School Board Meeting (1/14)

001the corvallis school board meeting for uh january 14th 2021 is call to order please join me if you're willing and able to the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome everybody i would like to welcome our board members let the records show that we have all our board members in attendance today and also we do have our students representatives who will be introducing themselves soon i would like to remind our board members and students representatives to use the hand raised hand tool on the virtual platform if they want to ask questions or participate and i also want to uh thank our community members who are listening through the

002youtube channel so thank you for listening and tuning in and also we will have an opportunity for public comments for those who registered prior to this meeting according to the instructions uh they are with us over the phone and uh we will be calling on them when we open the public comments period uh with that i would like to move for the next point in the agenda which is the board member reports is there any board members who would like to provide a report lou you go first sami um i just wanted to report back that um we had another meeting with the um school renamed task force and i'm again really excited to see the work that's going into that by the community and all the public input that has gone on throughout this

003whole process and really excited to see that work coming near um and looking forward to what's presented to superintendent nas pretty soon once everything is done and so i just wanted to report out that that meeting went well and it was been a really incredible experience working with the community as a liaison for the board on that project and i am just blown away with how engaged the community was and the amount of input and thought that went into everything with that task force so thanks wonderful thank you lou and up next we have events hi i have three items to report on uh the first is uh i just wanted to express appreciation um i'm the representative for cea negotiations and i just wanted to express appreciation for the remarkable collaborative work between uh

004district the district leadership and our teachers and we're going to hear probably more about that here in just a little bit in our our teaching learning update uh in just a little bit but i just it was just this last session was particularly remarkable where one of our educators brought forward a schedule plan that that just worked for the group and it's just really in contrast to uh what what is going on elsewhere in the state where we're seeing you know non-collaborative and confrontational uh approaches to dealing with how we're gonna get kids back in school so thank you superintendent austin thank you to all our teachers as they they work hard to to do that the next thing i want to talk about just briefly i just wanted to let the board know that

005the scholarship work group was able to meet and we've begun our work uh just just really scratching the surface and getting started but a couple of themes have have emerged in that work um you know one of the things that we uh we were trying to focus where we wanted uh what recommendation we would bring on where we would focus the the scholarship one of them is you know supporting students who are first generation and to post secondary education that's not just college but also maybe for the trades or medical professions and we're still trying to crystallize with that what that means for us you know kids also with financial need of course and then you know we were working around the language um you know giving consideration to the kids that um that have

006provided service in community school or family or have experienced hardship that has presented barriers to their participation in extra curriculars and communities activities so these are kind of the channels that we're thinking in and we're uh building some structure around that we're going to get some information back from the district and so we're moving forward on that the last thing i want to report on is i just left the oregon students united first annual leadership summit where over 230 students gathered to develop a plan to bring legislation forward to create a statewide organization of students to inform oregon's policy processes i just have to say i am still kind of stunned and a little speechless it just was a tremendous experience lasted about an hour and a half they already have a framework for legislation

007developed and they were soliciting feedback from this group i was very grateful to have been invited to participate in the in the process um but they are ongoing and it's something that our students can be involved in and so they're just getting started the train is just leaving the station so i'll be looking forward to bringing more information about that as that process unfolds and that's all i have thank you thank you vince jay you're up next okay you're muted sorry the bond oversight committee will be meeting next week uh and i've been doing my due diligence driving by the beautiful buildings uh even though it is muddy uh progress is being made and cranes are working and bulldozers are moving so thank you very much wonderful is there any other uh board members who

008wish to make a comment or give a report see none i do have a couple of items oh we do have one and that is therese thanks sammy i just want to offer uh my apologies to the mountain view community because last wednesday the 6th i was scheduled to join them in their pta meeting and due to a variety of events on wednesday which i'm sure we're all intimately familiar with my day kind of got away from me and by the time i realized that their meeting had ended and so i did um send a note to them but i wanted to just acknowledge on here that um obviously joining them is most definitely a priority i apologize that i missed that and i will be joining them for february but in case anybody from

009mountain view happens to be listening i wanted you to hear from me directly my regrets at not having my life together enough on wednesday to both witness a riot and remember to get on zoom with you on wednesday night thank you teresa i appreciate your input and engagement uh and i want to highlight your commitments for our pta groups i really appreciate that on that note i want to uh remind our uh community members that some of our board members will not be able to be on video due to uh the social distancing and technology limitations so uh with that i want to also acknowledge uh a couple of comments the first one is a report on that day that therese mentioned uh january 6th uh i was joined with uh by sheriff sarah finger

010mcdonald and two community members in general issuing a statement that was signed on by many of our educators uh leadership uh in the lynn and benson counties uh our elected officials faith leaders uh making a statement clear to to make it very clear where we stand on uh what happened on wednesday uh the sixth it's something that's unprecedented unprecedented uh in so many ways uh it's deplorable and it's something that we need to be speaking up against uh our our children are watching us and our community members and families are concerned this brings trauma to me while i lived in a place where there was contention and there was such unrest and i know what trauma it brings so it's just many of our community members who look into this nation as a place that

011should uh stand through to the values so i really appreciate those who signed on the letter i appreciate those who spoke up and i encourage us all to continue to speak up this is an important civics lesson that we're learning hands on every day that we need to speak up the second report i want to report is the hands across corvallis is a very cherished event every year uh by the corvallis public schools foundation and i want to really uh thank the corval public schools foundation for their uh work fundraising and support to the school district uh their work is tremendous as wonderful and uh i would like you to put on your calendar at 7 30 on february 4th there is an event happening and uh please go to corvallis public schools foundation website

012or if you google it you'll find a place there where you can register and uh if you register before the 17th which is tomorrow um then there might be some kind of uh some goodies or some uh welcoming packets that will get you get to your home so i encourage everyone to sign up as soon as possible it will be virtual uh meeting uh unfortunately it's not gonna be in crevasse high school uh cafeteria as we're uh used to it it will be virtual but we will learn a lot about the good work of our students and educators uh through the virtual and distance learning so i encourage my colleagues to join community members to join uh hands across corvallis on february 4th at 7 30 a.m and go to the websites of corvallis public

013schools foundation for that afford to register and i encourage you to register before the end of tomorrow but that's any other further comments from our board members see none next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report thanks sammy and tonight i'm going to include in my superintendent's report board recognition so while it's two different agenda topics it's really going to be pulled into one and so i wanted to start with board recognition so we're joining with the other 196 school districts in oregon and recognizing our school board during the month of january as elected official our school board members have volunteered hundreds of hours in service for our students in the broader community members of this board have been steadfast in their efforts to make progress of our vision of success for all students

014there you are on the screen um and again our elected and all volunteer school board members bring thoughtful and diverse perspectives to the table informing their decisions about the district stewardship financial resources our strategic direction focusing on continuous improvement through questioning examining revising refining and revisiting issues related to student achievement and equitable outcomes for our kids so we're pleased to share a recording um a recorded performance by cvhs senior ronnie jenkins in honor of our honor of our school board thanks to christine james director of instrumental music as crescent valley for making this possible and so ronnie plays string bass in camareta and has participated at the osaa's state solo contest placing fifth as a sophomore and he's auditioned for and been selected to the omea all-star orchestra for sophomores juniors and seniors so sophomore

015junior senior year and he'll be performing at concerto for double bass and orchestra movement one by serg kassov esky so we're going to have a moment to enjoy the work of our students and have a chance to listen to ronnie play movement one from the concerto for double bass and orchestra by sarah cruz [Music] so [Music] so [Music] blue [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] um [Music] [Applause] so [Music] huh [Music] um [Music] me [Music] three [Music] um [Music] um [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so anyway that is a great way to share with you um our appreciation by seeing our students perform last year we had spartacapella here for you and this year we are still in distance but we wanted to still let you experience the you know the greatness of our kids the through

016the arts and just a great opportunity to show our appreciation to you and no better way to do that than with the work of our kids so thank you for all you do as members of our school board and members of our community um and um stewards of the public funds so thanks for all all of that um sam able you had a word or two you wanted to share as well yeah absolutely i want to first of all say thank you and thank you ronnie bravo really when someone asks us why do you run for office uh and want to be on a school board in volunteer time i think this is the answer this is why so thank you our school board members for making those examples of success in our students and

017making sure that we're committed to give our students hope and i wanted to really recollect all the things that we've done uh in the last 12 years at 12 months and i can't really summarize it in a minute or two um reflecting on all the work that uh we've done i believe i i am fortunate to work with talented group of board members who are dedicating their time uh they have uh perspectives and commitment to our community to make public education strong resilient that perseveres and no one no one is left out everyone finds the place for them in public education where they can find the love the care and they're all healthy and board members with your leadership and with the support of the superintendents and our talented educators and students our community is

018stronger is better and we will uh thrive through this uh these hard times uh we will be stronger we will be alive we will be healthy uh because this is the commitment and this is what we have to do and i we can't do it alone it's really the service of board members like you are putting their time and their commitment for this community so thank you to my colleagues and thank you for the community for trusting us on such an awesome and really important responsibility i'm glad you had the opportunity to share that so again thank you to our seven school board members for the the ongoing work um and um my gratitude to all of you so with that i did want to share one more aspect of my superintendent report tonight and

019it's another clip that i'm going to share kara miller the library of media tech at husky elementary shared a mini lesson on digital citizenship that included a read-aloud of if you plant a seed like catherine nelson and it's focused on the link between kindness and real life kindness in real life and online so if you wouldn't mind sharing that lindsay hi my name is koda and um you can show to be kind in or be nice or [Music] you can waste hand and let somebody else ago so in the spirit of kindness i wanted to take just a moment to share some kindness in my own life um i shared um sammy shared with all of you that we had a couple of trees come down on our house a couple of um over two

020nights ago you know totaling one of our cars and significant damage to our house but what i want why i speak to kindness is just the kindness of our community from the fox crevalse fire department who came and um helped us right away to the community that's continued to reach out um it is a community that we have been a part of for nearly 20 years and one of the reasons why we're a part of this community my family my kids my wife um is because of the kindness this community shows so um it's never more apparent than when you need it and we've needed it the last couple of days so thank you to those of you who've reached out and also to the com to the community as a whole for for taking

021care of us and our whole neighborhood so with that that is my superintendent report for tonight thank you ryan and my thoughts are with you and the family or your family and uh really thankful for the kindness of the community absolutely it's a good place to be in thanksgiving uh but that's our any questions or comments uh for our superintendents from board members scene none uh we will go for student representatives reports and let's start with corvallis high school i want to recognize we have ezra hart and kristen moon yeah um we wanted to report on some of the student activities outside of sports you asked about that last meeting and so here are some successful projects that the clubs have been put on um bake sale club and unicef raised two thousand dollars um

022last month through some covet friendly bake sales and z club finished a successful menstrual product drive for jackson street youth center um ydsa made a voting guide for the 2020 election and key club has been working with the community with some small product projects with vinya moses the arts center and special olympics and now they're working on a new project called the elementary connections project and they're waiting on some grants and we have a school report um from my co-president ezra yeah so as more info becomes available about vaccines and returning to in-person school we wanted to reach out to our student body just to get a better idea of how they're feeling about some of this so this is a survey that our associated student body council had put out and it was asking

023how do you feel about returning school with or without vaccines and so this was sent out in the fourth period classes today and it's still open so we're still getting responses going into tomorrow and so we can share the data more accurately with you guys once we close that but um from that we've gotten so far about 150 responses and half of those being seniors which is pretty big because the senior class has been a harder group to reach to during this school year and right now we've got a very hopeful responses about a lot of people really wanting to get back to school and just you know the main concerns about how in school we can ensure that we are complying with the necessary precautions and the regulations needed so that we can have

024a safe return and that's all thank you thank you next up we have crescent valley high school and we i want to recognize kate vols and calvin karlski okay so um not much has really happened since we last attended award being way back before winter break we await more news and developments on possible school reopening as two other schools and kate sent the email regarding the data from our equity survey to mr noff and yeah yeah so um obviously since winter break happened we had a long period off last time i talked a little bit about some of the other things that are going on but it's cool to hear from chs about what you guys have been doing outside of sports um our core council is currently working on some possible virtual like trivia

025nights or game nights and other school spirit builders so we'll have more updates on that next month um other than that we don't highly have much to report on that was an amazing performance by ronnie i know i personally miss band very much and i'm sure i'm not the only student and so it was great to hear some student music again and i second thanks to all of our board members over the last two years last year and this year i've gotten to see you all in action and we so appreciate all the work you do and this is probably one of the hardest times to be a board member for a school board but you all have been making the best of it so thank you all very much thank you next up college

026hill and we have jesse martin and sunita black um it's just me from now on but all right i'm jesse um we have actually some exciting things so college hill has around 150 students which is way less than our other two high schools um so we've had like a bit more ability to do things like in person um because we have a decent amount of classrooms and not many people so we've been able to alternate days and people coming in and we have um 60ish students coming in sorry coming in at least once a week to get up with uh setting their goals and working towards graduation um we also have some students who are working with our language arts teacher to help select the winners of this year's mock prince award i'm not sure

027if that's how you say it but it award it honors the best book written for teens based entirely on its literal merit each year um other than that that's pretty much it but we haven't uh doing a lot of in-person stuff which is very nice wonderful i really want to highlight our appreciation for students representatives leadership and your work so thank you for the reports and thank you for your leadership and kate for your recognition as well uh any uh comments or questions from our school board members all right much appreciated um i want to now open the opportunity for public comments that public comments period is open and uh and do we have the instructions for the uh public comments all right so uh i will be reading uh some comments about the uh

028some instructions for the public comments uh and before i read them i want to thank our community members who signed up for public comments uh as a reminder for our community who would like to provide input you sign up through uh the process for business meetings on school board meetings however we are keen on receiving public inputs at any point of time so feel free to provide us your inputs at any point of time uh through email or phone however for our for our community members who are here to provide a public comments they are on the phone and uh i would like to uh read some a script for you uh that provides instructions regarding the participation and then i'll be uh calling on you by name so uh speakers may offer objective criticism

029of district operations and programs but the board will not hear complaints concerning individual district personnel complaints shall be handled in accordance with board policy kl which is available online the board chair has the right to terminate speaker's privilege of address if after being called to order the speaker resists an improper conduct you will have three minutes to make your comments i will alert you uh when you have 30 seconds left in your uh if when your time up and i do have this signal that you will hear it's over the phone for the 30 seconds i'll be a little bit more subtle following your comments the board will have three minutes to ask clarifying questions and our student representatives are also welcome to provide any questions uh uh through uh during that period so first

030off i would like to call on catherine stearns catherine are you still with us catherine stern are you still with us and i will make sure i meet you catherine's turn uh you're muted if you're still with us all right up next we have uh maureen hyman are you still with us maureen hi yeah i'm i'm here um i'm on zoom do you want me to turn my camera on or leave it off uh either way maybe for fairness with everybody uh you can choose whatever you want but uh we have community members who are calling in so whatever you're comfortable all right i'll stay i'll stay uh faceless [Laughter] um so my name is maureen hinman and i'm the interim executive director of the oregon school-based health alliance and and my comment is relating

031to the resolution universal healthcare resolution so we are a statewide nonprofit with a mission to strengthen and sustain school-based health services and systems we do a lot of advocacy for funding for school health services as well as support communities as they put those services in place so um i don't need to repeat all the reasons that are so beautifully described in the resolution about why health care is needed but i do want to speak to some of the things i've seen as i've worked to support school districts and medical providers who are trying to get care children and families in their communities i've seen children and youth that are unable to get health care and are therefore unable to fully participate in school and life really um because they're suffering and i just heard last

032week about a student in a small community that got braces three years ago and due to moving and all kinds of insurance issues has not been to a dentist since then so was in so much pain that the school was trying everything they could think of to find care and they could only find one provider in the whole community that would even see that child i've seen frontline educators that are so stressed they are considering leaving the profession or in some cases have already left because they're spending so much time trying to manage the behavior and pain of students that really just need health care i've seen school-based health centers that are struggling to financially survive because they can't bill certain insurance company companies and um end up providing free care to youth anyway because

033that's that's what the youth need and i've seen families that are already experiencing a number of inequities including systemic discrimination unable to manage everyone's care because their kids are on ohp and mom has different insurance through work and dad has no insurance at all so they have to navigate countless systems just to make appointments and then they don't even know if they can manage the cost of that care um and so i i imagine the the collective time and dollars that will no longer be wasted when there's universal health care and i imagine diverting those dollars into school nurses counselors school-based health centers which are evidence-based ways to support students and families so i wanted to congratulate you all for putting the wellness of your community front and center and and for recognizing what people

034really need with this resolution which um i'm just absolutely thrilled to support so thank you thank you maureen if you may hang out for a little bit i want to ask our board members and students representatives do you have any questions see none i want to thank you maureen again and have a good night christopher fugani rv johnny i apologize if i mispronounced your last name chris chris are you still with us are they force muted all right chris uh probably you need to unmute your phone hi there can everyone hear me now i can hear you very well and now you uh haven't you heard the instructions i did yes so you have three minutes whenever you're ready to start okay thanks i wanted to start by just thanking everyone for your hard work

035for your time for the opportunity to share my input my name is chris vigiani i'm delivering remarks on behalf of myself and my wife laura sanders vigiani we are a parent of three kids two excuse me two jaguars one in kindergarten one in second grade and we have a future jaguar who's almost three i've lived here in corvallis about four years we moved from washington dc laura and i have science backgrounds in molecular biology and neuroscience and we've done some work in policy all that's just to say i really sympathize uh with the challenge you all have uh when it comes to opening uh schools um our message to the board really is that our kids need to return to in-person learning as soon as possible the plan i've seen is a good start but

036i think it's too timid i'm not proposing a reckless you know reopening but i think the current approach is unnecessarily cautious it's not justified by science um it's not a step i think with recommendations we see from leading pediatric societies uh and i'm you know i'm afraid that this continued remote learning is probably doing more harm than good actually um you know i've watched this board struggle with this issue over the months and i hear a lot of um you know talk about health and safety and equity um and i think those are important but i actually think you know by those metrics we're actually failing in a lot of ways we like to take health right so the thinking is we're protecting students and teachers from covid with remote learning but i think the

037science has become pretty clear uh classrooms are a reflection of community spread not a driver of spread and i think that statement has actually found its way finally into oha's updated guidance so you know with masks and other safety protocols transmission rates in the classroom are similar to the spread we see in the general public i think students and teachers can be just as safe in classrooms as they are in the community remote learning also comes with trade-offs for health so what about mental health educational progress social and emotional development by these health metrics i think there's really no question that remote learning is inferior if we talk safety i mean since remote learning began we all know that reports of child abuse are going unreported we know that domestic violence rates are increasing and

038food insecurity is is increasing but we've you know we've moved children out of schools which is a good sort of place to catch these issues and instead put them in homes at a time where there's a lot of stress and instability so that's not really a recipe for safety and finally equity and this is really frustrating and upsetting because you know we're not all suffering equally under remote learning i think many families will weather this just fine um they've you know they've hired nannies and tutors uh converted garages you know into classrooms and formed learning pods and you know done outdoor camps or enrolled in private schools but many communities don't many in our community don't have these options so remote learning is hitting oh i'm sorry no worries could you conclude sure i'll conclude

039and i'll send my longer written remarks to the whole board let me just conclude by saying i think that we should shift our thinking away from health safety and equity and refocus it on really just a single principle which is the kids belong in school and that we should accelerate our efforts to do that i'd encourage the board tonight even direct you know to um you know announce the day in february that we're returning and set to work doing it i know you can do it i know our teachers can do it and again thanks for your hard work thank you very much uh please stick around uh if we have any board members or student representatives with a question see none uh i want to thank you chris we do have actually a question

040from lou lou um yeah i was just wondering chris if you've looked at some of the stuff coming out of europe that's showing um some of the spread in schools actually some of that research and the other question is um what the equity question around um the privilege of being able to have learning pods and tutors and nannies and those types of things have has there been any talk in the community i haven't heard of that so i'm asking if you heard it because i feel like you're very connected in the community if you've heard any talk about um community members not participating in those kind of um more privileged activities to support kids in order to help keep the equity that way they're experiencing the same type of education so i you know i

041can't speak directly to any of the you know any of the i'm not familiar with the research in europe i can't speak to that directly i can maybe look into it and send something onto the board can i can i better understand the question about learning pods because i'd like to i you know i do have some experience with that what is is the question about um who is not accessing who's not able to access these kind of things these kind of pods and camps or is it something different yeah it's kind of a around um the structures that that creates when there are pods and so i've heard that brought up before about like how some families are able to do this and that how it's not equitable because families can and so has

042there been talk at all from community about what it would mean to pause this or is it more about like making sure that the students then those homes are meeting the standards that are in place i'm not trying to like create a rift or anything but that's kind of i'm wondering if that has been considered to keep the yeah there it's more about the access equity i guess oh thanks i appreciate the clarification um i mean i think the truth is um when schools went remote i think parents had to sort of make decisions that were in their own best interest you know of their families and children and that entailed sort of um using the resources that they had and so pods formed um camps launched and you know i i you know i've

043hired nannies in my we have a pod family and i think you know i think all of us would like to sort of expand pods to to everyone who can have it but i think it becomes really challenging to do that to worry not just about your own family but but others um but i do know that lots there's a lot of discussion of it the inequity is it's pretty stark i mean everyone that i know talks about it and is frustrated by it and so you know from my perspective i can only speak for me in my family it seems if we want to achieve equity you know we need to basically open the schools back up in a safe manner so everyone has access to all of the things i would also suggest

044well i sent a note to the board at you know previously i think it could be useful um to send folks back to to send families uh in say the life skills program back to you know jaguar um that's that's one way to sort of address some inequity but i hope that was helpful i hope that answered your question to the best i could yeah thanks chris and i appreciate your um input and your engagement with the board too i would see your email thank you you're welcome thank you uh chris yeah thank you chris and uh please i saw a thumbs up uh when you suggested to send your written remarks from our board members so uh we look forward to uh reading your remarks over email as well thank you sami and thanks

045to the rest of the board you have a good night uh up next is rachel bayer uh rachel uh are you with us and have you heard the instructions rachel bayer can you hear us i'm i'm here i'm sorry can you hear me now yes i can hear it well uh have you heard the instructions yes i have thank you sammy wonderful you may start good evening all right my name is rachel byer and this is my seventh year teaching with the corvallis school district and my 16th year in public education and i appreciate the opportunity to speak about the universal health care resolution being brought forth at this moment our district has an opportunity to proactively support one of our most basic core values which is equity families are making unconscionable choices between food

046rent gas electric bills foods medicine and what about our families who have never had insurance or lost insurance because it was tied to their job which was lost due to covid my husband is a licensed rn and was the infection preventionist for one of our local hospitals he has cystic fibrosis after multiple hospitalizations in portland the year before last his cf team determined that it was in his best interest to quit his job and apply for disability it is a devastating reality for our family he will not qualify for medicaid for two years he lost his health insurance when he needed it most when doug is hospitalized at ohsu which has now become routine life becomes next to impossible while finding substitutes making lesson plans traveling back and forth and watching hospital bills accrue i

047really struggle despite the combined earnings of our two professions we still struggled financially and now with only one income i often worry about losing our home and where do we find the time to focus on healing i really try to remember in all of it though how lucky we actually are and i'm humbled in that i have health insurance and can provide it for my family it heavies my heart when so many of my students and their families do not have what should be their basic human right i am able to squeeze out a hundred dollars for another er visit without wondering if i will eat that night but how many of our students will not see doctors this week alone because the family is experiencing a dire financial crisis we all know that the

048lack of adequate health care negatively impacts people's lives based on their identities and socio economic statuses and providing access to comprehensive health care is a vital component of the interruption we speak of in dismantling systems of oppression in the lives of those in our community i am here tonight to urge the board to support the universal health care resolution covid19 has brought this crisis to the forefront of our minds our hearts and our pocketbooks we must do better as a nation profit should not be at the heart of taking care of our families and children the key word in health care is care not for the wealthy not for the privileged but for the health and well-being of all students and families with whom we share our human bond and thank you so much for

049letting me speak rachel thank you very much for your input and for sharing your lived experience and your family's lived experience much appreciated our any of our board members or student representatives have a question seen no questions uh thank you rachel again for sharing and have a good night next is karen christensen karen are you with us up next is karen christensen karen are you with us well i can't i can see your uh information here karen uh maybe you want to hit on unmute wonderful i think now thank you mr chair and members of the board i'm karen christensen the chair of mid valley healthcare advocates which is a 501c3 corporation located here in corvallis appreciate very much the fact that you are considering the adoption of resolution 21-0110 supporting uh publicly funded universal

050healthcare as a former teacher in the corvallis district and now a retired lawyer and healthcare advocate in this community we believe that it's very important for the school district to support this resolution and the changes that we need in our legal system very desperately for students to be able to learn they must be healthy physically and emotionally they must be able to see hear and be free of pain the fact that so many are uninsured or underinsured negatively impacts the health and therefore the learning capacity of far too many students the school board should also consider the fiscal ramifications of universal health care system it will allow our tax dollars to support smaller class sizes more teachers and support services for students rather than to be used to pay for health insurance premiums that are

051the costliest in the world at this time the state of oregon is attempting to address this issue and come up with a plan for the universal health care last year the legislature adopted seven senate bill 770 and formed task force to study the issue and make a report back to the legislature we would ask that public employers like the school district make known what their needs and concerns are as this plan is being developed to date there have been no comments from public employers regarding the design and scope of the system we also anticipate that the united states congress will consider a publicly funded universal health care bill such as the medicare for all act of 2019. please convey your support of this movement by sending a copy of the resolution to our senators wyden

052and merkley as well as to representative defazio thank you for your consideration of this and for all the work that you do on behalf of the citizens of corvallis thank you karen for your input i would like to ask our board members and student representatives if they have any questions and see none karen thank you for your input and have a good night thank you uh next up is elite telecom uh alita are you still with us alita you might need to hit unmute hi uh can you hear me i can't hear you hello yes uh uh alita i can hear you and uh yes i did wonderful you have three minutes whenever you're ready to start okay well greetings um thank you for the opportunity to present comment on 509 j school districts resolution

05321. regarding universal healthcare i would like to give my support for the district's effort to influence the future of health care for everyone in oregon supporting an equitable comprehensive affordable high quality publicly funded health care system aligns directly with board goal for to improve the health and wellness of district students and staff as a retired 509 j teacher i have experienced over the years the district's positive focus on health and wellness moving forward with resolution 2101.1 universal healthcare is in keeping with 509j's positive record of support for wellness initiatives for its students families and staff as a teacher of special physical education to students with special needs i work closely with a physical therapist and occupational therapist to provide appropriate services to students with diverse health care needs our motor development team worked closely with

054families that were experiencing high unpredictable and ever increasing costs of health care and navigating the system that were designed to help were complicated and often very very stressful families of special needs students are not selected because they have the resources to deal with the cost of our current health care system families are also not selected because they have strong support systems that can help them identify and access the resources they will need universal access to an adequate level of high quality health care at an affordable cost is the huge step needed to interrupt the negative impact of injustice in health care based on socioeconomic status currently i'm the board chair of the corvallis daytime drop-in center the center serves individuals under the umbrella of poverty many of the individuals i have seen are former students

055who are now adults and are disproportionately affected by our current health care system my heart goes out to them and my goal is to push for better access to comprehensive health care it will take efforts from all sectors to bring about change and i want to thank you for doing your part to effect change thank you thank you alita i really appreciate it and seen there's no questions from our board members and student representatives i want to thank you and i wish you a wonderful evening and good night thank you up next is tom sinek since and i apologize if i did not uh pronounce your last name correctly uh are you with us oh says i'm unmuted yes thank you very much and uh i have heard the instructions wonderful so tom uh for

056the record if you may state your name uh full name and then you have three minutes uh whenever you're ready to start your testimony uh yeah thank you very much my name is tom sencic i want to thank chair sammy and the board for considering what is a historic resolution and the comments from the last meeting uh i want to let you know that my journey also started as a teacher i'm a retired nurse practitioner uh past president of the oregon school-based healthcare alliance and the current president of healthcare for all oregon i work for 26 years in a school-based clinic with a focus on wellness and if you don't know them i encourage you to look up the five promises of youth um as a mainstay of my work in the school-based clinic um

057basically i want to tell you a story a story about a kid a kid i never saw why well it is a fatal question involved and i apologize in advance for any trauma i may be caused anybody in telling this story but it always traumatizes me what was the question of the student what is your insurance this question was asked by a school counselor who then called our school clinic and asked the therapist if they could see the kid in the school clinic the care the therapist also said what is the insurance because of the insurance it dictated where the kid could go not the choice of the provider right there available but to another place and a system where they had insurance this kid was new to the school 16 years old again i

058never saw this kid nobody ever did this kid never made it to the other clinic this kid committed suicide very sad i saw the sister of the younger sister of this kid for the next three years in the clinic refusing to ask the question about insurance fighting the system that demands that this fatal question be asked what is your insurance very very sad so um i am basically we want to make this question about insurance a part of history um i'm going to close the two lines from the work of the task force that you've heard about basically i'm going to go ahead and read them exactly i put them in um here well okay i'll paraphrase them to to improve the health of individuals families and communities is one of the purposes of the

059task force the second one is to protect the residents of oregon against threats to the public health what more timely thing in the time of covid you wonder why we're failing with the vaccinations it's because we have this public health system where you have to constantly navigate the question comes up on tv all the time is insurance going to cover it who's going to pay for it well we need one system and i encourage you all uh to pass this resolution and i ask you as a school board to ask your state association of school boards and the national school board association to join in this end ever and it was previously stated i encourage you all of you as individuals and as a school board to make comment in designing the system to the

060task force on universal healthcare thank you very much for listening to my story thank you tom i would like you to hang around a little bit if we have any questions but first i want to thank you for sharing your testimony and i want to share with our community members and anyone who is listening that's help is available if you need to speak to someone at any time the national suicide prevention lifeline is available 24 7 over so many languages and the phone number is 800 273-8255 the national suicide prevention lifeline 800-273-8255 tom i really appreciate your input and i want to thank you for uh sharing your experience your experience and opinion uh any questions from our uh board members or our students representatives see none tom thank you very much again and i

061wish you a wonderful night and have a good night and have a good evening thank you again for all your work the school board work is the most difficult of all public imp work thank you appreciate it uh do we have any uh public comments i just yeah so i i believe we do have now only one public comments who registered uh previously which is catherine stearns if catherine is available could you unmute all right see none i want to remind our community members who would like to provide a public comment they may email the board at any point of time or schedule to provide a verbal public comment in the next business meeting with that uh seeing no further public comments registered the public comments period is now closed next up is the educational

062update all right so we have a slide deck for you that we will be sharing here in just a second that we will go ahead and bring up thanks parker um and so tonight um melissa harder and myself will be providing the update together and again we have continued to come to you monthly as things have changed in the process of thinking about reopening thinking about our local metrics thinking about educational design and so we wanted to provide you with an update tonight as we have continued to do so things have continued to change as you all know things have changed for us this week in terms of announcements about vaccination and opening that up more broadly to educators and then we'll provide you some additional information about some other updates that you should be

063looking for over the next week so if you would like going to the next line so since we met in december and have come back to school this month our elementary principals have been meeting with their kindergarten families in a hosted family forum to answer questions and to talk about our reopening plan as it exists at this point in time um you know what we've tried to do repeatedly has been to provide district-wide information that's more broad and then more specific information as we get closer and closer to the classroom level and so for our schools to reach out to our kinder families and then also to have these forums has allowed individual families and kids to begin to think about what's it going to look like when i returned to my school and so

064that's really been an important piece as we continue to move things closer and closer to the classroom level so again what we have continued to look for is two weeks in the yellow which is that rate of 50 to 100 um again recognizing that things are changing and recognizing that things will continue to change um as we continue to move through this pandemic but as of now waiting for new guidance to come next week we have continued to say those two weeks in the yellow that range of 50 to 100 cases per hundred thousand over that two-week period of time is what we continue to look for again recognizing that starting and stopping and some of the toggling is something that we've tried to avoid and then recognizing again that once we have kinder's back

065the continuation of first graders the week after and second graders a week after that that continued continued ramping up is still still where we're at with our plan go ahead parker thank you we've also as vince alluded to we've been working with our teachers union and collective bargaining and since we have our plan ready for our k3s we've been focusing now on that plan for reopening at our middle schools and high schools again recognizing that the um blueprint has some requirements for us um and was around social distancing um you know i think that i've heard more recently people have talked about just that component of guidance versus requirement but we still have a 90 page document in our safe schools ready learners document and we have a lot of requirements around continuing to follow

066those one of those has been for us around our insurance and some requirements that they have set out for us in terms of maintaining um following the metrics that are have been set us set up for us and so that's something else that we're going to continue to look at but as of now recognizing that we can't have all of our kids in school at one day especially as you think about the number of kids in our secondary schools and high schools we have to continue to look at cohorting so cohorts not including the entire student body and so some level of rotation there and also the combination of on-site and online learning is something that we've also continued to talk about recognizing things like students may have to be home for health reasons for

067quarantining and how do we make sure that we continue to provide that robust education um that we're providing right now so kids have that content knowledge and information it won't necessarily happen if they're learning more um coming to school some days and having more independent work others so we've been trying to balance that and also continuing to look at our seniors that's another big piece for us we've looked at the our plan for college hill and increasing some limited in-person opportunities that you heard about um and that's really important for us because again we're looking at kids who are near graduation and making sure that they have the credits they need to graduate and move move forward and then also continue to emphasize that social emotional support when kids are able to come back into

068our schools so those are some of the factors that we're continuing to work through with our association with our principals as we continue to develop or further develop that secondary plan that you'd like to add um to that slide melissa nope i think you've got it all right next parker thank you um again where are we with the metrics um we are continuing to follow those county metrics um we also know that on january 19th we'll get some additional information from the state uh ready learner ready safe school ready learner document i say it differently every time just because it makes melissa harder giggle but that is we're watching that information coming from ode and oha on the 19th and i anticipate that there will be some changes because there have been pretty much every

069revision that's been made has come with some changes i also um i'm thinking that there will be some changes related to um those numbers but as of yet that's yet to be seen so anyhow that's that's where we are right now um our county metrics um have been pretty consistently in that um high 200 low 300 range and so again that's those are the metrics that we've looked at and this uh slide gives you a sense of how that's looked week to week um we were down at that 188.6 a couple weeks back again this information comes out to us late on mondays typically from the previous two weeks so we met with benton county we meet with them every thursday afternoon and with regard to metrics what we were hearing from the epidemiologist was

070that they're seeing a lot of community spread and that's why we're seeing that because that number you know pops up pretty high from 188 to 280 just over a one week period um and that he said had a lot to do with community spread and um and osu you know kind of preparing to get back or getting back actually into classes um the other thing we talked about and ode has also presented is just kind of i think trying to get us ready for the idea that those metric numbers might change they've um been very um explicit in giving us uh examples of states that surround us so for example arizona colorado washington their um numbers for orange kind of that orange zone their top limit for those orange zones are more in the 300

071to 350 range and they're being shown kind of as an example of what it looks like in other places so that's kind of leading us to believe that those numbers might grow you know the the metric itself might change next week so um we were so excited on tuesday to hear that um our educators are being moved up into um up into that 1a category and uh we got that news on tuesday night and um immediately kind of sprung into action we are um you can switch parker to the next slide i think so we can see some great a great picture um first of all before we even knew about um the educators being moved um we were given the opportunity to move our district nurses and also our health room assistants into the

0721a student health category so this is gen copic one of our district nurses getting her vaccination on monday and she asked the nurse if she could take her mask off so she could get this picture and then she put it right back on and she swears to me that she had her she was holding her breath the whole time um but the um the excitement of our district nurses um getting their vaccinations um consideration of our health room assistance so the classified staff who work in all of our buildings to help with student health and who are kind of on the front line if we have a student who needs to be isolated um those uh those staff are next on the list and so we're waiting to hear from benton county and samaritan about

073getting them vaccinated as well and then we heard the news from governor brown that vaccines will be here on the 23rd and we are working in collaboration coordination with the emergency operations center through benton county and samaritan to get our staff um in and vaccinated beginning january 25th so we'll hear more they've just started meeting yesterday they just started putting the plans in place but we are um our staff i think are going to be very excited to take advantage of that opportunity next slide so given that um this is what our timeline looks like now we kind of brought a timeline to you before and um ryan can speak to this again it just looks a lot like it has before we're just kind of pushing the weeks back so we can get to

074that place where we feel um safe to bring our students back to school yeah and for us again that has been that two-week period of time in the yellow and we will as i stated earlier look at the guidance that comes from ode uh and oregon health authority on the 19th and continue to pay close attention to those changes um as that as we move forward so that's where we are as of tonight um we would be happy to answer any questions that board members have wonderful and we do have a question uh first from jay jay what's your question melissa i think you said that there were states arizona colorado and washington that may have all called more liberal metrics more anyway some kind of metrics and then you use your 250 are you

075thinking that tell me what that means to you again would you say that again so i think if if we think back to that slide our uh the high number for the orange zone is i think it's at 200 for oregon currently and what ode has been showing us is that hey look at or look at arizona look at colorado and washington their high end number in the orange zone is more like 350. so i think that's kind of it feels like it's you know it's kind of like a little preview little sneak preview of what it is that might be coming so then to follow up let's assume for a minute the best we set it at 350. would wouldn't we be able to count weeks under 350 as we start setting our timelines

076to go back to school or do you think we have to start with new new metric we need to start two weeks under the new metric what do you think um i know that ryan wants if the metric numbers change and the yellow zone changes i think ryan can answer this but what we've always been saying to our staff and to our families is it's two weeks in the yellow and if the yellow changes i um i think that's just what we are going to be living with ryan yeah i i think that that is is an accurate um statement based on all the factors that we've talked about before about communicating to families about communicating to staff about working through um all the protocols and trainings that are ready to go but i think

077that giving the community time is also important and our staff time um you know they are they have also been educating and providing child care at home like many of our families have and so there's all these factors and dominoes that we have to make sure that we're giving people notice and time around so that that is where um why i think the wrap-up is really important thank you one of the other things i'd share is even the components of cohorting um and having our buses ready to roll um having you know there's again um as you start just to think about all the additional components that we've planned for so we have preparation done but there's also some times where you have to actually go through that process and that again is never as

078a high school principal jay you know um the thing that the work that you were doing up to that first day of school are things that still have to happen up to our first day of in-person school i'll just make a comment because it it does feel like you're able as a school to say get ready because we might be able to go on a certain date but i think that's that's one and that's wishful but i don't think it's very realistic so i i asked for patience of the public um i i know the value of having kids in school and i also know the value of a reasonable approach to getting them there so yeah i don't like the answers but i i think it's the right answer thank you thank you jay

079thank you jay uh up next is sarah and then we have kate and then lou sarah you're up next yeah i was wondering you you mentioned seniors and making sure that they have everything so they your all their ducks in a row for the transition in their lives that they're coming up with i was wondering about as we start talking about bringing kids back to school the other kids who've had transitions because we've got you know kids who are in sixth grade who've never been in their building and left in the middle of their fifth grade year and kids who were freshmen in high school who you know the last time they were in school was in the middle of their eighth grade year and then also like depending on when people get back to

080school what are we looking at for the you know the kids who are going to be transitioning at the end of this year who've had a whole year of you know basically disrupted education so um yeah i think that that's important the other thing that we've been spending time talking about is how do we make sure that we build a robust summer school and so summer programming because again i think that that is something that the foundation has supported historically which is fantastic and this year knowing that what our kids have gone through we've also recognized that we're receiving a second dosage of federal funds to help us to account for all the things that have gone on and so we have been talking about what does that look like to have a more more

081robust summer school for kids um so yes and would be my my answer to your question yeah and then i mean that's what it takes but if kit i think i'm i'm thinking about the kids not only who are transitioning at the end of this year but the kids who if they go back to school this year are all of a sudden entering into a building they've never been in without sort of being able to have gone through all the prep for that in the previous year so do we have it's totally totally on the minds of the secondary administration who are looking at that i mean it's natural and easy with kindergarten because they're the first ones to come in they also have never been in a building right but it's super easy to

082bring them in um when no one's there because they're the beginning of the grades but um when we think about sixth and ninth grade our secondary admin are looking at that too exactly with your concern they've never even stepped foot in this building and that and they didn't even get the tours that you know the year before so they need to understand how to move um and and be students in this building so that is absolutely on the top of their mind wonderful thank you good questions so up next is our uh student representative to the board uh from crescent valley kate falls case hi um yeah this is sorry if this is like a um too vague of a question or if you don't know the answer or if it feels like a stupid

083question but i know we've talked a lot about um kindergarten going back and then having a week after that for every grade going forward assuming that everything is fine and it all moves forward as planned um from the perspective of an 11th grader that sounds like an um a couple of months before we would be back in school so i'm wondering if that is like how you're thinking for secondary schools if there's like a like oh it's actually going to be four weeks or five weeks to get elementary and then we do every one or like how does the timing work with that because for high schoolers hearing a week before everything else we're like okay so june like you know i'm just and if you don't know the answer that's fine i know everything's

084crazy right now no that's a great question kate and it is something that we've been talking about as well with our um with our teachers and with our um our principles to think about that and so it's at some point we're not going to continue to add one grade level at a time um for a couple reasons one you you did the math and that's you know 13 weeks for our seniors but also as you think about the classes that you take at the middle school or high school so many of them are integrated across grade levels and so it wouldn't actually work just to bring back uh one grade level i mean i understand what sarah's saying and so there might be some transition time for our freshmen but at some point we don't

085need our sophomores there for a week before our juniors come back so um while we don't have the specifics um that is definitely um makes it changes the scenario quite dramatically for middle schools and high schools yeah thank you because i keep wondering that when you say a week i'm like really for all of everybody okay thank you that was a good answer excellent i'm glad you asked the question because i think a lot of people in core council have been wondering what does that mean for us high schoolers if it starts within a week so thanks for that excellent question blue you're up next um yeah thanks and some of what was already said was kind of some of my questions but i do have a little bit more to add into them but

086also just a comment that i really appreciate the consistency with the messaging ryan because i think that in some areas it goes back and forth and it's been very committed to the metrics the whole year so far and i really appreciate that consistency for families and and and caregivers for children in the district and for the staff too i'm sure that's probably helpful um and i had a kind of a thought on that too about not necessarily the transition between grades too because i i also have a ninth grader and whenever we drive by chs she's like there's a school i've never been in and i know there's a lot of people that are in that situation and um like that's my school she actually has been in there because she had to pick up

087photography equipment but you know what i mean she hasn't been in class there and um i think about the kids too and the schools that are being under construction right now especially ones that are not going to be the same schools when they left and it's like i was thinking about that if i don't even know like if my second grader depending on how the numbers go and like the week scheduling out will ever go back into the old lincoln before the new one opens so those kind of questions are in mind to like those transitionary kind of goodbyes for students that are graduating or that don't have um that are leaving those schools like what that can look like for them but um i don't know what we can do about that but i

088don't know if there is anything but i'm sure that's on other people's minds too um but i do have a question too about um okay one more comment actually about this model that i appreciate that you have going on is i know people because of my relationships with other folk in other aspects of my life that are educators in other states and um seeing some of the stuff they're going through with this back and forth of like were in person were online for a week and back in person going back and forth has been really hard on them as educators and the kids in their classes and also seeing how much emphasis there is on safety in the district with the ppe and all the preparation for that is not the same in some other

089states or even other areas and i really appreciate the emphasis on that safety piece too but um i'm wondering because of all the concerns that have been brought forth from community we've heard some earlier about equity and how some kids are being like kind of left in the desk because of not being able to access the same kind of support or the same experience that they had in the classroom have you heard anything more like at a state level about any kind of standard revamps or reforms because like that's been on my mind and i've heard other people talk about this too like these standards that everybody's trying to catch up to and are behind on are like very based on pre covid and now we're in another situation almost a year in at this

090point of like how that's impacting the standards that are in place i'm curious if there's any kind of conversations going on at that level that might help with any of that yeah i think that um there's some areas that that they've there have been there's been work that's been done um i'd also say that there's been some work done locally we talked about grading practices before and how we're looking at that differently the component of adding limited in person for some of our students is another area that has um that they have worked to address um for some of our students in life skills programs jessie shared about some of her some of their experience at college hill and so i think that there are places where um that has happened in terms of changing

091the um like changing smarter balance or changing the state standards i haven't heard as much about that other than a waiver to postpone the s back for another year which will probably happen now um under a new administration so i i would say that it's still a bit of a patchwork but i do think that those conversations are show up in different aspects of local plans state plans and federal plans thanks for anything that's helpful because like i said it's like very based on this prevent constructions of what the standards are and like looking at metrics on test scores and all that kind of stuff and so i appreciate the work that's been done locally and know that that's not consistent across the state and some of those standards are still in place of like

092we need to meet certain benchmarks and stuff like that and i'm not saying that those are bad benchmarks i'm just wondering if there's a has been any considerations of those at the same level so i appreciate um thank you yeah all right we have two minutes and two last questions or comments uh the uh second to last is uh calvin from crescent valley calvin um so this is kind of playing off a bit what ryan said about how the going back to school for people in middle school in high school because classes are more interchangeable uh have thought being given like what sort of problem given into how cohorts will be formed for those classes because of the interchangeability in the grades and such uh what kind of precautions and thoughts are being put into

093that calvin i wish i could show you a picture i have on my phone it's from mr mckee's office and he has a spreadsheet that goes across the table about as long as the table i have and then it hangs over the end and it is every student and every sort of situation to try to build cohorts where there's as much choice in classes that kids are taking or students are taking and also trying to limit the number of students that interact under 100 in a school of a thousand kids and so it's not easy um it's actually we are having a special meeting with principals and superintendents from large districts um because uh it becomes really challenging to pull that off and at the same time there's been a lot of thought and attention

094given to it so what i would say is that we've worked hard to be able to provide some choice in what classes kids take in their cohort and at the same time limit the number of students that interact in school together some of those aspects of what you expect from your high school are still going to look different there's going to be fewer students in classrooms there's going to be directional patterns that students will need to follow all those things will be like other areas of life right now those things will also show up in your schools and to be able to do that safely cohorts is a really important part and it's a really difficult part when you think about choice classes kids need and making sure that you're not interacting with the whole

095student body actually really is kind of a small segment of the student body a slight follow-up to that um because when you're in it so remind me uh are the fact that um the athletics teams for the high schools like they're going to already be together will that affect essentially the decisions for cohorts because if we're trying to minimize contact would that potentially affect what cohorts are in so there are you you will end up in more than one cohort um there's cohorts for busing and transportation there's cohorts or classrooms there's um cohorting for extracurricular and so there's there's there is um there will so there will be some um variety in terms of who you interact with at school but at the same time we're trying to really limit it um so so those

096are great questions and questions that we have been continuing to grapple with and try to trying to do our best job again making it feel like a high school experience and also keeping you all safe wonderful uh this is an important subject so i would borrow probably if there's no objections i'll borrow a few minutes more because i can see a few hands uh up there and this is important subject to ask all the questions that we want uh so there's no objections with that uh i'll ask jay to hold on until we have a teresa and ezra and then i'll go back to you jay uh teresa you're up next sammy um i don't have a question so much because i have a comment and an appeal for input from the community so you

097know we've had one of the things that is so wonderful about both living and serving in a community such as corvallis is that generally people are comfortable with the idea of equity as a a central part of our conversation and i've heard that this evening um and as well in other interactions around the idea of reopening our schools pardon my dog he also wants to participate i guess um and so um oh dear lord i'll try to go quickly here um and so a concern that i have is that the discussion around equity um does not um has not crossed into the area of um what happens when we reopen the schools and we can't let everyone in the building and so what i would like to hear from the community in general uh is

098what how what does the community feel if the decision to reopen the schools means we can't send every person into the building um what is the what is the sentiment among the community about how we prioritize who needs to have those spots uh life schools program has been mentioned specifically what i would like to hear is uh on the issue of equity do parents who uh come from families that have been able to hire a tutor or bring in a nanny how how do those families sit with the idea that if we need to prioritize slots it's not going to be them um or and it shouldn't be them from an equity perspective um i can voice for my own family that in many ways uh this is um this experience has been like a

099dumpster fire uh it has also been um like a pleasant backyard fire in the sense that we have continued to have our needs met we have continued to be able to support and come together as a family to move all of us forward so we don't have the same concerns immediate concerns as maybe others in our community do um and also i want my child to be in school i want him to not be home with me anymore i want to not share the kitchen table and i don't want to be responsible for teaching division any longer i want off that um and if it comes to opening the building and not all of our students can go in i want to be very clear that my students shouldn't be one of the people to

100get those spots so i guess it's an appeal i'd really love to hear from the community where they sit with that idea but i'd really really love what my heart hopes will happen is that many people will come out and say open the buildings even if my kid can't be one of the ones to get inside so that's my comment and my invitation to hear from the community on this topic so at this point what we've tried to do is make sure that um that instruction core instruction continues to happen synchronously um for all of our um students and then two cohorts at our k3s to come in so um so i think the limited person has done a little bit about what you've asked about teresa it has allowed some of our students that

101don't have access or have had or may need some more direct instruction or direct care are able to access that so in some ways we've done that and what the other thing i would say which actually goes back to the question you asked about equity and prioritization starting with kindergarten was an intentional decision made by the state and k3 as our primary grade levels um again recognizing that those students um are at a different place in their development and in the ways of learning and so i think that that's another example um that kind of goes back to what blue engineering and i would i would say ryan that i generally i feel like the district has done a really remarkable job of managing very very limited in-person resources to reach the right population and

102i am grateful for that and as a board member i think i could support any reopening plan that could meet our requirements uh the state requirements and prioritize and have and have it understood within the community that that the way that those priorities will be set will be to address the to continue to further address the equity gap in the way that the initial decision um the way we've done that so far um so i i really just i'm hoping to hear a drove of parents turn out in email and then public comment and say yep we want you to open the school safely and we recognize that if we can pay for a tutor probably it's not our kid who needs to be sitting in their seats right now um because i i'm hearing

103a lot of we think it will be good for our kids i'm not hearing a lot of we think it's good for all kids and we understand if it can't be all it might be better for some even if that's not me and so i just would really love to hear that be part of the central the central dialogue and if it is out there it's not those comments aren't necessarily getting to me so i'm inviting the community to flood my inbox and the board's inbox with that message all right thank you up next is our representative from corvallis high school ezra hart yeah so in that story i talked about earlier about asking the students about how they feel about returning to school one of the concerns that was brought up a lot was

104that for those who were unable to get the vaccine or were chosen not to what this online system would continue to look for them and just how will it continue to grow to meet the same standards as the students that are getting that in person um teaching and also i was just wondering what it will look like for going forward in the pandemic and with how long we may be having these online systems students are going to have many problems with technology and what that will look like and i know many companies internet companies have like reduced prices for certain uh families and if we lose kind of those those reductions of prices how we can continue to support those families that are having trouble getting access to well-priced internet thank you ezra melissa do

105you want to take that one the internet one or the first as far as um okay so with the first question the um our ready schools safe learners guidance lets us know that um when we return to in-person instruction we must offer an alternative for those students who just can't come on campus but want to remain in that kind of hybrid model so what you're going to see you see it in the elementary model and what you you will see also in the secondary model is what we're calling a cohort c which is a group of students who can't come on campus so they'll access some of their instruction um online and then well all of their instruction online and they won't be on campus because they either maybe their compromise or their family is

106and they just can't make that happen so we we are bound to do that and the good news about corvallis is that we had already planned that prior to being told that we had to have to we had to do that so i kudos to us i guess um and then with regard to the internet i know you know we were looking at the comcast essentials program and all those different kinds of things you know not as great as what we've been able to do which is to purchase hot spots through money that we have and then hand those hot spots out to students they um there's they just they're more stable they provide a better access so students can actually be on a zoom call and more than one student because a lot of

107families are not just hosting one child who needs to get on online for school but multiple children so that has worked better for us thank you thanks good questions uh any further quite commenting yeah panda no moses okay so jay you're up uh next then uh your last one i have very short comments after you but you can go ahead i just have kind of a nuts and bolts seniors who are aiming for lb or osu might be uh facing what i call entrance uh or level of math are you qualified for i remember that back as a high school principal and and my encouragement would be if that money comes from the feds which we're all hoping it might and if there's that we would be thinking ahead and i'd be totally supportive of

108of additional schooling or call them classes or classes in june or july to help them do well because it bribes a parent crazy that johnny has to take math 100 over when that was what he got at corvallis high the year before but he's forgotten it and that's a hard one but i i would encourage us to look at that and plan at that as far as support for helping kids avoid that big expense of another year of something at a next step so yeah very very good thoughts uh jay thank you and uh i really appreciate that uh colleges and universities are thinking about this and they know what to that they're expecting uh really challenging times in terms of uh what to expect uh from this learning experience these years i want to

109comment uh by really thanking you uh melissa ryan and team and uh thank you vince for sitting on the meetings and elias any for the board uh this is really hard work and it's the right thing to always be connected with community with students in with our educators to teachers and staff and we've been doing that for a long time and now it's paying dividends it's the right thing to do but it's also uh the effective things to do if you do that right then your operation and your plan will work well i have three words to explain what i heard today our plan is equitable so there's equity there's consistency and there's adaptability and i feel like these three elements or pillars uh are really critical for us uh if we want to succeed

110in this work so with that i want to thank you for for that and we look forward for a continued communication with the board and also with the families and parents as you are doing thanks a lot thanks awesome and with that i know uh the clock for our representatives is optional for them to excuse them right so i see some of you uh might need to do homework or go to sleep or do anything else uh that's non invitation for you to leave but if you would like to wave at us right now and uh leave that you're excused if you want to stick around until the end of it we have awesome agenda here either way you're welcome to do it so but thank you for your representation for your questions and comments

111thank you all i'll see you at the next meeting see you soon all right with that uh up next is uh budget parameters and we have olivia here and ryan yeah so this is a issue i just heard some feedback that's now from here okay um so i just wanted to start by saying this is an annual uh process that we go through as we work to develop our budget um and so with that i'm gonna turn it over to olivia hi everyone um so i don't have a lot to present on this subject tonight other than just bringing forward the budget parameters that were last adopted by the board back in february of 2019 at that time there was some feedback and some edits made to the budget parameters and at this point in

112time i am not recommending any further changes however this provides the board an opportunity to review those parameters and have any discussion or provide feedback um and we can always bring these forward again if the board would like to revisit any proposed changes made tonight but staff is presenting these to be re-adopted as they are with no changes thank you olivia i want to start off by highlighting really uh an awesome and very good plan or process we have for developing budgets and it starts from uh it's an iterative process over the years but a important milestone early on is those parameters that sets the criteria and how we decide on what to prioritize and how to work on the development so i want to appreciate the staff for leading this process and engaging with

113the board and and the community on this uh any questions feedback from our board members yeah i put my hand up yes so i know that this is a time of a lot of uncertainty i could frame these these things as questions and then we could struggle around with them but really they're just priorities for me i just i want to make sure that we keep our eyes on our strategic investments and i'm talking about the items in pages 26 and 27 in the budget document those are just critically important very thoughtful and we need continuity with those so preserving those investments as much as practicable as we go forward so that would be a priority um you know and you know paragraph two in the parameters you know mentions you know commits us to

114educational equity and so just keeping equity front and center and making sure that we're reallocating resources in our budgeting to ensure that we're we're serving the kids with the greatest amount of need i think the the question that i really have and and maybe i would enjoy you speculating a little bit because i know this is we don't know what the next you know six months is gonna look like let alone next year so um can we you know what do we think the the residuary residual budgetary impact of the pandemic is going to be um you know clearly we don't know revenue side but really it's about you know changes in instructional practices as we transition into hybrid and then you know and as we bring more and more kids in some kids still

115aren't going to come into buildings so what equipment needs are we going to have i mean there's been talk of you know ha you know of microphones cameras and classrooms and things like that where we're we're doing simultaneous instruction in the classroom and online at the same time and then shifts in transportation there's lots of different factors can you speak to that and what what can we what might we expect looking forward sure yeah i think overall the big picture is okay i wouldn't say it's fantastic and that we're going to have a lot of freedom and flexibility to [Music] do to keep doing what we're doing and do a bunch of new things i think we will still have the freedom and flexibility to do new things but maybe look at other things and

116changing the way we do those i think the pandemic has kind of highlighted some opportunities that we can take advantage of moving forward and how we might change some of our practices or the way we spend our money overall i mean big picture i think you know we know that the state school fund is going to tighten up a little bit we know that the governor's recommended budget shows a slight increase but you know not at the level that we would typically see the flip side is that we are seeing other resources coming to us that kind of give us the opportunity to offset the fact that as the state school fund is tightening the student investment account revenues will increase and this you know second federal stimulus we you know we know what to

117expect from that now we know that it's going to be a lot more substantial than the first allocation we received and we know that we'll have a much longer period of time to spend those funds so that those funds are going to come in about four times what the first allocation was it'll be just over three million dollars for us and we'll have until march of 2023 to spend those funds and so that's brand new information you know only a few days old and i think one of our big our big projects that we have coming up is to start to kind of plan and strategize how we're going to utilize those funds strategically over the next you know two years and so that's a big part of the equation so overall things are looking

118okay um and again with this year um we are experiencing savings you know when we start um reopening schools we know that that's going to shift and it will shift very rapidly but it's still a big question mark as to what exactly that will look like because you know it will depend on on when we open schools back up so um in terms of the strategic investments and preserving those i i feel pretty confident about that and i especially because most of those are tied now to the student investment account funds and so we feel pretty good because uh the state estimates coming out indicate that you know those resources will be increasing above what what they are in the current fiscal year um and like i said i think there's just things that have

119popped up in the last several months where we've noticed you know that we might be doing something differently um and how can we you know continue this into the future as a more efficient way of providing instruction and the technology that you talked about vince for classrooms that's actually stuff that we're procuring out of the current fiscal year budget and so those are things we're already kind of planning for um so that's kind of big picture where where we're at right now yeah that all sounds really encouraging the one thing i know you guys are going a million miles an hour right now there's going to be a point where things are going to slow down a little bit and i think that we need to stop and recollect and reflect and i just in

120particularly in the budgeting process and you know connecting resources to the learning that's happening because any time when we're in disu disequilibrium we're in a learning state and you know we haven't realized all the learning that's happened uh amongst the staff right now so let's just make sure that we have time for that and connecting resources to it thanks very much i'm i'm looking forward to voting yes on the parameters wonderful can i add one thing yes please i think one of the things that has been two things one is that i think we have done a a good job of being conservative even in these times so where we have had positions that we haven't needed to fill we haven't filled them recognizing that that will change when we come back together but as

121of now that there are a number of positions that have been left unfilled the other thing i'd say that will be um important for the board just to be aware of is that it is more we don't have necessarily the assessment data that we've had in the past to drive some of our work and so in those pages that vince talked about in our budget document we often make those investments based on outcomes and without some of those standard assessments or even surveys perceptions that surveys of students those things um i still believe those are the right investments to make but in terms of that tangible data to go with it it's more difficult now than it has been historically um and so i i don't know that i necessarily needed any feedback on that

122right now but i also want you to be aware of that as we continue to move into this budget time all right so up next is lou and then jay and then i'll recognize myself lou um yeah i just had a couple questions and um vince got some of it clarified but um i just have like i wasn't able to participate in any discussion about this document and so like when i was first adopted of course um i wasn't on the board at that time but i'm looking when i was looking through it i was wondering about um not just the long-term perspective but like using um like the data-driven since everything is changing like i don't think we can expect like just to use anything as it's how it's always been so it should

123be this way especially when it comes to using data with students because of the impact of all the things we've talked about and heard about this evening and have been hearing about since the pandemic started and so i'm wondering how that's going to impact our um decision making when it comes to budgets and looking at data and um and what's works and what doesn't because if we're looking at that current trend like how we're going to do that that may be something just to think about in the future but that was coming up for me when i was reading this and um also i did have a little bit of a question about the pretext to the um to the goals and then everything after that the stuff that's in italics i'm considering that a

124free text and how it was determined to use the terminology in it it's the face the second sentence that says can help counteract the tendency to induct short-term emotion into decisions that have long-term consequences it just felt like a very didactic statement that was like to me to put that in there about um it just felt a little bit didactic and authoritative and stuff like that and how we regulate emotion into decision making and whether or not it's appropriate i don't know if that makes sense but i'm kind of curious to wear that with the rationale for having that kind of statement and i understand like we shouldn't make snap decisions but i think that that happens on the other end with emotion where things are reinforced based on emotion yeah that pretext language comes

125from the geofoa best practices i think it is kind of a i'm not 100 positive that it's word for word but i believe it's very much copied from the the best practices that we've adopted so i'll go back and double check that that's the case but again it doesn't that is all language that can be modified but that was the source of where it came from initially yeah and if you allow me uh lou if i understood your uh remark correctly uh what that sentence is trying to say in a way or another is that uh we need to look long-term not feel prey to uh short-term goals or things that might have a short-term term yields and we might be excited about it and we forget the long-term uh though the rhetoric of this

126sentence uh gives this sentiment that uh we want to suppress uh it might be perceived wrongly that it suppresses emotions and uh bringing emotions into decision making uh do i hear your uh your thoughts uh correctly yeah pretty much and even the word induct is like feels really weird but that's just i know that's very technical like language stuff but these are like things that we use um to make decisions with all our documents and so it's just kind of a it's it's a very interesting word choice and just the tone of it is very like um that emotion has no place in any kind of decision is how it comes across when that's not true um the majority of the time i agree whether or not it's a short term and i'm not talking

127about like an emotional response either i know the difference between like emotions and an emotional response and maybe that's what it's leaning towards but i just am a little bit it's an interesting thing to have as a pretext to something as important as our budget parameters is all wonderful thank you uh jay you're up next first lou i really appreciate you raising that i can remember budget decisions that were hugging our heartstrings at the last minute and we forgot to think about all the good thinking that took place beforehand but you're exactly right sometimes that that emotional underpinning of what's good to be offering in a school is forgotten in terms of analytical data too so thank you for that my parameter comes back to i think something we mentioned two meetings ago which is

128the uncertainty of our student numbers and i think uncommon time problem usually we don't have to worry about numbers they kind of are pretty predictable and i just think that we need to be giving ourselves a little bit of heads up that um people will be making decisions as they worry about uh the covid and whether it's going to be around next year and what's our response it's going to be a real challenge to kind of come up with a budget a and a budget b uh hoping that we'll get most if not all if not more kids back in our buildings because parents believe we're on the right spot so just throwing that out as a heads up early on in our parameters thank you jay um if there's no uh further comments i

129have a brief one uh it echoes really vince's remarks that we want to have a commitment to the strategic investments uh because we need to continue on this for a long term yield but also i want to mention about the equity and there is a reference for policy jbb provide every student with equitable access and opportunities i want to preface my thinking that we started a process last week regarding racial equity uh policy and uh prioritizing racial equity so probably we're not going to have the policy ready and voted on until your way in into the budget process so i understand that as a preface to what i want to say but i want to say also i would like to see in the budget a reference to how the budget process developments and the

130investments are observing racial equity priorities and the district has been doing that if i would read our budget last year i can pinpoint a few investments that were uh really focused on racial equity so i just want us to highlight that um and that could be really happening in tandem with the policy development as well so just the thoughts it's not necessarily something i want to add into the parameters right now and i i don't want to add it because i know that we're walking that walk right now and the board is following uh your lead on this subject um with that uh i wanna if there's no objection from the board do we feel ready to re-adopt given all the feedback that will be considered for later development are we ready to re-adopt if

131so the chair would like to entertain a motion to re-adopt the budget parameters as presented do i hear a motion i so move it's movement by uh director adams is there a second second second by a vice chair of sarah finger mcdonald's uh is there any further discussion on the motion see none on the motion will take a vote uh director adams aye director conroy community director oh okay uh vice chair sarah finger mcdonald hi dr jones hi uh director baker hi dr white bear i didn't get to raise my hand fast enough but is it is that pretext getting looked at it's just the parameters were well technically we're reporting on the whole document okay um i really don't like that statement that's in there that's why i asked about it um i i

132mean i really apologize just for a a process with us as we're taking what we're not uh deliberating however well however i would i don't know because of that because i didn't get to raise my hand fast enough when because i have to open up the thing with my hand or else everybody just like parts of you all disappear and they can't interact on the zoom call so um but i do want to preface my vote of no is only because i don't think that that statement should reflects how we actually operate as a board and that's the only reason i'm voting no i agree with everything else and except for that statement all right director whitebeard would snow uh and the chair of what's eye and with the eyes uh with six and no

133uh is one uh yeah i didn't ask teresa oh therese i'm sorry um i answered already you did i did you already asked me all right i think it was right before lou but um but sammy i'm sorry finish the vote first and then i'll ask my question thank you but the i-6 and nasa uh won the motion passes uh terese well my question is just i know somewhere in the um in procedural guidelines uh there is a way in which one pauses a vote if there is a question for clarification so for future perhaps we should see what that is because i don't think i didn't realize that the preamble was part of that or the pretext was part of that um necessarily but as soon as lou raised the question then i went

134oh yeah i wonder if i really consciously thought that so anyway i know somehow that that's possible so if we could just make sure that we know how to do that in the event that we find ourselves in the future with somebody unclear about exactly what went to vote before casting that would be helpful absolutely and please uh if there's any point of clarification or point of order uh feel free to interrupt uh whoever is speaking uh even anyone who's speaking that's that's totally in order uh i think uh since there is something in the uh robert's choice of order that vince and i were contemplating about before we're going to see some robertson supporter of nerds doing some business here but first i want to ask olivia are you comfortable to work on the

135uh budget parameters if it would be voted on in a week in the next meeting by the next meeting so basically we did we pulled out is that going to be okay with the understanding of the intention of the board uh of what's the changes that we want to do yeah that's no problem all right so there is there a motion or any uh points from events with the indulgence of the chair i would like to pull out an arcane maneuver in parliamentary procedure and make a motion to reconsider the board's previous decision one to meet the staff's need for for direction and also to meet one of our fellow board members uh desire to amend the document so but first we need we need an affirmative affirmative decision to reconsider the vote so i

136moved to reconsider the board's previous decision a second and since director oh it's been seconded since uh director adams was voting on the prevailing side of the votes the motion to reconsider is in order and it's been seconded by ceres any further discussion on the motion to reconsider um all right i c3 says hands up thank you sammy uh in terms of uh the opportunity to reconsider i think given that we have heard clearly that it is not going to interfere with the district's ability to move forward in their responsibilities that it it i i think it is in our best interest if we allow ourselves an opportunity to come back and revisit a concern that i think is shared by more than one person but only one person was able to articulate that that

137concern was caused for them to to maybe not be comfortable moving it forward and so given that i think that we have there's no good reason not to come back and clean up that language to something that we feel better aligns with uh what we really believe thank you terese any further deliberation on this so i just want to clarify uh teresa's position you're saying that we should we should not reconsider and just let olivia come back next month no i'm saying we should reconsider and since reconsidering won't make olivia's life difficult um because she understands i think we've been clear about which part of the document there's consensus around and where a concern might lie i think that we should we should reconsider it because we aren't going to be delaying her ability to

138get to get her work done and it's therefore i think that's the right course of action all right and um thank you and thank you for articulating our intent uh lou and and therese and that any further comments uh or discussion on the motion to reconsider all right um now we'll take a roll call votes for the motion to reconsider our votes on the budget parameters let's go with director conroy vice chair finger mcdonald hi director jones aye director white bear hi director baker i director adams and the chair votes eye passes uh fun fact uh the speaker of the house always says uh the motion to reconsider is laid on the table after announcing the results to uh basically kill the opportunity for what we just did uh this is and because whatever resolution

139or emotion becomes effective so since i did not say that for anyone on the prevailing side who voted on the winning side of the argument could uh move to reconsider within a period of time for us it's uh until the end of the meeting basically so uh hopefully we'll not use it more often i want to apologize to lou for not articulating the intention of the motion or i did not really i wasn't able to recognize you before we go for a vote uh feel free to interrupt me anytime if there's a point of order or points of information that's always an order uh vince so i have another motion all right what's your motion i move to approve the budget parameters accepting the preamble pending approval at the board's next business meeting all right

140do i hear a second second any further discussion on the motion all right director uh adams uh could you restate the motion for the record okay parker it's imove to approve the budget parameters accepting the preamble pending approval at the board's next business meeting my intention behind the motion is to allow uh the operational component of the print of the parameters to be approved while the clarifying text in the preamble to be approved at our next business meeting all right any further discussion on the motion information all right okay just to clarify then we're going to reconsider only the pretext at the next meeting the rest of the parameters are a go ahead correct that is my intention thank you all right see no further uh discussion um i'll take carl calvo director adams hi

141dr conrad hi vice chair finger mcdonald i'm director baker aye director jones hi director white bear all right and the chair votes i uh seven to zero passes unanimously all right we're good now to go thank you we're good to go to uh the next item in the agenda which is policy bf policy development ryan yeah so i we have had a number of conversations where we wanted to come back and work on a policy development policy and so um i thought the best place for us to start was to bring forward a draft policy from ospa for us to look at and to receive some initial feedback from you and then we can continue to work through that policy and bring it back to you with additional information for revision so again really the

142intention tonight is to begin a process that we have wanted to start for quite some time and based on the year we've had um that hasn't necessarily been possible and so more than anything i want to get the ball rolling vince so this has been an item of interest for me for uh for a while probably a better part of the time i've been on the school board and so i've of course ryan and i have traded back and forth the document and and i appreciate this the this policy i've seen it before it's effective a lot of the language that i've developed and have been working with um is much more procedural it's more about educating the public um on how our policy process works it's not really germane to policy so my comments

143on policy bf and the way in changes that i personally would like to see to better reflect how corvallis takes up policy or handles policy the first is um is in paragraph five it's the first sentence um and i don't have it in front of me which isn't good because now i can't quote it but anyway it's the one that says that the the basic responsibility resides with the superintendent and that in our community that is not necessarily true um we've had policy originate from the community we've had policy originate from from board members so it's not it doesn't reside solely with the superintendent the solution here um one we could just strike that sentence out um i'm not completely wedded to that idea i've also thought that repositioning it with the second sentence in

144that in that paragraph it changes the meaning of the paragraph somewhat and better reflects our practices um the other change that i'd like to see in that in paragraph five is in the third sentence um it says the superintendent in developing these policies i'd rather change these policies to draft policies so the superintendent so it would read the superintendent in developing draft policy may be guided by the recommendations of staff and may sink a parent community input blah blah blah and so that would be the the other change that i would like to see in this one um because it just if you jiggle around with the first two sentences in that paragraph then these policies it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense then the last item that and frankly i'm a little

145surprised well maybe i'm not surprised coming from osba but next year i would have been surprised um there's no mention here the application of equity criteria in the development of policy there's no mention of equity on this and i think that i don't i think in our policy on policies i think we need to activate you know equity somehow in that um and so i have a sentence here consider adding the board will require all all proposed policies to be reviewed using board approved equity criteria or something like that but something where we're we're holding ourselves accountable we're holding staff in their policy development process to applying some sort of equity lens to in to our policy development so those are my suggestions on bf thank you events comments questions are next vince do you

146have that um written down in a format to send those in yes i can send it all in okay great i just i just lost some of the language on the last one so it would be good just to have a cross reference wonderful thank you so we have lou sarah and then tina lou yeah um i totally was like what this is that long and i forgot they were like really short paragraphs i missed the first thing you said vince what i was trying to find it and i was like looking for a much longer sorry um i wasn't sure what you were saying with how it changed things and so it was just a clarifying question for that very first point not the whole thing over again but just a little tiny one

147sorry i was muted so it's the fifth paragraph it's really all my all my suggestions are right there at the very end of the policy in that last chunk of text and so it's that first sentence and it really centers the the control of the policy origination of policy with the superintendent which isn't how our how our district or our community approaches that uh we we have and i think i think we would want to have a broader point of or have policy originate from a variety of different sources i would love to see our students uh developing policy so i think i don't think it should be completely uh superintendent driven i might get in trouble for that at work but but for my community this is my opinion so that that helped thank

148you i was just like which sentence went with what part yeah and so either way we can strike the sentence or we can transpose it with the one that follows it which kind of elevates you know broader broader origination of policy and yes and that's as the superintendent um i'm not um i i as i read it i also didn't feel like that was accurate in terms of how we work as a board and so or as you work as a board network as a superintendent so i um just want to be clear that i don't want to you know maintain that sentence for the fact that um what it says about my role versus your role i don't think it's accurate either and i don't i'd like to clarify i don't want to mistake

149this with the development of policy and this is really just a discussion about where policy originates from i certainly feel that the drafting and development of policy resides with staff they are the experts and they have expertise with or access to expert support to develop that language i do i've drafted policy in session with the board and it's not fun um and then the other part of my question i guess about the policy about policy i love this it's so funny but um is that i'm wondering ryan if vince has already brought up like the equity lens since the district has made a commitment to anti-racism i'm wondering if that fits into this policy anywhere as well um since it's not anywhere and suffer like in the commitment as a district and i haven't seen

150it show up in any um anything yet and i'm wondering if that could be something that's highlighted as i don't know if it would be a priority type policy or something like that kind of language if we include equity as well um yeah that was a question thanks thanks luke um up next is sarah yeah i am i was in agreement with vince about that first sentence about who's responsible i almost think that reversing those two sentences makes it you're sort of saying anybody can do it but the superintendent really is who does it um so i think i'm not sure just reversing the sentences solves our problem um i also had looked at the issue of of where to um include an equity lens and i also appreciate director white bear's um interest in

151our recommendation to bring in an anti-racist statement um and i had my in my sort of thinking about it i was you know we have the sentence about the in developing these policies you're going to be guided by your recommendations but if you expand my thought was that if you expand what you're guided by making the recommendations to include an equity lens um an anti-racist i don't know how how we want to state that um because you don't really have an anti-racist lens um but my thought was to put it there and what what what should be guiding the development of policies um then just for a clarification so part of this you know part of the reason we started on the discussion of our policy on policies was because of our issues with who

152brings forth policies where we get where we do the work on developing them because of the challenges we had developing policy in meetings and so i was wondering if we envisioned this having some kind of ar along with it that would more clearly outline the steps for since we are in a community and on a board where initiate policies sometimes if we would have some kind of direction of what that um process should look like for initiating a policy to go under this yeah i would say that in conversation i've had with vince about policy now we talked about that and one of the things i was hoping to do as i've listened to this conversation as i listen to the conversation next time is to think about an ar or the language that we

153put on the website that helps people understand how to go about this um because i think that those two that's you know that's kind of the outward-facing piece really is that um that website review um as well as an ar so anyhow i kind of have that in mind as i'm listening wonderful thank you uh after sarah i have j and i see some hands up and down so i'll call in any hands are still up so jay you're up next so i'm a little confused where we are and then what the goal is at a first reading of a of a policy that we will vote on in three weeks or are we throwing out a point that we can then come back and mull on it some more before we vote on it

154i'm a little concerned that we're we have a proposal and we're talking about but we don't really like parts of it but we might be voting on it next time so i'm not i'd like clarification on that wait for a minute to hear that answer and then tell you where i think we're going okay do you want to speak to that ryan i just want to go back and look at how it's called out in the agenda just because i want to make sure that i'm speaking to what i believe to be make the most sense um and really i think what makes the most sense is the um and again i haven't looked at this for a day or two that's why i want to make sure i speak to it um so i

155think that what i'd like to do is honestly take this feedback and then bring it back twice i'd like to bring it back for a first read and a second read um for a couple reasons one is that this is a uh an important policy that um i needed the board to weigh in on and rather than just to develop something um based on conversations that have happened after this time point time i wanted to have a good starting point and so that's why i brought it forward as apollos as an example of policy um so i think based on those things what i would pref what i'd like to do is take this feedback and bring it back based on what i hear for a first reading and then let you look at it

156and then the second reading thank you so then my my experience after three and a half years is that if you ask us generally this policy who's responsible for the review and updating of policy those are kind of shared responsibility um i think that what i hear from vince is that this is a model policy that someone was experienced with school boards knows that that so many policies it is the superintendent and his leadership team that basically keeps us up to speed on a lot of it policies so in that respect i agree that's kind of your basic responsibility keep us in line with the best policies that are around i would put a new i would put a space then after that first sentence and then say the board also has responsibility for bringing

157policies forth or amendments because it's kind that's where the shared part comes and i think that's been our practice i think you have you have brought us on a regular basis revisions of policies and so on that none of us have brought forth as initiatives and i don't want that job um but but we've also brought forth plenty of policy ideas on our own so i'd urge you to think about the statement of saying it's it's a basic or primary responsibility for the board to stay awa or the superintendent to be uh updating and coming up with good policies but it's also but it's also the role of the board to bring forth those ideas wonderful i i do have a few comments uh unless there's any others from board members um i'll all starts

158off actually from what jay mentioned and others uh i am in agreement about that's the responsibility uh is for the board but i'm thinking not ryan not the board uh today in 10 years or 15 years uh there have to be some kind of uh delegation from the board to the superintendent for compliance policy so if there is a new ors the way i think about it is staff are getting updates legal updates from osba and it's presented to us and i believe that's a good uh standard yeah like i don't look for those laws uh updates and say what about this policy right yeah so i think that kind of clarification about compliance policy might be important to delineate so that's my uh idea number one uh number two is uh uh this i

159heard comments about racial equity or anti-racism impact and i think one idea i want to put out there that the caucus of color for school board members caucus of color is advocating for the legislator to do is similarly to cost impact statements you have a racial equity and racial justice statement associated with every bill presented at the legislator and i would recommend maybe we think about that not necessarily in the policy itself but maybe in the cover page just like what we have now for every single cover page here we have a cost impact we add uh racial equity or racial justice uh impact so that explains uh how the equity lens has been used and maybe outlines the impact uh hopefully always positive impact so that's one idea one thought about that so can

160i ask a question about that one yeah because again i'm working through all this to bring it back um there are times when policy is brought forward if there's transformational policy and then there's operational policy it's kind of how it feels um i don't know operational policy is necessarily the best term for it but oftentimes driven by laws um and ors and so so some that would really be staff local staff developing that but not necessarily with the um being part of the discussion at the legislature about how that bill came to be or that law came to be yeah so i'm so i'm just i would want to know more about your thinking there thank you um because otherwise i think we would be guessing um and then sometimes not have the information to

161be able to say this is this is the um this is how equity was considered in the development of this policy because it was um just basically following the law okay yeah and actually i i'll think about it out loud and if board members would like to help me answering this question if we have a limited resource of staff time i would definitely think it's uh most important for us to put such a statement racial equity statement for transformational policy because that's where we have not only influence but influence and control and we can actually change policy to be anti-racist and make some significant impact so if the resources are limited to do that exercise i would start with transformational policy now on my wish list would be yes every single policy even if it

162was compliance policy uh i would love to hear from our staff and community members saying uh ors so and so or uh u.s law so and so is telling us to do that and here's the negative impact for us and we state that clearly the negative impact is not uh in our control it's uh in the systems and the structure that we have and knowing about that will empower the board to go to the legislature and the congress and say this is uh affecting our uh communities negatively so i would my wish list would be yes for everything um but if i'm limited with resource i would start first with uh transformational policy uh and i saw hands up there so if i did not answer uh with the voice of the board i want

163to see if therese vince lou and then jay if you want to speak to this therese thank you sammy i appreciate this part of the conversation i think this is really um cuts very close to really what is going to be the core identity of our district uh so yeah i like the idea in a wish you know if we could have everything we wouldn't be choosing we're probably going to need to choose perhaps i would say that transformational policy given the history of our board one tends to come from individuals tends to come from within um and the board is very involved in those and as such it is bored resources that are often helping to shape at least the early idea around what we want a policy to accomplish um but what i

164will say is that if we really do have to make a choice i think it is those operational policies where we have to spend our district's resources to ensure that we are um we are um addressing issues of anti-racism and equity in policies that we don't actually have a choice but to have but may not in the way that they have been crafted um do justice to every member of our community in an equitable way so i would advocate that uh regardless of what the policy recommendation is as it comes to us if we cannot explicitly tie it to anti-racism if we cannot point to this policy and say this is the way that it will support equity this is a way that it makes it difficult for um for issues of racism to be

165reinforced or or supported upheld in what are we know to be institutionally oppressive structures for colors of persons of color that that's where our energy needs to be because that's where we can become a model for other districts to say yeah we get that you said we have to have a sex ed policy here's our policy but that policy that came to us it did not treat people of color um equally it did not address the reality of circumstances that cross socioeconomic uh disparity or or um issues uh related to race and so we're gonna take the policy but we're gonna fix the policy we're gonna address those gaps because we're not going to allow a procedure from outside of us to undo the hard work we are trying to do in our community so

166i'm not concerned about transformational policy being able to capture those i think in the spirit of what transformational policy is it will do it i would much rather see us not allow operational policies to come into our district that could undermine um the anti-racist work that we as a district are saying we want to do right defense yeah my comments are similar similar to what therese just said you know i'm reminded of a question that we got that the board got in our homework for our work session where we were considering you know equity policy and the question was why should we talk about equity in it when considering education and i know i you know and it's interesting in our time together in that we didn't actually address that question um and i was

167a little disappointed because i wrote a bunch of things uh about how race impacts who we are it permeates every aspect of our lives our racial identity and so in that sense every policy that comes into this district has an impact on us because there's a racial component to everything that we do whether that's discipline or health care that we provide or student achievement there's a going to be an equity component to it and while it pains me to ask this of our staff because i know it is a big task to apply an equity lens to every policy document that we're going to look at ultimately it's the system change that needs to happen it's the tool that needs to be applied and we're applying it actually at the downstream end we're at where

168policy gets implemented at the ground the reality is that oregon school boards association should be doing this they should be applying an equity lens to everything that they and so should the legislature who is writing the laws and so while i can't i can't do i can't fix osba tonight and i can't fix the legislature tonight but i can i can advocate that we we do our very best to apply an equity lens to every policy that we adopt and it's probably not going to be perfect we're not going to get it right on the first try but and i would hope that our staff and their conversations you know with ospa staff and the policy team and i'm i know i'm throwing my colleagues under the bus here but they say hey you know

169what you know this policy you wrote i've got to apply an equity lens to this and my board's not going to approve it or they're going to make a bunch of of grumpy sounds about it can you guys you know couldn't get with the get with the program and i'm sure and i know the director of policy services at osba and i know that he would be friendly to applying equity lenses or an equity lens to to policy so i mean this is just one step in the on the path and so i'm i guess my my humble request is that give it a try and see what you can pull together and see what we can do all right lou and then tina lou um yeah i was thinking back to a conversation we

170had probably early summer late spring about a policy and i was like wait a minute and brought some things some issues that it could bring using that lens and the pushback of well it's what osba provided and it was an operational policy i don't know if you all remember that i don't know why i remember details like this and like when the time period was but um but i remember that happening and being like we need to push back on this and for very specific reasons of all the things we're seeing right now and so it makes me happy to hear us talking about it at this level of like how we're developing a policy about policies where we're bringing in some of those concerns that were raised to help us be able to have

171something to back when we say like hey did you realize this is going to be read like this by the community or it's going to impact certain communities in a certain way but i think that also we're talking about equity we've used racial equity a lot when equity by itself is much larger than racial equity too and so i think being a a district that has really really specific policies around especially trans inclusion that when we're talking about equity that we always keep that in mind as well that it's more than just racial equity um and then having that anti-racist having a i'm wondering if we can use something around the lines of policies that move towards an anti-racist district or something along those lines that will help back what was stated in into june

172when we made that commitment as a district if it's some kind of verbiage like that because was it you sarah that said like um or was it therese that said anti-racism isn't a lens which is true antarcticism is action and trans changing existence and so making sure that we're clear about what that means um and i was originally gonna say when it gets to the board maybe that could be our job but then that causes more work on the staff so i'm trying to figure out what that balance is because um being able to look at the operational policies that are coming through state mandates and being like and i'm trying to think of a way of how we can apply this as a district while also being able to provide feedback to stay in

173compliance at the same time and so i'm not sure how we're going to address this in the future but i have a feeling it's going to come up with whatever way whatever we decide to do that there may be a point where we're going to have to at least temporarily adopt policies with the intent to um to provide feedback to stay in compliance with some state mandates and so i'm recognizing that at the same time i don't know what i'm trying to say at this point i'm rambling but what i do know is that there is i think that is one of the most important things we can do is look at those operational mandated ones because of all the things that have been said and that's going to be really important moving forward especially

174after the pandemic with the disparities that have been highlighted during the pandemic and being able to recognize that through policies in the future especially state mandated ones so yeah thank you so i think that's um that was helpful to hear all of that um and i don't know if somebody might also have their hand up but um and so it gives i think it gives us some some things to think about um you know one of the things we've done is we've sort of changed how policy development has happened over time to us this is i think the third iteration since i've been here that we've looked at how we do it now and then the other piece is a conversation with ospa so i think i think that was helpful and it gave us

175some what i think as some areas to look into wonderful thank you ryan um i want to acknowledge uh we have tina and then jay um also we have other business to do so uh i'll give you as much time as you need but tina yeah i just wanted to um say that i um agree with lou's sentiments that she was just stating um but i also wanted to just bring it back to a reminder for everybody and especially for people who are new to anti-racism workers um operational policies are a part of the systems and in institutions and we cannot be anti-racist if we don't put an anti-racist lens i know that anti-racist lens is not a thing but um or a focus for our operational policies it is imperative to focus on um

176anti-racism work in our operational policies that's just a tag along to what lou had to say and trees thank you tina appreciate it in listening to the discussion and look at the wording from the state association i think that we i think that they might argue that what they have put forth i just googled eugene this very same policy in it it's more skeleton approach to policy making and we added in our discussion i think values that would underline our policy work and so that helps to either if you want to clarify this skeleton you add a statement of the underlying values will always be present when we work both with operational and transformational policies or you or you prefer that in making policy we will follow the values that the board adopts and then

177you point them to some other place because maybe those values get highlighted in different areas i i think we might be mixing goals and if we want to permanently make certain things as key values then this is the place to put them or if we want to refer to our underlying values um that would be another idea just an editorial kind of way to help new board members and community understand where do values get in here in this policy thank you jay really appreciate this discussion uh team uh this is this is really great we we had a really great conversation and i appreciate your elaboration on these thoughts uh thanks ryan for introducing this yeah leave it to the corvallis board to turn policy bf into a transformational policy [Laughter] so i will um

178bring this back to you as a first read down the road and that way we will have a chance to look at it and then make an additional round of edits before it comes back for a final final approval wonderful thank you all right next up is resolution 21-0101 healthcare for a first read and i'll the chair will recognize himself for a discussion uh or presenting the resolution briefly uh yes can we have five minutes any objections for five minutes or someone wants to top it off more all right we can have five minutes and we'll be reconvening at 9 20. good point all right so i can get signal from everybody who's here two three four one two the board reconvenes and thank you sarah for the break we really needed it so the

179item on the discussion right now is the first read of resolution 21-0101 universal healthcare and the chair recognizes himself for the introduction of the resolution um i think this is this touches me personally i feel healthcare is a human right people shouldn't be disqualified from life because they're poor or because they are of a certain uh race or gender identity sexual orientation uh socioeconomic etc it shouldn't matter we should all have access to healthcare and uh the system is broken and there's an opportunity for us to advocate for an equitable and effective system um the time the moment where i decided i need to run for something i don't know what it is but i need to change things was when i was interviewing grace in denver and the tear was in her eyes saying

180she shouldn't my mother should was disqualified from life because she was poor um her mom passed away after a lung transplant post cancer and uh treatment and the care after the transplant wasn't available for her because she was poor and i felt this is not fair we need to do something about it and for us in the school district that impacts our teachers uh their families our students uh their families uh and and the community at large i think it is not only fiscally right thing to do for the country and for the state since it will provide us the ability to teach our students effectively and care for the whole child the whole child mentally and physically uh there will be whole and well and also they can receive the help they need to

181grow and prosper and also to be able to educate them i feel that's not only the reason it is a moral choice that we say everybody deserves health care and the state should support that access for everybody to explain their resolution this is a resolution that advocates and urges congress uh to provide a system on uh allow states to ha uh to have a system universal healthcare system and also uh encourages and urges the state of oregon to have such a system so this is something that needs to be done on a macro scale we cannot do it alone but we can do it together if we advocate for it and a position of the board to do uh such uh uh advocacy for this resolution uh in my opinion in my view is in

182line with the board goal for our health and wellness so with that i would like to urge uh urge us all to vote in favor of this resolution and after this moment i'll be neutral and now entertaining discussion on this vince so since we have the luxury of having the finance director with us olivia if you could join us i uh i have a question i i know that a about 85 percent of of our budget goes to staffing and by curia i'm curious what proportion of that is health care and if you could you know maybe estimate a dollar amount ballpark is fine olivia while you're pulling up those numbers on the spot like that could you also tack on your perspective on what we lose uh in terms of both personnel the the

183softer costs of illness a particularly untreated illness of missed work individuals that we don't retain because they need to move on to they can't work anymore because they're not getting adequate health care i'm looking for more than just the cost of the health plan but the other pieces that were we to have adequate health care for every person in our district might also impact in terms of our personnel and their ability to do their jobs i know you have literally on the top of your head exactly a hard number that you can give us alleviate muted so in terms of the the healthcare benefits we provide and and kind of what that looks like in terms of costs so when i this is just general fund not all funds but in the general fund if

184you look at the supplemental budget that the board just adopted um total employee compensation is about 78 of the budget the general fund budget right now and contractual employee benefits which would be our contributions toward insurance premiums is 11.1 million dollars which is about 13 of the general fund budget um the the piece the the i don't have any sort of the information around the staffing piece around how like if there are resignations or leaves tied to sickness is probably more of a human resources question i don't have any fact or you know statistical information around that anecdotally we have we have a lot of especially part-time employees who who desire positions with the school district because of the health benefits provided so a lot of our classified part-time positions provide year-round robust health benefits

185that often you know the benefits far the cost of the benefits far outweigh the the wages that are paid so i don't have any um anecdotal information around staff who may you know resign a position um because of a health care issue so i can't really speak to that part of it that's okay i think what you did say is for me significant enough that the access to health care is can be a driver in why people take positions with the school district um is i think for the purposes of this conversation that satisfies but i want to know okay yeah and so olivia if if universal healthcare was implemented my understanding is that the school district would no longer be obligated to provide comprehensive health care coverage for our employees we could defer to

186you to the single-payer system that would be a possibility correct yes and that would have a significant impact on the bottom line for the school district yes i mean my understanding is it would be profound it would profoundly free up a lot of revenue for delivery of programming for children so i mean earlier in the meeting we heard lots of normative arguments for universal health care our board chair just shared another story there's lots of norman of reasons but there are very positivistic reasons why we should do this and and the reality is is that it makes economic sense the reality is is that the preponderance of americans believe that that every person should have some modicum of health care access to health care over 70 percent so that means that that health care should

187be a public good and can in if that's so from an economic standpoint it cannot be traded efficiently via markets so we're actually wasting part of our resources as a society in in maintaining a private delivery system for health care and as a public institution and as electeds governing a public institution we have a fiscal responsibility to position the district in the best you know fiscal position that we can and for me i feel an obligation to out to advocate for this because i know it's what's best for the district i know what's with what's best for children not just in normative reasons there's lots of arguments goodness knows lack of access to health care causes profound human suffering but it makes dollar and sense reason it's just the right thing to do and i

188spent the last week when i once i saw this come up in the packet i i played devil's accurate i researched trying to find a credible argument against universal health care some sort of you know single-payer system and i couldn't find a convincing argument so i would if if someone wanted to make a motion to approve this resolution tonight i would vote in favor of it thanks for the time thank you vince therese all right then next up is uh lou and i want to highlight sorry about that sammy no no luke can go first i forgot to unmute myself so luke can go and i'll go with all right sounds good so lou first of all i want to thank you for co-sponsoring and really helping out with their resolution along with community members

189so i appreciate your contribution thanks sami um yeah i just wanted to real quickly when we're talking about access to health care and and talking about community well-being that we remember that um even with universal healthcare there's people that live with chronic health conditions and how we use terminology is important and that's something that um we talked about in drafting the language on this and i want to make sure that people see that when we're talking about what healthy means it's from the lens of what makes sense to people and so that doesn't always mean the same thing so understanding like that standard isn't going to be the same for all people and what it means to live healthy and to be healthy i think those are just really important for people to keep in

190mind when understanding what this could mean and also when um if it went i wish this was like a resolution that we can actually like implement in the community right because of how powerful it is to have um have this happen in the community but to be able to advocate it for it i think is also important um and sends a strong message to our community and we heard so much tonight and i know we've also received a lot of emails so i also wanted to thank the community that's been weighing in on this both verbally and in written form um and when it when and if it does end up at the level where it's with legislators it would be really important for as community members for us to keep in mind and advocate

191that should it be approved that it doesn't come out of existing funds that are going to districts so in other words to be able to have that where vince was talking about earlier about like what we could do with that funding as far as impacting the lives of kids and families in the community by having more services and more programs and all of that that it doesn't get used because it's no longer paying for health insurance premiums because they i know if you think about it in like a larger sense people are like okay where's that money gonna come from somebody's gonna pay for it somewhere and i would hope that it doesn't come back on state institutions and programs and um be like okay we'll just take it we'll take it out of that

192allocated budget and feature years so i think that's something important when thinking about where we get funds allocated at the state level that community members keep that in mind when um when talking with legislators and um yeah and so i'm just really excited about this and appreciated being part of hearing from community and helping draft some language for it too and understanding that it's part of the larger systems to help the communities thank you lou up next is teresa and then jay terese thanks sammy i'll remember to unmute myself this time uh i i just uh i really am i'm so appreciative of the effort that went into this resolution it's very thoughtful and uh to those in the community who might be wondering why a school district would uh feel that it's necessary to

193comment on something like universal health care in a state that has such uh very generous and liberal qualifications for for children to access health care through our children's health insurance program which is i mean it's nearly unparalleled in the country it's a it's very easy as a child in this state to gain access to health care so the reason that a school district ought to care is because children deserve healthy parents as well and so it isn't enough to say that we are going to advocate for children to be able to see doctors because children need to see their parents being able to live their best lives thriving development and having the opportunity for an optimal outcome as well as the child of a parent who struggled with physical health issues for most of for

194most of her life i very much experienced the phenomena of accelerated aging as i was 15 and driving probably not even legally to take my mom to a doctor's appointment because she couldn't drive herself or missing my college writing class to sit in because we needed a second pair of ears to hear what the doctor was going to say and that was because my mom did not qualify for any kind of medical case management because that we don't feel that we need to provide that for every person and so i lived that experience myself and i know many children in our community who make choices on a daily basis about whether to participate in their education or care for their family members medical needs and that is not a choice we should be asking children

195to make so i advocate for this because i think that investments in parents and parents of wellness is an investment in our children and their education as well and whether it's fiscally responsible or not i firmly believe that every person in my household fares better when the classmates in my son's class are able to maximize health for their family whatever that means to them but that they're able to do that i don't need to personally know that that individual to see that it improves my quality of life a compassionate community that is willing to elevate all uh benefits my my life so i will be voting for this um i don't know every person who weighed in on it but i have deep um deep thanks to uh to you for the effort that was

196put forth on this thank you teresa um i have a couple of comments and then just to tell you where i'm coming from my understanding so i'm kind of checking with you who wrote this and what you think we're voting on my understanding is that the legislature in the last session formed a task force whom our own ed jenkins is the vice chair it's a 13-page statute and it has a task force that says please get back to us in the 2021 legislature about the best way to handle universal health care um i i've read the law it's really long i've read a a 60 page report that says uh we're going to look at a couple of options and my question is do you think our measure says not only we should have universal

197health care but it should be a single-payer system i'm asking a point of information clarification do you think our resolution says the right way to do universal health care is with a single-payer system that's the way i read the resolution but i just want to check that um i would i would be very uh verbatim in answering the question jay by saying it asks that it urges the oregon state legislator to create a publicly funded universal health care system and the same for congress enabling states to do so and also for the united states congress to create publicly funded universal health care system such as the one in hr 1384 the medicare for all act of 2019 so that's that's where it is and i know there's so many details in the legislation uh that

198are spelled out there um but the resolutions gives the uh the emphasis on publicly funded universal healthcare system and provides an example for it that's uh in front of congress will be soon again reintroduced well i think what what i'm concerned about is for us to tackle maybe complex topic i can't do it but but there is an example to me where in some people's reading of our work and what we are recommending they might say universal health care means everybody gets good medical care but it doesn't say which kind of funding because oregon had something called the oregon omip uh medical insurance plan with kitzhaber's uh uh proposal and we we brought a lot of people into medical care and therese talks about children and and so on so my my my frustration is

199is that it's a broad statement that i think is trying to address a very complex um problem and i don't i don't want to send mixed messages or unclear messages so i'll stop on that one um i'm gonna get to my my understanding is that the legislature has to wrestle with ways to deal with what we're asking for comprehensive or health care for all i think i heard editorial comments already from our board that says we mean for you to do good medical care for all but we don't want it to come out of education so we are helping them prioritize that education doesn't get any cuts if we get medical care for all i don't see us saying that in the measure but if we are telling them that we need to be be

200real clear that that that that's our value but right now i guess my concluding point is this i have been around legislative policy making for about 25 years where statements of intent and broad rules do not get passed all the way down to classrooms and what policy happens then can be not anywhere near what everybody expected in my i'll turn to to ryan i'm not sure how old he really is but in 1990s the legislature adopted a sim cam educational reform that was going to help transform education in oregon and we spent millions and millions of dollars and just by looks of your faces we don't have a sim or cam in the last 20 years so my caution is is broad stroke padding the legislature to say please get us something uh is not

201i don't think effective law making so i i'm gonna express reservations about doing this kind of broad stroke recommendations um and i'm all for good medical care for everyone i want that really clear and i want us to to take that on as a burden but the right vehicle i'm just real nervous about saying i know or a certain group of people know the right vehicle when we haven't the time or or or background to study it and come up with it so that's my concern and i'll try to do some work on on specifics as we go through it thank you jay lou uh would you like to uh speak um no i get what jason with that part is why i made that statement of like it's gonna whether or not we have

202it in this resolution um i think that it's going to be something that people are going to need to make clear um because this is probably one resolution of many statements that will be going if it's if we pass it and so if it's only in just say we're the only school district that passes a resolution that reads as ours does and it has something in there about like leaving school funding into public education funding intact i really strongly believe that people are still going to have to advocate for that because one out of many statements going in knowing how many statements go into legislators is not gonna i don't think if whether or not it's in our single statement um i don't know if that will be the deal breaker for that advocacy needing

203to happen or not but i get what you're saying jay totally thank you any further comments on the resolution all right see none i have an understanding that there's an interest for a second reading in a later meeting and we'll do that um and next item on the agenda is consolidated action as a reminder all the items here uh uh under this portion of the agenda are for action does anyone have a question about anything in the consolidated action blue oh no okay vince i just have a comment um since uh starting in my new position i've become kind of a con sewer of really good minutes and so i just wanted to give a shout out to um parker our board secretary for the outstanding work on meeting minutes they're just really well organized

204or easy to read and give you know as the law demands a true representation of all matters discussed with the meaning and the views of the participants it's just really nice work a great example of of of minutes so thank you very much thank you sami sorry i did i did have something i'm sorry i was like was it under action or information it is under action it was just the um the lvl local service plan all right uh let's start with it what's your questions about it um i just had a question about um their understanding of equity and if we feel like it aligns with our understanding of equity as a district i was just kind of curious how the rest of the board felt about that could you state your question again

205lou i wasn't um there in the lbl um service plan the local service plan i was curious if the board felt um the rest of the board felt that um their the way they operate with equity and understand equity is in alignment with our um the way that we use equity that was what i was wondering to my knowledge this board hasn't interacted with the uh lbl esd board in any in that channel or on that topic so it would be hard to characterize that all right so uh i have uh ryan would you like to speak to that and also sarah well i just know that lou asked the board and so i wasn't sure if she wanted if you want me to weigh in on that or not um yeah sorry ryan yes

206sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't so i thought i should ask um i would say that they are um from my conversations they um as a board probably have more we our board has more has had more conversations about um equity than the esd board has i know that their current superintendent tanya everest is working to have those conversations with their board um and so and have and she has been meeting with us in our regional racial equity group so there's um there is commitment um from their you know top executive at the same time i know that they have work to do does that answer the question that you had yeah i was just i'm still curious what other people thought too okay if other people have thoughts sarah yeah so i'm on

207the budget committee for the esd um and so i have a little bit of experience not a ton of exposure but a little bit of exposure um i would sort of um agree with ryan that their superintendent is kind of ahead of where their board is right now is working at bringing them along um it's it's something they're working on thanks sarah jay my understanding of esds lou maybe would be help in that they were designed to inequity because i'm a small district and don't have enough money to buy the right services for my kids and if we pool our resources we can get the monroe district the philomath district uh as much money as the beaverton district so that by its very structure it's a good thing it's a question of does it continue

208to deliver every year or do they get in some way off track and or expenditures that aren't reasonable and don't help all kids or more kids you know get through this so that that's the fundamental question i think the the basic structure is very equity oriented but thank you jay um if i may uh try to uh talk about that honestly i am not satisfied by their equity statement it's yeah so to say it in layman's terms it's a livid vanilla uh this is what i would say honestly before joining this board and learning what equity really means and knowing that if you want to define equity you need to be intentional about saying here's the gap and this is how we need to fill the gap so i really appreciate the perspectives that i

209hear that there is some conversations need to be had uh i'm gonna go a little bit operational here it's not going to be as any hesitation for me to approve the plan but to say there are some equity issues that extend to services that we're getting i hear from constituents and corval school districts impacted by not being able to register uh their students according to uh the ethnicity that they subscribe to or identify as and i know it takes a conversation with ode with uh the esd and school district it's a collaborative work so i encourage the esd to really engage in deliberate work on equity not only by the definition but also in how we deliver the services and how we engage with those services i don't know if that answers uh the question

210lou but i want to be really frank uh i'm proud of what the work we do here and i look forward for the esd to be our partners in this important work we cannot do it alone thanks sami and thanks everyone else too um yeah that totally i was just i didn't know if i was just like reading their um their plan which was very lengthy but um because it needs to have included a lot of things but i didn't know if i was just like reading too much into it and i was like this doesn't feel like it really aligns but i'm not saying i don't think we should approve it because those are necessary services and that shared model you're talking about jay is like super important too um to help support kids

211that need the support students that need support in the community it was just yeah it was very interesting and felt a little bit tokenizing in some parts to how they described on page seven just if people want to know where it's at um their equity statement um and the reason why i was asking is because if we have a different way that we not only view but operationalize equity within the district and we're partners and the work with with lbl then i think it's really important to think about how those services are delivered and who's impacted and sami you brought up a really good one because i've heard that several times too about the demographics and some other things too of services that are available and even stuff around attendance and stuff like that and

212that actually is related to the healthcare thing that we're just talking about but um so i think that there's a lot that may not be in alignment with the way that services are provided in the way that the district operates and i just think it's good for us to be aware of it as we look at approving um approvingness is all so thank you thanks lou i appreciate it and again i want to highlight tanya's doing really impressive and amazing work i really appreciate her leadership at the esd the other thing i would say is that the local service plan looks dramatically different than it's looked in the past which is really but it also allows you to sort of read through it and take information from it that you haven't necessarily been able to

213pull from it before so um i think that the change in format is great and it also highlights some areas where there's work to be done yes that's definitely a good step forward sarah and sami i have a question you describe the fund allocation you talk about basic stuff lou how would you describe the fund allocation district by district is it i mean for instance what i've learned in our district is we don't go just by the number of kids that walk into jaguar or wilson or not wilson wildcat um we talk about special needs in special districts is it dollar per kid in our esd funding or are there discussions about higher needs or higher what would we call it uh um success limiters in a certain district therefore they ought to get more

214money i have a question for me yeah i think i heard your question but i think you asked me and sarah and i wanna ask sarah if uh she's okay with ryan may be answered so do you feel comfortable answering the question ryan yeah so the way that the system currently is set up is that there's tier one and tier two services and tier one services um require um it's by vote um for things to become tier one and it's by a number of districts and also a number of students in our region um that are represented in the um the yes vote and versus the no vote and so then those things go into like a level of service for all districts across our region and then tier two is services that individual districts

215get to um allocate resource too so in tier two one of the things that we do is we pay for um our ongoing having our health navigators and so um what while that it's definitely based on adm or what what the portion is what i like about the format is that tier 2 allows us to do things that we want to do as a district and for us those some of those things have allowed us to do more in our equity work and supportive students so i like that flexibility component but nodej it is really based on adm primarily the number of kids in each district that's what i was trying to get to and that's a real structural equity issue but there's a lot of water under the bridge that we've been through with

216for years and i'm yeah luck on how to figure that out equitably any further comments see none i would like to entertain a motion on the consolidated action do i hear motion we approve consolidated action do i hear a second wait a second it's been moved by uh vice chair sarah finger mcdonald's and seconded by director jay conroy to approve uh consolidated action is there any further discussion on the motion see none um director adams what's your goal aye director conroy what's your vote hi director jones what's your vote i director baker what's your vote i uh vice chair finger mcdonald's oh what's your quote i'm director white bear what's your vote hi and the chair uh votes i did i ask everybody passes unanimously all right sally and consolidate its information uh is there

217anyone who would like to as a reminder the items under the inda is for discussion only would anyone like to discuss an item on consolidated information vince i would like to congratulate the finance team once again for a clean kafir well done and i just really appreciated the transmittal letter at the beginning it's you know a wonderful summary of the district and the and the work that we do so just thank you for creating one for just being great fiscal stewards and for providing this great document um for the for the public thank you very much thank you vince and for the record i want to echo your remarks uh our districts is a role model in in this work and this is important this is how we can do work efficiently effectively and responsibly

218uh thank you and thank you olivia and team um any further questions or a discussion seen them we are up to our last item on the agenda before adjournment which is board member commons is there any board member who would wish to make a comment sarah and then vince um yes i have a comment um so you guys think we're uh we've you all been watching i assume we've all been watching um the the fallout and the the added information we're getting about the insurrection at the u.s capitol last week and i'm sure there are lots of civic lessons going on in homes around the district but one thing i've been thinking hard about in this last week is the critical role schools play and how important it is that we make sure that our

219students understand civics understand the roles of different branches of government and i stood up in my child's door quietly and listened to a discussion they had after the students had brought up um january 6 and their teacher prepared a discussion and she started with these are the branches of government and this is what they do and it was it was very age-appropriate and it gave them information and background to understand the context of what they were talking about and it was really a good discussion and so that civics education is is critical um the ability to to understand information and understand sources of information and make decisions um about how you interact with the world and understand the world based on good information is also a key thing that we can help our children learn

220um and you are equity in diversity and inclusion education that we're doing with our students to understand every that everyone has a place in the world and the value of that and what the importance of different identities in our society and what that means for classmates and friends and the people you work with and the people who you may vote with um because our goal really one of our goals should be that we're producing citizens and community members who contribute and vote and make good decisions not cookie cutter children that all grow up agreeing on the same thing but children who make your well-informed decisions as they go forward in their lives and you know schools and especially public schools could not be more critical than they are right now so um i also want

221to thank my fellow board members for the work that you do because our the critical role of our schools is really to have been brought to the forefront as i think about um our country going forward thank you sarah cornerstone of democracy lou yeah um i was just gonna say something of not necessarily what sarah said um in relation to some of the things that are out and knowing that it causes that there is a lot of um of concern in community especially if you have if you're from groups that are historically oppressed and some of the things that are coming out even locally that are causing fear and uneasiness and recognize that that's happening and also um recognizing that it's been ongoing and that it will probably be continuing um and thinking as ways

222as leaders in the community and as um just people that live in the community of how we can continue to uphold and embrace each other in ways that honor who we are regardless of our backgrounds and really strive to have some sort of love in the community where we don't have to live in fear i think is really important um and i also wanted to recognize i'm sure we know it's martin luther king jr day on monday and recognized that and really urged community members to not um fall into the um the pattern of using a sanitized version of what he stood for and what he was advocating for because that happens a lot where we see the images of the hand in hand in unity without really deeply looking at some of the messages

223that he was putting forth and what his dream meant and how it's been co-opted often times and so i encourage community members to learn more about him beyond some of the common quotes that we hear even though i am going to share a couple of his quotes right now because i wanted to highlight some of his words um in advance of mlk junior day but um the ones the two that i wanted to um share are from the letter um from birmingham jail i really um like that speech or in that speech the letter that is well known and um one of let's see where did it go okay and he's talking about non-violent direct action um and this one says actually we who engage in non-violent direct action are not the creators of tension

224we merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive we bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with and so i think that's a good one to think about as we continue to see tensions nationally locally statewide and how we can deal with those for positive change and the last quote of his i will share says it's from that same letter all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anestheticizing security of stained glass windows and i really appreciate that metaphor of hiding behind the image of a distortion of what is really out there and using something to filter it especially in the age we're in where everybody's using filters literally so i wanted to share those two as

225we think of how to move forward as a society and as a community as the roles that we have in education with the kids and the children and students in the community who are our future who are looking at us as adults and as leaders and our actions as we move forward to think about some of the words that he shared and so many others throughout history that inspire change and positive actions so that's all thank you thank you jay you're up next okay you're muted still muted i was trying to get to a an article written by a corvallis high graduate named peter weber he writes coordinates news and i'm sorry i don't remember the magazine i'll get it to you but peter highlighted martin luther king's uh uh speech regarding um the often

226cited one that says um a riot is a a a evidence of um and and and he gives bigger context to that so i will send you all that because i'm so proud that a corvallis high guy from about 1990 um is writing such good stuff but to pony on top of what uh sarah was saying in terms of the stuff that history and government teachers get to teach and what just really made my heart sing this week even though it was so terrible in so many ways the the opportunity to talk about the value of exchanging points of view and perspective in a peaceful way and to honor and respect each other without throwing each other under the bus or whatever other metaphor is just huge and so i i appreciate what you said

227and and the value of our education systems i think the other one would be history uh our country is not a perfect country by any stretch and we have had lots and lots of uh dissension and disagreement and for us to learn about that and where did we go wrong and where can we get better that's that's a great opportunity so and then lastly i just want to say thank you again i say it a lot but thank you again to ryan and your leaders this for us this is unbelievable time uh and so to to wade through the tenseness not only of your house being caved in on but then you throw uh the real stuff of schools and parents and kids um thank you for your hard work keep it up and branches

228of tree yeah well with that a lot any further comments from our board members but that's that i'll release ryan so he can go back home and i want to really appreciate uh your work day by day we we must make things better and i think the work that we're doing is so important toward that direction so thank you all for your contribution your service and for community members for their participation as well and for staff for the good work since uh there is no further uh business on the school board we are have a good a wonderful night and good night