Rockwood Board of Education Meeting -- Nov. 18, 2021

001one nation under god indivisible with your deed thank you [Music] i'm going to read a welcome to the board of education meeting we would like to thank the administrative team and all the staffing students at eureka high school for being gracious hosts for our meeting this evening thank you also to the ambassadors who are here from schools in the eureka quadrant to assist with greeting and signing on our guests the purpose of this meeting is to conduct the business of the district hear reports about our progress and listen to the community on important issues the rockwood board of education is committed to the safety and security of all of our students staff parents and patients to that end we are requiring face coverings and social distancing at our meeting tonight your cooperation is greatly appreciated

002in advance we have reports to consider in business to conduct that are critical to the functioning of our school district we want to remind all of our visitors that we expect the audience to remain civil and respectful at all times as the board conducts its business calling out verbal aggressions inappropriate language or name calling is not acceptable if the meeting becomes enrolling the board may take a recess until such time the audience is appropriate if appropriate behavior continues if inappropriate behavior continues by the individuals they may be asked to leave the meeting if that audience if the audience becomes so inappropriate in their behavior that we cannot conduct their business the board reserves the right to adjourn the meetings this board of education meeting is live streamed for the community's convenience opinions expressed at the

003meeting are not necessarily the opinions of the rockwood school district youtube reserves the right to monitor and block inaccurate and misleading content the process is beyond the control of the rocket school district we want everyone to have an ability to hear the business of the district reports presented in the comments of everyone who is here to speak we appreciate your cooperation and that you took the time to attend tonight's meeting thank you okay let's go with that 4.02 approval of the agenda all the favor thank you 4.03 approval a board of education meeting minutes for october 21st 2021. so we'll move second on favorite all right any opposed this is getting a little easier okay now we're going to move to superintendent and board comments thank you madam chair um i'd like to begin tonight

004by extending my and our sincere thoughts and sympathy members of our marquette and school community who are experiencing extreme difficulty and during these times in rockwood we are continually striving to maintain a multi-tiered support system for students staff and community members in need we have caring dedicated trained professionals in the district who are willing and able to address the needs of members of our school communities and connect with them when necessary resources are needed we will continue to wrap our arms around each other and work together to heal as a community this past thursday november 11th was veterans day and schools all over the rockwood school district found unique ways to honor the veterans in the various communities whether through school displays and projects luncheons or parades rockwood students and staff celebrated those who have

005selfishly served our country thank you veterans especially dr kindred for all that you mean to our students staff members and families this week rap would join school districts across the nation also to celebrate american education week from the classroom teacher to the child nutrition services employee and countless others we celebrate public education and honor the individuals who are making a difference in ensuring that every rockwood student receives quality education we're proud to enjoy the quality of our thousands of staff members to do whatever it takes to ensure that all of our students realize their potential specifically baldwin elementary was selected as a recipient of more than forty four thousand dollars in supplies through the office depot's program depot difference the program takes a portion of the sales of 24 regional stores over a three month

006period and donates it to benefit a local school all the members this past weekend nearly 30 baldwin staff members participated in a shopping spree to use the donated money on classroom supplies furniture and technology to benefit their students we really want to thank office depot for that opportunity finally tonight with the thanksgiving holiday approaching i just want to make sure and take a moment to wish everyone a happy healthy and wrestling city any more comments [Music] okay i need a motion to approve the consensus agenda items and submitters hello any discussion all in favor any opposed [Music] okay we're at 7.01 resolution authorizing and directing the issuance sale and delivery of general obligations [Music] we need a motion to prove the resolution authorizing and directing the insurance sale and delivery of general obligation refunding bonds

007series 2021 of the rockwoods r-6 school district st louis county missouri discussion yes uh good news for you this evening we had our bond sale today and got some very good results for our refunding of our 2016 bonds in fact the numbers came in better than what we provided to you at the last meeting um got some uh folks here from our bond council and our financial advisor that i'll have come speak to the details of it but if you guys want to come on up but just in summation we had a great team that put this package together with urban council who we work with to make sure that we're providing by state and federal requirements we make the state meet the state auditor requirements and all the irs issues that go along with

008that and jason terry and his team at gilmore bill walk us through that very nicely and on the flip side of that our financial advisor uh tom zarkwich and brad wegman who are here this evening work with us so that we put this package together that's competitive uh it also involves working with the reaffirmation of our rating with s p so we had to go through that process again i'm happy to report that s p reaffirmed our triple a rating only four school districts in the state of missouri have triple a rockwood is one of those four and less than 100 across the entire us so it's a very high distinction we worked closely with lj hart in team for that they put together a great package we had real good bid results this morning

009that i'll have them share with you so all in all the process has gone really well we were able to say a lot of money for our patrons in the district through this process so turn it over to jason and or tom yes thank you again i'm tom pazarkowicz with lj heart company um so what we're looking at here subject to your approval we can lock in savings of four million one hundred and thirty eight thousand seven hundred and ten dollars by refinancing the 2016 bonds and we would actually shorten the final repayment period from 2036 to 2033 and we can push some principal payments up due to the strength of your debt service fund and that fund can only be used to repay bonds as paul mentioned we took bids this morning from underwriters

010across the nation we received eight and so we're effectively lowering your interest rate from three percent to the the true interest cost that's the the measure we use to get the best bid down to 1.426 percent so more than cut cutting your rate in half the new bonds will be callable february 1 2027. now i don't think you're going to be able to refinance them again but certainly you will be able to pay off pay them off early if you have excess funds in the debt service fund and save additional interest expense paul alluded to the aaa rating i do want to comment on just some points they put in their report they identified the stable local economy very strong finances supported by increasing property valuations conservative budgeting and good financial management and then low

011overall debt per capita so that's a lot to be proud of there good evening i'm jason terry from gilmore and bell um you have me to thank for the litany of documents that you've had in your in your board packets um the most pertinent document this evening is the resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of the bonds that document was finalized this morning you had a draft of that last week with the bond sale this morning we could include the final interest rates the final maturity schedule the redemption provisions that tom mentioned and the um the purchase or the sale of the bonds by the district um to the the lowest bidder or highest bidder i guess however you want to look at it and in your case it would be the the lowest interest

012rate uh and so the the resolution before you um uh approves all of those terms of the bonds if ever there's a question about the terms of the bonds that's the document that we'll refer to um i'd like to thank paul and dan um believe it or not they make our jobs i'm sure it speaks for tom a lot easier and um you know as boring as these documents may be it's it's a joy to be able to work with them and the district making uh our job easier hopefully translates to you know a better job for the district so if there's any questions about the documents included in the package or the resolution before you this evening that's why i'm here any questions questions if you have trouble sleeping feel free to crack these

013open and all right it's pretty exciting okay moving forward okay next we're going to hear from kevin o'malley from school is that connect he's going to update us on the superintendent so it's very exciting good evening everybody thanks for coming out to see me i'm sure you're here just to see me and and enjoy the superintendent's search progress update that i'll share with the board and with the community this evening uh my name is kevin o'mara close to o'malley but kevin o'mara and i spent a lot of time here in the last couple of months meeting with parents and community members staff teachers administrators and my favorite um students so um i have a better sense now of what the community at large is looking for in the superintendent and i have to share my

014report in a powerpoint i also have hard copies that i will share with janet here to share with the board of education that's much more detailed and full of statistics i will also send to the board president this evening or tomorrow morning a electronic version that would um encourage the board to uh display on the website so the community at large has a sense of kind of where the uh where the direction is as far as recruitment and uh interviewing of superintendent candidates goes from here so can we uh who's doing slides oh i do it here wow self-serving yeah that's awesome uh okay here we go okay so um the board asked us asked my firm to conduct focus groups with a wide variety of stakeholders uh conduct an online survey questionnaire to gather

015input from staff parents community members and students and can then create a profile for the ideal candidate based on information gleaned from these conversations and from these survey results the board and consultants could use this information to screen and conduct interviews with the candidates i would encourage the board to use this information to screen the profile report may be used to develop interview questions for the candidates so i would encourage you to to when we meet in january to consider this profile for that purpose the board of education may use this profile to find out more about the thinking of constituents within the district and i think that that's valuable information for board to use outside of the board search process um the candidates that i will share this profile with and the people that

016we're recruiting and the community may use this profile report uh about this to find out more about the strengths and remaining challenges here at rockwood um so at the focus groups we had 95 attendees over two days and nights of of interaction with me um the the questionnaire the survey was given um for about two weeks there and we had over almost almost 4 000 responses i would not consider the sampling methodology to be scientific in nature uh percentages are rounded in the reports and the numbers you'll see this evening we asked four basic questions during the focus groups and open forums what are your what are the districts strengths what are the things that would attract a candidate to come here to rockwood to to be a superintendent what are the district's challenges what

017are some things that still need to be overcome by the district moving forward towards the next step in the in the district's growth what should the priorities be for the new superintendent where should he or she spend their first year concentrating their efforts and what are the most important qualities and skills and experiences that you're looking for your next superintendent those are the two four basic questions we asked uh we had again ten focus groups with 95 attendees and the strengths are listed here and i'm not going to read them out loud but you can uh kind of if i can step out i can see the screen better um the number one point i think that everyone should take away from um the strengths portion of the of the focus groups are that almost

018every single respondent showed great pride in this school district and you've got a lot to be proud of strong teaching strong administrators strong parents have created a close-knit community i got to tell you when i walk into school buildings here in the district there's not one person who doesn't welcome me everyone says what you know dr romero what can we do for you today parents community members students especially so welcoming so close and it's so tight you've got a lot to be proud of there many parents and uh teachers indicated they specifically chose to live in this district because of its because of its schools uh there's a climate of growth and improvement district-wide everyone wants this place to grow and continue to grow on the other uh strengths here are multitudinal it's well resourced

019you've got great finances especially with all that thick boring paperwork we just saw the students are very involved there's lots to get involved in there's many opportunities for students to grow inside and outside the classroom the buildings and grounds are well maintained and clean and welcoming teachers administrators and parents praised engaged and committed parent group and community at large you're all very involved in the students here and in the growth of this district and that doesn't mean you don't have challenges you do but you're very involved no there many parents noted the appreciation of the district's response and the board's response to the clover 19 during the uh epidemic and pandemic which continues to to thwart us and it's something we continue to go through students feel supported by teachers expressing confidence and the teachers

020willingness to provide feedback demonstrate kindness and listen to multiple points of view and lastly a growth mindset is is part of who you are as a school district everyone wants this this set of students and the students behind them to grow and learn to the best of their potential what are some challenges well a high achieving district will inevitably experience pressure to raise and maintain those test scores which are one lens by which you can view the efficacy of a school district and that challenge is sometimes hard to overcome as experienced by most schools throughout the nation topics associated with covert 19 response have created divides that must be mended by the new leader the new leader whomever that person is needs to bring people back together that's who you are as a community and

021that needs to be something that the new leader puts his or her mind to a strong desire to diversify the teaching and administrative staff is important to many that i spoke with continuing to track continuing to attract and retain the most qualified and talented individuals throughout the district is greatly important and after a period of listening and reflecting and getting to know the culture and climate of the district that this superintendent needs to examine uh needs to examine uh what programs and practices should stay and where the district maybe needs to to to put more resources the expectation of close collaboration with teachers administrators and the board of education places demands on a superintendent's time that may be greater than in some districts uh rockwood is 100 you're all in when you become a superintendent

022here or when you're on staff here you've got to continue to consider the impacts of the pandemic on students staff families and community and implement academic and emotional supports where needed as we as we all have experienced for the past couple years um so uh focus areas in year one they're they're listed here i'll make sure that these are posted on the district website but there are about 10 or 12 here that you can re review desired skills and characteristics my eyes aren't as good as they used to be the new superintendent needs to be someone who can build in some cases rebuild relationships and trust within the rockwood community the person needs to be able to include all stakeholders in moving forward and towards completion of the existing strategic plan this ability to build

023and rebuild relationships as far as i'm concerned i heard from every single person and every single group it's needed here the new superintendent should be a proven leader with specific accomplishments as well as being hard-working proactive transparent visionary and strategic experience in the classroom and leadership at the building level are important to many constituents in other words they'd like to have somebody who's a leader here who was a teacher at some point in their career and was also a principal assistant principal and so forth during their during their rise to being a superintendent the new superintendent needs to have a deep knowledge of curriculum and instruction um those are very very important considerations after all uh school districts are teaching and learning environments uh he he or she needs to know how to motivate and

024manage high performing teams and use the talents of each individual clearly identify and focus on a common vision for the future everyone needs to know in which direction this boat is rolling uh demonstrate openness accessibility thoughtfulness likability and responsiveness if you can't come talk to this person what good are they they need to be able to come into a room and make everyone feel comfortable that's extremely important for the superintendent here at rockwood this person needs to understand finances especially school finance business operations and board governance it's very very important a large district like this and the last one was something that was highlighted through all the groups a key element of being successful is great communication uh both from a verbal nonverbal perspective and also from a written and even media-centric perspective the new

025superintendent should be able to inform and inspire others through eloquent speaking skillful writing and effective use of the multimedia um the next set of bullet points are things that you're looking for as well you can kind of review these on your own but but these are very very important i'll make sure these are on the website i don't want to take too much more of your time as far as the survey responses are concerned we had 3774 responses the vast majority of those were parent or community members i'm sorry parents uh the next largest group was staff members um educational educational strengths revealed by the survey the largest one was the quality of teaching staff and the next largest one was challenging and stated our curriculum throughout throughout the the uh elementary middle and high

026schools the rest of their listed there the challenges uh one of the challenges that came up on on tap was about a third of the respondents said the quality of leadership needs to be approved improved instruction tailored to individual students gifts or needs needs to be looked at by by identified by 29 of the respondents and then the district's understanding and support of diversity needs to be something that's on the front burner organizational or managerial strengths the clean and well maintained schools every single person identified that as a strength followed by student safety and community communication with parents and community uh or uh the other one as far as challenges are concerned staff morale trusts relationships that still needs to be attended to staff morel at some places in some locations what the district is

027is something that needs to be attended to and then communication with parents and community needs to be improved priorities student growth and achievement obviously this is a learning community and that learning needs to continue to grow social emotional health and children and 21st century skills were the next two listed there by respondents to the survey where am i what my point okay here we go uh characteristic skills from the survey respondents this person needs to be trustworthy and displays courage and integrity not afraid to own a decision there's a clear vision for leading our schools in the district holds others and himself or herself accountable builds good teams brings out the best and everybody that that is with that person and is child-centered um okay so now we got to the fun part the profile

028so looking at at all the information from the survey the focus groups the open forums the conversations and i've had many conversations with staff members with parents with community members uh through telephone or email or whatever this this is the profile for your new leader this is what you're looking for and these are no particular order the first one listed is not more important than the second one and so forth so this new superintendent should be a person who possesses a deep knowledge of best practices in teaching and learning the superintendent is child centered innovative confident and resilient need to be strong you need to have a backbone for this position this person is an exceptionally strong inspirational and empathetic leader with proven skills and experience in building trusting relationships and unifying distant district constituencies

029we need to bring people back together again makes decisions based on what is best for students keeps students at the center of planning and decision making and communicates decisions with clarity reason and empathy after considering input from all stakeholders this person needs to possess a genuine warm caring personable transparent flexible and approachable personality and is skilled at building trust and maintaining of maintaining a positive climate and culture this person passionately embraces the current traditions and values of the district including a focus on the well-being of children and every aspect of their growth and development there's a great tradition in history here at rockwood this person needs to understand that and and build on that this person uses a proven track record of success as an educator and a leader to positively impact student achievement and

030district outcomes building strong teams that focus on the mission and vision of the district this person models active listening encourages and supports stakeholder voice and input and fosters a collaborative process for shared decision making showing an openness transparency transparency and willingness to give credit to others this person needs to be humble he's a he he or she is a thoughtful but resolute leader who makes well-informed decisions and demonstrates the fortitude to stand by them this person exhibits excellent communication skills builds on existing methods of and strategies to ensure timely and transparent communication that keeps internal and external stakeholders informed and supports a positive image of the district communicates a clear vision for the future of the school district inspires others to act in accordance with that vision establishes and maintains high expectations for all students

031and staff this person works effectively with this board of education aligning decision making with this district's strategic plan and pursuing those objectives with passion transparency and persistence prioritizes the recruitment training and retention of highly effective teachers and leaders guided by clear human resource practices focusing focuses on hiring staff who are diverse in race gender and background demonstrates understanding commitment to issues of equity diversity and inclusion focusing on the academic and social emotional development of all students and inclusion of all families in school life everyone should feel welcome here possesses possess a successful experience as a teacher and building level leader understands curriculum teaching and learning and promotes instructional methods that are engaging in support of high academic achievement values the unique needs of every student and allocates resources for programs in and out of the

032classroom that supports students academic growth personal and social emotional growth including the development of creativity critical thinking and problem-solving skills the skills that are talked about 21st century learning display skills and fiscal management and knowledge of legal requirements affecting the district successfully forges close connections with local and state leaders and is familiar familiar with national trends and education and this person needs to become immersed in the life of the rick rockwood schools and the community maintaining a strong presence in classrooms at activities in community events and at the local grocery store this person needs to be part of this community uh next steps just to give you in the board a sense of what our next steps are we will conduct interviews and reference checks using the new superintendent profile after the closing period for

033the applications which as at this point are due to close on december 17th we will recommend a semi-final slate to the board of education in january the board conducts first interviews and chooses finalists the board will hold second interviews with uh typically three finalists and candidate presentations are going to be done during that time as well and then the board makes final selection of the finalists conducts reference checks and negotiates the contract and the new superintendent begins duties on july 1st of 2022 happy to take any questions the board may have at this point well thanks kevin i mean that's a lot of great information so we appreciate everything you've done um i've got some more boring paperwork for you we'll take it i'm going to give this to janet but i want to make

034sure everybody gets that this is a very lengthy report on all the data that i've collected and used to form this profile i got to tell you and i got to tell you this is a great place it's welcoming people are friendly high performing this is a place where a good superintendent should be and you're going to get your person so thank you thank you for your time thank you thanks for your help in making that happen thanks guys i have fun not over yet oh it's going to be a busy couple months coming up okay i have please have a motion that the board of education approved the master plan for professional learning as a fundamental framework for the rockford professional development program for 2021 2022. second i think we're going to have dr

035renee curtier and donette whisker come and talk to us good evening to the community as well my name is dr renee trottier i'm the director of learning development here in rockwood and then this is done at whisker she is the coordinator of professional learning the master plan is typically part of consent agenda and then we come to present on years where there might be new information to share and we have a new program this year called micro credentialing for teachers so we came to explain that and give you an update on our current program so i'm going to let donnett give you an update on our current programs i'm going to try to work the clicker and then i'm going to talk a little bit about micro credentials so a few of our programs that

036um have been ongoing for a while that we're particularly proud of are you know even in the midst of the pandemic we were still able to offer teachers learning over the summer we still i think because i'm in charge of it but one of the best new teacher induction and beginning teacher programs in the state we have teachers who come from other places and raved us about the support we provide to them mentors curriculum writing we have two leadership programs that we run for teacher leaders and aspiring principals administrator pd i was really excited in the last two years we've added a lot of support staff training so and a lot of that we've been able to do by using technology using the canvas platform you know even in the midst of all the changes

037over the last few years we have with the assistance of learning support services and our teachers really been able to meet people where they are we have programs we call pdnrpjs where teachers can do professional learning at home on their own time they have a lot of choices and they're kind of able to pick what meets their needs so whether you're a veteran or a brand new teacher and we've kind of got something for everyone so i'm really pretty proud of those things that we're doing in addition one of the things that we started last year one of the things we started last year after getting input from parents and teachers and looking at best practices in professional learning is we started our full-day pd so starting last year even in the midst of everything

038going on and then continuing into this year we have four days of full-day pd and during those days there's kind of three pieces to that and one is the way forward cohorts and those are where teachers choose a strand that they want to learn about and all of those strands are connected to our district comprehensive school improvement plan so it's all tied back to the work we want to do as a district but then teachers also have choice they then join a cohort of other teachers and learn with them throughout the year in addition on that day they have the opportunity to work on curriculum implementation and they've also got time within their buildings and working with their plc's so it's a very when students i know we know that it's a hardship sometimes for

039parents to find child care things to do with their children on those days but our teachers are working very hard and learning lots of things that are benefiting those students in the classroom and again just as i stated all of these continuing programs and that whole day pd all connect directly back to the way forward and this plan so everything we do is connected to that work so a few things that we have kind of had to adjust this year as everybody has pivoted in so many ways we are not utilizing substitute teachers for meetings so we've had to move meetings to the evening sometimes via zoom or we've done things asynchronously through canvas again teachers kind of learning on their own time curriculum writing which often would have used subs is now been pulled

040into either full day pd um some of that work moved into the summer or after school so teachers have been really flexible with they still want the learning they want that learning to continue so how can we make that work our rockwood learning council and professional development committee again teachers are stepping up and meeting after school after working all day so obviously we're not meeting as often and we've really tried to pare down that business the other thing that has been kind of a challenge is that we haven't been able to have release time for new teachers and mentors so we've had to kind of be creative about how we're supporting our new teachers we're utilizing our instructional coaches at the elementary level our coordinators at the secondary level so really making sure that our

041new teachers still have that support so those are just some of the adjustments and things that we've made can programs we've tried to continue we really have been focused on maintaining quality and with that in mind and always increasing quality renee is going to talk to you about micro credentialing thank you donna i'm really excited to share a new opportunity for rockwood teachers to earn recognition for the expertise that they learn as they work through professional learning so professional learning is planned by we have a professional development committee which every school in our state does every district does but it is representatives from of teachers from all buildings along with a few administrative representatives parent representation and nea representation as well and so that group has been talking about micro credentialing actually for quite a

042few years and this year we've partnered with human resources and the rnea to bring this to our teachers so micro credentials are very common in the business world i'm sure you've heard of micro credentials google offers them and a lot of businesses do and school districts across the country have been implementing micro credentials to develop to recognize that expertise developed by their teachers so i'm not pointing it to the right will let me try that again okay sorry um so a micro credential really is just a short competency based recognition of learning mastered it takes a teacher about 15 hours to earn a micro credential they can stack micro credentials in the same area of study so if they want to focus on character and well-being and become an expert in that area they can

043stack multiple micro credentials to go from a foundational knowledge to a more specialized knowledge and the badge is actually just that symbol that denotes the micro credential earned that you might have seen in the business world so our purpose and and really our goal with micro credentials is we really want to provide our teachers to donate's point we have we we hire experienced teachers from other districts and we also hire new teachers right out of college and at different points in their career they all have different needs they teach different subject areas different levels of students they're at a different place in their career and so we want high quality personalized professional learning for teachers that impacts the learning with their kids if it doesn't impact the learning in the classroom then there's really not

044a lot of points in having meetings for teachers and so we also want to recognize the expertise developed by teachers and there is a financial incentive provided for teachers with that master's degree to develop competencies aligned with the teacher evaluation instrument and our school improvement plan so the incentives the financial compensation is just the pay scale didn't change so there's nothing that changed about it there so right now as you know teachers move on the pay scale they earn their bachelor's degree they earn another 15 or 30 hours after their vouchers that they move when they earn their masters then they earn plus 15 or plus 30 hours after their master's and so none of that's changed they still move primarily through college credits and that they get through local universities but they also can

045move with rockwood micro credentials so to that point we incentivize the learning that's connected to our school improvement plan and that's connected to our teacher evaluation instrument so it's just interchangeable they can move with 13 college credit hours and two rockwood micro credentials 10 rocket micro credentials and five college credit hours so whatever works that combination works it's just interchangeable so that's how they move on that pay scale one micro credential is one hour of college credit um and then finally that that badge just shows that expertise so what we focus on well i said it it takes about 15 hours so it's a it's a pretty intense um experience for them to earn a micro credential it's not really about seat time or hours it's more about demonstrating mastery of the con of the

046content and evidence of implementation and so those are really the two things that we focus on um to move in those micro credential opportunities so you have and it's also public on board docs i think it's appendix b in the master plan this is the full micro credential plan where you can see how it works and all that good stuff did you have any questions at all yeah go ahead tammy okay oh thank you i have a couple of questions about the micro credentials one is if they're getting district micro credential credit they they're then then they are not applying for reimbursement like they would for college credit correct yeah there's no cost to the teacher okay to earn a rocket launcher that we're already providing correct um would there be teachers that would be

047taking those same courses for non-credential absolutely that's a great point so anyone can earn a micro credential even if they're right out of college and they don't have their masters yet that financial incentive only comes into play with that masters plus 30. anyone can earn it and so to your point we might have professional learning um that's going on so like trauma informed care for example is one of those and within that group you probably the majority is probably not taking it for the micro credential those that are are doing additional reflections that show that they've mastered the um content and that how they've implemented that in the classroom that was my question that leads me to my next question is that um is there any kind of competency assessments that show that they have

048mastered that level of those 15 hours or whatever they're taking yes so there we have a common template that people who are are offering a micro credentialed opportunity um fill out it's kind of it's like a college syllabus basically um you know that we would approve and it is um that's that's what they have to show so how are they going to show that they know it and how are they going to show that um they've implemented what they've learned and one more question um so are you partnering with any universities to offer some some specialized like credits and things that they for the district to partner with the district to offer those absolutely we still have the same partnerships with our universities at the um with our new teachers we're still actually running college

049credit instead of micro credentials because they primarily do not have a masters and sometimes that college credit can work toward their masters and so some we actually have both in that sense and then i know the universities are also making some changes too so lindenwood university for example has a micro credential opportunity the nea i mean there's a lot of organizations that have those it also allows us to you know we tend to provide um professional learning out of our department that impacts all teachers but you know computer science teachers have special needs and they have special certifications so like we are also able to offer some personalized opportunities for more specialized um content areas partnering with the university thank you so much yeah you bet thank you doctor yes several quick questions this is

050a new program has just started yet it started yes in in october our full day pd is the first time it started so october so we our first teachers will have a few teachers credentialed in december but most won't be credentialed until about may first number two this micro cadential credentialing is all done after school not during the school regular school day right great question so it can be a combination so you can if they're doing some of the way forward cohorts are micro-credentialed so if they're meeting all four times and they're they're in one of those that are micro-credentialed they would also be doing additional work outside of the school day so it's none of it's 100 during the school day because they're doing additional work outside of the school day for those who

051are um who are actually going for the micro credential okay third question how many micro credentials do you expect or can anticipate throughout this year oh that's a good question do you know the answer to that so are you talking about the teachers or the courses whole year how many right can it can one teacher get in a year 201 how many can one teacher get in a year or how many how many total micro credentials you think will be issued this year oh for people right now they have an intent to micro credential form and i would guess i would say if they all follow through we're about at 75 or 80 at this time there are those okay can you give me some examples of these micro credentials what area they're in yeah

052absolutely they're all connected to the first three goals and then the leadership goal of the way forward so so like we have assessment for learning for example we have a beautiful work micro credential where we're working with foreign the unique needs of gifted learners we have meeting the needs of students with disabilities um so we've got in character and well-being we have schools working on that schools of character process so we've got somebody from character plus working with schools there we have um somebody working with schools on so meeting the social emotional needs of kids so all of those strands which actually we invited you guys to so you probably you would have a list of those they're not part of the master plan but in september you would have gotten that list and so

053that those are the micro credentialed opportunities we have right now last question is this uh sanctioned by jesse any courage jesse actually has micro credentials as well so jesse is moving in a micro credential opportunity with um with their administrators for example so instead of having to get your specialist and then your doctor you have a micro credential opportunity so desi is actually somebody who offers micro credentials thank you very much you're welcome all right hi thank you that passes thank you thank you we now have a motion to approve the bond issue purchases the related contracts for 7 500 250 000 as some netted good evening this purchase is a cycle refresh of our existing voice routers uh those routers support our voice over internet phones and it will keep our the new equipment

054will keep our phone system up and running how long is this life support i mean how is the normal lifespan they last anywhere from six to eight years how many of those do we have two two two okay and then this is across the entire district right these routers are across the district yes one's at babler and one's at crestview they're separated by um phone central offices in the other discussion the motion to approve the bond issue purchases and relay contracts 7 500 250 submitted all favored all right the opposed that passes [Music] okay moving along it's i have a motion to remove patron superintendent and board comments from the december 2nd 2021 board of education meeting agenda to accommodate for the board award presentation second discussion the reason behind this is because that is

055the awards night it is an award tonight and so we want to concentrate on the award correct but it's just a one time happening one time right uh it is happening for the awards on that's what i mean we'll go back to the regular after that yes this the awards are on december 2nd december 2nd so that's the next board meeting yes sir and it's in person for the first time in two years uh with awards first time in two years yeah it's so exciting to be able to be back doing it in the way we've done it in the past and have the kids on stage with us is that here in eureka rocket so much okay so we do move them around like we have done traditionally yes thank you anything else okay

056i'm gonna read that motion again to to remove patron superintendent and board comments from the deception december 2nd 2021 board of education meeting agenda to accommodate for the board award awards presentation all you approve any of any opposed well then the awards will be first and then that shortened meeting will be afterward is that right yes what other way around business with immediately person we go into the awards and that's good okay that's the reason for yes we just want to focus on the kids achievements yes thank you all right so let's talk about future agenda presentations and events to attend janet lynn yes i was apparently asleep at the wheel when we did the did the consent items there are two there are two public gifts to the school early childhood pto early childhood

057center monetary 738 dollars and 43 cents to supporting students and staff purchases of stem related materials playground communication lord and let's get the conversation started program this material and the second one is from hal yeager location lafayette high school equipment 1 236 dollars supporting the lafayette high school photography program donations of various equipment to the lafayette high school photography and those who are new to the audience we get these almost every board meeting anywhere from two to three monetary value all the way up to twenty thousand dollars all the way down to a hundred hundred dollars and we do sincerely appreciate any organization individual person that donates to the rockwood school district thank you all right so i believe it's a time in our meeting work for patron comments and i i appreciate your patience

058because i don't do this very often so here we go i'm going to read our statement during patron comments citizens may address the board of education concerning issues related to the school district the board of education meeting is live streamed for the community's convenience opinions expressed at the meeting are not necessarily the opinions of the rocket school district youtube preserves the right to monitor and block inaccurate information that processes beyond the control of the rocket school district each speaker will be limited to three minutes combining time or giving your time to someone else to speak is not allowed only one speaker is allowed at the podium at a time when your your time is up please note that at the board discretion the board or superintendent may respond immediately to an issue raised during patron

059comments for clarification however our general practice is to respond to the comment at a later time via a phone call or written message if a response is needed we have a stated we have a stand with microphones ready so both the board and the audience may hear the patron comments clearly and that's up there as a reminder maths are required in our buildings and should remain on even when you're speaking the board appreciates that you have taken the time to come this evening and we value your input and your perspective once your remarks are over please return to your seat i would like to remind everyone that we expect that you will remain civil and respectful in your remarks and if anyone becomes disruptive we reserve the right to cut those three myths short verbally

060aggressive language or frugality in any form is not accepted whether you are reading someone else's remarks or they are your own it will not be tolerated for your convenience our three minute time clock is ready okay and our first speaker this evening is trish gumby with chase bryant after that good evening my name is trish gunby i'm the state representative in the 99th district which encompasses manchester twin oaks valley park and unincorporated st louis county i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight i first want to offer my condolences to your community on the death of the students that attended marquette so please know that you're in my prayers and thoughts the reason i'm here is to i have a portion of rockwood in my district it's just south of highway 44 and i just want

061people to be aware that the legislative session will be starting in on january 5th it extends until mid-may and there are ways that you can follow legislation that affects public schools uh in you know during the session one thing that happened that came out of covid is in the past you would have to go to jeff city and do testimony in person but now we allow for online testimony and so you can go to the missouri house of representatives page there are tabs that you can click on to see what hearings are taking place in fact there have been educational hearings this week in fact you can also look at archived hearings and so you can see what was said during those hearings and you can also watch debate on the house floor there's a

062link that you can watch that and that's archived as well and there's an online testimony form and you can fill that out while we may not be able to we don't read those during committee but uh all of us on committees we do read those you know in preparation so i just want to encourage people i don't think a lot of folks know that these are available in a lot of this in the last few years has just become available so i just encourage you to follow along during session next year thank you [Applause] is chase bryant and after that cerebral oh hi my name is chase bryant i would like to tell you what i think about mass i hate them i get in trouble all the time for my mass being pulled down

063for a split second i cannot hear the teachers talk with their masks on so i just sit there and don't feel like paying attention even when i am taking a sip of water i'm quickly yelled at for having it down some teachers are nice to the girls but when it comes to the boys we get yelled at wearing a mess is hard for me to breathe it makes my chest hurt sometimes and sometimes i feel like i'm isolating my breath and then it makes my stomach hurt during the day because i am breathing so hard i'm afraid to get sent to the principal's office because of my mask wearing so then i am nervous all the time when i just want to take a deep breath my watch lets me know all the time that

064i need to slow down my breathing i feel like it should be my choice if i want to have something covering my mouth when i am in school i am so sick of some sometimes i don't even want to get up in the morning anymore or even go to school when i talk to my friends in the class we're supposed to be working together we sometimes get mad at each other because we think that we are being mean because they can't not see our faces i get cold sores breakouts of rashes of all over my face a lot then my face and stomach starts to hurt throughout the day i've been given the option to have mass breaks but when i have rashes i get embarrassed and just stay in the class i don't want

065to do this anymore my heart's my heart makes me feel like it's beating so fast throughout the day [Applause] next speaker is sarah bryant and after that boston connor hard to go after my son [Music] hi my name is sarah and i'm here today because i feel you are neglecting your staff and students by putting our wonderful teachers in inappropriate positions our water fountains are covered you are relying on six-year-olds to be responsible for filling up and consuming their water all day long it's not the teacher's responsibility to oversee the refill of their water over 70 percent of our children today are dehydrated that means statistically many children are suffering in our schools headache diarrhea poor concentration poor behavior and lethargy are some of the effects of dehydration which are also the effects of covid

066i'm still unclear with logic here but arguably gyms and community centers have a wealth of bacterium yet the water fountains are uncovered i can't help but think our 100 dedicated custodial staff and the same users day in and day out put our and our water fountains are nearly not as effect infectious yet remain covered it's hard to go after chase sorry um our children's faces are covered with bacteria infested masks all day long a recent study published from the cleveland clinic showed how bacterial meningitis and streptococcus were present on several children's mass i'm not a scientist but the information is out there for you it's your job as a district to educate our children have a right to education as human in this country vax or unbacked conservative or liberal you're to remain impartial you

067are not allowed to tell my children who to vote for or about their personal medical choices or give them a reason why they should or should not get vaccinated or what god they are supposed to pray to if any at all it's your job to provide an enriching environment in which for them to learn and grow as individuals you've taken a wrong turn and i believe in vaccines and i believe in germs and i believe in choice logic and the ability to make my own decisions for my children but teaching them to be silent to not touch just stay six feet away is neglectful you are putting our teachers in that position and it's not right covet isn't going away the flu never went away it still hasn't you guys are at leadership and the

068the purpose of leadership is to make decisions based on all not on what's best just for you what's best for all you're choosing to listen to one side of science instead of both that is all i have to say thank you for your time [Applause] next speaker is austin connor and after that xander bryant uh [Music] hello i'm here to show support for the concerned parents here some of them my friend from the st louis county council meetings i was appalled by the examples of images and texts found in books available in school libraries sometimes parents who rightfully complain about it get generalized as homophobic or transphobic or worse domestic terrorists you want so much to pander to a loud minority of activists that you harm and confuse the children you're supposed to educate and

069demonize the parents who love them so the presence of some of these books in the library is for inclusion right for lgbt education for transgender people have you even met a transgender person if not well now you have because i'm biologically female but i present as a man i wasn't open about it but i had to make a point maybe some of these fellows will disagree with my life choices but that's fine i'm still with them on what's important the next generation is the future of america and i'm tired of allies saying that they're trying to help people like me and then they go and make our reputation worse do you think i want little kids to look at queer erotica in their library i don't p to lgbt xyz pedophiles do not belong in

070any community they belong in therapy or prison or a third more effective option that i can't say as per decorum rules i have no pride in a community that lets others willingly expose children to explicit content on our behalf and does nothing it's not impossible to speak up i have severe social anxiety and i'm still doing this you don't need superpowers you only need to be strong enough for just three minutes and mines are about up so [Applause] next speaker is jason moore and after that jennifer weston [Music] flying um so this is what i want to say i do not care if you want to wear a mask or not i do not want to anymore it's really hard for me to learn and hear what people are saying so i get bored and

071stop listening when i was talking to my friend he thought i was being mean because my mask makes it hard for him to hear me i am always getting yelled at by so many teachers i get sad because i really want to hug my friends and i'm i am afraid to get in trouble i want to go to school but i get upset when i can't hire five of my friends right no play tag with my friends we can't even give someone a high five i have to go to the nurse to get a water bottle because if because i forget mine ate a lot and a lot of times there are they are all gone so then i do not have any water at all i get headaches and stomach aches at i mean

072all the time i see teachers in the hallway and classrooms without their masks on all the time well all the time i have coveted and so has my family i don't think we need to do this stuff anymore [Applause] next speaker is jennifer weston and after that katie becker oh excuse me jason moore did i skip jason no i didn't there he is i'm sorry jason my deepest apology all right jason moore all i got to say is hearing but i've just heard um austin it was great seeing you here thank you for coming out as a father as a husband that that has angered me quite a bit what i just heard i had no idea that the water fountains were unavailable for the kids how could that be kids are not at danger

073for for covid first off people should have the option to wear a mask or not to wear a mask this has been we've had this argument since day one of this entire thing a year and a half ago why i'm here has to do i was not i was going to talk about something else but i this just angered me so much but one thing that angered me quite a bit a few weeks ago was the threat the fbi threat that's been called out by the u.s attorney general's office and the national school board association and they actually walked away from it are you walking away from that original threat from parents forgot for god forbid that they're speaking up on behalf of their children for what's being taught i have been privy to a

074lot of the materials that have been exposed not only in rockwood but across the state and across the u.s i actually spoke about at the county council meeting a couple weeks ago and i gave all those materials to the council that's why austin's here thank you sir it's what i did not feel comfortable reading what i saw i felt just awful i'm 40 i'm gonna be 49 years old next year when i was a kid none of this was ever present anywhere and now it's become normalized masks are becoming normalized these little kids that just spoke up bravely tonight do you hear what they just said do you have any idea put yourself in their shoes rethink how this this district is being led are you really protecting them i argue no you're just continuing

075a narrative i don't know if it's the extra money coming in from the feds or where it's coming from but this needs to stop this is insanity now i'm trying to monit i'm trying to keep my tone because kids are around but please call me if any of you want to talk to me please call me i'm always around and i would love to talk to you thank you so much [Music] [Applause] now it's jennifer weston and after that katie becker [Applause] good evening i stand here tonight disappointing to you regarding your vote at the last meeting on the challenge for the book the hate u give i read the book and there are valid reasons why it has been one of the most challenged books for the past four years it has many references

076to drugs alcohol sex and profanity here are some excerpts from the book f the police f the police they don't give an up about us so we don't give enough burn this fee down she looks the way khalil's mama would look if ms brenda wasn't on crack i bet they'd be doing molly white kids love popping pills fooling around isn't new for us and when chris slipped his hand in my shorts i didn't think anything of it then he got me going and i really wasn't thinking at all for real my thought process went out the door i left his house pissed and horny the absolute worst way to leave god boys in their effing sex drive i'm shocked that anyone would be okay with middle schoolers reading this book and equally shocked with the

077challenge committee solutions solution number one is for librarians to place young adult stickers on the book and solution number two is to give parents the opportunity to place a notification in their child's infinite campus account these are not solutions there's a good chance that by putting young adult stickers on the book but still accessible to all students you are making it more enticing to read and regarding the notification in infinite campus i have not found a single parent who has heard of this process lastly the challenge committee justified their decision to retain the book by saying that while it does contain a lot of inappropriate language it is a very well written book and the goal is to give a variety of perspectives it's now clear that books with sex drugs and violence are perfectly

078acceptable in rockwood's libraries as long as you deem the book to be well-written and with a diverse perspective you realize how ludicrous this is right i find it hard to believe that you can't find well-written diverse perspectives that do not contain questionable material striving for diverse perspectives should never come at the expense of exposing our kids to topics that are not age appropriate perhaps you don't understand what this means it means that they are not experienced enough to manage exposure to ideas which seem exciting are far more likely to leave to lead to experimentation and these have a high potential to be catastrophic for instance fentanyl is laced in many other drugs and is deadly at a very low dosage and there are sexual predators everywhere on the internet do you have the means and

079resources to monitor these issues if you were wrong in your assessment by retaining these books you are complicit in desensitizing sex drugs and violence [Applause] [Music] barnard elizabeth scott's living dead girl is a fictional novel available in both marquette and lafayette libraries this book describes the daily rape sodomy and abuse of a ten-year-old girl over a period of five years fantasies of holding down and raping a six-year-old i'll repeat that a six-year-old okay the description of the pedophile's mother raping him as he was a child suicide ideation suicide and glorification of death all with the constant theme then when this happens no one will help you adults won't even notice and victims need to stay quiet to survive the book ends with the victim being killed but not before she is stabbed and then sodomized

080and raped in graphic detail by the adult captor at age 15. child rape is the entirety of the book not a small section it is absurd that this filth is being peddled to children in rockwood schools according to librarians at marquette and lafayette the process of vetting incoming books involving having at least two positive professional reviews for a book to be accepted so they're looking at reviews of how well written a book is deemed to be and not the actual content illicit content trumps how well something is written every time there are many other literary works that can evoke emotion and teach skill without resorting to filth and in this book's case possible emotional trauma our community grants the schools implicit authority so when our children view and or read glorified pedophilia and pornography provided

081by the school it sanctions this material as acceptable by you keeping this book in our school libraries rockwood is saying that all of this is okay to our students and our children dehumanizing people normalizing violent perverse behavior normalizing child rape and molestation is called grooming it has no place in our schools and instead of standing with us and removing this book entirely dedicated to child child rape and others filled with pornographic images and descriptions you seem to be fighting us and this community at large by making the book challenge process more complex and difficult and this is all after we brought this to your attention while these books are being challenged they're still made available to our kids furthermore the intensely complex bureaucratic process to remove these books obfuscates both personal and professional responsibility from

082the board and administration by overhauling the book vetting process as well as removing this filth from our school libraries you give a clear message that the board of ed and the administration does not condone giving our child pornography i'll leave you with this excerpt and i won't read much because it's trash was so deeply disturbing so bear with me get up those were the first words i ever heard open my eyes see a girl black and blue all over dried blood along her thighs red brown stains smeared across the hairless juncture between this was describing post rape of the 10 year old girl by an adult male the onus is on you guys at this point to remove these books it should not be on the shoulders of the few parents up here that are

083trying to protect our kids from filth like this [Applause] sarah bernard and then good evening i want to talk to you tonight about two books the first one is called all boys aren't blue it's in all four of our high schools school libraries in eight states so far have taken it off their shelves after parents told their school boards about the content of the book the content not the author or the fact that it's a memoir or the perspective from which it's told the content is what parents around the country and here in rockwood are concerned about includes explicit detailed descriptions of sex acts at times it is like pornography there are multiple excerpts that i find too explicit to be per school library i will only read a couple of tonight and i will

084be careful in the way that i'm reading them from page 266 he reached his hand down and pulled out my d-i-c-k he quickly went to giving me head watch your teeth i slowed down and got into a good rhythm i did my best to act like my favorite porn star his body felt great in my mouth page 271 nervous and drunk i listened to god on my stomach he got on top and slowly inserted himself into me it was the worst pain i think i've ever had in my life he then added more lube and tried again the second book i want to read want to tell you about is called the haters it is in three of the high schools it has explicit descriptions of sex acts it minimizes date rape and has 500

085instances of gratuitous profanity and smut she reached beside behind herself and kindly and kind of carefully took my not hard d-i-c-k into one hand and she rose up a little and adjusted her panties and breathed harder and opened her mouth the moment she put me inside her i came f-word i said i curled i curled up around her like a snail and kept coming about a hundred times we've been told that we can keep our kids from reading these books but i want to let you know that the procedures for doing that are not effective in order to restrict a title parents would have to know about the title aside from listening to this patron comment right now parents have no way of knowing that these books are in our libraries right now they are

086not on the approved list that rock would post online with its sixth through twelfth grade language arts curriculum so this district isn't telling parents that these books are available in a typical real world situation a parent would only know about these books after the child has checked them out parents might never see or hear about them another way is to put a note in the system that says our kids can't check out young adult books which is how they are classified but then that will restrict other books such as like lord of the flies to kill a mockingbird which are also young adult books many parents are totally fine with those they are not explicit but our kids won't be able to read them if we say we don't want them to read books that

087are essentially pornographic it doesn't make sense it's like grouping pg-13 content with rated r content and saying to avoid rated r we also have to avoid pg-13 parents here in rockwood have submitted a formal challenge to both of these books so they will can be reviewed thank you [Applause] next speaker christian eldridge and after that janet d edrick the books in our library um i am concerned about tonight contain inappropriate sexual descriptions of sex between children teens and even adults and minors it represents an alarming agenda that targets youth hiding behind virtuous words such as diversity and inclusion of course we must welcome children of all identities into our libraries and there are plenty of books that do that again what i am deeply concerned about is the large number of books sitting on our

088library shelves with the agenda of sexually ruining our children a visually appealing graphic novel with really no storyline or character development the breakaways is currently at chesterfield eureka pond elementary and crestview middle school two elementary age characters are illustrated kissing in bed and one of them questions their gender mind you the complicated topic of gender gender identity is not mentioned in the summary of the book which really makes me wonder if they are trying to hide the topic from adults and parents lawn boy tells the story of mike a kid in his early 20s growing up on the poor side of the tracks across the water from seattle mike is not only trying to find himself but he's also trying to survive struggling to make ends meet when the world seems stacked up against him

089sounds like a really great story right except threaded throughout the story are numerous sexual scenes and extremely vulgar language page 91 what if i told you i touched another guy's d word what if i told you i sucked it i was 10 years old but it's true i suck doug's d word the real estate guy and he sucked mine too in addition to that i'll share with you the exceptional vocabulary after 44 f words and 41 s words i stopped counting after page 66. well each of you the rock the leadership in rock would be strategizing how we can audit and clean up our library shelves as soon as possible the process of writing challenges for every book is not efficient enough parents shouldn't have to stand up here pleading with you to protect our

090children from the evil agenda of sexual grooming [Applause] next speaker uh janet davrick and after that baby chris last month i stood before you and introduced the concept of child erotica it is not my term it is a term among booksellers used to get around pornography laws child erotica is used by pedophiles to desensitize kids to the idea of having sex hey everyone's doing it it's fine that is called grooming i expected that we would receive notes back thanking us for alerting the district that these books are on rockwood shelves i really thought that nope what we got were notes saying that if we don't like a book we can challenge it so that means our time to jump through your hoops to clean up your mess that's a big mistake brockwood we don't even

091know how many of these books are out there we're told there is no inventory list to give us but we know that can't be true big mistake we just learned that if we challenge a high school book the review panel will bring in students the very people we are trying to protect big mistake parents are receiving responses from admin folks who say the library seeks to serve diverse perspectives what the pedophile perspective and if the librarians don't know what they're buying it's time they wake up and figure it out and if they do know and they're good with it they should not be around children sadly it's time for me to present another obscene book dead end by jason myers this is in my son's library this is the most soul-crushing thing i have ever

092read while reading it i felt like i was sinking into darkness and i am not a depressed teen dead end is so sick that there's no way that i can read any of it here but you can download it at libraryexposed.blogspot.com now i didn't think dead end had any redeeming value until i realized that it's really a helpful how-to guide first we have drew and gina a teen couple in love we learn graphic details about their sex life who does what in whose mouth then we learn all about how to gang rape a girl poor gina we learned about getting a buddy to hold her down how to moisten what's dry how to avoid dna evidence and remember to snap some pics of your buddies raping her so you have some insurance in case they

093blab now if you're drew the boyfriend you'll go kill the guys who rape gina then you'll go on the run in the woods you're going to run into a gang of kids who get you drunk and gang rag your girlfriend again while you're sleeping it off she commits suicide you wake up and find her and you cut your own throat but no worries the two kids will meet again in the afterlife and walk off through a beautiful meadow together and we ask why our teens are traumatized [Applause] next speaker amy krebs and after that haley rogers hi good evening i'm here tonight to review a book titled fun home a family tragic comic by alison bechdel this book is graphic cartoon style that appeals to young non-readers the story entails a father that rapes underage

094boys as well as having an emotionally abusive relationship with his wife his three children are traumatized growing up by their father's mental instability whom eventually commits suicide in this book the father was an undertaker that exposed his young children to naked corpses lying on prep tables dissected and genitalia exposed this is all graphically drawn out for the young readers to see in this book here green shiny book there is another graphic cartoon of oral sex being performed with a protest sign against christians in the background seems to be a lot common themes in all these books uh they're all embedded in these books such as an obsession with death suicide sexuality rape anti-family anti-god activism this book was available to the rockwood high school students that attended the individualized learning center or ilc until it

095closed last year to be reinvented ilc was open to students that have significant fears anxiety learning disabilities and other struggles that make it hard for them to focus and thrive in the school environment why was this book available to the most vulnerable children this book normalizes rape by an adult what kind of message does this send to these children shouldn't they be learning to trust and respect authority figures not fear them when the ilc is reinvented how will we make sure that rape books and pornography books aren't being read to these children that need extra support and love all children but one can only assume that the existence of these pornography and rape culture books in our schools will only enhance trauma and suicide aren't we trying to prevent trauma for our children due to

096the increase in suicides over the past couple of years many local education agencies are receiving billions of dollars across the nation from the federal government's sr3 funds which are to gather information on your child in the areas of social emotional learning equity and trauma and implement governmental services where required school districts are hiring local education agencies to intervene with families and children coping with trauma and suicide with the sr3 funds one way to reduce trauma and suicide would be to eliminate pornography rape culture trauma-induced books from our school libraries might i add teachers are overwhelmed and stressed out dealing with the extra burden of social and emotional learning and the surveys and the pornography books teachers are not psychologists psychiatrists or medical doctors they are not trained to handle the reactions that children may have

097to this type of content i'm an educator and a parent that has a love and a passion to protect and advocate for all children five out of seven of you on the board are educators so you understand how damaging it is to expose our children to traumatic topics and pornography oh darn it i just have a little paragraph can i finish okay the board superintendent administration has the power to do something about it and our children are under attack please remove the pornography and presume preserve and protect our wonderful district and keep the federal government out we do love rockwood thank you protect our district [Applause] next speaker haley rogers after that elizabeth cullen well i told you we'd be back in spades like many i was shocked at the last meeting with all the

098books exposed and this meeting what happens in darkness will always come to light in the aftermath myself and many others have these questions how are these books in our school libraries who is approving and purchasing or supplying these what can parents and citizens do about this here are some of the unsatisfactory answers we have found how are they in our libraries well many are added without proper vetting because they meet diversity and inclusion criteria others because they've won an award but as pedophilia rape and drugs what you'd want your child identifying with who's providing these it's up to the discretion of individual librarians using rockwood's loosely defined handbook books are either donated by various organizations or purchased by the schools very few are researched or read and thorough before adding them to the shelves clearly

099what can parents do about this unfortunately not much first reach out to the librarian who will suggest adding a notes yield child's destiny account to restrict checking out specific titles or genres but it's impossible to know all the books as a thorough list has not been provided to parents and restricting checkout access does not prevent a child from reading the book while in the library why do we have to opt out of this stuff should this not be an opt in situation next contact the principal who will have the same response yes principles will further this and direct you to policy 6241 with the formal challenge form as with many things uncovered lately this has been a pass the butt game administrators themselves are unclear of the ins and outs of their own protocols and

100keep changing the goal posts to make things more difficult after a challenge is submitted dr willett has free reign to accept or deny using undefined and inconsistent criteria we also do not know how long it takes to schedule review or resolve a challenge with as many books that are in question it could take a while and the books remain on the shelves for the duration and there's no guarantee of change yes our kids will be exposed to lots of unsavory things in their young lives books are such a small part but if there's a way to preserve innocence in just one area for a little while longer shouldn't we these books have mature topics that are best left to the discretion of parents [Applause] so if you'd like your child to have access to these

101try the public library or on your own dime but they have no place in an academic setting kids are being exposed to adult issues much too early and they aren't coping well we have straight have we strayed so far from a moral society that adults are fighting to keep this content freely available in school stop sexualizing our children one final question as my time is running up if the process to remove or restrict a book is so arduous shouldn't it be an equally thorough process with accountability to add books into the libraries to begin with [Applause] next speaker elizabeth cohen after that jessica samuel hello that's hard to follow all that i'm i'm honestly my stomach hurts right now from listening to all that um last year our kids were told they needed to wear

102masks to protect the teachers all teachers have now had the opportunity to protect themselves with a vaccine students no longer need to wear masks to protect the teachers this year our kids were told they needed to wear masks to protect students who couldn't be vaccinated due to their age every person aged 5 and up can now be vaccined if the legal garden guardian decides it's what's best for them students no longer need to wear masks to protect other students high risk have always been in our schools and are fully capable of making decisions for their own health my oldest son was born 11 weeks premature with underdeveloped lungs and is severely asthmatic so flu is a big risk for him due to his compromised lungs we made the decision to accept the risks of in-person

103school during flu season for him if a family with someone at high risk doesn't trust their own mask or vaccination to give them the protection they need they can choose virtual option for school it is time to make mass optional it is time for kids to be allowed to put their own health and wellness first it is time to put the focus on kids who have been suffering under these mandates for the last year and a half and stop focusing only on covid it is time to get back to caring about our kids academics it is difficult to focus when breathing is hindered it is hard for students to hear and understand their teachers during class just ask randy weingarten the president of the american federation of teachers who removed her mask at a conference

104earlier this month because people were quote having a hard time hearing what she had to say our kids don't have the option of simply removing their masks when they are struggling at school or they risk being shamed and punished by teachers and staff or even kicked out the masks are impeding their learning the recent standardized test results clearly show the damage that has been done since march of 2020 to the students in the rockwood school district and our rockwood ratings are dropping along with their scores to use the word of the board's presidents i'm disappointed i'm disappointed in this board for allowing a temporary student superintendent to damage and divide this district as he has to other districts in the past without accountability he has no skin in this game no concern about losing his

105job and quite frankly a clear disdain for the parents he represents that you are ignoring your key responsibilities as school board members to adopt and evaluate policies and to assure district performance i am disappointed as i watch you allow those who blindly support you skirt around the rules in this public forum they talk about other parents and disparage them each and every meeting yet no one stops them at the last meeting you allowed one patron to speak for two minutes about an incident she had no direct knowledge of that involved other parents before stopping her was spelled by your supporters multiple times during the meeting at lafayette without anyone stopping them yet someone who is concerned about the pornography of our students are being exposed to cannot even read a rockwood approved library book without

106being reprimanded for spelling one of the words what does that say about the job you are doing what does that say about rockwood [Applause] i'm speaker jessica zurbulin and after that renee's small good evening like many others in the audience i've battled multiple housing market hardships and have fought really really hard to get my kids here we came here in 2019 with the expectation that rockwood would provide a high quality education and care about our children while we have had many wonderful experiences at geggy and lasalle i'm very concerned with the availability of pornography and embedded political agenda in your curriculum last month parents reading examples of this aloud to you were silenced as if what you allow children to check out in the library could not be shared with your adult ears if children

107can read it then you need to listen to it if it's bad enough to warrant silencing and removal from youtube and facebook then it's not appropriate for our children it seems like a no-brainer that every parent can get behind some things like pornographic material warrants immediate removal not a process if you found alcohol being served in a school cafeteria would you remove it immediately or have parents fill out a bunch of paperwork and then change the walls and the middle of the game in order to make the process difficult in order to determine what to do about it take action now show us that our children matter doesn't it seem interesting that god can be removed but pornography can be included while my children would never check out books like this they could find them

108on a shelf flip through them and be disturbed by them and for that reason putting restrictions on my children's account will not be sufficient my concerns lie with this system and the coordinators that improve such material and curriculum school districts need to realize that their place is in academics it is simply not your place to expose our children to pornography or teach them values in politics in a slanted way if you want to know if politics are hidden in your curriculum all you have to do is involve parents as they should be you may simply not be noticing what's upsetting to a large part of your population because you can't see outside of your own lens and this of course works under the assumption that you care and you want to try to be unbiased

109no child should ever know what their teacher's political opinions are if you're doing education correctly [Applause] furthermore the responses of the school board have concerned me i watch your meetings every month last meeting i heard you express disappointment with the parents who expressed concern for their children and had differing opinions other than your own these are very eloquent educated parents who are simply looking out for their children's futures and morals we come to you with the expectation that you care about our children parents are routinely met with apathy and disdain we cannot help but make the conclusion that this is just another way to silence our voices and to take away our moral influence as their parents i'm insisting that you remove the pornography and messages with a political agenda from your curriculum you can

110change your challenge process you can put our comments off till the end of your board meetings but we will not go away these are our kids and we will stand up for them [Applause] [Music] hi i'm here to speak on the materials in our library i just became aware of them and they got to hear more stuff tonight i have served as a rockwood trainer and an expert in my field providing trainings to counselors and parent aides in this district on understanding child abuse signs and symptoms of what to do with it and i was also invited to be on a panel to design a suicide assessment for elementary level students now here's where it comes in to diminish the possibility of future ramifications against this district regarding inappropriate material it is my professional opinion

111and obligation to provide you with instruction on the legalities of sexual abuse first let's start with the laws federal law section 21 115 and missouri state law 10 5.200 all mandated reporters shall report immediately any suspected child abuse so what if you don't make the call law quote if a mandatory reporter does not report an instance of child abuse and neglect that person will be charged by the district attorney with a misdemeanor offense punishable by imprisonment of up to six months and a fine of a thousand dollars and listen school districts will not back the educators or the staff who fail to hotline this abuse yesterday i interviewed dr parr a retired school counselor and past president of the american counselor association as well as alice carpenter a retired chief investigator of chief abuse of

112the division of social services both interpreted some of these books to be pornographic in nature not appropriate for children outside of a therapeutic setting and only with parental permission now let's define sex abuse the division of social services can include rape sodomy touching taking pictures videos but listen to this exposure exposure to pornographic videos pictures or narrations and according to the above definition the books in our libraries are considered pornographic in nature and if it involves a child under the age of 18 under age 18 it is child pornography hold on i'm limited hold up i'm limited because we know this material is available to students and school staff are mandated reporters this puts them in a little bit of a difficult situation are they supposed to hotline librarians what about the teachers who take

113their class to the library or maybe the person who ordered the pornographic materials this falls onto the administrators i'm a mandated reporter who do i who do i hotline and what are my consequences for not hotlining according to the american psychological association and the american school counselor association i could be put on probation lose my license perhaps my business educators also face consequences including according to the association of american educators losing their job for multiple offenses but let me remind everybody it's not just up to mandated reporters to hotline because parents can hotline suspected child abuse also [Applause] [Music] okay so i have just a quick article um real fast um so one of the articles i just got um last friday and it is from an epidemiologist from st john's from johns hopkins university

114asking her when does the pandemic end she replied or we care a lot less she added i think for most people it just fades into the background of their lives i realize that answer may sound jarring but the alternative a society permanently dominated by covid is jarring too eventually the cost of organizing our lives around the virus will exceed the benefits in some cases we may have already reached that point so my point with that article is when will it end here every day my child comes home from school asking when she doesn't have to wear her mask at school telling me that kids are constantly being yelled at and getting in trouble because they have to pull their mask up well the poor things can't breathe they can't talk to their friends they can't

115see each other smile um they want to take their masks off they if they have to um they're allowed to keep their water bottle at least at our school on their desk but if they pull their mats down and take a drink of water they're told to do it real quick because if it's not fast enough i guess they're going to spread coping so my daughter pretty much comes home every day with a full water bottle um outside of that um we have not had a normal school year since 2019 these kids have been missing school or wearing a mask for almost two years it's absolutely ridiculous and we've all been sitting in here wearing masks as if you guys i mean i'm getting the headache i mean maybe some people are fine maybe you

116guys are fine with it i don't know but i have a 9 year old and a 14 year old and they want their lives back because guess what [Music] outside of school they don't wear their masks they hang out with their friends they go to football games we go to target we go to the mall we don't wear our mask and guess what my kids aren't getting the vaccine either so i know dr ricker is waiting for the vaccinations because he thinks maybe maybe we don't have to wear a mask but my kids aren't getting vaccinated and we want the mask to stop thank you [Applause] next speaker lisa guard after that brenda wins i worked at bowles elementary as a classroom assistant from january through may of 2021 i worked with every grade level

117each and every day while there i witnessed firsthand how pointless and even harmful mandatory masking of children can be children of all ages did not wear their masks properly i cannot count the times the adults would say put your masks back up every day i saw children laying their masks on the floors on the tables everywhere their mask would be wet from chewing or spitting in them many appeared as if they had never been washed covered with dirt and grime several were even green from the mucus of their runny noses on spring picture day each class was brought into the gym there were two photographers each with a visibly used step stool next to them that each student placed their mask on then had their picture taken and then the stool was not wiped off

118in between when i went to the teacher and said how is this happening she's just shrugged and she said i don't know so i guess that was the end of it kind of defeats the purpose i don't tell the story to get anyone into trouble but just to point out it is impossible to wear these masks in any way that's actually helpful i know it was difficult for me to even look at some kids in the face because of how gross their mask was what effect does that have on them when people won't give them eye contact also what are we doing to our kids psychologically by making them afraid of a virus that thank god has only taken approximately 20 children out of 75 million according to johns hopkins in the united states who

119did not have an underlying uh health issue and another and let me stop of course that's tragic of course it is but also the approximately 400 or more who have died uh with covid that had an issue a medical issue but twice that number have died of regular pneumonia and we've never masked for pneumonia what other psychological and developmental damage is done because when they can't see each other's faces normal human development depends on matching language tone of voice and facial and body expressions in order for people to receive the full communication you take this away from the children who are developing is like teaching a child to write but with their fingers tied together i worked with kindergartners every day on phonics who couldn't hear me because i had a mask over my face

120and then they couldn't see my mouth shape my tongue shape anything that would help them figure out how to make those sounds this prevented their learning my husband and i have a child at ehs and lasalle one of them has an iep we are listed as the educational decision makers if we are the educational decision makers then we are saying get the masks off my children let me be the educational decision maker thank you [Applause] speaker brenda wins after that dennis guard i would like to thank the rockwood board in advance on october the 28th a student-athlete practice ended a little early because of the weather and with doing so it was raining the child was waiting for its parents to pick them up so the student waited inside of the school the student had

121his book bag sports equipment and decided wisely i'm here so let me take advantage and go outside and do some school work or a project that i've been working on for school at that time the student decided i would go out and then the student re-entered the building the person the student passed two individuals two individuals who work with students the student continued to walk down the hallway with this book bag and also sports equipment one of the individuals re-entered the building after exiting and approached the student and asked him are you a student here the other individual stood outside the school building and called 9-1-1 as the student was waiting for a pickup by the parent which was me and my husband the officers arrived a few minutes later they asked a student can

122i see your id that day the student ids was given out and the student was able to show the id that he was truly a student of that of that school the officer and the other officer decided to search the remaining part of the building the student just looked what did i do what just happened i've been through these doors hundreds of times because my older brother was a student here i played on the theater team i also come through jrotc i work with special needs students and i'm an athlete a student athlete with decent grades good grades um on the grounds about 7 30 the day before the student was on the grounds also picking up leaves didn't have any problems felt safe but on that day on the 28th the individual showed no

123concern for the safety and well-being of my child they passed the student then asked him if he was okay are you are you okay do you have any concerns why are you here where's your parents no they decided to call 9-1-1 and had no concern of my child's safety in my opinion they don't belong in education he did nothing wrong he said nothing wrong he was waiting for a ride my question to the school board and to the president uh jamie bayes what did he do after full review of the investigation we're expecting a mutual decision will be made on the outcome of the unfortunate un uh called for this situation let me make this really quickly um if your child came home and said my day went well that's one thing but how was

124your school day and what happened at the school day think about how you would feel if your child replied and said the police was called on me today [Applause] next speaker dennis guard after that chelsea price hello my name is dennis gard and i am the pastor at central baptist church here in eureka i have two children that attend iraq one of the books in question is genderqueer that is going to be coming up under review on december 6th i was at the last board meeting and heard about this book was highly offended at its content and to be honest with you have not taken the courage to truly look at all the pictures my wife has emailed you all excerpts from that so you can review it yourselves because it is a book that

125violates many state regulations having the book genderqueer and other ones like it violates missouri state law 573.020 because the high school is promoting and not and or allowing access to sexually explicit materials to minors since the library allows access to genderqueer and other books like it the school is committing an offense of promoting obscenity in the first degree likewise according to the supreme court books like quin excuse me genderqueer and other books like it do not meet the standardized qualifications to pass the miller test you may ask what the miller test is it was an establishment to help overcome free speech issues by defining what society says is or is not pornographic genderqueer and other books like it fail this test on of the three guidelines due to its lewd and sexually explicit content and

126that it is openly offensive and provides no literary value as a spiritual leader in our community pornographic materials like these can lead to violence against others distort children self-image cause long-term mental stress and stimulate the brain in adverse ways for the health and well-being of our community pornographic materials should not be allowed in on school property genderqueer does not meet the community standards of decency it depicts obscene acts and it adds no value to the reader genderqueer and others like it demoralize our community and devalue our schools it is not a free speech issue since these materials violate state law 573.020 and fail the miller test concerned parents should not have to wait for a review board to investigate this book nor any other books like it nor should warning labels or simply using checkout

127restrictions to help protect children because they don't these books should be immediately removed by the rockwood schools likewise any other sexually explicit materials found should be removed immediately and i call for the board to form a committee to research them [Applause] next speaker chelsea price and after that teresa thompson good evening um i definitely can't top a lot of what books have already been shared but there is another book while it is not as r-rated as what some of these other wonderful parents have shared which i guess i will now be looking into as well um there is another book available called it feels good to be yourself a book about gender identity among others available at geggy elementary on display for our children to read this agenda and these books are not transparent to

128our community i was told i could browse on an antiquated server 14 000 books to find what my son could or could not look at as a christian my family teaches kindness we teach love and acceptance of others we teach our children that there may be people around them that may not look like them that may not act like them but they should respect them and teach them kindness that is the role of our teachers and educators at this district not to be teaching ideology or other things of this nature so with that um we can only teach love and kindness if you have a daughter who is strong-willed and athletic and logical and maybe a bit scant on the sensitive caretaker role my mother would be raising her hand go ahead and raise your

129hand what about if you have a son who's a little bit sensitive my son loves to draw what this ideology is teaching our children is that if they feel worthless then they are worthless if they feel ugly then guess what they are that's not truth and that is what i'm teaching my children we have we should not as a society regress to such one-dimensional views of a man and a woman we should look at people for their heart and who they are and love them for that if you have a child who conforms to gender norms praise them for their qualities if you have a child who does not conform to gender norms praise them for their qualities we can be logical empathetic we can be athletic and artistic regardless of how we were born

130our children are at school to be loved poured into for who they are what they love and what makes them happy i have had personal conversations with my child's teacher i know she loves him as if she was her as if he was her own but it is still the prime not the primary responsibility of anyone other than the parent to educate children on things of this nature thank you so i wanted to address mental health tonight but first i want to go back to the two young boys who spoke at the beginning about the water fountains not being open i have also noticed this at the high school and it is a big problem so you've also closed the bathrooms so i'm guessing it's covered related but nobody cared when kids were smoking in

131the bathroom vaping having sex smoking weed piercing their ears so i'm not really getting connection of why the bathrooms are closed because of covid everything else occurred in there and my daughter now has to go to the nurse to use the actually use the restroom because nothing's open so now i want to move on to mental health so there was a presentation this week with the alive and well communities about suicide and mental health of our students so it sounded good first right mental health of our students but then you look at their website and what is it about diversity equity inclusion so under the guise of mental health we're really going to teach about hate and division so i know last time i spoke about my child my black child through the press taking

132care of you know cleaning up the mental health issues you created with her every mind matters program does this fall under the um alive and well contract we signed because if so i need to pull her out because it's not appropriate we are a mixed race household you've taught my white child he is terrible you've taught my black child she's oppressed how do you think my kids are going to interact now no we don't judge people on the color of their skin we judge them on their character who they are skin color doesn't determine who you are you need to stop with this so i also want to know one of the qualities we were really looking for in a new superintendent was taking ownership of decisions so it's your masking decision if you listen

133to these children that is harmful did you listen to the woman who has mental health in her mental health field how harmful this is the person who worked at bulls elementary what you're doing to these children with your decision yours own it you're offering our children pornography how in the world does that help their mental health in any way shape or form or their academic education i would i'd love an answer that one and i mean you're covering their faces every day with a bacterial filled piece of paper or cloth mask you're impeding their academics this is what you're here for academics nothing else [Applause] next speaker colette nicholson after that camille romania good evening i'm here tonight seeking to understand the disconnect between parents and the board which we have seen a lot of

134this evening i personally know three people on the board and they're known to be great parents kids read and watch randy miller and i served on the stanton pto for several years together and laura lee and jamie are friends and neighbors of my brothers and have been for many many years jamie is actually the one that i'm referring to when i said she's known for being aware of what her kids read and watch which is very respectful as we have heard tonight from many many parents during the last meeting some things were brought to my attention as has been the case over the last two years there seems to be a disconnect between your reputation in the community and your actions on the board parents bring books to you to your attention with vulgar language

135and are not even allowed to spell the words yet kids can go to our school libraries and check them out to read obviously it tells us you're not okay with the language either as any good parents wouldn't be the patron comments ended at the last meeting with jamie saying i'm saddened tonight by by a lot of the tone and conversation that's taken place from people who have stepped to the podium to use their time in this way i'm just disappointed that's all i can say i wish she was here tonight so she could explain what she's disappointed in because when i listened to the comments i heard parents expressing their concerns and wanting changes a mom who's very worried about her daughter shared that she is her daughter's now on medicine because she has panic

136attacks due to wearing masks parents discuss pornographic books that were then brought to my attention and i have since read several of them and they are right they are filth as we have heard tonight and need to be removed immediately one parent provided proof that there were no threats to the board or the administration none which should be a great thing to hear because i don't know anyone who's okay with people being threatened maybe i misunderstood what jaime was disappointed in but again i'm seeking to understand because parents are coming to you expressing their concerns but their perception is all of these concerns are being ignored we all know about the infamous email from last year telling teachers to hide information from parents which caused a lot of distrust that situation was rectified by removing

137that person from their position however some of the board members voted for her to keep her position which further fractured the trust all of these things have been brought have brought negativity and distrust to our community good concerned parents stand here meeting after meeting voicing their concerns but nothing changes instead of saying you're disappointed in what p parents are saying you should be saying we hear you and we'll work with you to help make rockwood better for all [Applause] i i know it's i just want to say i genuinely would love to hear how do we work together to make rockwood better how do we work together to build the trust back thank you for your time speaker camille subramanian and then laura burkhardt okay i brought up prop to liven things up a little

138bit some props okay does everyone know what this is it's the type of mask that doctors wore a few hundred years ago to ward off the bubonic plague the thinking was that the plague was called caused by miasma or bad air and so the doctors would fill the beak with um sweet-smelling things like flowers or spices back then people didn't understand what a virus was they were trying to make sense of a scary world through the science of their day flash forward a few hundred years and we're wearing these we are now aware that viruses are microscopic but despite this fact these masks with spaces between the fibers that are much much larger than the size of the coven 19 particles are worn with the fervor of a toddler with a security blanket if it

139makes you feel safe i fully support your freedom to choose that i would like to advocate for my freedom as a parent to choose medical interventions like masks and experimental vaccines for my own children the masks give my daughter headaches and my son a face rash here's his mask with blood on it because he had chapped lips and he still had to keep wearing it as it was bleeding and irritating his face if we sorry i get upset if we as a culture were really concerned with the science of masks we would focus on randomized controlled trials which are the gold standard for research from an ai nih article randomization reduces bias and provides a rigorous tool to examine cause effect relationships between an intervention like a mask and an outcome this is not possible

140with any other type of study design i sent the board several randomized control trials and i'm guessing you didn't read them but guess how many rcts the cdc and other health authorities have provided as proof that masks work to protect against viruses zero i reviewed the data of several rct studies and did my own risk benefit analysis in light of how rockwood's mass mandate was hurting my kids health yet i had no parental rights to send either of my kids to school without a mask based on the science i want you to stop forcing experimental medical interventions on our kids without parental consent i don't think we have to wait 300 years to see what people think about these masks we already have the science to prove that these are as ridiculous as these as

141stopping viruses [Applause] speaker laura burkhart after that erica hegley good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening i have three children in the district one being a sophomore marquette i apologize in advance i get emotional it's been a very rough week um i'm here tonight to extend my deepest gratitude to rockwood i want to thank the board administrators educators counselors and social workers primarily marquette as you know this week has been impossible we lost three teen smart community in a fatal car crash the kids are in so much pain my sophomore year of high school here in rockwood i lost a very close friend and classmate in a car accident a few months later i lost another friend to suicide we were all lost on how to cope with such

142a huge tragedy while i had my friends and family to lean on school was where we spent the bulk of our time much like our own children through these unspeakable tragedies tragedies our school community let us know that they were there for us if we needed them but that was the extent of it most of us had never experienced anything like that i spiraled for a long time it took me several years to come back some of my classmates weren't so fortunate when i saw what happened in the past four days of marquette was indescribable there was so much love empathy compassion our children were shown that they are loved unconditionally extra counselors and social workers were available all day every day to every student no questions asked the students were given free reign to

143leave their classroom to speak with someone at any given moment if students need to leave classes to be with their friends they were allowed crisis counselors went door-to-door hitting every single classroom to ask how every single student was doing teachers set everything aside and gave 100 of themselves to their students faculty and staff from all over the district showed up at marquette they were even available at my daughter's middle school i want to thank all the faculty and staff who filled in the holes so that more were able to be at marquette somehow our educators and counselors and social workers were there for our kids all while processing their own grief i've seen firsthand what happens when life just goes on and the grief and trauma are not addressed the love and compassion that rockwood

144and especially marquette have shown our kids will save lives these are very dark days but the one shedding light is seeing how rockwood has wrapped their arms around our community and most importantly our children if i've been reminded of one thing this week it's that our teachers counselors and social workers they're so much more than their job title they've helped me walk my son through something that a six-year-old should never have to go through this is a partnership that i will cherish forever from the bottom of my heart thank you and i hope you all want a wonderful thanksgiving thank you very much next speaker erica higley and after that sandy wendlard it states on the district website under the parent involvement tab that quote the most successful students are those who have the involvement

145of their parents and the more parents participate in a sustained way at every level in advocacy decision making and oversight the better the student's achievement end quote if this is truly the district's position why then does it appear that the board goes out of its way to stifle parents advocacy decision making and oversight of their own children like we the parents do i can assure you that when i make a decision about and for my children i have done my homework and it is in their best interest i will absolutely advocate for them and oversee any and all procedures and processes to ensure that their needs are being met mentally physically and emotionally at every level the board's lack of support for our parental advocacy and decision making and our oversight of our own children

146is hypocritically deafening please stop advocating against us as parents and share in helping us advocate for our children [Applause] next speaker sandy wengler and then uh after that ava dean hi i'm sandy wingler my children went to school here and graduated from eureka high school frankly i thought they got a great education and overall i thought rockwood was a very good school district and really appreciated the education they got but now i have to say i'm very concerned about the direction our school district is going as i sat and listened at the last meeting to excerpts of books that i felt were basically pornography i realized i had something had to say something i do not want the thousands of dollars i pay for taxes each year to go towards teaching the children of my

147community how to perform various sex acts i don't think that's the school's job i'm not necessarily for banning books or censoring books but there has to be a line in education these books do not have a place in our schools where is the line why is it okay to show a cartoon of a penis and think that is better than just putting a playboy magazine in the school library these books have absolutely no place in our schools so after last month's meetings meeting i had a lot of questions and i think a lot of other people here feel the same it's been a month since the last meeting there's been ample time for something to have been done i'm not saying you did nothing i have no idea but how is the community supposed to

148know some of the questions i've been wondering are for example do any of you have middle school or high school children of your own and is that okay with you that you could just sit here and listen to this and be like oh no problem or is there actually something going on behind the scenes maybe you haven't told us you know we want to give we want to give you the benefit of doubt if you are working on these things so i've been wondering also um um did any of you review these books in the library have you done anything since this information was put out there was a task force maybe formed to see you know review what we're offering our children to see if it's really as bad as it was said did

149you ask the parents for input about what they find acceptable maybe i'm in the minority maybe i'm one of the few that think this is ridiculous i don't know but if you but you really don't either if you haven't asked the parents if you haven't sent out something to ask their opinion and if you haven't done those things why not i'm quite aware that if a bible was put in the library or books about how loving and awesome and wonderful jesus is there would be great outrage and they would be removed immediately i would like to think that the input from last month would at least cause enough concern to begin some kind of investigation it's becoming quite obvious or or should be from the election in virginia that parents are not okay with just

150letting schools or a government entity decide what their children should be taught that's all i have but before next meeting i would respectfully ask that these questions be answered for our community don't just stay silent [Applause] next speaker ava dean and after that krista davis good evening rockwood school board i'm ava dean a junior at lafayette high school and i come to you this evening to bring to your attention a student's perspective on masks high schoolers who have completed their required pe credit get no mass break throughout the day and with rain and weather varying after school activities get pushed indoors there are some days me being a person who has completed their pe credit that i wear a mask for 10 hours a day even the teachers get mass breaks during their planning periods

151in their time in their classroom alone now in my biggest um opinion all kids elementary age to high school age it's the emotional connection that we're struggling with between students and teachers if you look at masks from an elementary child's view they're not being able to understand and learn emotion emotion all they see are their friends eyes their teachers eyes additionally if you look at this from a high schooler's point of view they've learned how to read and understand emotion however they can't when their teachers faces are blocked by a piece of fabric or paper i've seen people without masks mentally hurt who have passed the issue is getting worse as we can emotionally engage with each other a few months back there was a lancer feed article addressing a dress code violation of showing

152shoulders which resulted in a protest in the article mr terry harris a director of student services is quoted in saying if showing your shoulders is going to cause you to not be as depressed or as stressed or to alleviate suicidal thoughts then let's have all students in the world show their shoulders that's really how i feel end quote i have one question for you the school board who's supposed to be looking out for the children if we can break a school dress code to reduce mental health issues why are we not making masks optional to reduce mental health issues as well students see each other's pain and know when they need help in the past i've noticed someone's pain and knew when to talk to a counselor to get a wellness check on them however

153now we cannot i hope having a student's perspective on this issue will help you understand what we're going through i'm not saying that the option to wear a mask should be removed but i believe the option should be given in the first place thank you last speaker for the evening is christa good evening my name is reverend krista taves i live in rockwood school district and i want to thank the school board for the priority you have given to diversity equity and and inclusion it is so valued i serve a large congregation of 500 members um elliot unitarian chapel and many of our parents their children come here and we are so thankful for what has been taking place in their classrooms some children are feeling safe starting to feel safe for the first time

154valued truly appreciated for who they are at the deepest level and we want to thank the administration the teachers and the school board for your fortitude and your perseverance in making this important change for our children lives are being saved thank you [Applause] so we will join this movie