Aug 9 School Board Meeting

001so right potatoes [Music] um [Music] testing testing all right i will call this meeting to order at 6 32 pm uh welcome everyone thank you so much for joining us this evening uh for those of you who weren't here earlier from four to six there was a reception for this new facility that we are all in this evening so thank you to the taxpayers of this community and to the district administrators and school administrators who showed us all around the new facilities thank you very much so before we begin i did want to remind everyone the masking policy please keep your masks on during the meeting unless you are speaking on a microphone or during the public comment meeting or a public comment process that is the policy um and uh yes so uh with

002that we're going to move i know there's one change to the agenda we're going to remove the board working agreements and board assignments from the consent agenda and we're going to move that down to action item c because i'm going to present the same information but in a different format um just so the board is where um with that uh dr ricky smith are there any changes to the agenda there are none all right uh is there a motion to approve the agenda as modified and we'll have to be nimble with microphones because um folks watching at home aren't able to hear unless we might can you approve the agenda as modified motion has been made is there a second second motion has been made and seconded uh all right all in favor uh please

003say aye or opposed all right the agenda has been approved uh so with that we're going to move directly into uh student representative reports i know we have two student reps this evening in attendance one who is unable to attend so muhafee henry do you have any reports for the board oh we do um do you want to start with me hi my name is henry and i'm a rising senior at tiger there isn't a ton happening right now tiger due to being the middle of summer um however the majority of ths students i've talked to seem to be a mix of relieved and excited to refer them to a form of um normalcy normally students seem to dread the fear of like back to school madness but this year has a much different energy

004with a seemingly above average amount of students bursting at the seams as they get ready to attend football games participate in clubs watch performing arts and most of all get the opportunity to socialize again with their friends the return to school-based extracurriculars has also been a large topic amongst chs students especially with the extracurricular equity proposal passing the tdsu has done a great job communicating the success through social media posts the fall season for sports also starts about a week from now with the first home football game on august 27th against glencoe and tigard high school's asb and leadership have also started to kick off back to school planning for activities spirit decorations and communication assemblies and more hi my name is mahathi i'm a rising senior at tarleton high school and things on the

005tolton side are also relatively quiet right now because sports haven't officially started the fall season starts up in a week on august 16th and optional practices are currently ongoing um with the first football game on august 27th at beaverton high school um people seem pretty psyched about the lack of pay-to-play fees the tiger 12th student union has been spreading the word about not just having no pay-to-play no not having to pay for sports but also the new addition of funds to help cover equipment costs that come along with playing a sport um there hasn't been much communication from the district on that subject so we're trying to get the word out overall students seem pretty excited about the return to the five-day in-person school model although it will be an adjustment to come back to

006normal since we're pretty used to school being at 10 a.m testing yeah very well said thank you both and exciting that you all are spreading the word on pay-to-play fees that was a big big accomplishment i think it it really matters most if students are able to take advantage of it so thank you um with that unless there's any questions for our student representatives we will head into superintendent and board communication and with that i will hand it to dr ricky smith thank you chair just briefly since we have an extensive report here in just a moment it was great to be able to close out our summer school program where we served over twelve thousand twelve twelve hundred students at the k-8 level and seventy-one students at the high school level who recovered over

00761 credits there was great energy uh across and uh we will have some of those pictures this evening as part of the review additionally i'm pleased to say that we have made great progress over last year um being able to host all of our sports camps including camps that were out of district um families and students were willing to take care of the vaccination where possible as well as comply with the regulations all are having a great time and we'll give you a little update about that we're very excited to be able to say that full a year of activities athletic and other uh are are on board this year unlike last year so slowly but surely we're getting there um and then tomorrow in this space will be a three-day retreat with our administrators

008our confidentials and our newly added assistant principles at the elementary level uh we will all be working towards the goals set forth in the educational equity and racial justice policy as well as the academic goal which is primary and that that i will share with the with the board and uh with this gathering as well this evening that is our primary focus is addressing uh unfinished learning in the core subjects and helping our staff get there so very exciting packed and fully fully packed week and weeks coming ahead and as a reminder school starts on september 8th thank you dr ricky smith board members updates communication for your colleagues in the community is okay it's it's good now so on august uh excuse me uh i can't remember the days july 24th um i had

009the privilege to go to the osba convention on the equity conference um i it was one of those online things so you never know who's really there i always saw directors urban and um and lynn there but i don't know if they had a few others were there because they broke us out into rooms it was really funny at one point they put me in a breakout room and the only other person who showed up was maureen wolfe so she and i had a great conversation um but it was an amazing conference and one of the things i really appreciated about it was uh brian marks who i've heard speak on numerous occasions he's a wonderful speaker on the topic of equity and he offered up some definitions that i thought were really pragmatic and

010useful and i'd like to just give them here because i think they'll help direct our work so his definition of inclusion is the act of creating an environment in which any group or individual can feel welcomed respected supported valued to fully participate regardless of their role or rank and i thought that was just a really nice simple but inclu comprehensive definition the other thing that he defined was critical race theory and i i feel a little awkward doing this in front of dr lin but i'm going to go ahead and do it anyway um brian marks's definition of critical race theory it talks about the role of law in discrimination and so it's a topic for law school and public policy it's not what we do in k-12 education and i just wanted to put

011that out there as well i guess i'll go next um basically all i wanted to say was um thank you to uh dr suriki smith and her staff for providing the agendas tonight in spanish and for providing a translator so that they can um have access so that they can create access to our latino latinx population and take the mask off and the glasses come off as well but um i wanted to thank uh director cersei for mentioning um uh dr marx's presentation um i had the privilege of engaging my own presentation around really clarifying what critical race theory is it is not and i think the point that um the director's assertion we made was correct that this is a theory that it comes out of the law and you don't really study it

012unless you are in law school or in a graduate school of education so it is not um k-12 curriculum um and but you know i think um you know one of the things that people in the field of critical race theory are now you know beginning to look at is that possibility what would it look like to have um this in k12 curriculum curricular context but those conversations are just beginning so um but if you uh certainly i'd be willing to share um the link to the presentation um with uh with patty and perhaps it could be included at some point for people who are really interested in getting more information about what critical race theory is and is not and so on so thanks all right thank you board members um with that we're

013going to move into the next item reports and discussion the first and only item under reports and discussion is tiger 12 school district plan for return to in-person instruction i know dr ricky smith will be leading the presentation but i believe she also has some of her colleagues assisting so with that talk to ricky smith is testing yes okay good thank you so much patty if you please pull up the slide chair bowman uh vice chair lynn directors and uh assembled audience um this evening uh it is our uh pleasure to report to you uh share with you the updates relative to the racing masking order issued by the governor on july 29th and so let's see patty if you would please advance um to the next slide so first i want to anchor us

014in our purpose which is basically we are returning to full in-person instruction and we look forward to welcoming our students back on september 8th uh which for those who are choosing in person instruction we are also launching as you well know uh the ttsd virtual academy k-12 uh for those families who are not yet ready to come in person um or find uh the current conditions for uh entry into in-person instruction not suitable for their student and so offer the virtual academy online and we'll talk a little bit about that as well next slide please the key concepts this evening that we will be covering uh what has is relative to the state order uh to the coveted 19 delta variant data that led to this order the state's authority in issuing this order and

015ttsd's advocacy work related to this order in addition we'll cover the options for instruction and we will talk about athletics and extracurricular activities and provide an update as to what flexibilities we have there and then the instructional focus for the 21 22 school year next slide please patty key concepts these are the things that that we believe as we set forth this plan and take a look at the order first we believe that in-person instruction is the most effective model to support students social emotional health development and academic success and i said the same thing last year when we were talking about our plan to return to hybrid instruction the second is is that we believe that it is our requirement to set conditions physical conditions emotional conditions such that the student can engage in

016full-day full five day a week instruction without interruption due to exposure or um because of illness the third is that we believe that parents have the right to determine what the best educational placement for their child is and so for that reason we want to make sure that we are providing additional options to in-person instruction which if you look nationally is not always the case and last of course we always use our lenses of equity which your tents are on at your at the diaz our staff and student safety requirements and our community public health classes as we implement that plan next slide please paddy so here's sort of the brief timeline that got us to where we are today on june 2021 ode director gill announced a shift to local decision making with the

017caveat that the locus of decision making is dependent on the current covet conditions we believe in the state of oregon that districts still have complete and total local control and that is not the case in 1990 with measure five when funding shifted to the state to fund public education while certain things are in the district's control other things are in the states control and so it shifted that dynamic in july 1 uh through the 22nd we welcomed 1200 k-8 students who engaged in summer school and the academic enrichment program and here you have a few pictures from that you will notice that all the students are masked but all of them were engaged there was marimbas and there was choir and there was ukulele playing and there was writer's workshop and science and lego robotics

018a wide breadth of activities that and walking through those classrooms on a regular basis saw students highly engaged and enjoying the opportunity to be with their classmates and engaging in activities and our classrooms were full as you well know we started out we hoped that we would have maybe 500 students we pushed the envelope to 1200 and our teachers mightily stepped up and filled those those positions and so we are grateful for for that in addition we began the revision of the district's health and safety plan with the release of the uh ready schools safe learners resiliency guide that was was dropped on july 22nd um and at which point the districts still had the ability uh to make decisions relative to conditions for coming back into in-person instruction next slide please patty on july

01929th uh under the state of emergency executive order 2015 the governor ordered oha oregon health authority to develop math school for k-12 schools this includes not just public instruction it includes private private parochial and charter that deliver in-person instruction as well as all state agencies on august 2nd cosa which is the coalition thank you has exchanged coalition of oregon school administrators oregon department of ed and oregon health authority convened state superintendents to review the oregon health authority rule 333-019-1015 for implementation of the mask guidance under oah's authority under uh oregon registered regulated statute 431a on august 12th which is will be this week this rule goes into effect next slide please so the question is why why now um and uh i want to spend just a little bit of time here uh i'm giving

020some perspective when i think about where we were a year ago where we had much lower case counts and we all believed that we had to stay online um that's exactly what we did and we stayed there for a very long time and we've made great progress in the sense that we believe even under current conditions that we have strategies that we can put into place that will help us mitigate the spread of this disease so that we can keep children in seat all day every day throughout the school year which is our goal as well as our athletics being able to offer a full athletic sports season as well as all of the osa activities is a huge step forward so we are making progress it it just feels as though we've taken a

021step back here which is understandable so oregon has seen a steep increase in covet infections and hospitalizations driven by the delta variant it now makes up this variant 80 of all positive cases and this includes vaccination breakthrough infections which were anticipated event that this would eventually happen as no vaccine on the market totally uh keeps a given disease from occurring in an individual the delta variant is highly transmissible it transmits at a rate of one person to eight versus in the fall with the alpha variant which was one person to three the delta transmission is similar to measles and chickenpox which we will exclude students from our presence if they are not vaccinated unchecked this variant has demonstrated the capacity to close an entire school in a short period of time over the weekend i

022was visiting family in yuma arizona who had started school just that week and two other elementaries were completely shut down because they have a wide open mandate that precludes masking for four students and so um one student spread to the next and then the entire school was impacted and so they will be out of school probably for the next 14 days while they readjust how to bring kids back into school based on statewide positive case rates 35 of 36 counties have been designated as substantial or highly transmissibility by the oregon health authority which include washington and clackamas counties this is important because that's where the oregon health authority gets its authority under 431a we did address a concern of a patron that said that ors 401.165 section 5 which provides for local control under declaration

023of a statewide emergency whether that applied to us here in washington and clackamas counties for legal counsel that potentially only applies to counties that have not been designated as substantial or high transmissibility washington and uh clackamas are are two that have been and so they do not apply to that rule i believe it is lake county uh which is the next county over to the east of klamath falls um that is the one district that may be the 36th next slide please here we are did i go i got ahead of you i apologize one more okay so um members of this board have seen this graph before this this is modeling done by oregon health sciences university uh statistical modelers that takes a look both at individual behaviors of a community as well as

024transmissibility and i will say eerily enough this individual has been spot on every time in terms of the height and amplitude of surges as well as a timeline for them receding so again at the very front end you see where we were in september and october you see the massive surge where we were having case counts in washington county alone of over 1600 cases per day in november december and january then you see the next bike that happened this spring when we came in under hybrid instruction and now you can see what is being modeled relative to this particular surge you can see that that it is modeled to have an amplitude more on the order of the winter surge next slide please and indeed here are the actual numbers and you can see that

025that's tracking right along with what ohsu has modeled next slide please here is also just a map of the state of oregon the deep red are means that the in those counties currently um they are experiencing uh they have experienced a thousand cases per hundred thousand or per ten thousand uh you can see where washington um and clackamas county stand uh for us from july 4th through august 1 um clackamas county has reported having 126 cases um for the week uh in july 4th and is now at 546 for the week of august 1st washington county on july 4th had 91 for the week they are now standing we now stand at 508. uh so the pattern is is very clearly on track to model the november december surge as predicted next slide please okay

026so in oregon students are required by law to attend school therefore we must place them in congregate settings we in classroom settings where they with other children because that's we you know the opportunity to develop relationships and to learn from one another is is what we prize um unfortunately those are also ideal conditions for covet 19 precautions are not taken and currently majority of our school population is not yet vaccinated we know that children 12 and up are eligible for vaccination and we have seen our our high school students many of them take advantage of that unfortunately we are not able to vaccinate yet children zero to age to age 12 but there is a great push on on behalf of the vaccine developers to develop one that is appropriate for the pediatric population we

027know that face coverings in conjunction with not as a stand-alone method and i want to be clear about that because i know many people have said well you know mass alone they are correct mass alone are not as effective as they are when they are in conjunction with and the reason for that is that number one you don't spread the droplet to me and i don't spread droplets to you and this is true whether it's flu whether it's measles whether it's chickenpox we have seen our european and asian global partners use masking for for many many years as a mitigation strategy within their own populations we know that in the healthcare um and as a former trauma critical care and public health nurse um i would not never think of giving patient care without a

028mask on my face depending on what i was dealing with in the given situation and having navigated a measles outbreak a tuberculosis outbreak and an aids outbreak as part of my public health experience i also know that to be true um so and these are again you see the citations there ready schools safe learners flexibility resiliency framework august 3rd page 13 reaffirms that as does the cdc the american academy of pediatrics oregon health authority and washington county public health next slide please i throw this one in just simply because i think it explains this concept of it takes a variety of strategies to make a public health setting or a congregate savings safe and so if you notice on the very back side you see what are the little cove viral molecules you notice um

029that they look for any place where they can break through that's what virus do and so this idea of a slice of swiss cheese is used in this model but you notice that each one of these items has you know one more impact in terms of putting one more layer between the individual and a viral virus getting through so we have physical distancing and staying home if sick maths are a part of that as is hygiene and cough etiquette um it's crowded you know that you left your time in crowds that you avoid touching your face that you make sure that if you believe you've been exposed you immediately get tested that you uh the ventilation and outdoor air filtration is is key uh quarantine and isolation is also key and obviously the gold standard

030at the end of that line is vaccination but again it is all of these things together that has demonstrated the ability to come into conjugate settings and limit numbers of individuals who contract the disease and become ill next slide please patty and this is from page 13 of the rssl guide august 3rd which again reaffirms these are all of the things that we need to use to mitigate and to maintain safety in our classrooms next slide please one of the big changes and again based on science um and based on data a review and this was first announced when i was back in washington dc at a national superintendence conference where i and one other superintendent from the state of oregon represent them on the governing board this was a hot topic if you will

031and we had the pleasure of sitting with a number of pediatric epidemiologists who affirmed this stance which is if all students are at least three feet apart and each one masked and one of the students um has it comes down with covet those students do not need to quarantine where last year the guidance was we believe the best way to do that is that if anybody's exposed regardless the entire cohort needs to quarantine so this is a huge step forward in keeping students in their place now that is not true if you are sitting without a mask and sitting next to two other people who are not masked and you are within three feet or less um and one of you is positive um then um then if you were if it were a classroom

032situation we would have to quarantine all three of you okay next slide please so um the rule then again applies to public private private parochial and charter schools that all offer in-person instruction statewide mass requirement says that schools must ensure that all students including but not limited to staff and students contractors and visitors must wear a mask during the regular school hours and whenever they are engaged in educational activities including field trips or off-campus educational activities not after school activities in the sense of athletics or osa extracurricular activities a face shield may be worn instead of a mask um if the individual cannot wear a mask for medical reasons and that needs to be certified by the physician or health care provider nothing in this rule however is intended to prohibit a school from complying

033with the americans with disabilities act the rehabilitation act or the ipea and director kinch our student services director can speak to that more broadly next slide please the flexibility that has been given is that a student or an individual is not required to wear a mask when actively eating or drinking sleeping playing in a musical instrument that requires use of the mouth so any type of musical instrument now may be used without the mask that this is also a step forward engaged in a sport during physical education such as swimming water sports or sport where wearing a mask could be a strangulation hazard such as gymnastics or wrestling alone in a private office enclosed by walls on all sides with the door that is closed or is under the age of two next slide please

034now i don't wish to dwell here for very long because i'm not about penalties nor nor do i realize that she was a board have been about penalties but it is something that we need to put into this space we are about being proactive and welcoming and warm and bringing all into our community that said there are penalties that are will be assessed um in a variety of ways that this rule is not followed by districts or by any uh of the end of the individual bodies that i mentioned here before the first is a civil penalty of 500 per day per violation and we expect clarification of what that what violate not the violation but what the um incident means so is that you know a student or a staff member who repeatedly comes

035in and refuses to wear a mask is is that where the how it is how it is assessed um and so we i will provide you an update once we have that information and oha does have this authority under 431a 0.1010 for additional action as well and our attorney made it clear to me that during the incident relative to the rajneesh community in eastern oregon where a district failed to comply with orders to the state relative to that action that oha it wasn't oha votes another state body had the right to uh withhold state funding from them and so um she believes uh and rightly so that oregon health authority also could level that against against a district also licensed educators i think um superintendents administrators and teachers anyone who is licensed who fails to

036obey the laws of the state of oregon which are clearly called upon in your license will face sanction up to and including loss of license for failure to comply next slide please pace who is our insurer through oregon school boards association provided guidance regarding both house bill 4402 which was a limited liability against covid liability and oar3330191015 pace clearly has stated they will not indemnify a board or district who willfully disregard this order what that means is then if a board willfully disregards this order that the boards are assuming liability both as individuals as well as a collective in the event of staff student community member injury and or death due to cobit exposure as a result of district could operations go into a little more detail about what personally liable for a board member

037in that situation it would mean typically um when we have and this is not news to any school district there are there are many reasons why um the district may receive a suit on behalf of student or student and family and so because of because it falls under those actions which pace would indemnify meaning it would cover that it would cover that loss that means that individually you would not be sued and you collectively is abort you could not be sued in addition to them suing the district so in this case because it is outside of um house bill 4402 um and it is a if the action were to willfully go against that order pace has made it very clear you are on your own in so many ways so that if a student

038god forbid um or a staff member should die as a result of that and it was because we had willfully disregarded that behavior then the family of that individual could come and sue each one of you individually as well as also suit you collectively so it'll be a one-two punch if you will we know that there are a group of litigation attorneys who are waiting for this opportunity um and that was one of the premises of moving getting the legislature to provide us some level of coverage with 4402 but it is not ubiquitous and it is not um not for for this instance either okay did that answer your question director all right now let's talk about what we want to do okay here's what we want to do we want to implement a full

039instructional day we will be asking that students who engage in that come into our building prepared to learn with mass and if they don't have them we are more than ready oh sorry next slide thank you one more time there we go um and so uh we as we did last year we have plenty of mass we have plenty of hand sanitizer we and both uh director bernard and director kinch will will share that um we know the particular little ones they they like to lick the inside of their mask so we are prepared to give them as many masses they need during the day um and uh in addition to that i think what's really important also is frequent breaks um you know i know all of us um you'll find it's cumbersome some

040days and just need to walk outside and take it off for a little bit our children are no different um and so uh dr mccall our assistant superintendent um of instruction wolves oversees our elementary schools there have worked out a schedule that provides for frequent long longer period recesses so children can get out and refer fresh air and fire seasonals off um and enjoy um some some mask-free free time we think that that's very important and will help children get the wiggles out as well and in reset for learning so it may impact our 90-minute reading block but it is for a good reason um this is also true for middle and secondary students while they have longer blocks of instruction teachers will be working on providing frequent breaks so that students have that opportunity

041um to uh to do that and and to get into that into that routine uh professional regulation masks are required on all district transportation yes so when a student goes outside for recess they will not have to wear it all out correct all outdoor all outdoor activities do not require mass at this time will they be required to stay three feet apart during recess uh we are going to continue to encourage them to keep at least that three-foot minimum um but what we know about outdoor activity directors are speed um is the fact that there's enough air circulation in science again um and the data has proven that that there's enough air circulation that the virus has a much more difficult time uh getting getting across to someone even at three feet than it would

042in a congregate setting when i'm sitting in proximity one follow-up to that yes sorry uh the breaks the mask breaks those will be outdoors correct okay so you just have a cycle essentially of classrooms they will take their breaks outdoors um so that they have that opportunity um and most you know many of our schools have they have covered so if we are blessed with rain yet this year um you know students can be outdoors and and yet you know stay dry and yet have that opportunity to take their mask off yeah and this will just be a routine that teaches like any classroom team the teachers could teach um and certainly again any family that that feels that their child needs a little additional assistance or help with that that's what the principal and

043the counseling the teacher are available for to work you know individually with those families and address those concerns and then just to clarify are shields okay and they are sort of covered in in terms of the safety plans the face shields or is it masks i'm going to let director kinch answer that question because she has done a great deal of work with the public health team um on that and i think there are very clearly some very specific situations where that is the best option uh for students you know but the require the rule is written for math for for mass for facial covering in that in that manner perfect thank you you bet um the other thing here is the parents should watch for more details this year last year we could not

044have any volunteers in our building this year we are welcoming those volunteers in um as long as they mask and they sign in and we know that they've been there so that in the event that there may have been an exposure um or question we can notify them just to alert them to that back yeah yes dr dr sue i did want to ask uh with regard to the recess um our our kids gonna be staggered as they go outside so that the groupings are smaller right and we're not going to have the the feeding of the 5000 out on the rece on the playground um but that's again what what our hybrid did for us last spring dr min was the fact that it provided us an opportunity to try to develop those routines

045and strategies so we knew how to stack kiddos and we knew how to stack classrooms so that and we realized we'll have more children this in the fall but it provided us an opportunity to kind of work out some of those kinks um around that students also learned how to be very respectful within the bathroom uh bathroom procedures um and so there was a whole procedure around that to limit the number of students you know in in a given space at a particular time so i would expect that they will build off of those strategies as well we learned a great deal last year and it was very very helpful to us thank you for that question um so sign up sheets will be continued to be required for volunteers and visitors again just so

046we can notify if necessary initial considerations for parents as students are coming back into building again as with the hybrid we would ask students not to be sent to school of showing any symptoms that's headache nausea vomiting diarrhea low-grade fever um or anything else that that you just can't can't describe the too bad part is that we have conditioned ourselves you know that little bit of sniffles is not a big deal well unfortunately a little bit of sniffles now may very well be coded and i will share with you that currently um in the last week over 71 000 cases nationally were related to children under the age of 12. so uh and plus what i shared with you relative to schools um impacted uh by by the by covet outbreak as well students and

047staff will need to adhere to daily use of mass maintain social distance of at least three feet and engage in frequent hand washing and or use of hand sanitizer the good news as i shared before with you is that students wearing masks and maintaining three feet of social distancing when indoors do not need to quarantine in the event of exposure and this is coming from the cdc and oregon health authority next slide please patty yes ma'am now relative to athletics good news there is that the oregon health authority the oregon department of education and the oregon schools athletic association have affirmed that districts can have local control relative to making decisions for extracurricular and non-instructional activities that includes all of osa athletics as well as activities think like cheer squad okay so ttsd athletic leadership

048team i convened them last week when we got this order uh and asked them to start to think through how we might do this and director bernard was also part of that team uh we are looking that the guidance would be such that when as the athletes are competing either outdoors or indoors they would not be required to wear a mask um we are now also developing uh guidance uh for indoor spectators because our goal here is to keep our student athletes healthy so that they can have a full year of competition which they so richly deserve so we are asking for everyone's help to help us get get our students there next slide please relative to ttsd advocacy in terms of flexibility over time one of the things that the oregon health authority has

049promised to do is to review the data on a monthly basis and where the flexibility can be given they will give it tomorrow i have the privilege of being one of a very small select group of superintendents who will be meeting with the governor uh on that very on that very issue um and we will be advocating for a sliding scale much like we had last year which helped guide us whether we needed to stay fully online or online and hybrid or full in person relative to masking so that we can provide that type of flexibility over time we know that this is just the course of of of our of what a virus does it surges and it fades it surges and it fades until finally the entire population is either vaccinated or has

050built natural immunity to the disease the reason we are having trouble with these variants is because we do not yet have enough people vaccinated and the virus has free ring um we know that there are already two more variants behind this one called iota and the other lambda but we will see how they play out relative to following delta next slide please so instructional options for tiger tualatin for the 21-22 school year in person and here are the things that that families will experience within person full access to rigorous academic instruction in math language arts science social studies electives such as music pe and art full access to specialized services special education english language development counseling and family support services just to name a few five days a week full day instruction transportation and meal

051service and child care partnerships that which have been expanded um and will be available for those who wish to access them then also the virtual academy we have here develop that to near a brick and mortar school so again full access to rigorous academic instruction full access to specialized services meal support through regional district food delivery sites we will continue we have the flexibility from usda and that was affirmed during my visit to washington dc that that flexibility will continue and so we will be able to continue uh the grab and go's five day full day five full day five day a week schedule aligned to brick and mortar schedules so that students when they choose to roll back into brick and mortar are aligned uh and pretty much on track at that given level

052with the instruction we are also offering one semester enrollment options so that if a parent wants to enroll their child for one semester vaccines then become available they can vaccinate them or they just decide they're ready to come back in they have that option to do so with minimal breakage in terms of their instruction and again the child care partnerships are also available dr sue yes question on that one um first thank you for instituting that flexibility i know that was a request of parents my question is on the staffing side of things if there is a sort of influx of parents because we how many students we have enrolled right now we have 113. so if there is let's say you know 40 or 50 students who want to go out of the online

053academy back to in person will the well the teachers who have been assigned to the the virtual academy be reassigned to uh brick brick-and-mortar potentially it depends on on how how that 40 breaks and so um if that 40 breaks a couple you know across the whole k-12 that's a different situation than if it breaks at one grade level um additionally uh we are that is how we're leveraging the esser dollars uh to ensure that we have you know staffing so that you know if there's an influx out back to brick and mortar and there are a few that we still have stability of instruction for those students who remain in on the online school and we will use the esser dollars to do that director search me yeah so one of the one of

054the points of advocacy that i would would hope that we would do is as more of our high school students become vaccinated if we reach a point in our high school let's say 75 70 or 75 or 80 whatever is a reasonable point of our students are vaccinated that um that we could then say okay in high schools people don't have to be masked because we've reached the vaccination threshold is that one of the options yeah i think that's one of the options we're looking at the challenge with the delta and i'm really glad you brought this up the challenge with the delta variant is this uh we are seeing a higher degree of breakthrough infection and the reason is is that it is able on that one to eight transmission it is because it

055is able to um you impart a very high load of the virus very quickly um and even vaccinated individuals if they're exposed to that over and over and over again um in any period of time eventually a breakthrough occurs because the body is basically worn out its ability to put up a total defense now the good news about vaccination that the importance of that while it's great if you never get the disease the real issue is not to be hospitalized and certainly not to face the potential of death which is um even with the delta the hospitalizations continue to spike but the mortality rate is lower this time particularly for those individuals and individuals who have been vaccinated with breakthrough there is not yet um a large enough body that's saying that they had to

056be hospitalized and and no one has died um that what is vaccinated all deaths have been attributed to those not vaccinated so that's the question is how does the particular variant play if it's able to load you up pretty quickly we'll probably have to stick with masks um for a period of time um until that you that and that's the problem with delta now we'll see what iot and lambda do it may be entirely different and then give us a little more flexibility if everybody's vaccinated yeah so follow up on that question yes um so one thing we've learned from the virus is we have to plan ahead um yes so at some point the governor will restore local control on this item and it will i assume be based on local public health metrics

057um our relationship with washington county public health correct how are we going to evaluate our recommended stance regarding masking and other mitigation efforts as much as we were as we were coming in which first was what state recommend because it was advisory guidance at that point in time who else recommends that besides the state so we look for other all alternative bodies as well that are our bodies that have you know deep pockets in terms of the science in terms of epidemiologists and work so things like john hopkins and cdc and the american academy of pediatrics and interestingly enough there is a cadre of physicians 430 in the trimet area that also signed onto a letter across and it's fascinating because it is across medical professions medical specializations so you have um ophthalmologists internist dermatologists

058family practice um cardiologists you did the gamut not just pediatricians who have signed on to this letter saying that masking is um is the preferred method in in conjunction with other pieces because of the fact that you don't have droplet spread so it would be bodies like that now i think what we would also do as always is that if we have that is to understand from families as well what are some of the things that we can do better to help us as a community mitigate the spread the first line of defense is not sending your child to school sick you know in addition to being thoughtful about where you go and with whom you stand and and knowing their history um all of those things can help us mitigate this up front and

059that's true not just for cova that's true for any needs um so i think that there is you know we look at always look at the science anchor there we look at what the guidance says is it anchored in the science we look to what our community um is saying and what their needs are it's all of that that come into play as we consider and and that was the process that we were working on and before this rule came into order answer okay thank you for the question okay next slide please so what are we going to do this year we're going to address unfinished learnings what we're going to do this year and you can hear the excitement in my voice there's nothing better than getting ready for the first first week of

060school so this year the goal is to close the math and language arts academy academic proficiency gap as based on district and state assessments smarter balanced uh by five percent for all students which for our current enrolled population would be approximately 565 students if not more um and at least eight percent for our historically underserved students because we know the impacts and again nothing but kudos for packed with pride and for the way in which they wrapped services around our families who are most in need this means that we need to be able to assess and address student unfinished academic core content learning and that will be our focus in 2021 in uh 20 from 2021 in 2122 and that will be the focus of tomorrow wednesday and thursday's work with administrators how that is

061going to happen how we are going to support our teachers in making sure we understand every child by academic name and need and that we are addressing and focused solely to academics this requires that students are able to attend in person and or online if they choose that option for a full instructional day five days per week so their health and safety is key in helping us do that next slide please i'm now going to turn this over to directors kinch and director bernard to walk you through the elements of the uh operational blueprint that we must submit to the state on the 23rd of august it does not require board approval but we bring it to you as an information note as well as to our community director ken good evening um we are

062going director bernard and i are going to discuss with you and share with you a little bit about the safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of services plan that we will try to figure out how to say in a shorter way the safe return to in-person instruction plan it is an operational plan it's not quite it replaces the blueprint and if any of you had a chance to look at the blueprints from last year it was probably 20 pages and it had about 100 different things that school districts were required to do to prepare for in-person instruction this one is much shorter and it replaces and it meets the federal and state requirements that we are getting from esser and from the state and it is now due august 27th they gave us an

063extension next slide so this is the sections of the plan so unlike that hundred of hundred list of hundred things we have uh five and each one of these has several different components under it you will all have the access to the plan as will the public we are all these things we have things in place for but we are updating them currently with our different groups of people teams stakeholders um i'm going to touch lightly on a couple of them and then go more into detail on a couple of them but planning for mental health we have been working on mental health for years we have a really strong positive behavior intervention support system in place pbis you may know it as we have sel and teachers have been used to creating community and

064building relationships with their students forever that will continue with the understanding that students have been out of school for a year a year and a half depending on if they participated in hybrid communicable disease plan that is also something that we have had in the district for a very long time there are other diseases that we have planned for our nurses have planned for my department like measles mumps whooping cough covet has provided us an opportunity to really understand our plans and go more into detail now we did create a specific plan for covid last year and we will continue to have that extension of the plan it is fluid because things change um again we were working on it two weeks ago two weeks ago things looked a little different an isolation plan again

065that is our health rooms however with covid we know that we need more than one room so we will have what we call an isolation room for students we call it something different each school calls it something different quiet room something that isn't so scary as an isolation room and a health room so we are not mixing up kids who may be in there because they've got a scratch or need a band-aid or need some medication and students who are sick are in a separate room with we now have five nurses and health room assistants in all of our schools so we have dedicated personnel who will be supporting that program health and safety strategies that dr ricky smith has talked about we will go into more detail and accommodations for students with disabilities next

066slide so to start i am the director of student services so i oversee special education and 504s and ada pieces we are actually in our last week of our summer program for students with disabilities students with disabilities did participate in the k-8 enrichment program and other programs in the district and also we had specialized services for over 90 students at tualatin middle school for the last six weeks we're very it was a very successful six weeks we served lots of kids and some kids were able to do both programs that said students with disabilities are one of the more vulnerable communities populations in our schools and it is vital that we have health and safety strat protocols in place so that students who cannot wear masks students who cannot physically distance still can come to

067school and be safe we do have students who are medically fragile who physically can't take on and off a mask and we want to make sure that they can come to school and have access to their education just like everybody else so the rest of the population wearing masks having plexiglas up is really important to make sure that that student is safe we have students who have autism and sensory issues who are learning to wear masks and i would say about 95 of our students with disabilities are effectively wearing masks which um you know if you ask me a year and a half ago i don't know if i thought that would be possible but it is but there still are some students that that is a struggle and so we make accommodations either mass

068breaks or going into a learning center so those are things that we are committed to because we want to make sure students have access to education question for you sorry i didn't want to interrupt um curious about the teachers working with those students the sped teachers are they getting a special training about uh you know like what does the obviously the math requirements are more straightforward for classroom teacher than they are for a sped teacher what sort of professional development or training is being offered to those individuals well and it's also the people who run the isolation rooms and the health yeah so there is a higher level of protective equipment and so sometimes it's a different kind of mask most of the time our surgical masks are effective in those settings well so what

069they do learn though is like we might do three feet in a classroom in a classroom that has a student who can't wear a basket might be six feet or or 10 feet but we also want to make sure that student feels comfortable so it's all very individualized we also have a process in place because we have students that we may not know about who have medical conditions that uh make it not safe for them to wear a mask all day so we have a process where the counselors and the nurses will get health care provider information and we will assess what kind of accommodations that we can provide those situations the other thing that i thought would be of interest to you is the office of civil rights just sent down guidance to the

070state and to the districts that we need to start thinking about long covet as a potential disability and that would apply to staff and students but we're the research is showing that there are individuals who continue to have symptoms from covet over six months three months and they may be eligible for some of the plans that we provide for students with disabilities a 504 plan even possibly an iep so we will be starting to work on what that looks like we do have a category in under idea called other health impairment so that would qualify so it is a qualifying condition which kind of shows you gives you a context of of the world that we live in right now next slide uh these will all look very familiar to you dr ricky smith i

071love the the image of the swiss cheese these are all the things that will protect students and protect us from um spreading the virus i just a couple quick comments when we say physical distancing and cohorts we are we we were in pretty small cohorts during hybrid that is not what we're talking about this school year a cohort i would think of like a classroom it is a stable group of people that we can contact trace so we know if you're in 9th grade language arts with mr bernard we can go into synergy and we can figure out who was in your class um and we will have seating charts so when we need to contact trace we will know who was sitting next to him and um contact families and individuals if there was

072a covet positive case next slide well good evening everyone um as director ken just said those are a lot of the things you saw there are things that we had in place this last this last year this past year so there's nothing really new on there what we do know is that we got pretty good at what we do in our schools our administrators and teachers and staff did a really nice job implementing their plans adjusting on the fly when need be and so now what we're doing this year is really just looking at um reinforcing in those plans there's been a lot of every time we do something we like to take a reflection back you know what went well and what can we improve on and so i think we're in that process

073now as we gear up for the next school year and trying to better our practice each time and so on this slide one of the things that is available last year we had diagnostic testing available in all of our schools it was the bindex now and we are in the process of signing up all of our schools currently today we have about half of our schools signed up to date we're hoping to get them all signed up by the end of the week that's the expectation so we will have testing available for students staff when they're in school and when they show signs or symptoms they can come down in the health room and and parental permission things like that that that will be available also that's new this year and with more information to

074come is for staff there'll be at home screening so it'll be a process that staff can go online i looked at it um today it's a it's a just a quick form that you fill out a test will be mailed to your home weekly and you can choose to test or choose not to there's also be an opportunity for cohort screening something um as director kent mentioned like you know cohort i think of you know we've probably had this conversation around athletics as well so it could be a co-work could be a volleyball team and students that were unboxing the volleyball team might have an opportunity to do some to do some voluntary testing on this so more information will be coming out around those as some of this information is just coming forward for

075us and to the schools next slide please just a real quick update on ventilation and airflow we've had a lot been really busy this summer with finishing out a lot of our bond projects and ventilation airflow has been one of the things we focused on so currently we have four elementary schools going with a mechanical upgrade and that's bridgeport durham byron mary woodward so those are in process um we hope to have we we got some good news at the end of last week that all of our units will be in today one unit showed up today and so um sorry dr sue maybe yeah we haven't told you that yet um so we are really excited so we're waiting to find out where the rest of the units are hoping to get all those

076um installed prior to school starting we do have a backup plan to put individual units in classrooms in case those do not arrive and so lots of planning is going on um on those four elementary school upgrades we also have an upgrade going on at tiger high school auditorium we have the district ionization project starting for all of our buildings starting on the 11th and we hope it should enter um the month of september depending on um the time the amount of time that it takes to get some of these products for so we're finding that there's been delay a lot of things around construction and a lot of our projects with getting our materials and so um but that's the the latest information we have we hope to have that done by the end

077of september um we also are increasing our filter changes changes in our schools typically we do them one to two times a year we're shooting for three to four times a year and so we really be trying to increase that maintaining repairing existing hvac systems um at anyone i was looking at our board this morning we probably have about 25 units right now that are either being worked on or something so you get one up and one comes down it's just this revolving with all of our schools we have over 250 units in our district so getting keeping those up and running especially when the hot weather comes it's it's a challenge right they're working really hard and our and our staff is working really hard to keep those up and running across the district

078and then um as we're talking about all this as we prepare potentially for a future bond we are looking at um we've started the process to look at maybe all those things that we need to address that next bond that part of that would be our hvac and so looking at a district-wide plan of upgrading across all of our buildings along with other systems in the district and so um that is that is ha that is that begun about a month ago and we're meeting every other week as we start going through that on a distributed basis next slide please and this goes to one of your questions and something dr ricky smith was talking about earlier is we do have a public health team it's one of the things we started last summer and

079it worked really well we have representatives from different groups and we come together with the best information we can and discuss everybody's perspective and make recommendations we are fortunate to have a superintendent that is a public health expert so so what we do is take our best thinking and as you can see from this list it is a pretty diverse group of people um sharon fox joined us last year so if one one of you would like to join us we are happy to have you and we met every week to every other week we would make recommendations we were not a decision-making body we'd make recommendations they would go to cabinet and cabinet would discuss from there next slide please patty [Music] so final thoughts in the past 17 months we have faced extraordinarily

080challenging times together no one it has gone untouched by this pandemic not anyone in this room not anyone in this community not anywhere in this country and now we have this rule regulating k-12 basking it's just one more in a long line of pivots that exhaust us frustrate us and anger us to date we've been able to pivot because we've worked hard to build on the strengths of our district that helped us meet the needs of our students during a global pandemic because as exemplified by our two outstanding student board reps here they are just two of 12 400 students they are our why this is what we do ttsd's educational professionals including you as board members have pulled off some heroic efforts in the past 17 months to provide care connection and continuity of

081learning for our students family and caregivers are also essential partners and we are ready once again to work with each family in support of their student should they decide to return to in-person instruction on september 8th care and connection means making sure every student and every person that enters our school buildings experiences a sense of being known by name by need so that they can access equitable high quality education i've heard a great deal over the last several weeks from parents pleading with me for no masks and just as many pleading four masks my commitment has been and continues to be to listen and respond to all the different viewpoints in a manner that also complies with federal state local law and guidance balances and provides for the needs not the wants of all to

082the best of my ability that will never change as long as i'm your superintendent in partnership with our community throughout this pandemic i along with many of you cabinet and district staff have had the opportunity to work with our community on hard issues issues such as how do we return to hybrid instruction we did that in november of last year how do we balance and how do we develop an annual district budget what do we do with the student success dollars that meets the needs of all of our students all of them how do we return school resource officers into the schools in a way that is is affirming and we are so fortunate to have our resource officers as community partners with us now at every board meeting and is it is such a

083great joy to have them here and then the eventual return to hybrid and instruction last spring that's just a few of some of the really heavy lifting that we've had to do but we got it right not because we shied away from the hard conversations but because we refused to buy into yelling use of threats or tearing each other down as part of that process which would keep us from the solution in over 40 years of experience first as a trauma critical care and public health nurse and now as an educator yelling threatening and demeaning language and behavior never improved the ability to understand the concern and work towards a solution i finished my report this evening by sharing that my work as a superintendent is informed by one additional lens that of a mother

084of three and a grandmother of two outside of my faith my life with my amazing spouse is over in that corner of 43 years who rarely misses a board meeting bless him there is nothing more important to me than the health and well-being of my children my grandchildren and every child in this district i have the privilege to serve with that i will take any additional questions or comments from the board well thank you um um sincerely that was a very thorough and i think well done presentation so board members i'll turn to you any questions for the panel i want to reiterate the the statement that that was extremely comprehensive and informative i learned a lot so thank you for sharing such valuable important information dr sue you are a public health expert as

085has been said and an experienced leader with a strong track record of success as leader in your opinion and based on the research studies i think you talked about two of them could you share give some insight into what would it look like if we were to return to school um five days all children no masks that would be a glorious day um uh to be honest with you again it is and i appreciate you're asking my opinion you know whatever whatever i bring in front of this board is anchored in in a variety of verifiable data um and i have always a pr and i apologize for just a quick bird walk for just a moment because i appreciate when our community reaches out and says have you read this article have you read

086that article and i always very quickly look to see where the source is from you know is it a is it a study that is peer-reviewed and dr learning you know exactly what i'm talking about does it have a substantial in number how many participants you know what were the controls of the study so that i'm able to dig more deeply and i'm grateful for that opportunity um you know both in terms of my my health care training as well as my doctoral training about how you really pull that apart and know what's really you know solid research and what what's what's suspicious um so to get us to a no mask the gold standard again would be vaccination so much like we have conquered measles for the most part uh when when populations are

087vaccinated we've conquered polio we've conquered you know chicken pox for the most part mumps measles rubella rosiola the whole the whole gamut because vaccination is a gold standard that i think is going to be the foundation for getting back back to that that point i think the other piece is relative to our legislature having a substantive conversation in their many health care physicians as well as other health care providers that also serve in the legislature thinking about covet vaccination as part of the suite of vaccinations that we require for students because we want to put this in the rearview mirror the fact of the matter is until we the the virus runs out of individuals in which it can morph and change um that will continue um and so that also involves our global partners

088as well um but that would be the for me that would be number one and there may still always be um and there's been a great deal of comment in in the literature from journal of american medical association new england journal of medicine um and others uh talking about the fact that we had didn't see the blue outbreak last year why because people were messed up um not because they were vaccinated it's solely on the on the basis of masking and social distancing so there may be i think there's some real thought and discussion going on within the scientific community about do we follow more of the european and global model which is when you know the flu season's upon us we mask up for a period of time and or not i mean i

089think that's that's part of it but for me it would be um it would be solid um vaccination rates of vaccination across the spectrum i will tell you that i'm deeply disturbed by the number of pediatric cases now the number of hospitalizations and just one hospital alone in louisiana had over the weekend 62 admissions so the emergency room of which half of those went to icu beds and half of those children ended up on ventilators if you've never sat at the bedside of someone being ventilated or cared for someone being ventilated it's not something you ever want to see and you certainly would never want to see your child there i just want to say thank you as well and i appreciate all the advocacy that you're doing and you know on behalf of the

090district and our kiddos especially when you're having these conversations with the governor and kind of that flexibility for as things change you know how can we be flexible and change things at our district level um this is more of a curriculum learning question but what is the process for teachers and school administrators looking like for the kind of teaching and training time kind of bringing these kiddos back in and learning their names and their needs and kind of the different landscape that it will be this year what does that look like um in fact i'm going to turn this to director kings for just a minute she's going to talk about how we're going to set um and address the mental health needs because again we know that every child has been impacted whether they

091came in through hybrid last year or whether they remained online and you could certainly see it in terms of our summers our summer programming how excited kids were to be with each other but what the needs were and they had to learn how to do school all over again um so i'm going to pass the mic here just briefly to direct your kitchen then i can answer whatever she she has not yet answered for you so like i mentioned earlier we've been doing this for years teachers set up their the school community their norms this year's special because students have not been in school for a long time some of them and because there are some protocols and routines that they need to follow that aren't part of our everyday two years ago routine so

092every year when students come back to school they have pbis lessons so lessons that david is shaking his head expectation rotations um so we one of the things we know is that oftentimes we assume people including kids all of us and we assume what they come in with and so we try to take that assumption out and say here's what it looks like when you come to school when you create a predictable environment people feel safer they feel they're able to learn this is all about learning end goal is always learning so we have expectation rotations at elementary and different types of similar type but cooler lessons at middle school and high school at the same time there will be intentional relationship building activities and community building activities in the last couple years we've been

093engaging in restorative circles where students uh spend this middle school particularly in a little bit of high school where they spend time building community and being part of a community and circle so instead of thinking of it as the teacher relationship with students it's all of our relationship with each other we're part of a community when people feel safe and have strong relationships they're able to learn the research is very clear so there will be a lot of intentional work around that at elementary there's pacs taxes a program that provides our teachers with some guides around how to set up your classroom community how to teach emotional regulation we all need brain breaks we all need to take a deep breath every once in a while so that when we go back into the classroom

094and enter into a math lesson we are prepared so there is a lot of work going on right now behind the scenes preparing our school psychologists and our counselors and our sel coaches and our administrators to support our teachers and setting up their classrooms to get started in learning and it's i want to make one more point it's not that you do all this and then you start learning you do them at the same time and it's about holding students to high expectations and creating an environment where they can access rigorous instruction and that starts right away it's not you do this and then you do this do it at the same time and you continue it thank you um did we answer the question for you yeah perfect and i appreciate director hinch's statement

095about we do in conjunction our number one goal our number one reason for existing is academic instruction uh and so you but but we know that students you know cannot learn if they don't feel safe or they don't feel that their needs are being addressed whatever those are and so i always as a fifth grade classroom teacher would say about the first six weeks of getting kids into harness this is how we this is our classroom routines this is how we do things um and we do our children a disservice when we we lower the bar that is this is not about lowering the bar um this is an ambitious goal um and we can meet this goal um but we have to because our kids um deserve it and they depend on us to

096deliver it and that's what that's how we're going to proceed um and so to say that somehow this is watered down is it could not be further from the truth and we'll bring reports throughout the year that demonstrate that rigor director heines yeah i just want to say thank you for everything that you guys are doing and um being inside of a school myself i know that our students are resilient and that they go in to you know learn and have fun and they are there and they still you know go in there and love their teachers and you know they're still there and have fun with their peers and you know they they have their masks on and you know they're like i said just the resiliency of it all is what surprised me

097the most i thought we were going to have a lot of problems with the students wanting their masks off and that was further that could be further from the case they were there having fun they were there learning they had their masks on and frankly i don't think the teachers have to remind them as much as some of the adults in here that we've had to remind a lot so um i really think that we're not going to have any problems with the students and i think it's more of an adult problem than anything else thank you sir director search me um i appreciate director pitch which you were talking about earlier about the 95 compliance that you were seeing among special ed students with the masking as a parent of an autistic child i

098have been so impressed my daughter has worn her mask every day even inside her own house she will wear her mask sometimes because she just gets so used to it it's part of what you wear you put on your shoes and socks you put on your mask you don't go to yeah you don't go to school wearing a tank top right the spaghetti top um so i i really appreciate that i do want to say of all the things that you've talked about this evening about masking and the leverage that the state has over us that they could withhold funding the leverage they have over us that they could find us the leverage that they have over us that we could be sued personally that you know district officials could be sued personally as well

099as collectively the thing that is most compelling to me is that if our kids are masked and there is an outbreak which there will be those kids who are masked and practicing social distancing do not have to be quarantined which means those kids can stay in the classroom stay in the educational setting get the education which is why they're in the classroom to begin with and so i really want to reiterate that is the most important reason is keep the kids in the most stable educational system that they can be and if you can't wear your mask then take the online option and wait until we're at a point where we no longer have to make that requirement and again we stand ready to work with our families and to help them sift and sort

100for them because we know that this is hard this again i'm uh go back to my last comments we know this is hard we know that people are angry we know that they're frustrated so am i i would like nothing better than than to have us back to where we were pre-pandemic but we're not done yet um and so um this is part of the hard work that we have to do as adults and the hard work that we have many times as adults and helping our children understand how to keep themselves safe and productive um and and successful and so we we really do want to sit one on one and that's what our principals are geared up to do our counselors are geared up to do so really reach out if you're sitting

101on the fence between do i come in do i stay out we we've got staff that are ready to work with you and help you think that through because again what's most important is that our children are receiving rigorous instruction throughout the course of of this especially last year there was a lot of conversation about how schools would have to respond to the needs of underserved populations of students who had particular circumstances like the ones you described and you talked about the special education population could you say a little bit more about how other undisturbed populations bilingual students others would also be served um you know because as as we know um the gaps were already there but they widened right um under undercove it and so i understand that there's some very specific uh

102things that are in place to address those those needs and concerns relative to the english language learning model we are developing instructional coaches and a push in versus a pull out so that it is integrated into the regular classroom day and i think that will basically not only identify differentiate the needs of english language learners specifically but also getting a real classroom in classroom time to practice those skills across content so that that's a major shift and um associate director tim blackburn will provide an additional report relative to that um as we look at our underserved population's reason we set the target at eight percent because we know that students who are highly impacted require based on on john hattie's research at least a year and a half of growth to stay at proficiency and

103so um to that fact that's why i paid very close attention who came in during during summer school because we know that our communities of color specifically were hanging back based in from hybrid basically because of a fear of coving as we did outreach in terms of vaccination for family members and addressed that issue over half of every classroom that i walked through um both in the morning and the afternoons were racially diverse um have in each in every single one of those classrooms so there was very clearly um um a sense of um greater sense of safety that their child their children were in good hands and that they could engage um and when i look at the online academy enrollment it is it is not the same number as we saw stay online

104uh from from last spring so i know we're making inroads relative to the importance of coming in of getting vaccinated and following the procedures um and then certainly the basic needs teams that were developed this year will continue and will be deepened um and uh working hand in glove with teachers and with principals um and knowing every student and putting those students that still have you know significant gaps we'll start to differentiate those by tier we're a multi-tiered system of support uh district which means you know 67 to 70 of your kiddos should be receiving an instruction you know in the mainstream classroom with differentiation but for those that continue to gaps persist and we have now the i ready maths and reading assessments from k-8 and we have other assessments that we use at

105the high school level then we will get after that in in tier two and then if they have to go to tier three uh and have additional uh interventions in talking with assistant principal taiwan about devola here from tigard high school um he said of the 71 students who came in 61 credits were were recovered um or were earned that is phenomenal and those kids didn't miss a day because they had built those relationships and they knew people cared um and so teachers were offering them rigorous instruction and really addressing their needs emotionally but basically holding the high bar and that's phenomenal so we'll bring you a report to you relative to credits recovered and data from our summer school because this will be the first of four summer schools in a row that we

106will run to continue to expand the amount of time available to students to learn and to continue to close those gaps um i just wanted to say that myself and most of my peers are incredibly understanding of the reinstatement of the basketball we know it's what we have to do to keep our peers safe but i was just wondering if there was any consideration into looking at keeping the high school and removing the mask rule in the high school because yeah i would i would tell you again um again it's based on how variant behaves and that's where it's anchored in the science um uh that that was the consideration was you the more vaccinated the population the more flexibility we could provide unfortunately delta is a wicked player um and uh the the the

107vaccinated are just as much of a target uh although the as i said earlier the fortunate piece about that is that you get wicked sick but not to the point that you that it requires hospitalization and certainly we have not seen mortalities that we've seen okay thank you all right that was a lot of information um thank you all again very much uh if the board will indulge i think we only have three public comments so i'd like to get through public comments so folks don't have to wait if they're here for that and then we'll take recess after that okay [Music] okay we're going to need just a moment to okay i will read the sort of preamble for how public comments going to work while you all are working on that thank you

108again okay so the next item on the agenda is public comment this is the first of two times that public comment shows up on tonight's agenda this public comment is for anything related directly to an agenda item so it could be the presentation we just heard or it could be one of the three action items we have tonight any public comment related to those items now is the moment when you will be called on to speak to that all other public comments uh or which won't happen tonight but if their overflow comments that don't make it into our 30 minute time limit for this public comment we'll be moved to the end of the agenda's public comment which is item eight on the agenda so that's the process um i wanted to start kind of

109where dr su left off and acknowledge that temperatures are very high in our community right now those of you who read the tiger twelve times saw that the mayor of king city just had his garage door graffitied uh over a local issue our our colleagues in sherwood had to call the police department for a disruption at their school board meeting and this is happening across the state it's happening across the country and it's really sad and particularly in the school board meeting where our focus should be on the children and that's why i appreciated so much about your presentation what's best for kids and i know that everyone in this room and everyone in this district cares deeply about kids whether it's their own kids or all kids in this community so i just encourage

110us to center those thoughts and that intention as we're speaking tonight um and with that here's the sort of nuts and bolts i'm going to read this section verbatim just so we're all clear this section of public comment is for items directly related to this board meeting agenda public comments regarding board agenda items will be shared with the board during this public comment portion of the meeting public comments are limited to three minutes and should be brief and concise as per board policy speakers may offer objective criticism of district operations or programs but and this is important the board will not hear complaints concerning specific district personnel in fact if a specific person's name is mentioned i will gather you down and public comment it's not permissible by board policy uh i mentioned that this

111is a 30 minute section but with the cup the list we have now that won't be a problem okay so when you arrive up to the table you may remove your mask when you are speaking after you speak we ask you to put the mask back on so you can return to your seat please share your zip code before you start your public comments so we are aware whether or not you are a constituent of ours or whether you're not other districts require people to read their full address out loud we're just asking for your zip code if you would like your public comment to be included in today's meeting minutes as part of the public record our board secretary is located at the end of this table patty she can accept your comments either

112in writing or via email and those will be included in the official meeting minutes if you would like finally please know that this is an opportunity for the board to listen to the community this isn't an opportunity for dialogue so unfortunately the board will not be responding to comments but we will be listening that is our role in public comment period um additional comments can always be submitted to the board via email we have received uh you know i've only been on for two years jill's been on for longer than that but literally hundreds if not thousands over the last year and a half we receive emails phone calls etc we want to hear from the community and there's a lot of different avenues if folks aren't comfortable speaking in a public meeting setting that

113they can speak to the board um so i've asked director zerschmid at the end of the table here to be our timekeeper she's going to be keeping time on her phone so it's standardized for all people she's also got three cards um that will show you how much time you have remaining so you'll start with three she'll give you the one minute warning and then when you see the red stop sign please stop your comments you are permitted to finish your sentence a few words um but at three minutes you'll hear the alarm your time will be up and we will move on to the next person so that is the process board members any questions about what was just said or auditions okay so i will call uh public comments up one by one

114i know we had one person remove themselves so the first public comment speaker is gabriella miller gabriella you may come to the front and jill will just start the time once you start speaking so feel free to get situated um my zip code is 97223 and i'm here tonight to employ implore you to allow children and teachers to minimize their requirements for masks to the greatest extent possible in the coming school year regardless of their vaccination status i believe a day will come when we realize the immense damage we've done by forcing our children to wear masks trapping bacteria and co2 to their face for hours on end to be clear i do believe that in the science that masks may reduce the spread to an extent but i also believe that masks are causing

115illness in our children when worn for hours on end and they are limiting their social and emotional interaction at school my own son complained frequently of headaches and the inability to breathe and had an ongoing cough when wearing a mask daily in the spring he's going into second grade this year and i also have a four-year-old who will be entering the district soon my seven-year-old has changed quite a bit in the past year as have many children he started out kindergarten year a very happy child that loved school and he's gradually become a child that does not love school anymore and it's hard for me to look at his kindergarten picture on my desk at work every day and not think about everything that he's endured as well as all the other children the goalposts

116that we've looked forward to time and again to get back to a normal life in the past year have continually been moving and at this point it's hard to even say what the goal post is if what i'm hearing is correct that that goal post is now to have all children vaccinated uh i will tell you right now that my children will be withdrawn from the district and i think that you can expect a lot of other children to do the same um we know now that the risk there's risk in everything that we do and there's risk in everything that we don't do thus there is risk in wearing masks and risks and not wearing them the former is not being acknowledged right now the media has us on alert about the delta variant

117we know that young children are generally very resilient to this virus they don't contract it easily and incidents of civilian severe illness are incredibly rare it's reported that the delta variant is highly contagious but is also far less virulent we know that we should teach our children to be brave and resilient compassionate and rational right now i believe we're missing the mark on all of these things we are stunting their resilience by dragging them through a never-ending pandemic we are shaming them into wearing masks for hours on end under the pretext that they should do so to protect others at this point there's a very small subset of the population that receive remains highly susceptible to this virus these individuals would face similar risks from the seasonal flu the past year has felt much like

118a nightmare where we are constantly running away from a boogeyman in the beginning we knew nothing about this monster but now that is not the case we have tools that we know that we can use against the virus okay thank you very much for your comment that's time for anything you weren't able to get through in your comment you can give it to patty and she'll include it in the meeting minutes for the rest of the board in the community to be able to see so thank you again uh the next public comment is from sarah joy brown sarah joy here okay uh then the final public comment for this portion will be from jordan gates is jordan here hi my name's jordan gaith my zip is 97224 here in the district and um i'm

119going to echo some of the comments i heard just recently from the last person that um spoke and one of the things that is becoming apparent to me is that there are on both sides of this issue there there's good points uh for example if you hear about on one side you you seems to be focusing on the deaths there's so many deaths we don't want anybody to die on the other side let's let's say if we're just talking about lockdowns there's um losses in business and people's livelihoods their suicide rates on way up overdoses from drugs has gone way up and so there's tremendous issues on both sides one death of course is tragic but stopping all deaths cannot be our goal otherwise we wouldn't drive or fly or go out of our houses

120because we could die and the risk for covid for young children is still very low that i'm surprised there's so much um hesitancy to let our kids be kids again a previous speaker talked about the gop goal post being changing initially we heard in the beginning that the goal was to keep our hospitals from overflowing that so that people wouldn't be you know we run out of respirators and people would die but then as soon as the hospitals weren't overflowing then they talked about you know the deaths and then you didn't hear anything about the deaths pretty soon it became all the cases how many people have caught kovac and the deaths right now at least a few days ago are um 12 to 14 times less than they were at the height back in

121in the winter and yet you don't hear about that and i just i don't know why exactly the the media doesn't talk about the risks on both sides or the um the the tech giants are actually censoring or banning people from talking about the risks of for example the vaccine and it does have risks and some people have issues as far as taking it and medical good reasons for not taking it yet if you talk about that for some reason your comment gets banned and so i just wanted to point out that if we could just look at the both sides of the of this issue i think that in an ember fair we'd have a much better way of getting along and understanding each other so that's my point thank you jordan okay so

122with that it is 8 12. we still have three action items as well as a second section of public comments so what i'm going to do is i'm going to give us an 8 minute recess it's 8 12 so at 8 20 let's come back but please get something to drink take a break please keep your masks on while you're in the building but we have a courtyard to our left and out front to our right if you need a break and we will see everyone back at 8 20. testing testing all right we are going to reconvene this meeting uh if folks are going to remain in the room please have a seat and adhere to the mask requirement i'm going to make this announcement once uh i spoke to some of our staff

123who have had to remind several patrons uh six seven eight times to wear their masks if folks aren't following the mask requirement you will be trespassed from ttsd which comes with a one calendar year uh prohibition from entering district buildings so i want to be very clear that's our district policy and this isn't something we have the ability to be flexible about it's our policy so i'm going to go ahead and wait to start the meeting until folks are in compliance with our mass policy thank you okay with that we're going to begin first i will gavel the meeting back to order at 8 23 and we will begin with action items starting with art rutkin playground equipment with our presenter director david moore good evening chair bowman and members of the board this evening

124we're presenting a request to award a contract for our playground equipment for art wrecking elementary school [Music] good evening chair bowman and members of the board good evening take this thing off good evening chair bowman and members of the board uh this evening we're asking the board to consider a contract award with game time for playground equipment at art reckon elementary school this is accessing a cooperative purchasing agreement with game time through u.s community communities contract and we have accessed this contract for similar equipment at templeton elementary and our california early learning center and uh the amount of the quote is 182 720 so we're asking uh that the board to consider award of the contract not to exceed this amount happy to address any questions also all right any questions for director moore director

125zers meeting so i was disappointed to see there's no picture of the playground equipment because i'm a visual person but um based on the is this sort of a standard what a playground that uh elementary schools looks like i assume yeah at the the preschool level does it have some of the swings the adapted equipment that some of the elementary schools has have been bringing in like for swings for kiddos that have to use or would prefer to use different kinds of equipment uh i can't answer that this evening but we can get that address for the board okay after the fact all right is there a motion i will move to award a contract to game time for the art rutkin playground equipment for an amount not to exceed 182 thousand seven hundred twenty

126dollars motion's been made by director irvin and seconded by director zirschmeed is there any further discussion on the motion hearing none we will vote by acclamation uh all members in favor please say aye all opposed any abstentions all right uh it has been approved thank you director moore and we will stick with you to move on to our next action item which is foundation packed with pride contract presentation uh yes this evening we're asking the board to consider a resolution uh for a direct contract award without competition to the foundation to operate the pack with pride program in the upcoming year and as you all know this pro pack with pride program began right after the start of the pandemic and our school shut down and we had families missing out on the meals served

127during the day through the school lunch program and of course this was a truly a true volunteer effort both labor and management and um although it's it's worked well and and served district students and families over the past 16 to 17 months it's not something that's sustainable on a volunteer level and we were fortunate enough this year to receive our federal funding through the the esser funds and one of the allowed uses of those dollars is to feed students and um with uh the dollars that we receive both in the second version and the third version we're reflecting in this resolution to to access either one or both of those the one thing with federal dollars is when you do a award an award a contract award without competition under both federal state and and

128local laws it requires approval from the pass-through agency or the federal government itself the pass-through agency in oregon is the oregon department of education so um through uh guidance from the district's attorney we wrote up a request for the department of education to consider use of the esser dollars for this contract as you can see from the resolution those are indicated as as exhibits to the resolution both the requests and approval written approval has been provided by the department of education uh as part of the resolution to kind of outline the justification for this direct award without competition primarily the fact that the foundation successful successfully in partnership with the district operated this program over the last 16 to 17 months and it's a model that provides for individually created boxes for families knowing families

129in the district and it makes sense to continue that model but not on an ongoing basis as as a volunteer based management and labor system but adding a contractual relationship to the partnership between the district and the foundation i'll pause and address any questions questions on the board i have one technical i just want to make sure i understand so we're voting tonight on an exemption um which i think very clear evidence for why the exemption would apply here um will we approve the full contract once that is negotiated between the foundation and district yeah we can do that [Music] if depending on you'll see seems like that's cutting out again um depending on different areas of the contract there's some blanks that will be part of the negotiations with the foundation and we can

130always bring that back i know we want to we kind of set a target date of september 1 as being the start of the contract so we would only have one more opportunity with the board and i know we want to get going right away on completing the negotiations with the foundation after this evening that's that's the other part of the action night and to approve the superintendent and designee to complete the negotiations roger got it okay david did you have a question director highness um i don't have a question but i just want to say that um packworks pride is a very important organization within our district that has served a lot of our marginalized communities and i think that this is a very important thing for ttsd to join and welcome them as

131a partner and extend this contract just because uh you know as having volunteered for a couple weeks with them i know how much they've um they go through and all the um you know all of the work that they do for our family so i think that this should be a no-brainer and obviously you know director irvin here is well worse than pac with pride so she might have more to say about that [Music] uh i don't have anything more to say except that what an incredible program it is and director bowman was um kind of one of the very sort of founders of that program and so it is a no-brainer to kind of continue to support our community and our families in this way and also move it um because it is a

132huge undertaking it is five six seven hundred boxes of a week that we were doing all of last year for our community and so to kind of bring that um more to a community school level um and doing it this way and really having it as it's like there's butterflies in the microphone um uh to kind of bring it under the the guidance of the schools and those basic needs teams i think is a really great way to direct that and do that if that's if that's the direction that it ends up going and so i absolutely am in favor of that resolution yeah uh this is i mean it really is for celebration uh to have this potentially be a permanent part of the district so thank you for your work and i know

133other cabinet members have been involved in this negotiation as well um so with that if there's no other questions um i uh i move to adopt resolution 21 2205 as submitted to grant a special exception that authorizes the superintendent of disability to negotiate and execute an agreement with the foundation for tiger 12 schools to operate packed with pride food food pantry services during during 2021-22 with honor there a second lots of seconds um i'll let patty decide who got there first um motion has been made and seconded is there any discussion on the motion hearing none will vote by acclamation all those in favor please say aye aye all opposed extensions all right the motion passes unanimously uh thank you director moore so the final action item before we move into our second uh public

134comment opportunity is pulled from the consent agenda that is board working agreements and board assignments forward working agreements remain unchanged as they were presented in the packet however director zirschmied pointed out that board committee has a very specific definition in policy we have standing committees and advisory committees and we have classified some committees as board committees when they really were district committees so instead of quibbling with the labels we've just included board member and then all of your assignments so it should be one-stop shopping for you to know what your committee and other assignments for example negotiations or authorization to negotiate property transactions for example so it's all on one sheet of paper um i think the only thing i wanted to ask is does this uh coincide with your recollection of your assignments from

135our border tree or is there anything we forgot or misplaced all right if not i think we're ready for a motion i just have one question sure because for years and years we did not vote on our board assignments and my concern is that if we vote on our board assignments does that mean that if we change our assignments mid-year we have to vote again or do we not is just protocol good question there is a caveat at the top that basically says you know standing committees and advisory committees may be created throughout the year um i my understanding is that it's optional for a board to adopt both working agreements and committee assignments um so i don't think we technically have to adopt these but i'll defer to the board if we want to

136go that route okay well then i'll accept a motion if someone has it offer a motion to adopt the boardworking agreements and the board assignments so 21 22. that's modified one second motion has been made by director lin and seconded by director zurspied any further discussion on the motion all right we will do a vote by acclimation all those in favor please say aye aye all opposed say nay abstentions all right they have both been approved uh thank you directors for uh an excellent border treat i'm excited to continue working and just a reminder the things that were on the retreat agenda will be picked up at the next board meetings uh work session prior to the meeting okay all right so with that we are going to move to the final item um but

137before we do that uh director or excuse me dr ricky smith i believe um do i hand to you for so cabinet at this point you are dismissed um from this evening and we wish you a a good evening and uh director rose i appreciate your continuing to attend as our community relations students um you are welcome uh also um to be excused at this point if you so choose um and we thank you for being with us this evening so if you give us a few moments just for the cabinet to dismiss and then we'll pursue all right i will let uh cabinet gather their things and i will pull up the public comment rules very similar to what was discussed before all right so this is the uh both overflow section of the

138public comment or public comment not related to a specific board agenda item um and the rules are going to be exactly the same as before i will read them for your reminder first when you arrive at the at the table for public comment you may remove your mask to speak please put your mask back on after you finish your remarks or turn to your seat when you start your comments please share your zip code again we want to know whether someone is a constituent or not prior to their comments uh director zerschmidt again will be timing on her cell phone you'll hear the timer go off and she will also be showing you the color-coded cards so you're aware of how much time you have remaining in your presentation again it's a very hard cap

139at three minutes that you may finish your sentence and again patty will collect public comment in writing or via email if you would like it include included in meeting minutes the board will again not be engaging in a dialogue this is an opportunity for us to sit and listen um not respond and as always board member emails are open for additional comments that you have that you didn't feel comfortable sharing tonight or of course anyone following along on the live stream at home you may always send us an email to share your thoughts okay any questions from the board member board members while i pull up our okay so with that uh we will pull up our or we will invite our first of three public commenters in this section the first is nancy jones

140is nancy in the building okay next public comment is from helen heller okay feel free to get situated and jill will start once you begin speaking i mean make sure it's red red is on obviously hello my name is helen heller my z code is i have a daughter in high school i know that in the beginning you guys said that the crt has not been taught here but i can see in the curriculum and also the footprint in the in the in the website is that the cr it's taught through the lens of crt so i'm gonna call i'm gonna talk about crt this past year i've been paying attention to what's going on in our schools i did research on crt crt is rooted in cultural marxism and it should not be allowed

141in our schools it teaches students to load white people because of how they are born it teaches our kids to be social to to be social justice warriors and to hate america and its history if you care about skin color that means you are racist i look at you and you and you as an individual uniquely made in the image of god as a human being skin color is a destruction we should teach our children to not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character i learned that from martin luther king jr you are stumped on dr king's legacy if you think that if you think crt is a good for our children you are teaching our kids to destroy something that works really well there is the

142western civilization that the people in the communist and socialist country would love to have we value individual where you have the freedom to make your own choice to succeed the schools should teach our children more about how to exercise their moral courage how to build bridges how to defeat injustice not people how to empower and to meet hate and anger with compassion and kindness valuing the individual the work ethics goodness of one's deeds essence of character and fullness of one's heart i came to the united states when i was a teenager from a country that was ruled by a dictator for over 30 years my family went through a lot during his regime america offered me the same opportunities as those who are born and raised here and for that i am very grateful i

143want my children and grandchildren to have the equal i repeat the equal opportunities that ahead and be successful not because of their skin color but because of their work at the expanded characters just like what martin luther king jr wants us to do there should be only one race in america and that is the human race thank you so much for this opportunity okay you [Music] it's not there we go we have a public comment protocol um and we're gonna hear the public comment protocol it's not fair to make exceptions for anybody um but next board meeting you would have that opportunity or you can send via email thank you the final public commenter will be jordan gates jordan there you go okay uh we may be good i just wanted to um kind of

144reiterate that again the last speaker and i must have been out of the loop for quite some time because i'm kind of shocked by some of this that i'm seeing here today i remember and i'm so you know i'm a conservative i'm a republican and i can remember when barack obama became our president and even though i didn't vote for him i was quite proud that he was our first black american president and i actually thought at that time you know what this racist thing is finally behind us it's near the end not that there's no racism there's racism but it's it's diminished but for some reason i don't know the reason why in the last 12 years or so it's gotten worse and worse and worse and worse and now the issue of race

145and racism is it's almost approaching back backwards in time 50 years to the 60s we saw a couple of people here i don't know mention names i suggest but it said that the crt is not being taught here in the k-12 system also that um it's only studied in law school and i've heard these talking points before but i'm again reiterating in the last speaker i have to say that uh looking at the curriculum i see critical whiteness i see that color blindness individualism and mediocracy are things to be avoided that their children should learn how to not do these and i just saw yesterday um happened you know we had um eventa avenda aveda king who i don't know is martin luther king's daughter or granddaughter but this is what she said she said

146it might surprise you to know i support critical race theory or to be more exact i believe it's critical to understand maybe more so that at any other point in our shared history of the united states that there's only one race the human race there is no white race no black race no red race no brown race no yellow race no mixed race there is only one critical human race that's not a theory that's a fact i'm not trying to gloss over the current controversy about what our nation's children should be taught about race or racism i just want to share from the outset that race is a social construct that i refuse to afford any more power and i to see these concepts taught in the school here frankly is shocking and it's got

147to be stopped and i might have the definition wrong but look it looks to me that critical race theory is being taught in the school system and it needs to be stopped immediately thank you very much thank you for your comment jordan and with that i will adjourn the meeting at 8 46 p.m