07/11/2024 Policy Committee Meeting

001seeds the field has too bad the last there's been years where it's like you can't open the windows because it's really bad by us but he he has ordered for this probably theil so now we'll be able to like a mic down closer to when people are speaking we heard that people were saying never yeah this kind of got everybody in here I don't know some people are softspoken at times we just have to remember speak up got it we we all look like been through War we're all look tired just I have people in I just need to get the sound to hope still have people coming in hey Scott hey everybody just a second five people Scott Scott can you I want to see if the speaker's working I can uh I can

002hear you can you hear me sorry we technical yeah just need to get the Viv up so everybody can see you when you're presenting y know there's a hole over yeah oh yes here we go perfect everybody all right so we're ready yeah time is 5:35 and I call this meeting of the policy Review Committee to [Music] order so first up our agenda got it up here sorry um is our uh check in with Scott Brown Neola Scott thank you yeah thank you very much for allowing me to come today and thank you for allowing me to be here virtually we have a this was scheduled before this meeting but we have uh retired teachers and other teachers or administrators from McFarland here to visit us for a night and so we're enjoying time with

003them ironically one couple that's here um met at the Waterton high school and we married afterwards they're proud goslings I wanted to bring them up in the background here just to make that more legitimate but they're all at a restaurant right now so I thought it was really uh interesting that they were here and they speak very highly of your school district and everything that they that you did for them years ago obviously um I wanted just to just to do a check-in with you know with niola this is not a long presentation but I wanted to B my thoughts down in writing so I'm I'm going to share my screen or else Lynn you can share the presentation right now I think I'm disabled from sharing my screen which obviously makes sense since I'm

004a visitor of the meeting but you can either enable it or share it and I'll go through it I can share it okay perfect while she's doing that I thought actually covering topic B would be fairly important um so I'll just talk to that um the tight line policy that neol has put out which is really only applic applicable to about half the states right now in the in the US because it's been challenged in court in multiple courts and different states have joined on to it generally around party lines um we didn't think it would affect McFarland it would affect Watertown but in the end the Kansas Circuit Court which is Circuit Court 16 in the state ruled that if anyone in your district is a party to the groups in addition to the

005states the groups that are concerned those groups have until um until July 15th to notify the circuit court that they have students in your District that they F this is uh would apply to so we really wait until uh July 15th to find out exactly you know what districts would be affected we also just received honestly probably an hour before this meeting um from our national attorneys saying that it wouldn't be practical if a student that's a part of these groups the groups uh one is probably the most common one for Wisconsin is moms for Liberty if they're active in a part of your um County or they have membership with a student in your District the national attorney is suggesting that you really can't just exclude a school or a student that you'll have

006to look at um what happens after after that so if there is no student that's identified in the Watertown School District the attorneys feel like out of risk of facing a lawsuit for not enforcing Title 9 it it would be in your best interest to approve the policies so it's been really interesting across to all our states we have a lot of you know different conflicting information we'll certainly keep you informed of that we're really waiting again for four days until we see the list that we then can respond to our various clients um obviously Title 9 whether it was under the Trump Administration or the Biden Administration has certain I think political implications that people are sensitive to but the recommendation from at least Neola attorneys is if there's not something that prevents you

007from putting it in place that you should put it in place and either way you should continue with the training that's required under uh Title 9 for your employees so that's it's really the status of that that policy everything that's been debatable in the policy has all been about uh gender specifically and some of the you know some of the new definitions of gender and gender identity and transgender and how it might impact schools um I want to emphasize that from the oldest perspective we work in Iowa uh in Ohio I should say and Florida um we work with states that are you know easily identified with either political color of the spectrum and we are neutral we don't have a position our position is to help you figure it out so um the the

008policy that we currently have that you may be looking for tonight looking at tonight is what we feel should be in place by August 1 to be compliant with the Federal Regulations unless there is something happening legally where it it shouldn't be in place and we'll keep you informed on that but at least for now as of the 11th of July Wisconsin districts should be compliant with Title 9 by August 1 the risk for you is that if you aren't compliant someone could file a civil rights complaint saying that you didn't meet the compliance and that could be a really expensive proposition for any District so I don't have absolute answers my suggestion would be to look at it possibly approve the the policy and then hold off on formal board approval committee approval but

009formal board approval prior to that date we also would always suggest that if you have additional questions that you can talk to your own legal councel the legal council we have that's been we've been working with has been hush Blackwell which covers the entire us they've given us a lot of counsil on a national level and then we use rening Lewis and Lacy which represents about 180 Wisconsin school districts and we're also you know relying on them we send updates in particular uh to Jared just to give him guidance as we see it along the way but certainly districts superintendence have been put in a really difficult position um you know on this matter because people have strong feelings on both sides um but I think unless there is clearly a reason for a district

010not to approve it the risk of not approving it might be greater than the risk of uh approving it based on what what could be what could happen if You Were Somehow identified through either a parent complaint and of not being compliant with the uh with the policy Scot um good evening this is David Sher a Committee Member and uh I did did take the time to read the 26 pages of uh I think this is policy 2264 and I I feel like you you into your presentation I don't want to say skipping a few steps but I honestly I wasn't aware that there was any uh what's the right word for it um additional factors surrounding 2264 so it sounds like what you're saying is that 2264 is recommended by Miola uh if there

011are open cases in a state that may uh contradict what's in 2264 you're saying hold off on it but if there's no open cases in a state then you'd recommend proceeding with it uh given that by August 1st we could be out of compliance with federal law am I did I understand that right because I I feel like you jumped in and I wasn't even whereare that there was a backstory to 22 I mean you got it exactly right um maybe a little bit more Nuance so normally circuit courts you know which are spread across the United States and are just below the Supreme Court they operate on a state basis so a number of states uh have already obtained uh injunctions to not implement this policy Wisconsin is not a state that's has joined

012that and there hasn't been in our circuit court and any injunction against putting this policy in place so we thought it was kind of simple in our Neola ecosphere we knew we would then have Michigan and Wisconsin that should get these policies in place whereas Ohio West Virginia Indiana and Florida should hold off because there was an injunction and sort of the surprise uh case out of uh out of the Kansas area Circuit Court what circuit courts in some ways can have power over the entire United States Ates this particular Circuit Court said if you have students who are involved in one of these three groups one is moms for Liberty one is uh I don't remember the name but it's actually a a a group that Governor Walker heads up across the state but

013it tends to be more about college campuses and then there's also a group about um women Athletics who are concerned about you know gender issues in terms of Athletics that tends to be more as well um on a college basis but the mobs for Liberty which has chapters throughout Wisconsin um you know they potentially could list any District in which there was a member who had a student on July 15th they're required to report it back to the judge and when we get that result we're going to inform our districts particularly in Wisconsin and Michigan because the other districts are all on hold that they should hold the policy the recommend from the national attorney it's not possible for you to limit it just to one student or one school the student is in that

014board policy has to be enforcable across an entire district and they believe it's defensible to say if there's a student that's identified by July 15 that um is in the Kansas Circuit Court then uh and that student is a part of your District then we recommend that you would hold off on the policy but we'll know on July 15 yeah um so Scott I already uh was made aware yesterday that we do uh have uh someone as party to that and and so uh talked with our local attorneys uh yesterday afternoon uh with some more clarification this morning and they're making a suggestion that we hold off on implementing yeah I mean the key kind of is for you they can write you an email and say we're a part of it or things like

015that yeah they did they sent they sent the whole uh notice to us so yeah so but but but in some way that name in your district has to appear in the Kansas Circuit Court the Kansas area Circuit Court the 16th Circuit Court by July 15th if it's not there they can write you all the emails they want but it's not enforcable the court required that in particular mobs for Liberty would give a list of districts and schools schs and students impacted that would would would support the decision of the court so and we we'll double check that ask question um I was just reading through it before the meeting started and it does say towards the end and I might not understand it it's a it's a sizable it's a sizable document um in

016some ways it does say that the names are not required to be specified towards the end of the document it says you just need to prove that there's a presence of one of those groups in the district is that correct that's correct I shouldn't have said names you're correct yeah okay all right are there any questions on that I mean I think in the just one question that the bulk of 2264 as opposed to the quote unquote final rule um I did read the whole 26-page document and it had more to do with discrimination in language surrounding what is what is not and complaint and resolution investigation Etc the definition of who can be discriminated against was a relatively small portion of 2264 uh is the did the final rule mainly uh impact the definition

017of who could be discriminated or what gender and sex and what Title 9 applied to because I'd say 23 of the 26 pages had to do with more administrative how are we going to go about investigating and resoling and and designating you know lead investigators etc etc so I don't want to say it was benign but it was certainly not specific to any class of individual I mean I I could be discriminated against because I was a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant and 23 of the pages would have still applied to me uh is that the part that moms for Liberty Andor the attorneys have an issue with with the final rule is who is included in uh a protected class yeah so I'm I mean obviously I'm not an attorney but I think the the law

018that they the regulation they put in place was based on a Supreme Court decision that said you could not discriminate against um gender or gender identity but the way 2464 is written this is the whole Crux of it I mean 2266 which you don't have necessarily in place because you aren't with with niola but you probably have a tit line policy currently um didn't provide the same definition and the biggest change is that if there is what they call a DI Minimus offense against somebody based on gender or gender identity that uh that that's something they could bring forward and that wasn't the case under the old tiine policy so it's really it I think overall the the issue of the policy that I've seen relative to the cases really all about um gender and

019gender identity and transgender those those areas were strengthened and then they also provided more procedure they actually provided some things that were easier for smaller districts like the old tit line policy required you to have all these roles that had to be separate the new tit line policy especially for a lot of Wisconsin smaller districts I mean I have one that's 65 students you can imagine trying to find you know all the different roles they allow those roles to be combined they give more power potentially to the superintendent of the district to be the final review you know of that so there were some things that I think at least helped smaller districts in a new policy but the main thing that has to be ironed out in the courts is whether the Supreme Court

020decision from years ago defining gender in a more broad term and now uh the the Biden Administration through fedal regulation push pushing that into Title 9 whether it's actually going to stand or not it's going to go to the Supreme Court for sure if if you actually in my opinion as a former superintendent if you do end up with a a student that then results in a school your school um you you're probably actually in a better place in a district that just has to go forward with this either way because there's still a lot more lawsuits along the way but our recommendation is still prepare the training so you you're at where you're at every teacher has to be trained to recognize the the potential discrimination under Title 9 they you have to have

021people train but your your previous policy will be enforced um uh enforce uh under uh under a situation where you can't really Vote or with new tit line policy okay all right thank you just a second um uh Scott there's one more question I guess it makes a question do you know nothing necessarily for here tonight but do we need to and Jared do we need to review 541 4185 or 4181 they existing yeah I haven't looked at your existing title line policy but almost every District in the state used either the Wisconsin Schoolboard policy or Neola policy to formy so I supect I supect yeah our old our old policy is under compliance and and the the reason I asked it is that we are adopting that we're going to approve the language without

022The Bard since we're approving the language for this if we do with this this would sit until we adopt the book like we have the other deal sure but I understand we're not going to push this forward right it wouldn't be I guess I guess my my suggested course of action on this particular one you know is to become familiar with the document um but if it's not quite as settled um if it's not quite subtle in the court system um I I don't know if we should dedicate a ton of time to it for the moment Craig to Echo that uh I did attend the wasby seminar on Title 9 uh February of 23 and the answer that was a packed house it was a room no bigger than this with about 400 people

023in it and they said there's there's there's no way to be right and there's a thousand ways to be wrong because every single day there's a new lawsuit a new interpretation a new federal ruling and the one thing that from my perspective and I'm not necessarily risk averse I just don't like being on a bleeding edge of anything there's no I have no reason to invite controversy into our district one way or the other we have bigger fish to fry from my perspective in which case I'm more than happy to table it and wait for the dust to settle and then do something that's more certainly something that we can live with and our all of our students and our teachers and our families can live with than trying to be out there forging ahead

024with new a new precedence that isn't even tested in the courts so that that's my two cents on this policy and pretty much any policy is why bother beating your head against the wall just because it feels good when it stops I mean let's let's focus on the things we need to focus on all right any any other thoughts or comments right I would I mean I would with that comment thank you for sharing I think the only thing you could do to to prep for this um I think there'll be districts I mean it came out pretty late right so there's some argument to say that if you give a regulation to districts in mid June of Summer and expect them to get all the training in place and be ready by August one

025there's some argument to say that's really hard to do what uh our attorneys have said is the suggestion not so much for you as a poliy committee but more for Jared and the crew there is to continue with the training show you're making a good faith effort um contingent on where it's going to shake out and then once you know more um you know then the board could approve the policy so I think the question that I would say to for you to refer to legal council is if you aren't a part of the group as a result of July 15th then you have a hard decision to make um because the expectation of at least part of the citizens you represent is going to be that you have a tit line policy in place

026and meet F Federal Regulations by July one so I think what you said was really accurate but I would encourage you you know not to freeze the process in particular with training and you know getting folks ready and have a document ready that when you want to approve it you can call a meeting of your policy committee you can call a meeting of your board and you can explain to your public that this is what we have to approve it's not our choice but this is what's required and this is what our legal council is recommending J you're clear on that I mean you you know how that how that where the rubber hits the road on that if we don't move on this policy do you have you're crystal clear on that do you

027need guidance no I I I I think if if you're my understanding from the committee is that we're going to follow our attorney's recommendations and right now where we're sitting they've said that we should you know wait and see how this uh case pans out because we're an identified party um you know they they too recommended that at least for the people who would be considered reviewers within that uh go through the administration training um you know uh we already have uh those people started in that training the free training that was through Renning Le and Lacy um they're going to finish there's two more uh they're going to finish that training and then we're just GNA wait and see not really Implement anything until we know more all right you uh rening Lewis and

028ly yeah they you sent yeah I sent it out yeah notice for it yeah and they're they've videotaped it too they're all done I'll capture all those videos and for anybody else who's interested because it was also for board members and everything else so I don't even know if any of you that training or not I think I emailed you about it back before it happen yeah you said that you weren't able to but you'd like the video so yeah I would I would prefer I would I would like the video if I could get my if I could get access to that if there one we send it I'm not sure yeah I don't think that they're going to have videos until all of the training sessions are done then they'll put a package

029out that says for you know for districts who were registered here's the videos yeah and I guess the good news is as a former business official of a district they aren't charging for the training I mean they're obviously doing it for free because it's in their interest to promote their Law Firm but I think you know the the good news is any training you do isn't costing you money Scott uh we have a very packed agenda tonight um can we uh go back to the uh item a about the uh the Neal checkin absolutely so so just to remind you that Neola is really Cooperative policy development we represent 340 of the 425 districts in Wisconsin we' been in Wisconsin 30 3 years we have 11 retired superintendents that work with districts and our policies

030for Wisconsin are written and approved by Wisconsin attorneys Renning Lewis and Lacy representing about 180 districts in the state not all Neola districts um we don't share our client base and we have National attorneys hush Blackwell which work with in particular um like National Finance issues which is called uniform Grant guidance and um also uh um Edgar which is the standards from The Colony Association so they help us draft those and they help us with Title Nine and then as well we have um an attorney on board at niola that sort of helps us sort through everything so I want to just give you that background no need to discuss it further unless you have questions so my thoughts on your particular uh situ a in terms of working through your policies I think it's

031always good this is something I haven't shown you before but to think about the purpose of bylaws and policies there are some that are absolutely required by Statute locker room surveillance you have to have a graduation policy some are directive like if you have rules about social media and what teachers can share or even what students might share in violation of your social media policy another example of board vacancies which you're given a lot of latitude on how you fill those what process you use and then some are just informative so people can look and go oh how do I complain about something or um how does Veterans as volunteers work in your District the key thing to remember about Neola policies is part of your contract with Neola is that we have put in

032writing that we will provide legal assistance defending any defect in our policy so we always encourage you to take care when you edit our policies it's been a lot of I would say legal expertise and in particular School law expertise that have been put into these um potentially for us to help defend something that would not be appropriate is expensive so we know that and we spend you know a lot of money I would say just because I'm now working more with Neola out of their s office I'm a vice president now of of the company um and also working in Wisconsin with a few districts I would say like just for example the Titan line policy we probably have 30 to $40,000 in legal expenses to help prepare that policy we call a summit

033from all the states multiple National attorneys so Neola really tries to do its homework so when you look at our policies on some of them like the informative or directive policies you have you know some flexibility to make changes but if you if you go too far into some of the required policies non-discrimination Title Nine things like that the risk is that you would not we would not support you if you for some reason somebody identified something that you had put in that wasn't a part of our policy you can move on LY so let's do just a review of Where Watertown is right now you started October 4th of 2023 we thank you so much for the opportunity to work with Watertown you pretty much and Watertown are surrounded by Nea districts so that's

034a lot of good networking for Jared and other administrators you all have similar policies you make different choices but you have similar policies right now you have approximately 80 policies drafted to date that are in a cleaned up folder and can either be approved through the first reading um or by the policy committee uh has approved them to that point as of today you've missed parts of two regular updates and three special updates when we get an update and we can still apply it to a section you haven't touched we do that just to make sure that whatever we have updated we can have you do but for example Maybe like the board bylaws there may have been updates to that which we have to wait until you get the whole package approved to apply

035those updates right now and you won't accept them all because neol offers a lot of policies that districts say that's just not that's a a policy that's not required and we have a you know we don't want to added to our policy book but you have around 380 templates left to consider um if the goal is for you to complete in two years years the committee and then the board need to move approximately 30 to 35 policies per month and then when you finish with that and you get your policy book in place um you will have parts of four regular updates and I'm estimating about five special updates um like Title 9 or there's a a reading update coming out based on new state law um there's a couple other special updates that we

036like to come out based on with Wisconsin specific law just to give you an example It's Not Unusual for it to take two years I just finished with a district near you and I'll meet with them on Monday and we are working now for the board to update AO approximately 79 policies that were updated while they were drafting I mean one of the cool things about niola from like my perspective hopefully from your perspective as well is you will get two updates per year that will take your whole policy book and based on feedback from the other 340 districts that are in your Consortium in theola Consortium based on attorney feedback applying our policies based on superintendent feedback also based on our 11 retired superintendents that see things here and there your focus as a

037committee will just be twice a year on trying to update the policy package and actually once you get everything approved it's it that doesn't take a lot of time honestly with policy committees because normally they see the reason we listen the rationale for the change but you'll never worry about your policies being you know out of date um my caution to you the final point is you know don't let Perfection be the enemy of of great I think Neola policies are very strong as a former superintendent that used them in McFarland when I would have something go sideways in my district I would say you know 95 times out of 100 we would go to our policies and we would have the right updated policy in place to handle that situation so it's I think

038it's important that as you try to approve 30 to 35 policies per month perhaps meeting once or even twice that you realize that you have a chance at any time as a committee particularly during the the 10 months when you won't have a Neola update to look at policies that are important in particular to Watertown or maybe changes to Neola that that you want to have your attorney explore to see if it can it can be more varied or provide more information but the key for you in my opinion um is that you really work to try to get our package complete so you'll have the freedom to look at a lot of the other things I know that every policy committee is concerned about or wants to look at uh down down the road

039so I'm it's kind of funny I feel like I'm your coach but I'm not your coach because you all have more power than I do right so I can't I can't really force you to do anything but as a coach I would tell you um it's really important to complete this game to finish this task and start going over two years you get to so many updates that you've missed it's not impossible I have had districts do that but it it's pretty timec consuming to try to catch up on all the updates that that you missed I would say the size of your District the involvement and the I would say you know concern and um interest in the policy committee is awesome but you really should try to set a toy your goal I

040think that's a really you know modest goal in in small District where it's just a superintendent sometimes they don't even have a policy committee we'll finish this drafting in seven months it's not my expectation but I part of my reason for you know asking Jared if I could talk to you is just to really encourage you to figure out a schedule of meetings and a plan and and kind of look at what you're approving and try to get to that that goal that you need 30 to 35 policies uh per month so that you can finish in Neola process I think I have one more slide do I all right so this is the cool part once you once you finish you know with Neola again there'll just be two updates per year and they

041will update your entire policy package based on all the things that I said so you when you hear about the legislature putting a new reading Law in place or when you hear about the legislature um saying that class rank is now going to impact how students can go to the University of Wisconsin all those things will all you want to think about them when you read them from the School Board Association or someone else you know niola is going to be on top of it and you know they're going to be included in one of her updates or if we need it sooner it's going to be a special update then finally we're going to we're going to keep your website and your policies up to date it's not Lynn or Jared's responsibility as long

042as you approve the policy we're going to retire your old policies store them where PE where people in particular in the district can see them not necessarily the the community but they'll be on board docs and we're going to track exactly what you submitted to make sure that we produce them correctly so that you know that we are following what you as a committee and what you as a larger board have approved and that's that's sort of the goal you know the pot at the end of the rainbow that's that's where you want to be but um I really want to encourage you to really set a hard goal for two years I think I think that's going to be better for Watertown and and better for legal risk in terms of what can happen

043when you have too many policies out of date that's my Spiel folks good thank you thank you anybody have any questions for Scott maybe I do have one when there's an automatic update does that have to come back to the board or is those just those legal things that just no they will come to the committee the committee will will review them right okay and then put them in place and and suggest them to the board for approval gotcha just beon and the way the way we categorize them at least what I do with my clients is we show the update all the policies are updated I'll put like whether the whether the policy has a choice or whether the attorneys have just said this needs to change in the policy so a lot of

044committees really focus on the ones where there's new choices that they have to make and then they also show everybody the new the the ones that have no choice and people say if they're interested in discussing that further but generally committees will will say the no choice ones we aren't attorneys we're not going to try to necessarily question that unless there's something that's really curious to us but the choice ones will be ones that you as a committee probably Jared will bring bring recommendations and the choice ones will be ones that the committee will consider then they all go to the board and over two votes they approve our update package good good question all right seeing no other questions um any further discussion on what's going on with uh our timeline none for Scott

045none for Scott it's it's more of a matter of 30 to 35 a month is one a day Lyn we got this and I'm not saying that we have to we just can't spend five hours the policy has to lower our guard to reviewing them but I think we've been doing a very good job you guys have been doing a very good job policy has been doing what they're supposed to be doing but we're not at that pace and does it concern us right I don't know if it does I mean two years years whatever part of what's we're we're getting there but and we haven't held up any significantly saved maybe one or two I just don't know if the Lyn and Jared it's still about bandwidth and and I'm not saying we have

046to get there in two years I'm just saying as that we're currently having demonstrated Pace to get there in two years and with that see you'll see that we have a plan to get there uh by by the end of May um and we're going to stay on that plan uh but you make a good point we can't spend eight hours um discussing those 30 I mean or we're going to have a h policy committee every week y That's My and I will tell you I don't want to do it I will give them to you you guys can discuss them and and then or you can make me come but I will be a I will be a Grumpy Bear at it you know that will be a difficult situation for me yeah and

047you guys don't want that either I know that I think we uh because we have uh that particular discussion coming up later on in the process for for for on letter E the ne um policy development process um maybe we'll Contin continue that discussion later on okay right thank you all appreciate you all right bye bye all right so we jump in into some of these policies letter c um first start with uh um policy 3210 uh in the first group staff ethics um I'll start with uh some some of the thoughts that I had and then we'll just go around and see what other folks thought um so I have a question Craig are you going in the order by which we see them listed down here or the the way that they're listed

048um in the bullets good question um because you started with the first one that's kind of attached well we can start with so I don't I just want to know which order so that everybody knows the order we're going in um well we can start in the at the bullet points then if that's what you want I'm just asking that the process what's that okay oh I see they're listed in the agenda by bullets but then the attachments are in a different order and we started with the first attachments all right well want to do it sure we start we start with the non-discrimination and equal equal employment opportunity uh this one to me was a little bit of a heavy hitter um uh specifically um under reports and claims uh complaints of discrimination um

049it's basically there's some language on the second paragraph that's this started with discrimination against an individual based on their sex including gender status sexual orientation and gender identity is discrimination in violation of title 7 specifically gender discrimination on the basis of sex stereotyping gender non-conformity uh constitutes sex discrimination this is true irrespective of the cause of the person's gender non-conforming Behavior Uh employment actions based upon an individ individual sex could be suspect and potentially impermissible so that one statement um actually is what this whole U particular policy seems to be centering around and and that's where I get a little bit confused um and I and and I would seek some more clarification in that respect I guess um because you know this the specific statement including which is in parenthesis including gender status sexual

050orientation and gender identity and then the other statement on here specifically discrimination on the basis of sex stereotyping and gender Conformity constitutes sex discrimination so what is this alluding to um is what I I I need clarification on um that specific language uh just to make the committee aware doesn't exist in State Statute nor does it exist as this alludes to in title 7 or in title six so if it's if it's being if the state legislature and federal government don't find it necessary to put this kind of language into law why is it necessary for niola to recommend this language into policy one thing I think I did see I don't know if that's part of which obviously that's where these things get I know right kind of washed in I remember seeing that

051one of the things that heer gave us on the updates but I question specifically I don't understand that right um and and the the the question I would have is does this particular statement have a lot to do with the use of pronouns for instance in which case that is considered compelled speech compelled speech last I checked is also a First Amendment question that's also working its way through the court system if we're going to go down that rabbit hole of compelled speech I feel this part of this particular policy is is opening up some liability there I'm just going to refer to the US equal equal employment opportunity commission did have clarification on that uh does title seven protect employees who work in work in places where state or local law um does not

052prohibit employee dis and sexual orientation or gender identity yes a federal law title 7even applies Nationwide that protects employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender gender identity regardless of state or local law I'm not a lawyer I don't play R on TV Nei that that needs to be in there but I'm just saying that um I'm I want to make sure that we're not going against there legal test that we don't know yeah well that's why I'm saying there's there's there's enough there for me to question whether or not this is and here's my take on it Craig I just this week I have an online employment application for my company and asked my attorney to review it the very first paragraph the company does not discriminate on the basis of race color

053creed religion sex including pregnancy child birth and related medical condition age national origin disability marital status sexual orientation gender identity or expression military status genetic information or other characteristics I have no idea what is in the state law I don't I can tell you that my attorney specifically told me to put that on my website to cover my ass I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be well advised to do the same thing in our policy because if we asked our attorneys if this language should be in there they're probably going to tell us the exact same that thing that my attorney just told me on Monday of this week which is leave it in there because you don't want to come across as anybody would discriminate against anything for any reason except for

054their capabilities and qualifications I I I don't disagree with you when it comes to um the consideration of of employment this is about employment title seven this is this is well equal it's also about disciplinary matters um regarding sure it's it's sure but but that's and Tina have their hands raised are you questioning you're not questioning including gender status sexual orientation and gender identity am I did I understand you're questioning that that their language isn't in yes it is it's in the title s I'm pretty sure it's in because I printed it all out and through I see it I'm TR so um Diana or Tina's got her hand Diana does and S does okay go ahead if you haven't seen it no so my quick comment was that what Scott had just said a

055few minutes ago really resonated with me that if we start making bigger changes we open ourselves up to potential problems lawsuits Etc so my recommendation is that or my thought I'll say is if we're going to start questioning pulling out pieces like this that that we take it to an attorney or to Neil you know go with a bigger being than us let's not spend this time today going through it because if we're we got 19 on the docket today which means we're 12 behind you know that's why I'm just I know that there's very much points of consideration that we need to bring up but that statement really resonated with me that okay we really got to be careful especially in something like this that certain words and things could have huge imp that

056we aren't aware of right and and that's why that's why I'm I'm seeking clarification on it because um if if this is implying if I'm reading through the rest of this document it's implying that if somebody misgenders somebody potentially they could be terminated just like that so what you're saying is you're recommending that this go to an attorney or something like that I for guidance I don't know what what the I'm if that was the recommendation then let's move with that and move on to the next thing you know because then we're looking at unless there's other pieces to bring up to also bring to the attorney so let's put those out on the table instead of trying to talk about different words just for the sake of time sure no and I I I

057agree with that I respect that um Sam uh well I I suppose two things I think it's reasonable uh the last meeting that I was uh sitting in on for policy uh there was a great deal of discussion about the specific meaning of specific words and whether or not they should be included in policies um across the board and I think that if people have concerns they should hear that out and I think the purpose of a policy committee is to have those discussions um so I think it's very reasonable to have that discussion and I think that we should uh kind of across the board we should uh have that respect for each other um whether we're on the board whether we're on the committee off the committee uh the other thing that I

058was going to bring up is um regardless of the the first sentence first two sentences of that second paragraph the third sentence is what really concerns me it says this is true irrespective of the cause of the person's gender non-conforming Behavior that's very concerning because a person could actually have malicious intent behind supposed gender non-conforming Behavior like and again this is kind of a title 9 example but I think this carries across the board uh what you saw in Lowden County uh with the the tragic incidents that happened in two separate schools and girls bathrooms so I think that that is something that should very seriously be considered uh cause of non-conforming behavior is not always uh it's it can be malicious right it can be actually deceptive and a person can use it to

059abuse other people so I do think that regardless of what you where you go with that I don't know that that third sentence should be included at all in this statement and whether or not it it shows or should not I guess was my my confusion I guess that's that's all I'm saying yeah perhaps maybe we Shoulda go ahead so as a Committee Member um you know I we're embarking on this journey and it's I'm to be honest I'm very frustrated by this discussion because this discussion and this deep dive into into these nuances basically negates what Scott had just said I agree with Diana as far as I mean didn't he just say that they had these attorneys looking over it and if this is something I I mean I had brought up a

060question regarding something that had been crossed out okay um that's on a different level versus picking apart every single wording in this and it is important for us to be able to follow through and to be able to get through these policies the way that he outlined it and if Neola has already had attorneys looking at this I I just feel like it's very redundant um and as far as you know maybe this is one once we have everything adopted and that needs to be you know put on the docket as far as that's concerned um I guess that's just kind of where I'm at with it the only question I had on it was I think this is I'm trying to go back and forth between my email here um as far as the

061responding to complaints in a specified number number of days that was my question as far as that's concerned okay thank you Tina J so yeah the question I have um and it's more for administrative purposes is if we're going to want an authority source to kind of vet this for us and we're not going to use Neola who am I to go to then because we already have an authority source of Neola who has shared where they get their legal information from three sources um I if if you don't want them as the authority Source on these who am I going to and I need I need the um you know do do I go to the district's attorneys that we have been going to with bu veter or are there somebody else that you

062would like me to go to I just want to know because I don't want to keep coming back with another Authority Source or another Authority source and then you know not know where I to go so I'm wondering that question here's where here's where I um want to push back on that is this is our policy it's not you know yes this is a recommendation from Neola but it's still our local control and authority to be able to put policy into practice and if there's if there's something that that um we need to work on to come together on we need to figure figure that out because we want these policies to stand somewhat the test of time you know and be before too long um and and also from a legal standpoint I don't

063you know if the if there's enough question that maybe maybe that this is um a court system issue um why are we putting it into policy I guess what I was saying I was not negating you guys as the ultimate Authority Source it's just you had shared uh you know I'd like to have attorneys look at this language or give us a different people or reasons why what what I what I want to know what what I'm as okay again this goes back to an earlier discussion we've had about some sort of a legal background or context behind why we would go forward with a with an additional change and and it's it's not necessarily that you know you you have to speak to an attorney I I noticed that there's a language in the

064um the uh this particular Title 9 policy 2264 that we should be asking you when when we have questions regarding this particular policy so that that's a service that may be available for us to actually tap into and and seek some clarification on um so there's that um the other part of it is um we we don't whenever a policy comes to us uh that's that's completely different it's always been our board practice to have some sort of context behind the rationale why do we need to make this particular change and why do we need to make that change now because if that's the case what's wrong with the old non-discrimination uh policy that would that would be that would be my question and I would answer that Craig with the definition of discrimination and

065who can be discriminated against has been changing for at least the last 20 if not 40 years and let's say it changes I don't know if it changes annually maybe it changes every five years but you're you're right we weigh in when it comes to certain portions of our policy that have to do with um let's say detentions or bullying or or dress code or cell phone use or what have you but these in in my opinion these blanket statements that are based in state law precedents that have been reviewed by attorneys newas or ours are well beyond any of our competencies to say this word should be in and this word should be out and anytime I've run into one of these things the attorneys govern because they're the ones who are briefed and

066and experts on that subject matter now I have no problem saying Hayden Yola are there any options to this paragraph but there's nobody in this room who is better off striking or adding words to this than what was put in front of us and it doesn't matter if we're elected by the public or not we're we're not qualified to take out or put in words into some of these paragraphs that's just fla me either I mean I'm not saying it's me I'm not saying it's you we're not the experts in case law even if we read up on the case law we're still not attorneys and experts in case law so I would never get that far over my skis to think that we can strike a word because we don't like it when it

067comes to certain paragraphs of certain policies go ahead Lori I guess where I get confused on that is why is it okay on certain paragraphs I mean we really don't know and that's you know there's another policy that I questioned something that got blocked out because it is in a state statute so that sometimes I think there is and take a disregard even just this paragraph I think if there is something that we question we should make sure that we've vetted all all no isue answering the we're asking the question then that goes back to Jar's question which is who would you like them to ask it to because nea's attorneys have already weighed in on it and if you don't like their attorney's answer who whose attorney would you like to ask yeah and

068I know it did say that in the 2264 I did notice that it says that we recommend you consult with with your legal so they obviously recommend it at times where I and I don't know what the answer is if we could reach out to Neola I don't know if that's a option with an option I we we pay it for their service yeah and I just want to know I mean why can't we I guess my my biggest question is why can't we ask a question about the language in nea's policy to Neola I mean I was just asking is that the source you want me to go to if it's NE well I I will go to Neola if it's our attorneys I'll go to our attorney I just wanted to know which

069authority Source you want me to go to I don't think anyone is arguing with me about asking a question I think what it is is the process by which we want to and if we want to dep this policy we have certain language that we have questions on then we say we highlight those you know those words we flag it to go back to the we send it back to the and say hey why are these words here we have these questions and then we move on to the next policy we don't spend 45 minutes deciding you know and discussing among yourselves whether we can ask them or not right I think that's this this goes back to the initial discussion of keeping this nexted it I guess I don't I don't disagree with that

070so I mean I I felt like that was what you were asking or I feel like you were just asking do we want to move forward with this or do we want to send it back to exactly and we're comfortable with niola as the is the source of Truth asking yeah that's a great place to start I think people ask is like hey can you give us some clarification on why it's written this way why does it say it's regardless of motivation or regardless of cause or something like that yeah they're great to ask because they're the ones who pend it essentially and so they can give you Insight on why they pend it that's great yeah and I think just this is what needs to be in their legally these are extra recommendations that

071we said but legally they don't need to and then we can decide from that you know we're already talking about a protected class of individuals you know at some point I just kind of I'm starting to wonder the necessity of of putting in some some of this extra language that's all go ahead Diana um this policy when when Scott talked about the three categories required directive informative this policy is obviously required but to get to my interpretation of your statement is are all of these pieces to that policy required is there a way and this is just a total question is there a way from Scott to know what policies are required which ones are informative and which ones are directive because as we talked in previous months about different policies some of them that

072we talked more in depth were more of directive informative not necessarily required and those have legal room for modifications or um tweaking to like what you said meet the needs of our specific District as opposed to generalities yeah um but in terms of Expediting this process if it's a required policy and we know that it's like okay this one's required there may not be a lot of wiggle room so knowing that to the Forefront might be helpful the thought no thank you um I think I think we beat that horse to death a little bit so is that the only uh questions we sorry I don't want to assume that anybody else didn't have any other questions question did yeah t question what part um I believe it's this one hang on a second um

073is this 3122 is that what we're talking about correct page said so my question yeah that I had sent the email out earlier today page five um so the um as far as the specified number of days um as far as a reasonable time frame and so um my question there is because in three oh wait I'm so sorry two following policies it does State specific um time frames um however in this one it doesn't and it was crossed off and so um I appreciate time frames and wondering maybe why we cross them off I just think it's um I think it's in our best interest to have time frames because then that can set everybody's expectations and keeps communic yeah I can I can clear this one up really quickly and easily for you

074um our uh our committee asked us to review in detail uh our complaint procedures with our attorney um you'll see that as one of the ones that we're going to work through later um and some of the handwritten notes in that that um Lynn attached just before the meeting not not maybe an hour before the meeting um we we were able to uh when I say we it was uh Margaret and Lynn were able to meet with Dan vit uh to go over his recommendations having worked with us uh in our district and um understanding timelines from other school districts he gave us reasonable timelines within that document and asked us to put the put those in other policies were applicable and that and this one would be like that policy so if you want

075to know what kind of timeline we would be putting into this it would be just like our complaint procedure timeline does that make sense thank you for that information what's the complaint procedure timeline um so if you go uh into um oh that 3362 yes okay okay all right yeah I just wanted to it's in the next group I think is yeah it's it's in group two it's um revance procedure 3340 3340 yep oh sorry okay yep that is dates and okay NOP I appreciate that thank you very much yeah and then she added a 3340 grievance with notes grievance with notes in the document set and so her handwritten notes are in there uh from meeting with the attorney so I guess to to Tina's um Point um I do see as I read

076through these policies as number of you have as well um I do see a recurring timeline of about five days for for respond to um complaints and um grievances um I'm comfortable with a time time period on the process I I just think it needs to be consistent across the for if we do that that's what I just said yeah He suggests that we go with the time frame that's in the notes on uh on the grievance policy on the 3340 grievance policy with notes okay uh and that we apply that same timeline to other procedural um ones like this one so that being an action plan of basically um five business days from the date that or is it 10 10 business days yeah it's 10 on the notes yeah within 10 day business

077days okay and then in the event that um okay vent that uh the superintendent is unable to respond within 20 days upon written notice can extend with notice to the complaintant um 10 for another 10 days and and we're waiting for the the attorney to get it get us actual verbage he just hasn't given us I just I kind of wrote that in yeah um I guess if if we're going to use that as the consistent template across the other policies does the committee feel comfortable at that time frame or does Is there further discussion on that are there any legalities to any of those that we have to do them in a certain time frame for any policies no these are his suggested time frames yeah um and well within our purview to be

078able to do do you feel it would be easier for the administration to have a consistent timeline I imagine it would in the back of your head it would be and uh as I've noted um over the last two that we've had to walk through in the last year the the time frames uh in this District are really tight um and you know I tried to get through in my time um the board tried to get through in their time we we didn't we didn't meet our own policy no agree we we had we had those in to follow but we hadn't met those right and so Dan's suggesting these timelines uh not only for us but they interact with us on my end and on your end and he's he knew that like it

079was hard to get information back and to do the kind of detailed navigations that we needed to so this is what he's suggesting all right so Tina I think that answers your question on time frames uh for a number of your questions it looks like yep it does done thank you you're welcome all righty all right let's move back to our agenda the next one on the agenda is um 3160 physical examinations de 3122 3122 aside from the Discrimination aside from that one paragraph Was there anything else besides time timelines are going to get filled in is there anything else yeah that that would be the action item is to refer that to that is that it for that one then so there's two things we're refer we gonna re we're going to respond to

080or ask NE about that paragraph and then I'm going to apply the timeline yes please was there any other just raise the goe and I mean I'm not on the committee so I'm not trying to like overstep boundaries or anything but uh maybe better approach would be asking niola to clarify what parts of the policy are necessary by law and what parts are supplemental or like that we could change yeah like what part yeah like if they could even highlight like yellow is necessary red is stuff that can be altered or green is stuff that could be altered you can use the paragraph that we had in question as an example of this we confuse you on yes exactly yeah and and I get that um and I'm I'm agreeable to that um I just

081the the EMP the question is specific on that particular paragraph because of um because of the nature of what it's referencing yeah so I I have a feeling that one of the responses that I'm going to get is where you have choice we gave you choices it was this choice or this choice or or combination thereof or whatever because they when you go through the process you have to pick right and and you see them crossed out which ones we picked which ones we didn't right based on our old policy and or what what our what our thoughts were as we discussed them with our attorneys or whatever else that's what we gave you and and I guess that's why I'm offering the specific line of questioning to them yeah exactly that's why I was

082saying maybe going back to them with a specific is is better than just do the whole thing or whatever yeah and I understand the difficulty of that and like when you're putting together sentences what's where does one thing stop and another one start I guess I'm just curious about it because specifically that line about if regardless of the cause I I can't remember at like I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the EEOC non-discrimination stuff over the past couple of weeks and I can't remember any language that's specifically like that so I'm curious as to where that comes from sure all right um any other questions that okay just those two things okay trying to move along to um 3160 physical examination um so I didn't necessarily have any particular um things that

083I that stood out to me as as different but I know that Tina had um a question specific to that about drug testing and I would make no that in policy 4131 drug testing was in our existing current active policy as well so Tina do you have any other questions on that nope all good thank you okay I did want to ask why the the noal the first paragraph that's lined out that was in our original policy I know it is also listed under the state statute option for district so I just didn't know I don't I don't know that one out oh good question about the affidavit for religious exemption I believe is not quoting it but I just didn't know yeah that's a good question that was in our that was in our

084existing policy Y and that's just the first uh the one where it talks about additional physical examinations I'm not worried about that one just that one paragraph the long one regarding the no physical examination may be required but this kind of goes back to the um Co concerns partially well I I mean I don't really have an opinion on it I just know that it was in our original and it is under the state statute if it was under the state statute um U was optional part it's an optional part so I just was curious why since it wasn't our old one what what de what you know why we marget can you answer to that Margaret are you there yeah I'm here what I'm sorry what is the policy 3160 physical examinations um there

085they're questioning um the strikeout of the first paragraph there of No physical examinations may be required of any employee who has filed an affidavit with the blank requesting such exemptions because B on prayer spiritual healing you know accordance that kind of stuff um so I I am not an attorney I know that we if somebody files a request to have an exemption based on religious or other needs we U usually comply with that um I I get that would be a question that I would need to refer to an attorney on but I don't know that we are if somebody's objecting based on religious grounds I I would seek a consult on that um we have had other people that we have cooperated with when it comes with respect to uh people that choose to

086seek uh alternate providers like natural uh natural medicine practitioners and things like that um but I mean that's what we do and so the the choices that we made were in alignment with what we do well then we keep it in there so so if we're you guys want to keep it in there yeah if we're if we're trying to also within the spirit of what we have as laid out as Neola process to try to match up our current policy with as close as possible to uh the Neola policy I would argue that that should probably be in there until the next review where we may strike that if that is if that's necessary any thoughts on that may no I'm fine on that if it's in there currently and generally you're you're suggesting

087I'll say put it back in because that's what Market's doing anyway that that would be Our intention and that's what did our current right yep so that action item would be to have that second paragraph added back in on policy 3160 the the no physical examinations may be required of any employe right right okay so unri it and have it stay in okay I should be writing this down I'm sorry Lyn is ly is okay Lyn is definitely to all all right um what about uh the the part or question that Tina had on the drug test which is the the what we we asked we asked Tina and she she was um I also mentioned the clarification that we do have that drug testing in our existing policy and it didn't sound like Tina

088had any objections to leaving a drug testing in the in the current in the proposed policy so that I'm all good it seems covered okay thank you okay so so we don't have to do anything with the physical examinations portion of this correct doesn't S like okay all right you have so the action item for this one is to unstrip the paragraph that begins with no physical examination may be required okay thank you right uh following the order we go back to sta ethics 3210 Yep this is the only other heavy hitter that I kind of identified um that you like we went from 18 descriptive bullet points and 41 12 down to 9 I sort of feel like some of these are pretty a pretty good practice to have in place I I'm just

089trying to seek an explanation as to why we're going down from why why the change I guess so uh uh in this one and if you uh recall when we first brought this a group one to you guys yeah we shared that many of these were more um standard issue and have had a lot of changes in law and everything else now if you want I can go back to niola and say uh are there reasons in law that you pick these a through I and I could also give them our list and say would any of these be problematic and then give you a report back if if because I I just we just went with this one because we were like we thought okay neas aren't going to be problematic are some of

090ours I don't know I I guess this would be a rare instance where where where we happen to have a a policy that happens to be more detailed than the Olas yeah so if you want uh to have us run that Avenue you know I can take uh both our policies and say Here's what you recommend I'm seeing these as probably not problematic um are there ours that are problematic that we shouldn't have and the rest we should just add if they're not problematic right I like that solution I don't know if any no I think it's a good idea just because obviously they got put in there for a reason and yeah you know and I I don't know I don't know ours too yeah and I don't know if ours if from a

091legal standpoint if any of ours are problematic or not but I can have them review it and if they're not let's ad him okay I mean does anybody have a problem with this list I mean did anybody when they read through that said oh that's that's a bad thing we don't want that I don't think that I don't see how you would argue okay so so we're okay keeping their list I'm just asking about our list are are any of these problematic for us legally and if not let's add them to our add them to this list yes no Tina I I mean I I guess I'm just tending to go with niola because I you know some of our stuff is outdated and you know laws and statutes or whatever change and so I

092guess I'm just trusting that Neola picked the best ones you know per I don't know if it's you know if we included the other ones that's fine to ask that but I guess I just don't feel the need to you know relitigate that like if they put those in there there must be a reason my only other thought on that is the letter H adhere to the policies of the board looking at our current policy how many of those fall you that's so blanketed that's so General how many of our current ones that are on that list would fall under some of these other ones where this is maybe more General where ours are more specific and did they maybe go to more General I don't know it's just it's a thought that do some

093of them fit under some of these other yeah but you could probably make that argument for their list as well I'm just saying it that's why some of them aren't listed they're keeping it more General instead of super specific okay so I need direction what would you like me to do first option was option one where um we go back to niola and and ask him if there are any particular uh items on on our existing policy that are problematic and conflicting with with with theirs option two is to basically leave leave it as is what are the it sounds like from Tina Tina's um perspective is to leave it as is correct option two option two thank you what do you think David uh I didn't review the past one okay I so I

094don't know what five we've lost or eight from if that's yeah yeah u i find that a lot of these things are say I don't say gray areas but there's there's a lot of ways to be unethical in which case if you have to find every single one of them you're trying to be over uh what's the right prescriptive uh so I'm going to guess that these eight that you all used are adequate but there's no harm in asking right so we could certainly ask as you recommended to you know I mean there's a lot of good ones on here I'm sorry just sure but are the blankets of mola adequately cover the good ones that we had been overly prescriptive on sure and because I didn't read the old one right so but it

095it does there's no harm in asking them so we add these eight back or is there a reason to leave them on for your your suggestion okay so that would be optional on all right Lor I'm I don't think it would hurt to just make sure that doesn't mean we have to put them all in there but I don't think it would hurt to see if we can keep some of the ones that were on our original since that's been our Trend to try to so I would I would be fine with trying to find out if we could keep them or all of them or all right um and then I would also advocate for the that first option that's not obvious already so if we could go back to niola and see if

096there's any problematic ones on there okay so our action item on that one is to check with Neola are problem problematic or conflicting with theirs and then see if we can add add those to us okay e that wasn't so bad 3220 is a step evaluation and effective uh educator Effectiveness if I'm following the order correctly um Tina had a question on this one and I can answer it uh for you um at least from from me and Below uh yes our our staff uh who does evaluations uh goes through training annually uh we get that training from cesa 6 uh John slender uh is the person who trains us um to uh Stay Together from the board standpoint in their evaluation of me I know that the uh uh the um planning committee has

097talked about doing some calibration and I believe Diana's in um discussion a little bit with that um Tony Arnette really kind of did a in brief C calibration last year um if you guys remember you just kind of went over and said here's kind of the things that we're doing and whatever else um but that's my understanding of it to answer your question for for staff evaluation or is that superintendent evaluation no for for for you guys to do superintendent evaluation oh Diana and planning are are also going to be working with cesa 6 okay um they're you guys are going to use the same person that we use administratively when we do administ evaluations and staff evaluations we calibrate okay so it is related to the staff evaluation yes MH got it okay any

098questions okay questions Tina Tina you have any questions on that I don't think so I'm sorry I'm trying to follow I'm trying to go from screen to screen there sorry about that no I'm with you I I too was going back and forth between the email and the and got this Zoom screen and the different yeah the email and the things um I I had a question oh I I don't remember exactly where it was maybe it was the second group as far as um K through six teachers they all the English teachers all having phonics background I think I had a question yep um and um super of course act 20 is um you know helping to change that landscape and mandate that and so that was part of um new act 20 legislation

099and so yes we we will be moving in that direction I'm not sure because I don't you know I'm not Jenny so I'd have to ask her how many of them have phonic um um instruction or further training in that phonic programming um so I don't know the answer to that as of now but I know moving forward what we're going to be doing do you think some of us is because we know we we're going to be yes so they've kind of already been starting to make those little changes you there makes sense so Tina do you have any other questions on that nope all good thanks um I did have one quick quick um note um under licensed teachers and principales um it says evaluation shall be conducted the first year of employment

100and every third year after or more frequently those three words or more frequently is an ad I'm not saying that's a bad thing I think it's probably a good thing uh but I just wanted to make the committee aware that that is an addition to to from our existing policy I mean I just don't want anybody to think that they only get evaluated every third year I mean if if we have somebody who's under you know a plan and they want to do it more often than that you know I think it's okay we're comfortable with those recommendations I I see some nodding heads and I'm assuming Tina's okay with it as well so no action no no action item all righty go to first read yes uh 3 3340 grievance procedures we we had

101discussed this briefly already um I know I had I mean I did also have questions about about the time frames I just wanted to make sure that one it they're they're a compromise with um with the uh with the staff uh grievance procedure so that they're getting the responses that they need in a timely manner as well as sympathetic to to the process you know um so that was my thought um go any questions on that particular topic kind of already covered it with the notes L how's this going to run into first read are we gonna incorporate the notes into this 3340 with the handwritten notes is that how do we I that's my I'm assuming that he's going to be done by the time we get to the board meeting okay so we

102can put that Craig if there's nothing else on we can with the handwritten notes but technically we won't even see it until we're there on next week right okay the only other question I had um and it's just maybe a maybe it says only one subject matter shall be covered in any one grievance what does that mean mean does that mean that one particular Incident That's covered or is it um are there because usually uh when there's a grievance there's there's a slew of things that I would tend to agree it's not one subject matter it's one incident yeah right is that what you're getting at yeah confused by that yeah so so um it it's if if you can't say well I I'm grieving uh that um you know how we have to put

103time sheets together and whether or not um you know the decision of the administrator approve that time that's one separate item and then then say I also want to grieve whether or not I can uh uh take my lunch breaks at a certain time or not and then another I mean okay right I mean yeah those are all separate grievable things right right it's you can't lump all all things that I care about with uh how how I get paid right sure and and make a grievance out of it right we have to grieve each one of those specifically and separately and the reason they say that is because there there are laws that pertain to specific parts of how pay structures are implemented and so on so that that's why they say it has

104to be one you know clear clear thing and then and if you have a a grievance about some other thing um you can you can issue another grievance right and we we'll go through the process with that one too all right any other questions on that one okay moving along to policy 3362 can we go back we skipped 323 did we did we not or did we jump ahead do ethics and conflict of entrance ah you know I'm sorry down the line I was see I I appreciate you keeping me on my toes no it there's there small 323 the bottom of the list okay thank you all right ethics and conflict of interest um personally I I didn't really see much on this that I had an issue with except for a spelling mistake

105like that was a Neola spelling mistake hopefully they catch it anybody on this one no uh 3230 would go ahead and move forward for a recommendation 3362 is next 3362 is next and that is the employee anti-harassment policy can I just I'm kind of conf something so when I was reading this is and I know that this is because we've got different policies so when I look at like our policy doesn't this also kind of include the the student sexual harassment that's right underneath like our HR board po it's number hold on I can't read my own writing this is not this is employee I know but it talks about students but see I so that's where I'm getting like you know what I mean it talks about inappropriately because it because it's um you

106know there can be instances of sexual harassment between employ employee and student okay so so it has to so we we still want to keep them separate still have okay I'm not saying we shouldn't I just that's where I was like my brain I think I just looked at way too many policies it's okay now starting this e Circle okay because I know it can get confus you know especially like harassment and Bully you've got the staff and you've got the students so I just I I guess when I looked at our own policies it made me go well wait I'm seeing this twice so I just didn't want to be um uh we we we no longer have Tina I just I don't let people know about that yeah or is that some no

107she uh she said she was getting early her notes on this one were in related to the time frames which we've addressed um I I did have a question from Diana on this one did you I don't remember okay did I was it the yes yesterday you're referring to the last second last sentence of the first paragraph I I believe what did it say um in this day and age can we still use the words male and female as discussed in page and I just put that as a note based on what we just found from Scott earlier today that perhaps we let Neola figure that out and that could be an update I I do have that question you know that's real Forward Thinking especially in the world paragraph does that relate to well

108the second paragraph I would throw the second paragraph and with the first discussion Craig and ask him to take a look at this one on the as maybe Sam said highlight like and that's where my note to myself just before you asked that was okay table that one maybe let me Yola figure that out through some of the updates because there's one in the fnla one where they use son and daughter as opposed to child but it's getting Forward Thinking and okay based on again what Scott said earlier I guess don't worry about that language right now let them figure that out with an update down the so I guess I would be seeking direction from the committee um considering we don't want to have a whole bunch of them coming back to us um

109but that's where Neola if they decide to make that change where they don't want to use male and female that would come through their updates not to look at so that's why I'm saying let niola based on what we just learned now let niola figure that out and then that'll be one of their two twice a year update kinds of things that they would do okay don't male and female refer to biological sex so I think that regardless of uh gender questions I think that male and female are you know I mean I think that's really a different thing right I'm not saying that you know maybe you want to address the fact that that regardless of a person's gender orientation they can commit or receive harassment that's worthwhile to discuss but I I guess

110I don't really want to get too far off in the Weeds on this part of the discussion yeah because I think that that the spirit of this particular paragraph is conveying that that that harassment can occur between different individuals yeah and regardless of the yeah okay so we're letting that sit I'm letting it sit okay no I think uh I think so anything else besides timelines that um we need to input uh put the timelines in this one um as per the other policies that would be that's what I I gathered so far okay so sorry let's move on uh the uh next one on our list is the FMLA policy which um if I'm not mistaken um ours is pretty much like non-existent it basically says something to the effect of yeah would comply

111with the law comply with the law yeah that's it so yeah there there you go um I didn't and basically this elaborates on what the law is so I don't see any problem Margaret you're um muted if you're trying to talk well I would just say that there's a lot of language that is missing from our current policy that since it was last written really needs to be incorporated and in order for us to provide like updated communication to employees we need to be able to rely on a policy that is reflective of that and I mean like notices of Rights and responsibilities and the language associated with that a lot of the and I I get it's a lot of legal jargon and tons and tons of extra words but I mean that if

112that's what the FMLA has determined satisfies compliance like our our current policy and our current forms are um you know you know not really fully complying with the changes that have been Ur occurring in FMLA as it gets put more and more into practice all right I would welcome the Neo Neola one from a practice standpoint because it provides solid uh background upon which to like communicate out to employees and to demonstrate the district's compliance with FMLA any objections to uh the FMLA policy as recommended moving forward all right that will be uh a recommendation from Comm moving on to um section uh group two item d on the agenda um it looks like employment of professional staff um my notes are well there's a there's a paragraph that's discussing uh on on page two

113any person that signs a contract to teach in the district must and it was changed from uh within 10 days after signing contract file um filed in the office uh statement showing their um certificate of license I I sort of think that maybe there should be some sort of a a timeline on that because like we uh we just want you to know that as a school district we don't rely on them to um do it within a time period we just go to the DPI licensing portal and we see if they're license or not so that's that's our practice and what we've been doing we can certainly require it if you want but um it just makes an extra step on the employee where it's it's relatively easy information for us to verify thank

114you for clarifying the only other thing that uh that that I noticed about this particular policy that's this whole um section regarding uh you know uh points with a uh professional that uh uh would be experience-based licensure for Technical and vocational education that's out of the law that okay and that's that's a good thing that we're able to clarify that too so um at least I thought so any objections to policy 3120 moving forward for recommendation all right let's do that the next one on the list is 3120.4 employe of substitutes seem very straightforward as well any objections to 3120.4 moving forward no not anoun specific right but I'm just going to say Jared and Lynn if there were ones that they were significantly different from our existing policies I me I see some for

115example the 29 days of consecutive employment Etc is that consistent is that new does that that cause you pause from our perspective if we're not familiar entirely with the old policy or where or how that's implemented practice I assume you're raising the flag on things that are new or different okay I just wanted to trust you on those things because no I I can't verify every single one of them because that's what you guys are doing not yeah Margaret Mar will tell you here yeah so the 29 days is driven by the requirements for DPS and what they view as a shortterm uh substitute assignment um so and we are required to comply with that that re that uh time period and then the half day is just simply like a r a a reflection

116of how we pay people so we don't pay substitutes that are teachers on it well we don't pay any substitutes on an hourly basis we pay them on half or whole days so that that um that's where those like timelines and the specifics are coming from and and I will again share with you if it has a yellow highlight that's verbiage that we changed right oh great so um if if you see it there okay and you don't know why we changed it you can ask the question and we should be able to answer that for you no I just want I assume that was the case we talked about the ground rules of how we're going to be looking at this when we started nine months ago I just wanted to make sure that

117that was still the case that these are the ones that are were merging and or or caring you know right whatever you call it so so from one to the other that are more or less the same so like on the 29th day we happen to use the DPI statutory day but some districts do fewer oh okay and so they they would put in their date uh at which they become okay no problem with moving forward with that one I think clarify questione um the last acknowledged bullet point on page one where it talks about relatives of Staff members we're talking purely about Subs here so please clarify does that mean that if I'm the principal in a building my brother sister cousin niece nephew relative cannot be a substitute in that building because they

118are directly being supervised that's how I'm reading that and I'm wondering if that's really what we want it to say so that reflects the current practice which is if you're a relative you're not supervised by that relative and we designate an alternate person as the uh relative and we have a few situations like that currently in the district y I understand that with staff members but this policy is specific for substitutes so we're saying on that given day if that substitute is needed at my building RMS or whatever it is someone else would be supervising them that day we would designate another person so we do it on a Case make sure we don't we don't want tell you can't building I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a a hiccup in that okay

119okay sounds good any we're all good with that one then all right next on the uh the list is the uh job sharing policy which I don't know that I've seen this one before in our existing policy uh but it definitely sounds kind of unique and uh I didn't have any objection to it what else I have a question in there yeah there currently is not verbage regarding benefits does that mean that with job sharing because typically if you have one position there's benefits for that in other districts if it's a shared 50/50 there's 5050 benefits are we saying by not having any verbage in there about benefits that if you job share you have no benefits I don't know if there's 5050 benefits anymore in District and they have changed yeah I mean Margaret

120you can talk to that I don't know if that's allowable anymore so I mean we we have job sharing Arrangements where the total pack benefit package is equal to one FTE or one person working for full-time and we do have contract language from um dating back to before I started working at the district that specifies job sharing Arrangements will not result in the in the addition of benefits so in from a practice standpoint the district has um gone to partners that are job sharing and asked how do you intend to uh divide the this is the benefit part for both of you which is equal to one full-time uh f one full-time person how do you intend to divide the benefits and and I will say that I mean most of the time they already

121have a plan before they even get to my office but that is a practice so um you know this this would just be basically saying that they're allowed to share one full-time position which is interpreted as like one person in One FTE and whatever comes with that type of employment Arrangement position right with um to to piggyback on Dan's question um would we want to have some sort of language in there that would um would potentially clarify how would go about that process of um identifying those benefits no because if our process changes then we're going to have to come back every time we and it it may change based on whatever the job share looks like right right but shouldn't shouldn't mention something about like this should be handled those those questions of benefits

122would be handled through um uh through the HR and the superintendent um or something of that nature I I don't know Margaret what are your thoughts on that well I I mean we we take job sharing requests in all sorts of forms and and we've done where people come together as Pairs and requested or we have situations where an individual has requested and then we've conducted a recruitment effort to find a partner for that person um I I mean I don't oppose adding more procedural language uh it in the documents that I have in terms of the contract documents it does very specifically say that you know job Shares are are at the approved at the discretion of the district um and take into account like the needs of of the buildings and needs of

123the students and and other you know District related considerations but I don't have any objection to adding um language that would specify you know J just that language I mean yeah I would say the the only thing and I don't know if it strengthens this adding that language from the contract um would be about the only way I think we could do this because you have so many different kinds of requests coming to you I don't know how we would codify in language procedural language that would bring every possible request that you have come to you right but but the the fact of the matter is it should probably specify that any any additional requests should be made to somebody right I mean we could add that that any request should be uh made through

124the HR office if you want I don't know maybe maybe we're splitting hairs I don't know H I don't I don't know that I mean I'm just wondering if that wouldn't be more appropriately placed in the handbook you know it's pulled off of the policy and then the polic in the handbook language then directs or informs the staff on how to initiate that process that's a good idea okay it can be more open there and easier changed fair enough make sense yeah I'm fine with just having what we have all right then I guess uh bring no objections to that policy it moves forward for for Street as well the job sharing all right um the next one on the list is uh criminal history record check and employee self-reporting requirements um so you you

125can see that ours had extensively more language than theirs that we recommended pulling in from ours yeah [Music] I think this is maybe this is just me but I think that in the bit that you added on the first page you got the same paragraph repeated twice yeah I'm seeing that too oh yeah oh we may have that yeah that that's my fault I was the clerical on that I apologize I can't believe I only that's the only that we got so this a little bit better yeah we haven't gotten through all of them yeah but I apologize I did that let me so uh will you help strike that one second paragraph thank you for the catch my apologies that'll come up later in the month Monday Monday Monday really close boy if that's

126something that's got to come up then I'm really in trouble having 20 minute discussion whether we should strike the first or the second put that yeah do we want to strike the first one or the second one let's talk about this strike the second half of the first paragraph and the first half of the second paragraph oh jeez did I mention it was my anniversary yes okay I just is the before she goes to bed I'd like to say honey I love you the only one watch oh all right at so okay the next one we got is a drug-free workplace policy 31 22.01 I know we had some questions on this um on the last paragraph of this particular policy uh not the the second to last paragraph on on the social media part

127of yeah well I mean you have that whole section stricken disciplinary action may result if a staff member conducts conduct involves the depiction of of Staff members engaging in use of alcohol or drugs social media or other outlets in a fashion that tends to provoke public scrutiny damage staff members credibility depict an inappropriate involvement of minors or in some fashion diminish the staff's me staff memb ability to safely and effectively perform his or her duties if the District administration becomes aware of such Circ circumstances it will investigate the matter even though the events occurred on one's personal time and not on District uh property or at District at a district event so I I would be comfortable with um removing the striketh through but I would like to work with our attorney about adding um

128language in there about a Nexus to their employment because there are are things that our staff do teachers employees of of any kind right they may be having a good time they put it on their personal social page and that's meant for them and their personal time I don't want to have to investigate every time a parent or somebody else see something that they think is inappropriate because they're a teacher or whatever is that it is but that's why I was like why do we have this in here we can investigate anything that's an Nexus to employment drunken driving or whatever else and why do we have to call out social media we're gonna we're going to investigated if it's a Nexus to employment I don't want to investigate every charge that comes by and

129this seems to me to tell me that I have to investigate every charge that comes by why that's why we struck it oh no you guys go first I think I was I was just going to say I I I have friends family who are attorneys for organizations who have had to fire employees due to their posts and social media unrelated to actually being at work and then it resulted in a lawsuit where the discharged employees sued the university that they got discharged from because they said well you never said that was in my employment contract that I couldn't complain about this while I was off time but at work in which case that's not necessarily drug and alcohol but they were complaining on social media to resulted in the lawsuit as to how far

130do the bounds of employment extend in the world of social media if it's not in this policy Jared I would encourage us to make sure that it's in a policy and well reviewed by legal because that is a that is a landmine to step up is that the dean lacrosse's whoever that was in this speaks right to that kind of stuff Dean thank you the dean exactly because he's probably suing lacrosse for he already did exactly for unlawful discharge because you never said I couldn't do that and so if you put it in there you better be sure that you can do it and I know I was just going to say we do have the social media policy at I don't know when that if that's gonna be coming soon but that was for

131the students or was that for the this that's that there's one in HR so I think that will cover and I think that mainly is you know to not be well that's that's during work hours it's not about right right right and and again that's what I'm saying like this is drug and alcohol that's more of you don't want to be I think J's right he says just double check what is applicable and what's not what should be put back in here before you strike it and I I mean I would just add that we're using languages here like tends to um that damages their public their their credibility po tends to provoke security kind of wishy-washy with the language on this if you're going to have this there um it needs to be specific

132to what you can do because well to the guy lross hey look I did this my own time we you know consan adults there's nothing here I like having it stricted where that first paragraph you have the Nexus to the staff memb Rule leaves it open to our interpretation and you know can do that if you feel that that tied our hands then can consult the would probably be a Best Choice that's what I was just going to say so I mean I mean I'm assuming it's legal because it's in here but at the same time it may be like that back and my assumption is that it's not a necessity because it's one of those parency optional items to choose from so therefore there wouldn't be the strong that's why that's why I left

133a little bit of it but like because I could have said oh we could have just taken out off workare conduct and not talked about offw cond I just took off the part that I thought was that still gives enough basis to give us a blanket I mean I want you guys to be aware like if there's a social media thing out there that I believe has a Nexus to the job you bet we're going to investigate it right right I just don't want anybody out there saying well it says you're investigating this and now I have to investigate every I what well I pretend Margaret will be having to investigate is so much to social media and other things related to the job ACC to the job in or out I'm saying is that

134let's not let's make sure that this is in the name of the policy just to make sure I got it right this is yeah this is the uh this is a drug yeah we're talking about drugs and alcohol there you go okay so if there needs to be a blanket statement regarding uh called moral Behavior outside of work I don't care what whatever bucket you want to put it in it it could belong somewhere but it doesn't seem like it belongs here that's my that's my and so I I would strike it only to get it out of here because nobody's ever going to look for it here but then put it somewhere else where it may be more appropriate and properly [Music] reviewed I I guess I I still I'm still torn I still

135think that it it wouldn't hurt anything to have it there just um true it just make sure it's somewhere else too so if I'm not looking at hey can I do what the dean did in Lacrosse and then I got to find it the drug-free workplace policy right this is specifically in regards to alcohol and drugs it says in the struck out section so maybe having a broader statement that's my com it's wasin the purview of the district somewhere it may not belong here but it could be duplicated here I just want to make sure it's somewhere else if we're going to review it make sure review it across the board specificity Cuts both W it covers you that hey look we're pointing this specifically out to you but it also says this is your

136specificity I was over here so this can't touch me by being General we get a broader brush we can swing with right well and and I I guess I in that respect I guess I would like to defer to um the legal thought on that you know um okay so uh what's the direction uh to get some oh boy we have going with NE right now just that very first one that's only we're double backing those add items or those additional the Y the eepic lists yeah I think this one though this one would be more of a a local attorney discussion okay instead of a Neola discussion I mean it's we don't have a problem with the policy we have a problem with do we want to enact this choice or not right in

137our local situation right the only thing I will say there is you're paying the for this service we send this back to get they feeling on the changes we want to enact but part of service we go to our local attorney we're going to get charged from right and that if we're going to do that this has to be brought to the board as we want to take this to the the Committees cannot use um administer of funds or or service blanking in the actual term you would have to refer it to the committe that I have to you know I want to do this unless that's underneath your you have a fund within the power of the superintendent that you you can tap into for this directive it has full so I you know

138I we wouldn't be using any additional legal fees outside of the ones we have budgeted if that's what you're talking about I think that would have to go to a full board for approval for additional funds y right if it's using funds that we already have budgeted them retainer and this Falls with under that that's fine but if every time we send a policy to them you know Dan's GNA ding us for $200 we're gonna we have to get bored for well hold on a second because prior to Neola the policy committee would have policies reviewed by legal all the time that's that's what I'm saying Jared was Jared is we have we have a retainer for the attorney that we can use this for sure what I'm asking is is that if we going

139to do this is it outside the bounds of that if it's outside the bounds of that and we're getting extra funds I don't believe that this would require us to go to the full board for extra funds earmarked specifically for um this this project Y no that falls within what we're doing then we're good all right valuable valuable knowledge to know so we we're clear on the action items on that specific one are we are we seeking some specific uh um guidance on on that particular language or is that are we just going to basically um I'm I'm a little unclear on that myself sorry that's why I asked what was what was it that you want me to do I I put the recommendation out there that we strike it is the recom is

140your uh your conversation asking me to go back to our attorney and say codified J's response or not or what what were you asking me to do so that's right my my I mean my vote my suggestion would be is just double check that that's reasonble to strike it that it doesn't materially affect the intent of the paragraph okay that's that's that's that's one that's one yeah and I'm not saying this a commity I'm just I'm I'm looking at it like um that if we do take it on I mean it doesn't seem like it puts us into a lot of extra liability yeah it's the specif the specificity of the of the statement I I I do find Value in finding some clarification on that that um is it is it too specific that

141um it allows an exception for other other activity okay so my question is this it sounds like you were asking me to ask them to uh make a determination on whether or not they think it's appropriate for us to to strike this or not and what are the positive and negatives of striking it is that right somewhat yes is there something else that I need to do outside of those two the the um that is it too specific this specific question is it too specific that it opens the door for an exception to other activity that we're trying to prevent through the policy what other activity I guess I'm confused solicit drug use and or alcohol use basically okay so just The Jug andle okay I didn't know if you were going on other things

142no so she say that again yeah the question you want me to ask like if I were the attorney and you wanted to ask me the question what would you ask me no let's talk like time let's play roles well that's that's why I said cuz I I have to ask them and I want to make sure I ask them the right thing sorry would you just you know I'm trying I'm actually trying to clarify what you're asking too as so yeah so it's it's um whether or not they approve the Striking positive or negatives of leaving it and leaving it out and uh any recommended language if we were to add additional language okay good enough for me like that okay and yeah I mean it all right let's say that one one more

143time for because I'm trying to so I again I'm going to defer to the committee here but um whether or not we should Strike It Strike It or Not the positives and the negatives of striking it or leaving it in and any recommended language any other recommended langage other recommended language if you know if not was included okay I mean I think it also knowing what we've kind of what we're trying to get out of it leaving that first line like you did if that maybe gives us the you know what I mean does that give us the opportunity to do what we struck out am I saying that right without actually saying it right because that may be more efficient for the district okay let seem like this though I think I got you

144with that I'm clear with it okay all right no I'm I it's more than M I'm clear if you keep talking it might get muddy but right now I'm clear it's starting to get clear when I go back to the notes I hope this is clear well I highlighted the questions now around all my notes that I I kept writing everybody's questions thank you for bearing with us we're still we're still almost there I love it what's the next one the next one is 32 I'm sorry 3132 vacancies yeah so we didn't have a vacancies policy um we're this would be a you know Margaret suggests that we have one I believe that's right Margaret isn't that there I think it's a good idea for us to be to specify a vacency policy yes and

145I think that um it should be clear that we're going to establish policies and or procedures that are related to the policy and um that it will select the person that the district will select the person that's most qualified to do the job this is all stuff that we are current I guess the best way to say it we're currently doing this selection process is what what this um policy is stating and not doing an internal we don't do that I'm assuming first or do we well I mean an internal candidate can still right be the best person suited to perform that Duty oh yeah no I know but when we cross I was just wondering what the you know do those look very different so the first one whenever possible vacant position shall be

146posted internally for a period of blank days before being posted so we aren't doing that is that is that what Margaret's saying so this is well no I wouldn't I wouldn't say that except that I would say that we do not necessarily always abide by a specific time frame for a posting and the language in this says vacant post positions shall be posted internally which is you know pretty strong language in terms of requiring us we do post all of our positions I mean that I can tell you we post every job that is available but the actual timeline will vary based upon the circumstances of that particular Recruitment and sometimes for example we'll post a job internally for three days sometimes we'll post it continuously I mean it really is dependent upon the position

147and the labor market and but I can say that we consistently post all positions internally U through the email system right now so I it's not that we don't do this it was just that this language is like um like locking us into a certain time frame that we currently have more latitude to work with based on the situation anybody um opposed to this particular policy moving forward as recommended I sorry no you spoke before me please go ahead I don't care go ahead just somebody go okay I'll go um so two questions number one yeah where second paragraph says that it's in accordance with established procedures there are candidates out there that look to see postings and they'll go to board policy to see is this internally post not so where would if it's

148established procedures where are those located is that an administrative guideline is that in a handbook somewhere is that in someone's mind somewhere what where would that be and if we don't have that where could you know it's not a discussion for today but it should be somewhere and secondly if we do post things internally prior to externally then I would hope that there would be language in here but get rid of the strong language oh but to clarify we we don't post in advance of posting externally I mean there are times where okay then I misunderstood you you know because yeah okay I mean some sometimes we'll post internal only sometimes we'll post internal and external concurrently but we don't um we don't have have a practice of doing advanced notice of of of consistently

149doing advanced notice of internal to internal potential applicants okay but does that still you still have the question on where the established procedures are contained just wanted to capture that thank you okay um and then uh the only thing that I was going to mention is I think it would be useful to clarify on the first sentence and the last sentence of the policy uh kind of in keeping with non-discrimination policies it would be useful to put on the end on the basis of Merit of the first sentence and the last sentence so it would read it should be the policy of the board to employ the person best suited to perform the duties of a particular WD vacency at any level on the basis of Merit and then the superintendent shall establish procedures to

150facilitate etc etc um the evaluation of these things on the basis of Merit to clarify that best suited is speaking about on the basis of Merit on the basis of ability to effectively perform whatever task it is I don't have any objection to that I either either way I I think the think it seems to clarify it as it is but I mean if if that if that helps to be more specific I don't have an objection to it mer buy would they've been that like a veteran status I'm just thinking of you know I've been doing something for a while there's Merit versus someone who's new to it but they have the advanced skill in something uh I think that Merit kind of well here uh so I would say that it has to

151do with aptitude which is natural ability but I think that let's look at the definition um just think of that in terms of like a merit based Award right yeah well I think that Merit is a I think it kind of gets used in different ways uh so Mary Mariam Webster defines as praiseworthy equality uh deserving of esteem um yeah it uh it means indicating that indicating attitude I would say um maybe you could use a different word for it um I don't know I feel like Merit is just generally the word that they use to describe the uh the ability or excellence and ability to perform a task yeah since Sam I I love meritocracies so sign me up question is do we do anything off a seniority and if we do anything off

152a seniority maybe that's the component of Merit that they're getting promoted on or maybe that's just something that we just want to steer clear from or we're not strictly Union we're not strictly you know hey you got your 20 years in before you get promoted to the next rank etc etc I I would prefer the entire world to be meritocracy but it's not and and depending on how we currently operate what our procedures are I don't really have a lot of energy to put it in or take it out I just want to make sure that it's not going to put us in a position that we're now seeing we're doing something that we haven't historically done and we're not prepared to change the way we've been doing it so that's so maybe clarify whether

153or not that is the case I guess we can ask um Margaret I mean it sounds like that's our current practice anyway well I mean the the language that we use is that we hire the B person that best meets the needs of the district um I I don't know if Merit the term Merit would obligate us to um using other criteria and and the the person best that best meets the the hiring needs of the district is um quite quite vague and and and allows for the ability to take into account a lot of different factors right and and um I mean I that is usually done by Design to give the maximum amount of flexibility to The District in in making its hiring decisions I would say from a matter of practice we

154of course look for the person whose qualifications best meet our needs um I don't I don't know if that equals the the definition of of merit-based hiring so I don't I just don't know if it obligates us into some type of situation um I mean I don't have any any uh like opposition to the idea it's it's just I'm not real sure from the legal standpoint if that then puts us in a position where we have to demonstrate certain things at Merit checklist that's that's what that was my concern not not to say that would underpin but you say it do you have to validate it I see I mean personally I don't I think it's fine as it is um and I I don't know if I want to mess with it too much

155if it if it if it um if it necessitates um a review later on I I think that we can certainly do that as a board I support that all right I appreciate though that idea I do appreciate the discuss definitely something we all have in the point of our mind but just to clarify that like the primary thing we should be concerned with is the is finding the person who can do the best job of their job right and I think that's one of those things that we have to kind of trust that that's how everyone is I think that I think that our district is doing the best job selecting the best quality candidate that they can I don't see that we are having a problem with this particular policy at this time

156so I I think we I think the consensus of our committee at least is to move forward with this as uh at the first read next one is Staff gifts is that right staff gifts gifts yeah I'm sorry that's okay I'm just asking because I can get lost in enough conversations y uh the only thing I I don't know I'm like I get a little bit resistant to a hung up when it says that um Steph gifs are an undesirable practice I I sit back and I'm I'm looking at it like well shoot uh what do we do uh for a family that wants to think um you know a teacher uh show some teacher appreciation and some respect is there another Outlet by which they can participate to to um to share their appreciation

157with with a particular teacher um that that doesn't involve um you know embarrassing students with limited means I guess that that would be my question I could have easily taken out this this first little paragraph um you know I don't I don't know that we need that you can see that below our strikeouts indicate that we don't think that um way matter of fact as a culture our our we're a given culture here in Watertown you it says nominal value right whether it be a coffee mug or a gift certificate for a coffee or car couple car washes car washes I mean nominal is big but yeah that's what I was just gonna say I mean I guess it's there to be there but yeah we know that of course I mean especi like I

158look at sports don't fly anybody the whole team will chip in together sometimes to buy a coach and it's a pretty nice gift when you got a whole team it's nominal compared to everyone who red sometimes you we'll go with that I guess I guess I I know what you're saying I just yeah I look at the I look that first paragraph and I I kind of cringe because it's like it almost discourages sharing um uh you know appreciation appreciation to our teachers and you Jared you said you could have struck the first paragraph just started with the the based on well policy of the board that professional staff members May accept gifts of values from students or parents and skip the first paragraph you could just add the word considerable to the first paragraph

159yeah excessive or considered presentation of considerable deps I I don't have I think it's finally but at the same time it doesn't hurt getting rid of it either so right partial does it add any value or is it just as good by it is the policy of the board blah blah blah uh they're both the same to me although it does you're right if you leave it in it does give a little bit of a hint of maybe you shouldn't because they could embarrass somebody is that the message that we want to get across what's our policy now do we have one yeah we do um I don't have the ex tales in it I don't have the I could cross cross reference one um on me I I have to go back to my

160folder um we do have a a staff gifts policy and that's where the that's where the highlighted came from and we pulled it out of our current policy I'm just thinking about elementary elementary teachers get gifts at Christmas at Easter teacher appreciation week whatever sometimes middle school once in a while for certain teachers at the high school um and I know that we want to be conscientious of the those that struggle from that socio economic piece I'm just not sure that we need to State it here because we do say it may you know right um I would like someone providing you know a substantial gift to a teacher IR regardless of the impact on 40 this dud it is it is Impractical to be giving someone that just from the fact of perod favor

161taking the piz out about's G to make someone feel bad because they can't ship in on this we should not give we should not be accepting gifts David our current is it gets hard yeah don't be in draft policies well and I think part of this too is I think maybe the word shouldn't be the presentation of gifts but the acceptance of the that I mean my business has a has a policy against I can't accept you know gifts from vendors and other people at a certain level that's what we have to we can't do that I I don't I would say that it's not the presentation that's the problem it's the acceptance I mean really the reason that a lot of companies have policies about things like that is because it opens the door

162for a lot of ambiguous situations with potentials for like abuse and things like that unfortunately that's the reality is you can't always guarantee and I think we have the same thing here because you have teachers who were on scholarship like yeah the best gifts were personal cards anyway personal I uh I'm torn on this one because it almost seems like our existing policies a little bit more specific on this one existing policies very long [Music] sentences well the good new is this one doesn't have a legal background so there is the ability to change the the legal background is nominal gift right right I mean that's that's it I mean you have to have the words nominal gift right and I just a couple other things just to consider in your decision- making one is

163that like if if we don't have that nominal gift value it um then triggers the conversation of well at what what amount is conflict of interest does it become a conflict of interest and then the second thing is um just from a payroll perspective at what point does it be are we going to require reporting of more than nominal gifts as a form of essentially tipping which is a form of compensation that then you know requires us to I don't I don't think that we I don't think there's an objection to the nominal gift part of the discussion so um I think I think it's uh whether or not we leave that first paragraph in as is or if we remove some language of that first paragraph or if we just remove it all together

164I I actually I liked a lot what Fred said about um defining what hard is dis you know something that we think might be a little distasteful which I think you use the word considerable right that uh considers the presentation of considerable gifts to pro professional staff members by students and their parents and undesirable practice yeah I don't really like how it says because it tends to embarrass students with limited means like that's them out you know that's like in their face so so if we use the first part and we use the word considerable in the word to identify the gift you can't use considerable with considers in the same part of the sentence that's a language arts consider that's that's right so can't give one of them what extravagant excessive just my brain

165is getting fried just like everybody else's I could tell yeah right Rin but either way are we clear that we want to take out the verbiage about tends to embarrass students and limits the means yeah I think what I would kind of recommend is if you go back to 4140 um the I mean sorry 4140 uh last sentence second paragraph right after the CL that you inserted which is more or less Gifts of a nominal or insubstantial value of service for reason unrelated to employees uh would be considered reasonable and then the very last sentence larger gifts to employees as individual and larger gifts to employees as an individual and Gifts of more than nominal or insignificant value should be graciously declined that's our current policy in which case if you struck the first paragraph

166Jared which is the one that is making people feel uncomfortable and just reinsert the part from our 4140 that says larger gifts to employees as an individual and Gifts of more than nominal or insignificant value should be graciously declined captures I think what thre and saying should be it's not saying they must yeah and it does gets rid of the entire we're not doing this to embarrass you we're doing it to prevent the conflict of interest that Sam stated exact which is really what we're after you can't buy your grade and you can't buy it to buy your product right right that's people okay I'm good with that change as well the second paragraph to because it's redundant based on inserting I don't any in 3214 if you go with David's suggestion yep paragraphs one

167and two can both be stricted because it's already talking about nominal gifts being allowed to be accepted blah blah blah I don't know which paragraph two you're talking about based on the foregoing hus it's the policy of the board that professional staff members May accept gifts of nominal value from students or parents and then that's right I was going to WR up that insert but what you stated already captures that yeah from our current policy Neola paragraphs one and two don't need them be agreed got it do we want to add language about gifts from teachers to students I think it's in there to student that' be a different policy no but that was that was in that was in the in theas it is we we crossed it off it says individual griffs from

168professional staff members to each student are strongly discouraged we took that out and the reason I I mean like our staff members give nominal gifts to our students could be all the time you know I mean that that that can be like anybody anybody who did this you're going to get that I mean that's that's a GI right pizza party because you did I mean it's part of our PBIS yeah I don't think I think the idea that it's trying to convey and maybe is not clear enough about is that teachers shouldn't be giving just one student again the idea is if you're giving gifts to students you probably shouldn't be you know singling out any particular student because that look yeah that at the very least it can look bad for you at the

169very least I agree that that's a difficult one because kids that have a need a teacher might bring in clothes for them or who you know on the on the slide so it's not highlighted to others it's still technically a gift but you know I don't know that's it's just a gray area and so you could actually build off of the last paragraph of this gifts that are intended for the benefit of the wsd should be referred to superintendent you could kind of reverse that and have it be if a teacher wishes to provide for uh provide something to a student because of perceived need or something like that it should go through the superintendent or to go through some other channel instead of it being directly between I think I think we're we're trying

170to split hairs on that one specifically because our district does have an outlet for for that um at the high school and at the middle school for being able to provide um you know for for um uh children in need within our District uh what I forget what they call Panther um we the nas yeah exactly I just want to share that if if if we don't allow teachers to give individualized gifts that's going to change our culture do you want to do that I would also caution con creating a policy it is going to not going to be ignored but going to be largely dis you know disregard disregarded where a teacher does this and you're not going to have the their supervisor is not going to pay attention to that because we're going

171to put a policy together that policy is one that we want to enforce human well and I do think that there are other policies that are going to cover if a teacher is giving special attention to a student you know what I mean like those are that's that's that's yes if there is an ill will to it that's going to be covered I don't think that's happening but you know what I'm saying like well well right and and like I think the the I think this policy is trying to get to the heart of teacher favoritism among a particular student where where our culture differs from that is our our teachers are providing for um students in need um or something of that nature and I I don't want to mess with that I you

172know so I I like the edits that David Trader suggested along with um deleting deleting those first the next couple of lines in the next paragraph because it's redundant um so I I don't know Lori what are your thoughts I was good with I liked how the the sentence that they put I think striking the first and second paragraph and then s trying to read it and get my thoughts together Lynn can you share what what you think it is that we're supposed to do I'm sure okay so we're going to strike the first basically it's basically the first two sentences paragraphs or to strike that and then we're going to go over to um our our current policy 4140 and take out larger gifts to employees as an individual in Gifts of more than

173nominal or significant value should be graciously declined and add that to the policy I think I think that captures it do you guys think that we we need to say though um if you're given a smaller gift you can take it well that should have been left when we took out the professional staff members May accept gifts of nominal value from students or parents I was suggesting that we augment that with what Lyn just stated Oh I thought that was already part of the original policy that you read it was but I and and I understood what you said but L not so you either have to keep the professional staff members May accept gifts of nominal value from students or parents and add that sentence l or take the last two sentences from our

174current policy and reinsert them the the two sentences are identical yeah I think we should keep need one of the two I think we should keep the professional staff members May accept gifts of nominal value that's right then add the one sentence that you said I think that completes it all fine perfect it's saying the same thing it's saying the same make sure you leave the nominal part in there and then add the access so we're actually going to begin the policy with it is the policy of the board that the professional staff members May accept gifts of nominal value from students or parents and then right after that I'm going to add the larger gifts so okay can I change one word okay um I would I I want to take out professional staff

175members because we have other staff members janitors whatever receive gifts right so just wanna I just want to say like staff members in general okay one more guys we got this staff dress and grooming one more in this group group more tonight for this group uh we just it looks like we added parts of existing policy or do we just addition uh we just added our uh we there was a paragraph that we thought was important to continue with from ours is that something that should the footnote should include oh yes yep we need to do our copyright uh were seeing that that's another Jared mistake it was getting late anybody OB I'm not as good as Lyn any any discussion whatever all good professional staff dress and grooming I which I'm sure is can

176be a difficult conversation at times so uh I'm thankful that we have Administration that can handle that and I'm I'm hopefully that hopefully this policy covers it so all right we will continue with ADD recommendation all right um moving along because we this night doesn't need to be forever letter in all policy development process um see here you see the the timeline set forth there does anybody have any questions about the process yeah we just wanted to put it back out there and do some clarifying documents for you um and then part of the clarifying is to show you a timeline for what we're going to try to hold ourselves to to get through through May um that's in that um uh piece there just wondering if there's anything in these documents that you have

177questions over or the process itself my question here is we've got this timeline which is very good cling now but each of these dates is tied to this specific meeting know I I would welcome a more detailed timeline that says when are these going to be provided by Lyn and jar one of the things that I have seen tonight is when board members are given the time prior to the meeting to provide to read through these polies and provide questions that time we you have the answer your markets already been keyed up and the the amount of discussion is minimized and that that policy tends to go through quicker if there is a way of saying look August 14th you've got the the uh finish the 3,000 P professional staff templates August 7th we have

178those policies to the I can agree to this um and and it's what we what we have in policy right I think it's what two days prior to the meeting is that what it is two two to three days yeah um prior to the meeting and if it's not then we'll just have to share we didn't get the information in enough time because some of it we're we're asking niola we're asking our attorneys I'm gonna ask this if I put up if I decide to change this meeting so the August 14th if I got to change the date for that meeting right what are the steps to change the date for the meeting if I want to move that from August 14th to August 16th what do I have to do providing that we have

179at least 24 hours to notice that the chair just has to recognize chair has to recognize go change the date then we have to do a public notification on this yeah 24 hours before the meeting so then what I'm going to tell you is is every date that we have for this committee is fluid you can change the date on this committee whatever works with the rest of the committee so if you say I can't have these policies in until August 12th that you can say look we're not going to have this committee until August 19th isn't that how we operate anyway with not right now right now we drop the policies you just said I'm going to have the policies two days before the this committee meeting what I'm saying is you keep this

180fluid if you're going to have these policies by August 14th you're going to have the policies ready then Craig sit down and say okay I'm going to give this to the board I going to give the board five days seven days whatever and we need to figure out when the meetings are you need to keep this fluid and you're going to keep this moving quicker that way because everybody who's had questions here that they come answered before the meeting look at Tina half her questions are answered before the meeting she goes no I'm good we're going to keep moving we cut off 30 minutes of conversation we went through it's 3 hours we've gone through 12 policies at this rate it's going to take us 5 years to get through all the rest of 300

181so I know and this this is what I'm saying is is that giving the board more time to have those questions presented to you and the answers provided prior to having the discussion cuts down the discussion and I think we can cut through the policies quicker don't be set on the dates because they're posted you can move them okay and my my comment is that that probably goes for every committee I agree I mean that and you know I know that we we have a structure right and the reason we have a structure is because it's it's better for you guys than for us and we'll do what we can to stay within that structure there's just sometimes where when we're waiting from our attorneys or other people who are are giving us information sometimes

182we can't get them dropped in time and and if that's the case I would tell you too it's look we've got the 5,000 policies that are here in March and if the 3,000 are causing us trouble and we've got to sit with the lawyer for three weeks hope can we pull the 5,000 up and knock a few of those out in the meantime we can we can move those around I don't want us to be beholden to this either on this we got three out of five chairs here folks can make this move things around as needed to best suit and get the work done yeah yeah go ahead Lori one thing that maybe maybe it would help and and because I know you guys are doing this as quick you can so like would

183it be helpful if maybe you gave us like I don't I don't even know like whether it's 10 say you know that you're going to you guys are going to be working on at least like 10 more PS least let us know which ones those are so we can kind of maybe familiarize oursel with the old ones to kind of have some idea and then that way when they do get on we're a little bit more on like oh yeah yeah yeah that's right I remember you know does that make sense remember that the old ones I know like our old ones don't necessarily line up with the new ones and with the 300s and the 4000s basically once they get through the 300s the 4000s are going to go right through because they're the

184same thing right because like for these the 300s they just it's different our 300 they're Neola 300s and 4000s are our professional staff and then support staff all of our HR we always a 4,000 so their two are covering R1 so we're going to kind of plow through those 4, thousands because we're already okaying 3000s and there's gonna be a slight difference maybe in some regards to five temp right okay so I so those will go fast yeah but so I know we when we first started out we we started at a pace of probably about five a week where Administration was able to kind of tackle them and we were able to use utilize the the Neil um you know our spreadsheet our Google dog to kind of see that progress and then and

185work through that that she I thought that was really helpful I thought I thought that worked as long as as long as that was the pace that that was um that was manageable um because then then I could see what what's been working worked on I can let the the committee know hey these policies are ready um for for um taking a look at and go forward and do that um so if we can kind of stick to something like that so just keeping up with the spreadsheet and then just keeping an eye on that if we can do that because the spread will guess that's kind of like what I was saying but that seems like a more efficient way yeah and you know I I'll admit I can do I can do better

186at um trying to um provide uh the the questions I have to the committee ahead of time so that so that we can uh try to keep this a little bit more fluid I mean that's I think that's part of the takeaway that I got from uh from from Tina's uh ability to spell this all out so uh anyway go ahead Diana I'm just gonna kind of summarize what I heard and we're we're on the same path but just a little bit of differences is we have a timeline and the timeline right now are set for the meeting dates yet a request was come if it could come a little bit in advance I just pulled up it's the 5000s there's over 40 of them in that one and so to get 40 of them

187with changes two days before is very difficult given people's workloads and that I think is what you are getting at so if we could move in set of you know as you guys are working through through them if it could be five days but you know whatever it is I don't know but it's just I understand okay no I don't understand because I haven't loved it I can empathize with the amount of work you've gone through okay I can't even empathize with that I I mean it it's nice to hear the feedback because what you guys are trying to do is have something that's a little bit more predictable I'm trying to give you more predictable but I'm also trying to balance that with you have no idea what it takes to get you these

188we're we're doing what we can absolutely if it's a matter of getting away from like I'm going to do three the 3,000 to 5,000 whatever to go look we're going to start here and we're going to start working forward and when we get 15 policies we're gonna and we're going to send it up to the board members and they're going to take this they're going to give us all the comments back through Craig you know to you through in a week you know and then we'll schedule a meeting at that time and then we'll just keep going like this and you batch them you know if you want to do it that that way is just you know whatever works to efficiently for you process and I and I think that um I think that

189we're also at a place now where we've kind of truncated and put everything else in a parking lot because part of the issue on the others was we had other ones that were Hot Topic ones that we were trying to also work on right uh and uh that also disrupts the flow but I you know it's not like I'm just sitting in my office and working on these and you know on my my time is is gathering all those people I need to whichever policy it is that we're working on and right now Margaret and I are spending a lot of time together right more more than usual I mean you know policy work right we're bonding over policy work right but but but what I'm saying is is like try to trying to get

190all those things together um and and have meaningful amount of work for you in a timely fashion we're doing the best we can with it I I'm trying to hold myself accountable to another um thing to give you some some sense of what that's going to look like because right now I get it from your standpoint you're like well I don't even know when these are going to come or when they're not and how do I set you know aside my personal time to go through them to be prepared for a meeting right I understand that I do understand that a lot and I'm trying to I'm trying to get us on a a more predictable course with that for you because that that's got to be hard on your end do you update the

191spreadsheet every time you do one I try to I'm say be honest like this last we didn't because we were cranking them out the day before I left for vacation yeah yeah right so but can I just explain something here so if we have this spreadsheet right you guys all have a have the spreadsheet and actually I had shared out a a few weeks ago um I shared with everybody a I created a shared drive for for development and it to make it easy I can put that um that spreadsheet that that Google sheet into board development so you guys always have access to it there okay but if you follow that along and then within the um within the agenda tonight I actually created some documents for you guys to help you be able

192to follow along on the process okay and so the board um your viewing the Neola um the it's the one document is called viewing Neola policy um for the board members so the board members view of draft policies so that's going to step you through how to do that okay so you know how to get in there um I going to move this so you're basically within your policies you're going to go to the draft and then you're going to go to you're going to go into when you go into for docks you're going to go to policies and then you're going to go to draft okay and over on the left hand side here you're going to see this these books and you're going to go to this Neola policy templates for processing and

193these are all of the templates and so when Jared and I are working on these are Jared and Margaret like right now yeah we're like let's say we're in the 3000s right now so you can see that all of these have my initial on them anything that has my initial that means that I have done the minor tweaks to them that we've started the work and then if if uh Jared's um initials are behind and some of these Jared's initials actually should be there and I need to go back and put them there but if Jared's initials are on there that means we've done all of that work on it and so you can actually start looking at what we have um what we have stricken or what options we've chosen yeah and then after

194it goes to committee M we put committee first right well then I tell you you know Craig you want to see chair as those come up and those email the committee hey here's the group of policies or here's this policies they're up they go through it you don't have a meeting until you get a batch of policies that the board hits review because when you see you drop things two days prior that's not all of some of those were done five days prior but you're trying to get the ball of them done two days prior what I'm saying is when you get one done you know you get two or three done email the community and say hey look these are ready to go go review them give me your comments back and so then

195when you pull that in then you've got more time and then you can pull a committee meeting together and say okay we've got the answers from your questions we're ready we've got these are ready for discussion we're going to call a meeting and we're going to discuss these and here we're going to run through all of your answers so that we don't have to sit and talk 45 minutes on a policy I don't even think that you need to do the extra step of work if you communicate communicate it out just as Lynn said and maybe advise the board once a week pick a day go in and look and see what's done right you know I would hate for something to come back well Craig didn't send this or you don't yeah or I

196can I can when we've done when we've done some I can I can send an email at the end of the week and say okay these are the policies we worked at go ahead and take a look at them you know I mean it's really that's not too I think that may help if it helps us it helps you it helps the meeting I'm just getting an AC of reminder to people is going to get more response than you know hey these are out there free to look at because members are busy and know wait I forgot this now I got to rush I I do appreciate the uh the pace by which I can I can digest them at a manageable clip just like you guys are getting through them at a manage hopefully

197a manageable clip right if you can do them a little bit at a time they come out right yeah because like taking a day off of work to I I have 10 voicemails at home right now and it's driving me up and this allows you to have abs Clow because wheny you're on vacation right we should know hey look we're gonna have a few less of these or as Bo hey Lyn's on vacation she's going to do these I had a chance to catch up with the ones I haven't done right so there's one more thing that I want to share with you and that is the website is um cleaned up as far as the board docs as far as the public how they can view they can only see the policy manual and

198so I'm going to show you what this looks like so so and I've also included for you in the agenda how to tell people how they can see it in the public view Okay so you're going to go to your menu and you're going to go to your um sorry you're going to go to the board agenda summaries minutes you're going to go to board dox and then this is this is the public view so you're going to tell them to go to policies and this is this is all they're going good yep good and this is our these are our active policies our policies will not you know obviously everything that we've worked on up to this point are in a holding pattern right now so okay so so that's cleaned up that's her

199I I know Scott well you worked with Scott you worked your magic and and Scott did it maybe but it wasn't me thank you for doing that and thank you for also putting together that kind of a tutorial sheet is that going to also be available um I can put it in that board development um no no I mean I appreciate that piece for the board but for for that walks the public through how to find policy um is there you want me to put it out on the website if there's a way that we could Y and I and I know that I also want to update that website to explain the Neola policy process yeah it's just not been able to be on the Forefront of my timeline no no no no I

200get it so I will do that everybody's got a life right yeah so we've got bigger fish to fry than that yeah so I'll add the instructions to the website anybody have any other additional comments regarding the timeline U not the timeline so much but uh I hate to say more meetings Craig but a Thursday night policy meeting if we got 15 for what uh FR just said let's knock them out I mean if they're ready we're really I just don't want to pile it up because that just delays the entire process and so I'm not saying dep and I see the how you had it worded uh uh Lynn which was you have the scheduled ones on here and then you have tbds because those would be our normal odd months I'm not saying

201let's schedule them now but if you want to schedule them now block our time and then cancel them or keep them fluid I'm I'm yeah I'm just saying is that if it's necessary it because I don't want to be I don't want to be the group that slows down Lyn and Jared the rest of the board my question is do you need more time because uh you want more time to discuss or because you think there's the volume I'm think the volume because I'm just wondering how efficiently we're going through them myself point the point being is that if we can get the questions answered ahead of time that'll cut down on the discussion and you should be able to get through them quicker so that way you know what three one hour meetings that

202you guys knock through 45 policies you're going to be much better than you know a three-hour meeting we get you your point yeah I'm W it's not so much Craig suggestions just keep it in play yeah be prepared to pull that lever if we find ourselves drifting I kind of I kind of think maybe maybe we do something that's kind of a hybrid of of the two is go ahead and schedule all of those other meetings on the off mods but then as there's additional capacity for administration to work through policy if we can get to like let's say 15 of them then we schedule another meeting that particular month to get through that I just caution that don't have people Target those dates as I have to get things done by that date is

203that was the whole idea of being flued let's just work through the policies when you got enough all meaning because if you put the date up there like okay I have to by this date leave it to be determined as have yeah I see that's fine but I'm just saying don't be afraid of calling the meeting if they're ready and also remember that neol has to have time to do their process L they uh to do first read so maybe get to the first three part in the July meeting possibly right right and that's that's just a function of what we what we're contractually obligated to do piece excuse me piece that not really muddy the waters but it will muddy the waters is I like leaving it fluid because those off months that don't

204have dates are also months that we're going to need to add the board and superintendent quarterly check-ins so there's already additional meeting scheduled that month so I know my life it's I'm just saying so if we have a single meeting be careful we don't want to have two strategic planning facility planning referendum planning how I bring this on myself you did apply for the job well yeah but I also said we need a strategic I said I brought all these things upon myself I realized that like when you think you're gonna install next next okay the next part of our uh agenda is talking about this evaluation the superintendent um I make a motion well hold on it sounds I got a message from you Diana regarding this what I had asked was um this

205was one where C was accidentally left in instead of removed so that was the initial change today that was just going to be brought through committee and then I had asked if you remember the charge left to me was when we had suggested removing F Diana find a new home for if we remove it Diana looked and there is no better home for it so since there is no better home in any of the other policies that I found can we put it back in because it doesn't really fit with Neola policies anywhere else I did not look into the wusd policies that don't because I don't know which ones have matches or mismatches or whatever um and then just put that we can leave that in a parking lot somewhere that if there's a

206better place in those ones that don't line up that we can do it at that point in time but as I went and looked through I did not find a better home for it that was my responsibility yeah F was F was the superintendent's assessment of the of board efficiency and Effectiveness and so as we look at the um the actual board evaluation process it do when board evaluation a policy on that that does talk about efficiency and Effectiveness um a little bit so that is 80 what are we looking for like existing policy yes okay is 817 so your feel what what's your feeling on that uh well I keep going back to for those of you who interviewed me I shared that I wanted to come to a place where I felt like

207there was a team effort right and I love how um Monday is scheduled right Monday's topic is um I I don't know I think I don't know if it was you who made the topic or Fred or whatever but it is simply superintendent and board check-in right that means we're talking about how we can efficiently run as a team part of that may be you having to evaluate me and things that I can do to better better serve the team but it also leaves an Avenue for me to say here's some things that I need from you to you know work better as a team you know if it's only one way and I and you know there there's not a back and forth that's that's a different style and I can I can live

208within that style I prefer something different I prefer a style that we talk back and forth and that we're open to honest with each other about what our needs are to work together as a team uh and we hold each other are accountable to those high standards the original conversation with that was based on um the interpretation of the dapes process that we've been using and there's nothing in that process that talks about um the board evaluation piece yet we are also using D's 1.0 there's for sure a 2.0 there might also be a 3.0 we should be getting yearly updates and we haven't been and so that's where my meeting next week with whatever his name is from cesa 6 I don't remember his name David John John Slender meeting with John um to

209kind of look at where things are at in that but again like Jared said if we don't do an evaluation piece for the board and how that works together yeah I don't know how I guess what I want to ask is this like do you guys see that you're super attendant as the CEO of a company or do you see him as the manager because managers are to be managed right CEOs work in concert with their board to do what's best for um their their constituents whoever those are they may be stock owners they may be whatever it is right I guess I guess I'll take a step back and I don't I don't like I don't really appreciate the example because I don't I don't view running a school district as running a business

210I I don't I think there's a very very distinct differences um so but I do appreciate what you're trying to drive that so um and personally I don't I don't see any harm in in having letter F back in there so that that the superintendent passes long feedback to the board for better board efficiency I I don't I think that that's a good thing to to have some sort of evaluation of the board I think that's I think lots of boards do that and a lot of private organizations private private uh schools even do that um so I I have no problem with that I I think it's con it's always going to be constructive um the superintendent hopefully isn't uh there to um stick a finger in your eye you know the superintendent is

211there to hopefully impart some uh operational wisdom yeah and some some positive feedback that that that we can some constructive criticism I don't have a problem with any other thoughts I'm not a voter I'm just listening all right I know but I I I I asked the question you know because mine gets to a philosophy it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't I I don't I want to know how you guys view me well there's a discussion for on Monday J right let's talk about policy right okay right no offense but it enfors the policy right it might it might it might but yeah so the so if we're going to clarify because we have all nine uh the particular uh action item for policy 1240 is to add back in letter F but still strike

212letter c um it looks like there was a spelling uh addition there that said they objectively collect so we'll make that change as well where's that you you have it highlighted yep and is there any objection to that nope all right and that'll that will be moving forward as the recommendation okay and then that goes to Second read is that going yes all right the last one the orientation uh policy um of policy 1427 um I don't my notes on this one we're just adding the words or designes or designes yeah just in case they're not available right we don't want that to go and that that that was kind of a logistic yeah thing that yeah yeah so if the board president superintendent and business manager aren't available to help in the process they'll

213assign somebody else in there's dead okay and is there any objection for that moving forward as a recommendation all right and that one moves forward y um what's that a going to Second read did we pull this one out yeah because I think it was wasn't that one already approved it's already gone through second it's like we have to do first read again probably yes okay but it first read is a minor revision we used to do that on other ones okay all righty um we have other things here but I was it policy okay future agenda planning I think we kind of covered some of that I take it the only thing that I need to make mention of uh is that um it's been brought to our attention that our administrative guidelines around

214uh transgendered students are out of compliance so well I think the wishes of our our ad Administration and board but also law um the those as well as the forms that are around them and how we administer that programming yes needs to come to August meeting needs to come to August meeting and it's going to be ready we've already been working on to open it updated so can you just briefly like when you have a guideline is that based off of a policy or is there actually legalities around guidelines too I don't you get what I'm saying like yeah so if it's not compliant based on on a policy or a law so um so administrative guidelines usually are are accompanied by a policy that they support right this is how we're gonna right this

215is how we're going to implement the policy okay so we're looking to possibly bring a new policy what's that do we need to make a new policy based around this because do we have a policy that those guidelines are off of no but I I said usually yeah so sometimes sometimes the policy um goes slower and or isn't adopted and therefore administrative guidelines need to be in place because there's a pervasiveness in the in whatever it is that is coming forward and administration needs to know how to handle that right and so sometimes the administrator will bring forward to the board gu lines in this uh realm okay and those are usually passed by the board inspected by and passed by the board and then codified as you know how we handle things and then

216later on sometimes we put in a policy to help strengthen the administrative guidelin so it can go both way we're approving them the guidelin because I don't think we usually do anything with that guidelines do no that's not true um so in our old policy manual policy manual that we have they're usually the 0. ons oh true okay yeah sorry I think I'm just tired so no no I mean here here here's the thing in most districts right in most districts yeah there is a separate guidel manual that has administrative guidelines right you're right I think here the way it's been done in the past was it was policy. one okay or so on right it it's very odd uh comparatively to most right most districts have a book of administrative guidelines right and with

217noola we'll have a book of administrative guidelines and we'll also have like forms that go with those guidelines but all those usually go through you all right I say usually because I've found in my 10 year already my two years that there are some that haven't that's I think that's where the where I that's where there's Confusion And Then I then I go oh that says administra guidelines aced part of the policy right right because I mean we're not on a regular basis really looking at any guidelines very of I don't know if I've ever looked at it it's the point ones right right thing for the fut and where I'm finding that in the past that hasn't come to the board is that that secondary notion where an administrator saw a pervasive nature of

218something and wanted to codify some guidelines so that all administration were following the same right but didn't have a policy to back it right where I've been we still have taken those to the board it seems like the past practice here was no we just took care of it administratively y right yep and I don't prefer to act that way I prefer to act in the other fashion where it's like no matter what I'm bringing it to the board right because well that that policy has been reviewed in past three months ago struck the first it is it is and and it will be part of our new right it'll be part of our new so you know right right that's what we'll do very good practice I guess in the past what was your

219other future agenda so I have um notes here from Jenny borch that we will have to talk about um act l in act 95 during policy in August yes as well okay yeah that makes sense so August is going to be a busy meeting Y and hopefully we can keep keep it down I think that will be pretty it's pretty well we're going to put into practices some some uh best practices I think x95 will be pretty easy to get through and I think the other ones changes will be pretty easy too 852 um we are aured thank you that's I've ever made it meeting oh boy not is she gonna be awake no boy doubt it