembly we have freedom to write and and to bear arms these are the things that our country is built on our country is built on the fact that we all have inalienable rights and i'm fully supportive that each person should be welcomed each person should be respected each person should be shown dignity and should be included but i i'm very much against anything that tries to label people and not deal with them as individuals that tries to say you're in that group or you're in that group that is wrong and i'm i'm actually concerned that the diversity equity and inclusion is going to do that i'm concerned that it's going

113to teach labeling of people and and so this kind of goes back to the very first comment you got i would like to see transparency in this school district i would like to see materials made available so that we can see what's being tr taught so that we can see what's being trained so that we can have a better better insight i would like to see you know if parents get on the um the virtual school with their their kids that that wouldn't be an issue but i've been told that it is when my um high school student got the instructions on his laptop you know he was told not to have anybody else present you know when he was on school and that makes me very uncomfortable i but i would like the materials

114to be made available and i would like them to that fact to be made um you know sent out to the parents of the students so that they can have the opportunity to review these materials um i you know we live in a great country i do think that ought to be taught in in social studies i especially want our kids to learn their rights freedom of speech freedom of assembly freedom of religion right to bear arms um and and there's more in there than that those are the ones i know off the top of my head forgive my social studies teacher but um that's that and transparency are are my main issues here with the school district um thank you uh last speaker julie week i believe his last name hello uh it's actually

115julie wike i just married the name um i didn't even think i was gonna talk um i said no on that that little questionnaire but i'm here so i'm i'm thankful that you'll allow me all i can give you is my testimony and what i've gone through i have four kids two of them did find it in limbo they did great they followed the rules they walked the walk they did great my number three was in the gifted program she was outside of the box she wanted to do things a little bit different i was told that she should get her ged and get out because she was not falling in line with the curriculum and she was not having much attention that was really tough and and so we've we've gone a journey and

116i'm not going into that but she's doing great she's doing fine and praise god for that my number four was watching everything and and so we have got him in westminster christian academy he's flourishing he's getting love guidance and god's word and that's been great but i will tell you that even westminster is doing critical race theory and so this isn't just hitting just the public schools you guys this is marxism this is communism this is coming alive and and we have got to step up and teach the children to love one another the truth what's wrong with the truth the truth will set you free the truth will love each other we are broken people we don't have perfect lives and and i just i want this for the children i want the children

117to have a chance to have the kind of life we've had i like the freedom i like their choices i want them to have what i had in this great country of ours and i just hope there was a woman that stood up and talked about a book on critical race theory thank you i would like that to be somehow in the notes i don't know how this goes so if there's notes out there that she can have her book be on there if you guys could read that book as well as the book that you are recommending to everyone else i would have so much more respect for being open and everybody jumping in we are here to learn and we are to support each other thank you so much you guys [Music] in

118regards to that too i just want to reiterate my initial statement was that we you know i want to be very clear that number curriculum is not based on critical race theory and we're just trying to teach kids equity and inclusion regardless and we don't we're not promoting division among groups or for any purpose we're trying to do what's best for the kids and uh you know i think if you visit canvas too you can see some curriculum on there and as far as transparency goes in july i'll say again we're having an open public workshop for the equity and inclusion and diversity programs where anybody anybody is welcome to attend or join a committee we talked about that earlier get more involved i appreciate everyone coming here and speaking tonight and addressing the board

119um well i'd be glad to stay after and and hear what you have to say but we have to set some sort of boundaries here and and we said in advance you could speak on one topic so but we can talk later if you'd like um so that's that's what i have to say on that i do appreciate everyone speaking we will listen to everybody but i also encourage you get more involved join a committee come to the open meetings come to the workshops they're all they're all publicly available so please join us that being said we'll move to 13.0 which is recess as we already conducted our executive session there's no need to move to recess we'll go to 15.0 which is adjournment do i have a motion to adjourn board meeting number fifteen

120thirty-three sub-moved second moved by matt second by jen all in favor say aye aye opposed all right seven zero emotions adjourned