Sept 27, 2022 Alpine School Board Meeting, Part 2

001teach this policy I just think it's an indication of the time but that policy exists outside of this policy just saying that it is reflected in this policy I think is I feel like it targeted it targets our staff of course our staff is going to imply as is going to comply with policy not just this policy all policy I think what Julia is saying is if we put it here should we put it on all policies should they all say that so we have a couple like on harassment when we talk about so what happens if somebody does how's that handled because we don't see it here in policy we refer them then to that the Personnel type or that you know like the 7300 we've done that in other policies um which is

002the climate of mistrust it's real and I think our constituents need some reassurance that there is this policy which says that they're possible and the reassurance is that policy exists my concern is that we've already seen staff targeted and I'm not interested in doing anything that further targets our staff yep I'm on board with that I don't know a way to create a general statement in the beginning of policy to say all employees are expected to adhere to the policies is that all employees are as referenced in policy 7300 I just well and I also I mean like once again I'm not I'm not or in 7300 put that uh in addition to this policy the scope or scope of employment includes adherence to all policy all Alpine School District employees violation of those policies

003will be subject to consequences associated in 7 300. wait you want to put that where like at the top of the business of the whole website suggestions you know if 7300 is the code of conduct in include a phrase that says employees are expected to adhere to all policies any violation of what may result in the consequences associated with employee code of conduct so there's a general statement in Code of Conduct that requires you to be in adherence with all policies I can understand the point to say if someone violates that and say well it didn't say I'm just violating code of conduct you can reference 7 300 that says policy is a violation of code of conduct because code of conduct is the expectation that you should adhere that is one suggestion another suggestion

004is it put it somewhere in policy General that you know employees are expected to adhere to all policies but it's probably best in Code of Conduct so Craig welcome to policy we just started a new policy well one thing you need to realize about policy 7300 is the code of conduct is pretty fairly sits varied why is that not solution number one look at page six you guys I'm just showing you another example before we've done it I don't think it's just special to this policy 3.3.2 all instructional material is subject to copyright protection and must comply with policy 61.64 copyright so it's not anything new you're putting that in the procedure versus this is on the very front page of the policy I just I I feel very strongly that and you know it's

005not gonna be the first time I get 100 or something I just worry about our employees I understand that we believe in accountability this feels heavy well and when this policy is already I think got of a lot of anxiety this feels super heavy to have this in the heading section of the policy is a to your point about patrons um I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of teachers and a lot of librarians and assuring them that we absolutely do trust them when I read something like this it says that we don't rain so they have spent a lot of beers they're experts at their craft and they know what they're doing and and this to me does not send the message that we support them and understand what you're saying

006but this is policy I understand feel good stuff oh it's quite the opposite of feel good don't you think it can be it's it can feel punitive but I think so I really like the idea of putting it I think the the general consensus is that the policy needs to be adhered to but all policy needs to be adhered to so perhaps the statement can be in 7300 7 300 perhaps the policy committee could look at moving that to a more centralized place to say code of conduct in the code of conduct the statement that's in 7300 that Rob just showed me is that Alpine District statement on policy is that all employees are expected to follow and adhere to Alpine School District policy I think by sticking that specifically you have to follow this

007one and some policies and not in others I don't think that's the message we want to send I don't think that's right and then I think it strengthens every policy by having that be in code of conduct so then so can we strike this here does that need an official motion what do we need to do to remove it well we're just discussing what I'm asking for later well I think what happens if we're going to adopt the policy we'd say we're adopting the amended policy with the Amendments based on what was submitted in public documentation and then additional amendments would be on top of that to say and this amendment as well uh I stand by what I said I think it needs to be there because of the times in which you live

008where teachers are really there's objects of mistrust and and this is a research to them and to us it's just being transparent ly however I think the assumption is that employees will follow policy I think it's fair to assume that and I think it's fair to put it in 7 300 more explicitly I don't really think we need it in every place in every policy because it's assumed if you're an employee you're going to follow policy I mean I don't mind taking that off and making sure that it's clearly stated in 7300 kind of code of conduct is our general statement about employee conduct then that's I think where a statement about expectations to follow policies should we I mean if there is a question and we can refer them to 7300 and say it

009was clearly stated here and as an employee your your obligation is to follow District policy we'll discuss it during the board meeting other Shaney knew this was coming I have so many I I once again I know this is probably not going to alter but the 3.4.2 which on my page on Friday's definition updated today version is the um that last sentence in 3.4.2.1 um and then well basically the whole 3.4.2 I don't like but um this is the part about being subject to removal by the principle yes I talked about this this morning whether we have an appeals process or whatever it that whole section feels very very heavy-handed um uh for I think a teacher or an employee um and I worry that by not putting something about an appeal process in there

010um it just each of those taglines about the principal can remove stuff from your room um that feels super heavy to me so just as a clarification these are not new additions from I know and I complained about it last time and I'm still complaining about it so you feel like we need an appeal process um but it'd be here or somewhere else in the policy no I think you just add a thing about like a 3.2 Point yeah you add something about you know there is a policy for grievance um for any employee correct Cami through the employee process that they could grieve a policy that they felt like didn't wasn't handled correctly or accurately you can breathe any action and then we would look to policy as it was reviewed and I just

011need to see um if a teacher would like to that uh refer to the agreements process and put a link there the public policy again this is our second referral to 7300 in this calls I don't like this whole section would Julie uh uh would review be a softer term than removal because they're subject to review and now a principles reviewed it and makes a determination I mean it just it softens a little bit but it says the principle review it and then the principal has a stewardship to say I think it is or is not in violation of this one that feels that feels better review feels better than removal because then that is assuming that the principal like that's the one action they're going to take right right that is a possible suggestion

012Amendment this is procedures the policy committee will review that language how about that do we want to add a reference to an appeal to the appeal policy and the grievancing we need to find grievance policy and I would say it's the same thing in 3.4.2.3 yes like may go under maybe yeah no in 3.4.2.3 it says materials did you not convey the district's educational message may be a reviewed okay by the school principal would it be appropriate to say reviewed for removal because that would also purpose right so if we just say with you that there's no teeth to that call too right you would have to say I mean I mean concept you're either going to retain it or you're going to remote it right it's the same concept that we're talking about with

013the rest of policy so I feel like the review is you're going to either retain it or remove it to me you have a May in there which is different and it's already determined that they do not convey the district's educational message so to me that's the first one was the teacher May select but it's subject to review by the principle meaning the teacher is not the ultimate Authority on that this one says it's been determined that it's in violation so it may be removed to me it's a little bit different context am I communicating clearly that teacher selects but the principal has the right to review that in this situation it's been determined as a violation so that therefore it may be removed so 3.4.2.1 is the review 3.4.2.3 or the determination for and

014I think that's consistent with that second sentence may be subject to him I like that better it feels less like we're looking for things that they're doing wrong well that gives the tone of the conversation right other feedback it's obviously garnered a lot of attention even in the last couple of weeks I've had multiple calls from appearance they have reviewed our most recent uh version of this policy um a recent version felt like it hit the policy that it lifted the law it didn't direct to what we need to deal with we talked about the review of the whole it's met the needs for parents to have more than a single process at a time which we're trying to deal with the district level so we hope that by taking all these different things and

015implementing our district review that this policy will not have to be used a ton once the district finishes its initial review that this will be a case by case a little bit here a little bit there at schools as it comes up but we're not going to have to get on this policy over over and over again because of the actions yeah so you're referring to the one we have right here that has section seven deleted and so on I would also suggest that there are there is going to be a legislative interim committee the fact that these policies are due by October 1st there will probably be an audit Statewide of policy legislators will probably look at that and see where are we at with policy how is the districts enacted HB 374 and

016what legislative adjustments need to be made based upon their District's interpretation the 41 District's interpretation of that policy so again I think I appreciate Craig and his work with the usbe with the attorney generals to say are we hitting the mark of where this needs to be in alignment with State Statute but note also that state statute may change as they look at what districts have done and how they've operationalized that law any corrections that you would make today no no I think that's well stated I did visit with representative Ivory who's the sponsor of the bill and and we have an unemployment is trying to confirm the date and time so he is very interested in what you have done and again as Craig mentioned some initial comments back from state board Representatives with

017the AG's office have been fairly positive so and he asked for a copy of the policy he asked for copy which I provided to the State Workforce and the perfect have it provided to represent who we're going to reveal it together good question so if we send our procedure suggestions changes we'd like to see to policy what's a timeline that we can look for like my concern is we pass this and then it goes to schools and I don't love everything in it so can we expect that it will be taken care of in the next policy meeting or what's about to process there I guarantee that well that is our intent yeah we are meeting next Tuesday and this will be discussed I think that you can't um you know one board remember to

018make any suggestions some feedback yeah yeah I think that's a great suggestion I know but feedback on your feedback return and report all right so the comments that have been made have been documented here on this particular copy and that's what Craig can use in the dialogue on Tuesday but I think what Stacy's saying is she would like some you know we approved this when we didn't approve that one and so forth and we can make sure that's in the minutes maybe if we could even do a thing where like Rhonda did with the board handbook where we can all just kind of comment that might be easier um because we can also then see each other's comments I would love that and then um they and then they can say they're resolved this like

019this part was adopted this part was rejected and here's why so maybe if we could do that where we can all have commenting we just need to make sure that that's not a violation of money getting on and making action I have some concerns okay yeah I think it's a really good idea to facilitate what I have some concerns about that work being done because correct if there's a core involved making coma right and and perhaps it's reasonable to say um timeline the policy committee will continue to work on that at the same time we have 23 review committees going on that hopefully will finish their work in the middle of October there could be some process and procedure revisions based upon feedback from those committees that we commit to addressing this again in October

020once the Committees have completed their work you've given feedback the policy committee has time to work and say those rules and regs will be reviewed once the Committees have completed their work and the policy committee has had time to look at that November October I think we can bring it back the second meeting in October so I I assume most of the committee work will be done by the second board meeting in October so we could bring it back okay through the 25th is that a reasonable timeline for board members yeah and policy committee case it almost feels like we need to be twice next month additional comments that we want to make on this before we transition to other items and study sessions Julie has a lot of concerns is there any other big

021one that you want to bring up at this point no I mean I talked to you Andy Sarah today I can just make sure I communicate with Ada so that she's aware okay I think that's a great process I do think we need to work on what Stacy's talking about somehow close and maybe some iterations will be available for that earlier toward me enough okay thank you for your diligence thank you for your feedback thank you for your continued work on this and both on the staff's part and on the board's part okay we wanted to give an update uh have David and Kimberly update us on the status of bond presentations and kind of where we're at that appreciate all the staff who have adjusted their schedules to put in about 110 meetings over

022a yeah three weeks there's that 93 schools and then how many SEC 10 got 11. so we completed 45 school faculties so we're almost halfway there that's good but we've layered on that this the new second layer this week that um also adds now our PTA SCC type meetings and we've done two of those so far Sky Ridge and then aurum um cluster today so the two clusters but what's been neat about them David comment on that and then other staff members that have done those facilitate those can share as well I was just going to recommend I think it'd be good if everybody does share some of the feedback that's coming initially and ways that we could improve our communication but um of these 11 parent meetings that we've had we've had many people

023that are attending them that aren't just specific to the cluster last night with the Skyridge cluster we had West Lake representatives there we have Lehigh representatives there Pleasant Grove so it was good to see that people are taking advantage of having 11 different dates and being able to sign up for them the feedback that we received today was really helpful in that they would like us to publish that five to ten years so we added the five to ten year plan to the slide deck for parents you guys remember that it's that yellow and gray one and today they said okay we like that and I handed it to the parent who wanted it because I did have one copy there but they said can that just be added to the website so we will

024share that onto the website as well the other question that's come is you know when we open um the idea of different funding sources that we can use in order to address our five to ten year Capital plan it was to create what is the big picture these are the big picture greatest needs of Alpine doesn't mean it's ever need but it's our greatest needs and in order to accomplish those things in a timely manner we would have to put together and Rob introduced a finance plan which included a bond or possibly two and that allows us to have that flexibility of capital dollars so we're trying to explain and build understanding with the public of how to do that so in those explanations we have heard can we have a list of all of

025the capital projects that that has come up um so we'll we'll work on adding additional information to that information page on the website so that people feel like they have information that they want to know more about you're talking about past past Capital yeah that came up today yeah and I I try to talk to that parent a little bit because when you list things that have been done people start comparing and that could that can get dicey but it is transparent and I think people appreciate information it's good because we have spent a significant amount on Capital needs we've just never ruled a spreadsheet that would share all of that information which we can but what other comments did have you guys seen on our district leadership team what comments have come through and

026I think just a clarification I think the list is helpful but I think the general philosophy that we subscribe to then is it providing for the education of our young people is a general obligation it is not a specific I as outlined in State Statute in the Utah Constitution that we provide for the general education of children in our area and it may not be a project that specifically benefits us but the philosophy and the idea behind this is all of us contribute to the education of young people and it may be building a school out in Eagle Mountain that's not in my neighborhood or it may be reconstructing a school in Orem that is not in my neighborhood but it's as we're organized as a district we have that General obligation to provide for

027the education of all children and I think that to me is is a guiding philosophy that we ought to articulate and promote because sometimes when we see those list we'll see what's in it for me yes and I think that philosophy sometimes is contrary to this idea of the need for an educated populace that is dependent upon all citizens to provide for that regardless of how it specifically benefits your child or your neighborhood so that rather than using a list to compare and show the balance that general idea of providing for the common welfare or providing for the common education of all students through public education to me is a guiding principle and that's why we're going out for a bond and that's what is allowed for established in law as the means to provide

028for the education of our young people through property taxes Julia grandkids all over the district and I live in one particular city of Alpine School District but my grandkids are attending at another Elementary and so that's so in as he was talking about it that's where his thinking was is it didn't matter just specifically where he was living but it was important that his grandkids we're seeing some of those their needs met as well and those same sentiments were shared in the Y2 study is it possible that I know we're like halfway through this but yesterday I found myself thinking because like people were talking to me I didn't get to all the people I wanted to and I don't know who some of those people were but there were some concerns that I thought

029oh we're absolutely working on that and talking about that but now I have no way to get to that human because I don't know who they are so is there a way to get contact info from people who come so we can Circle back with them yeah because we've only done two so far that's too bad we had a good group without um Junior as well and I'm not sure that and it wasn't the place to touch on it but the person had the concern about the middle schools you know there were a lot of things that I didn't quite get over all the way to her but I just thought there were probably some other information that we could Circle back with that would be helpful for people to understand okay so taking the

030attendance just maybe have an attendance some some people just like a name and an email is great but we could invite them to contact either their board member or we have numbers for more information but we do that all the time you know what I mean I think all of our information is publicized in a number of places um but I think they want to get a hold of us they can how about I send it this way we set it up this way as we meet with the parent means we say our board cares about your feedback one of the suggestions the other night in study session was to create a list of names numbers and contact information if you feel comfortable would you mind sharing it so that if they are here and

031there's a question they'd like to follow up with you on they can reach out to you and leave it up to the participant to sign in or let's not take away from David's feedback button oh no no no that special button should have all the recognition and honor and Glory however I really would just love to Circle back with some of those friends to contact you to follow up usba a few years ago we came up with the motto every kid in Utah is my kid and the idea was I someone in Kanab may end up being your doctor you know what I mean so we want we want to educate kids across the district because they will that will that will all contribute to the greater good and we can't just be focused on

032our own neighborhood what was your saying again well theirs was every kid is my kid Stacy has one on her computer same idea it says all kids are our kids yeah our kids sorry my kids are better than your kids but I think you need to get those glasses fixed okay okay so we got sidetracked others were going to share so I apologize I think I I took that down to excuse me I'll just say the parents were the Earth teachers that I talked with were appreciative of the information I think it was very very helpful to walk through the diagram and not just show them the diagram I absolutely asked questions it's mostly that word again appreciative and supportive of the information it was also helpful to clarify to them why we were there

033but this is not us trying to tell you what to do or how to do it but we want to have informed approach I have certainly appreciated um the opportunity to engage with faculties that otherwise I would not have and engage with them in dialogue and I have to say the Highlight for me so far has been Mountain Trails when we show the possibility of a new Elementary it was amazing even though we didn't disclose a lot of information just um looking ahead about the they help we're going to be providing with their enrollment was huge anyways it's been great um I just want to chime in the presentations I went to one was a long time going through every single project on the 2016 fund and I think people were nodding off a little

034bit by the time they got done the ones that went through more quickly and just gave an idea that there's some stuff going on throughout the district that was better in my opinion I appreciated taking the comments and questions as they came because I think sometimes when we say hold your comments to the end even if I try to write words down I forget so I was very appreciative that we were able to kind of stop and address those as we went I thought that was really effective a couple other comments uh before I make my comments Matt and Brandon are here they're part of our financial team you see them occasionally I'm so grateful for them I'm constantly bouncing things back off of them hey would you read this did I really messed this

035up um I I really truly appreciate your professionalism their expertise and they they are an important part of our team Preston Kirk also can't be with us and I just wanted to publicly acknowledge Him He has been an important part of who we are and what we've done as a finance team a couple of thoughts um I agree with uh what's been said um questions that I've received what about Orem I'm an employee in Orem what happens if the bond passes what's going to happen to me um at pretty much every presentation regardless of City board member Wilson and I were at Parkside that one was probably the longest Kimberly was there with me as well probably the longest of my presentations because there were many questions and some comments from from some parents that

036were there but those are the themes that I hear about they see growth they see the need to rebuild existing facilities um but there is a feeling of how does this impact me personally how is my neighborhood benefiting hey have you thought about this impact in my community or have you accurately considered that issue so those are some of the things that I've heard um and fielded questions two other things that I would mention is one we did hear back from the taxpayers association um and they have taken a position of neutrality um and made several in their their statements on their web page I visited with Mr cannon on multiple occasions um his team and just wanted to share that there were some positive comments in their statement they also addressed concerns about Orem

037also in their statement and so again I just would recommend that's out there publicly and he said Rob feel free to share this yeah that's on their website yeah and then second uh David is not here but my second comment says David and I met with the Daily Herald uh folks today their editorial boards took a position of support in 2016. so we answered many questions from them today and we look forward to any additional questions they have information we can provide um to those that are engaged in communicating with the public so those would be my comments and thoughts Kimberly and David are masterful our team that puts together infographics takes complex and makes simple it's easy to talk to um and I think overall it's informing people we want to be accountable this

038is why a bond is important because it's the voters participate and it's the lowest way to finance the improvements that we need so those kind of things just are the things that I've heard I've heard other things too but those of you might comments on can I share at least at one of our schools I think Craig was there there was a lot of talk about the impact fees and how people really see the wisdom in Impact fees and we just need to either keep hammering that nail but um people understand that it puts the cost where they are incurred and that makes sense to people and especially with a big bomb like this people are telling us we told us in 16 and I've had it in four of my presentations so far impact

039fees I mean what I just say in fact that continues to be I just I mean the reality is we continue to communicate that to our legislators is just it's a hard one to address but you're right it's a consistent narrative foreign just keep the board up to date on things that you're seeing as patterns in meetings or any ahas or things that we're going to improve on from the presentations um gosh as you know it's been interesting to be at a couple of the SEC PTA meetings and we open that up for them to attend whichever meeting was most convenient for them and it's just been interesting to see the dialogue between PTA and FCC members because they come from different areas of the district and they help each other you know understand the

040needs that they have in their area rather than you know a concentration of just one area so I think that's been impactful and you know you can look at things a little more globally I think when you're dealing with people who have the same role as you as an SEC member and just in a different part of the history Just for information on the board the agenda of the ORMC Council this evening here Boardman they will be discussing the bond I appreciate Jeff Lampson for reaching out to me and asking for information but I've emailed all of them some basic information about the bond nyi I have a question go ahead well just unfortunately the item on their agenda is opposition is that the item yes at one point we talked about there being a

041community night for patrons who weren't part of our schools does that still happening yeah we were planning on getting three of those scheduled but obviously we need to schedule some other meetings we've gone to the kiwanas and senior citizens incentives so we'll get that schedule out okay awesome any additional comments from staff thank you any different questions on this matter from the board members okay President Clinton it's back to you for board governments okay uh oh that's too funny so I uh maybe just could go on this side I appreciate you uh taking some time to read this material I thought it was um uh very evident space approach to what can school boards do to become effective and I have all these really pretty slides here so I just try one more time to

042make this work and then I'm going to get somebody else and help me see you know how to do this do you see anything I should type in there yeah oh do I have to be on the other Wi-Fi instead yes so anyway um I'll just keep talking and if it made it miraculously appears we will feel really excited uh um foreign I decided I flipped through some of these and then we can talk about these are kind of my insights that I've spotted as I was looking through them again uh here's their their four items they thought were most important so they basically did a whole big study on effective boards and not very effective boards and then they said well what are the differences that we can tease out in the effective boards

043and the ineffective boards and then they they did a step further they went to the ineffective boards and they said try these things from the effective boards and then they saw that it actually improved the ineffective boards so it's pretty uh data driven but here's the kind of uh the things they said were most important in impacting student achievements again the intern the the focus on internal governance and policy formation communication with teachers and administrators and engaging with the public so those were kind of the things that uh that they felt were good with boards um uh here's some more things uh Boards of high achieving districts are more than likely more likely to engage in goal setting monitoring their progress realizing this did not work out very well did not get all my highlights

044in the version I downloaded and uh they're more data Savvy I look at us I mean I think you've got more data coming this month about you know how things are going as I look at myself I wonder you know am I I think I could be a little more day to say than Savvy on figuring out you know but what would actually improve student outcomes uh having detailed knowledge of the district I think that's important I think we kind of have our own areas of expertise but having some detailed knowledge across the district is good and that having crafted a working relationship with mutual respect we feel the in a joint commitment to Student Success so anyway there's kind of their their sat they did a meta-analysis of Education research so basically they looked

045all these papers that have analyzed boards and tried to draw conclusions from all those they also did case studies on the high achieving districts and they tried to compare School Board practices with similar demographics but substantially different outcomes so basically the same level of poverty the same level of foreign what did they do that was different in those areas so here's my trying my attempt at pulling out some of these uh some of their findings a characteristic of quality governance is the ability to focus on student achievement while spending comparatively little time on day-to-day operational issues that was interesting that they would pull out they hold the superintendent and colleagues accountable for progress but did not engage in Daily administration of schools I really like this quote I'm not a professional educator the superintendent and

046their staff for professionals and we say these are the results we want you're in charge of how to do it so I like that perspective danger signs they came about so these were things that they saw in the ineffective school boards that were correlated with being ineffective they're only vaguely aware of school Improvement initiatives uh blamed external pressures is the main reason for lack of Student Success and you know I think uh who is it people in the state often say I can tell you student achievement by ZIP code you give me the ZIP code I'll tell you what the student achievement is because so they're blaming it on the demographics as opposed to taking ownership of banking alert School of members often offer negative comments about students and teachers that's a dangerous sign a

047micromanage day-to-day operations disregard the agenda process and the change of command they have little professional development together as a board but that was an interesting thing board members frequently discussed their decisions for anecdotes and personal experiences rather than by citing data I think my problem I think I need to become more aware I need to use the data of what I'm trying to to make a point More We Get It presented to us but sometimes I as I'm trying to present my point of view I don't refer back to that data so that might be something I could do better they went through and I've talked about we want to improve board members these are improvements that low-performing boards use to become better performing they view data as a diagnostic tool without the emotional response

048of assessing blame that was another thing I think that they saw in the low performing course they wanted to blame somebody for things who's dated to blame instead of using to improve and board members describe the belief in the importance of Staff Development activities focused on student needs I think there's been times that I've been a little bit critical maybe of the way professional developments handled and I think that we need to realize professional development's really important let's just get it right yeah so that's a that's something that I can work on they also mentioned that I mean this is not something you we can do anything about because we get reelected every so often but that longevity and staying with a set of objectives and a plan for many years was really important as

049opposed to changing often changing superintendent I think solid I mean I speak evil of other districts but I think Salt Lake City district is going to have their fourth superintendent in four years and that's probably not a good thing or if you want to have kayaking um uh anyway this is some more of the uh last slide uh school boards at high achieving districts again hold a shared Vision they focus their time and energy on governance level actions to engage in goal setting processes the drive action I see us doing a lot of these they align resources around those goals either data Savvy they work together as a team and commit to their own learning anyone else have something they want to pull out of this one thing that stood out for me is on

050page nine kind of the third paragraph there uh second sentence there says an individual board members member interests and expectations distract from board adoptive achievement and instructional goals they are not contributing to District success but in fact maybe working in opposition to that end and you know for me that was kind of a self-check to see you know am I am I going with are we are we in powerful current that's going together um and I think it's difficult because we all have our you know our loves or our passions but um the one thing that also stood up and this is the what is best for students and that that really is kind of the moral comparative that we always have to go back to because it's so easy to get caught up here

051but if we're all thinking I think it helps us come back and Center ourselves of our objective other comments Mark I had two things yes um two takeaways I thought some things that I could do better uh were things that I learned or reflected on um adding a responsibility or impact statement for each level of the organization similar to fiscal notes when we have a particular action that we want to seek here is what the district team does here is what a school leadership team does here's what a teacher team does so you can see the different impacts and how it relates to that particular goal or objective that was something that I was I don't know legislative things have been on my mind maybe a little bit um kind of like a fiscal note

052where it says the State Education Agency here's the impact to the state here is the impact to leas here's the impact of schools but breaking it down to the levels so you can see yourself at that level do I need to worry about this or do I need to do something with it to me I think that brings Clarity at all levels to different goals or actions the board's taking so maybe on strategic plan we'd be a little more specific just different differentiation by level the school leadership team the teacher leadership or in the classroom we see so that was one thing that I I thought a little bit about and I'm just reflecting how on the business team can we incorporate something like that the second just on data when it said data savvy

053I get asked for data a lot um surprised but I wonder if maybe in a PD we could talk about how what are some tools or ideas to organize data effectively so when we have a discussion about we can recall that information quickly efficiently and therefore we're armed with the right information to have a conversation from different perspectives but somehow to organize that data and file it in such a way that we can have quick access and really have the data come alive and it's useful to us dashboards do some of that and I think we're headed in that direction in some ways but some way to organize file and access data more effectively and efficiently those are the two things that jumped up so I like the part that talked about board members taking

054part in professional development and training with the superintendent to build kind of a shared knowledge and I think some of the the best things for me like at the literacy conference you know as we kind of learn more about these things and then it makes us better informed when we're setting policy or we're setting a schedule and I just like the idea of a shared knowledge because I think we all have kind of different talents and skill sets and you know the way we engage in our communities our schools is different so I just really liked in my head this image of everybody kind of working together to share that information even stronger than a shared knowledge is a shared belief you know that we believe certain things together brings power to decide on those

055two or three things we believe together that was a great article Mark and well organized and I like to balance back and forth between ineffective and effective abilities can learn so thank you yeah well thank you everybody we'll now adjourn and meet back at six o'clock for the um public hearing and then 6 30 for the board meeting if you've all signed up on the sign up sheet you before you address support that we would ask each person take three minutes or less and if you sense that your Viewpoint has been expressed previously we actually if five people say the same thing it really doesn't give us any new information just just I know some people think well well majority of people really looking for you're welcome to spend less time so let's go ahead

056and get started we'll declare the public hearing open we're going to start with John Barrick Karen Turner and shalani Strawberry Wine address is 365 West 17th if you'd like to speak for a moment about the bond prices they point last week they are looking at two more interest rate right now at the end of the year and what I would servative interest is no longer a conservative in addition I don't agree with the eight percent increase in the estimated property values for the school district next year even though this year was 38 percent I'd also like to talk about other Financial issues related to the bond and to the Orem District um there's a lot of misinformation being provided there's an estimate that was provided by Alpine School District that Forum schools would lose 29

057million dollars that was determined to be false because they used 2017 wpu numbers and you reduced that loss to 2120 number is also false the updated file was actually dated three months prior to the original file correct numbers which means someone knew that but you denied that in a grammar request to one city on April 20th in addition your Forum your Alpine School District estimates do not ingredient financial statements that is a problem your revenues were off by nine million dollars your expense is off by 12 million dollar how can we have faith in investment tied your audited general fund studies in addition um your property taxes are off your federal revenues are off from your audited financial statements I have no confidence in these numbers I'd like to give you the professional benefit of

058that in addition your arm only calculation includes Polaris which is no longer more of them and was never an Orem only School Summit online two and a half million has been Consolidated and sold Hillcrest revenues weren't included there's so many so many discrepancies that it's unbelievable and it's impossible to reconcile but stronger together are you registered utop kick one of your school board members is their Treasurer is now claiming that pass alarm will go up 56 percent fantasy Borum has given 174 million dollars [Music] on your last few bonds and it won't be doing it again this year gyms in the city the size of aurum that's 20 million dollars maybe 15 million dollars 360 million residential that I don't think I don't think your job Karen Turner or Utah my address is 369 North

059700 East the people of Alpine School District cannot afford the burden of a more than a half a billion dollar bond in case you haven't noticed we are already struggling with increased prices of food housing incidentals and custody we can barely handle the expenses we have already I'm holding an article from the Deseret News entitled The Dark Side of Utah's surging home values and unprecedented tax burden you can access the desert news you were not you are now planning to add an unprecedented tax burden onto a simply because of the Relentless and shocking home price increases Utah County Assessors are required by Utah County Commission to assess the home values based on Market values they are very aware of the sticker shot hitting Utah County homeowners when they open their property tax notices because of

060your value going up mine went up 18 and your piece of the property taxpay is getting bigger while bankrupting bankrupting taxpayers everyone is clamoring for more of our money are you aware that there's a proposed 24 property tax increase from the Central Utah Water Conservancy District this is not the time for another Bond you are not thinking of how you will impact families on tight budgets especially retirees on fixed incomes who bought their homes decades ago and likely never imagined that their home values or property taxes would Skyrocket in such a short time period what's going do you do you care that this is going to hurt everybody and what's going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back spawned yeah I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you this evening my name is

061Dan celadi I live at 441 East my career was as a professional structure worked out for 48 years so I'm concerned about the seismic issues that we have you commissioned study study showed that there were 25 schools that had serious expectations according to the study that's a three to 3.5 probability of a 6.75 this 43 percent but in the past 16 years studies says school buildings one of the most utilized spaces in our cities children should be further on it says those with the ability to cause change can say to Future Generations notice how you have to spend money on this looks like it's in phase four where you're considering to do anything about science that will be in the year 2026 so we will have in 20 years I'm not ready to tell you

062show equity thank you guys next we'll have Helena Franklin Karen Adamson they might Preston 103 West 2170 South in Orem in Obama viability study that you did this year 54 of the respondents said that you are not fiscally responded responsible with your taxpayer dollars let's give a little taste to that under UCA 53g-4-603 the lightning School District bond reports should reconcile with the school Grant reports that are held with a state auditor yours do not reconcile let's compare the two 2016 bonds report which you report to us and the 21 School plan Capital outlay report which was sent to the state auditor these numbers are still coming more close to corresponding let me give you an example application of 44 million dollars report um you will report a cost of 58.5 million dollars in material

063amount [Music] reported a cost of 21.5 hours here [Music] foreign [Music] know foreign can't afford what's happening and now you guys are saying let's put in nearly 600 million dollars that doesn't make any sense what are we supposed to do we can't even vote against the bond when numerous homes will all be voting to burden other cities so they get their seat in our schools and our also are you aware that the shift in the tax burden has gone from the commercials and other property owners to residential owners values values or a commercial properties still increase in value but significantly less than half of the rate of Residential Properties what's called a natural ship in tax the County Assessors are suggesting that the Citizens need to appeal to everyone to assist with this drastic situation

064they've suggested an appeal and are encouraging taxpayers to protect truth and intention hearings I think you know they suggest that our lawmakers need to help us with this for Constitutional Amendment which would so now I stand before you saying that this is not the time to place us under an increased step For Heaven's Sake have conception on the citizens of this County who have brought us to this prepared us this far who can't afford we'll have Michael Preston Jen young and Mike Carpenter my name is Mike Preston West 2170. on the ballot this November Asda are going to state that the bond will have no tax rate they have stated that the average home will see 250 intelligence I have here a article from performance report that says this quote yes bonds affect your taxes

065property taxes are increased to pay the bond principle and increase obligation bonds raise property taxes with the bonds are paid off property tax property tax receive a tax decrease the school districts like like to sell no tax foreign like many terms and politics putting no tax increase it blocks the opposition but let's be clear there is no special that doesn't increase your taxes Wilding hi I'm Jenny Young and I live in 488 North 600 East in Orem Utah I am a professional educator I work for a charter school lawyer I teach second um during the summer too much so these these kids are near and dear to me my biggest concern is too but when the scores are so low and and in general about every four years we already two documents that you've Consolidated

066and my question would be why is it not at least fixing the seismic problems in the schools that we have in Orem City instead of fixing the problems that Warren was having I've been talking to a lot of people in Orem lately people who are confused by the numbers that you've been putting out and I would just like some transparency um I just um just want you to really think about is Alpine School District is it is a business a bank it's a mortgage company where are you in the business of really taking care of children that's one thing that I tell my children every year throughout the year my number one job is their my number two job is to teach them I would expect the same from Alpine School District teachers and there

067so if you guys want to be transparent Children First thank you Jim my Carpenter 350 West capacity I'd like to know how much School we'd like to know but unfortunately the following schools had discrepancies between cost of budget 26 Lehigh High School Harbor Point Elementary and haven't taken out enough for what you want to do fiscal responsibility you guys just can't spend only building correctness Club Danny Wilding and then Karen my name is has 400 standing debt service including entries these are your numbers these are the last two bonds that have not yet been paid off I don't even know what to say about that except you look at my face fathom than that the way that you get things done is to continue to borrow you know that there's going to be customers but

068we have the tax rate the interest rate increasing construction costs which is what my husband is Heist it's been a school district 10. just doesn't make sense what happened to that old idea that you will pay off your pets thank you Elaine sharing that just full time um once I'm going to read numbers the numbers that Rob puts out Rob Smith comes out and his team have always been pretty much on the dot and I have all the Alpine School District has always paid off their past bonds early and lower interest rates because of their AAA Kansas and fixed income comply for a discount for state legislation and most are approved for lower tax rates in previous years when interest rates were higher and the one thing I appreciate is that our district is looking

069towards the future of all these people who are moving to Utah and moving to the Alpine School District area and we're going to have to find a way to educate all these kids I'm continuously Amazed by how much the district is able to do and you can find the low taxes that we pay as soon as wpu for the past 23 years I have been personally involved in schools in The District in state LED for education it's not just a one-off thing that I do because I got a bug in my ear I'm actually doing the work right along with our district person I have no children left and school districts I have no grandchildren personally and a school districts I am for the home thank you Kara and Jess Colton is our last public

070comment just here okay I don't see is there anybody else during your public hearing go ahead would you mind stay in your name where it goes last Clawson thank you Natalie I just got back from close to my football game and I had my little boys in the car and I said I'm going to meaning it might be boring they're talking about a bond and attacks and I said they want to buy a million more dollars do I lived in Provo so I didn't I didn't prepare all this but I did I lived in Provo when they were bonding for the school district for the school district that didn't pass and I met with a bunch of people and wanted to know because I hadn't lived from Provo long I wanted to know their perspective

071of what they thought about it and it was people who really cared about education and were concerned about it but they said this bond is too big it's too big and they had it limited down that they were going to rebuild High School Dixon Middle School and that was already specified and they knew that that was a project but it was too big and it wasn't specific enough for the people and so they decided we don't want to we don't want to approve this wand unless we can have details of what significance can do so looking at this Bond I have the same concerns I feel like it's it's too big it's gigantic you feel like you're putting pork in some cities to try to make them happy to try to piece them and it's

072just it's just too much and I think it's better for the district to get a coach doing smaller bonds with specific items instead of this gigantic one with all these things that are just very it's just it's just too much to have the citizens be required to pay this without nobody specifics and um I'm concerned just with our time our timing the inflation that's really going crazy and it's going to continue to go keep skyrockety I just don't feel like this is the time that Citizens need to be wanted literally go ahead hi my name is I including the board we're only tremendously and we've got to have room for these kids to go school I have Eagle Mountain and they're the largest high schools and they're growing and we need more room and that's

073one of the things that this bottle will help with is one of the things that this bond is specifically have and I machine but I appreciate that this has been thought about while everything is given themselves the the mobility and the room to grow our district that I think the very responsible billion dollar s so we appreciate everyone who's provided public comments for this public hearing by now are going to move into our board meeting Ada Wilson will be conducting that uh going down some recognitions officially open our regular board meeting and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance by Rob Smith foreign inspirational thought by Cami Larson I just wanted to share one of my favorite quotes about education education is the movement from Darkness to light and that's from Alan Bloom and I

074just want to thank all of our teachers and support staff and recognize them for all that they do to help move our kids from Darkness to light thank you Cammy as the Board of Education it is important to us to recognize various accomplishments made by students employees and patrons from throughout Alpine School District as we honor the individuals and groups this evening we acknowledge that families and others that have helped them achieve their goals thank you for the support you have offered to those that we recognize at this time attendance here tonight and it would it wouldn't be inappropriate oh well yeah yeah get to that point we come there first we're going to have the Parkside you make a difference recognitions five yes do you make a difference Foundation or a word is sponsored

075by the Alabama school district foundation and we have a new sponsor this year which is medical Mountain Point Medical Center and we appreciate their contribution and welcome them into our ASD family we have some wonderful wonderful teachers volunteers to support staff from Parkside Elementary that we're going to as well as the students that are here so first teachers when I call your name we'd like you to come up and I will read the tribute to you and when we get both teachers up here that we'd like you to we'll take some pictures we'd like to shake hands and also um as we get to the end of each category we like those who have come in support of these individuals to also stand up because we know that it's hard to be successful on your

076family at the neighborhood it takes a city to help success so first of all Stacy hawks come on up she is a first grade teacher and I have a lot of that stand right in the middle where everyone can see you I have a lot of respect for first grade teachers Carmen thank you for coming up all right here this is Carmen from the mountain Point Medical Center group and she is sponsored Stacey has spent her entire 25-year career serving at Parkside which used to be Geneva community and the Geneva Community her leadership an example not only helped other teachers but provide a safe and vibrant learning community in the last few days each day um if you need Stacy you know she just knocks out of the block there she is Angie Cowan is

077a wonderful third grade teacher who has served the Parkside Suncrest Community for the last 22 years we've got two real veterans here her dedication flexibility and infectious laugh allow her to make a difference every day in the lives of students and fellow teachers like thank you Angie now I think it's time for pictures oh okay all right okay we're now going to move on to the volunteers from Parkside Elementary first well let's have them both come up PJ eager and Michelle Gardner would you come up please TJ eager has served as a school Community Council chair for several years and also serves on the district Community Council she is a huge advocate for Parkside and for all public schools thank you Mrs Michelle Garner is our current PTA president who has also served as PTA

078president for several years previously as well as doing pretty much every other job in PTA she willingly gives her time and efforts to help both students and teachers and better place thank you now let's get two of our outstanding support staff Emily Nelson and Sandra Farnsworth if you'll come up here let me tell you about them anyway Emily Nelson is a first grade aide who has worked at the school for 30 years her love and patience with students is evident as she works each day with individuals or small groups that helps them to be successful Sandra Farnsworth is a special ed Perry educator who is absolutely amazing with kids she is incredibly Innovative and is constantly emotionally pushing and stretching students to reach their ideal goals and Beyond she celebrates students when they succeed and

079helps them realize they are so capable we have family members here who are supporting them would you please stand as well thank you guys okay but this time we'd like to give Carmen uh Zapata a few moments to talk to the board my name is Carmen Zapata and I've actually been in the Alpine School District I was 10 years old when my parents came to Utah um this week has been a little bit difficult for me yes we actually lost one of our teachers and pillars of the community um begins and I know that many of our teachers and volunteers to overcome any things and they find fulfillment in making a difference if everybody that they get semantic Point Medical Center at the community hospital appreciates all of your efforts and your families and the

080sacrifices that you make each and every day thank you Carmen we appreciate so much your involvement and your participation your willingness to supporting children at this time we'd like to turn the time over to principal John Shelton to present student award right it is an honor for me to be here tonight representing Parkside and unity and students and staff that we have at Parkside our students that are are being recognized tonight are just a sampling of the excellent students when we were deciding who to recognize tonight these are those that stood out and the teacher rate examples of these some from pretty much every grade level we have Amelia Sarver I'm not sure Camellia is one of our wonderful first grade students and Amelia's smile just brightens up every day when you see you see

081amazing reader and it's actually the very first one this year to pass out her book and read it to the principal we have all our first graders pass off their book to the principle Amelia Brian there's Brian come on up Brian this is Brian Toby England Brian is a second grade student Brian has been struggling with leukemia the last couple of you've been able to come to come to Austin so so excited that he's that he comes to school every day now with a huge desire to learn and do his best and he's just a great example of [Music] the other next we have Noemi Flores I mean it's like third grade let me stands out and from her teacher because she is extremely kind and courteous to all of her classmates teachers and other

082adults she's a great example of what it needs to be a Parkside Panther we are so happy that she's part of it Jacob Howard I thought Jacob there's Jacob Jacob is one of our amazing fourth grade students he always always tries his best desire and determination to do what is right and be respectful helps make Parkside a better place every single day and I just love seeing him in the hallways talking with Jake every day he just makes my day better so thank you Jacob we have to say Perez say right on the front row again but say again is another one of our English language Learners at Parkside and he makes a difference every single day just look at his smile you can you can't add mood looking at Jose he works hard makes

083a difference every day by working hard sharing his infectious personality that's how it is he is the embodiment of all the district sixes and parkside's house values and we have two sixth grade students to recognize Lupita Rojas here Lupita's teacher writes that she is a phenomenal student she comes prepare to work hard in school every day and it shows she scored a four in both the rise or language arts and math test last year in fifth grade and as an example to her peers with her awesome Behavior and then finally we have Liam O'Neill right there on the front there's Liam Liam's teacher writes that he is one of the hardest working students that she knows he will do anything he can to help his teacher and classmates he is always willing to participate in

084class has great ideas to share beginning of this year he was voted in by his peers to be in student council and then appointed to be the student council president for Parkside amazing job already taking on that on that fight Elementary principal Shelton can I ask you to take just a moment and now we're going to have a principal's report from Principal John shift it's situated here all right they told me I could just take a few minutes to tell you about the wonderful things that are happening at Parkside and again I am so honored to be a part part of Parkside as you know Parkside is in its second year we came together last year combining two it's got to be more proud of the work that is going on each communities staff faculty

085the parents and together to create and great things are happening because and everybody is working so far so let me just share a few things again like I said we are focused on our students we have a great start to the year um just a few pictures of our first day of school um kindergarten I'm going to hurry through this and a little bit about Parkside our current enrollment as of today and it pretty much changes daily so I updated this today and if you have 618 students at Parkside School through through sixth grade that shows you basically the numbers there in each grade level I tell you that at those 6 little 60 highest amount in outside school district um it creates a lot of great challenges and a lot of Japanese too a

086grade level our average size at Parkside that seems to be a common question look there at the slide see the average in each grade level and as a whole School at Parkside Elementary our class averages right at 23. just to let you know kind of what we're working on at Parkside last year our goal here at Parkside was the percentage of K through three students reading a benchmark proficiency would increase by 10 results in her first year is that we increased and in fact if we look at the growth of our first year you can see that our kindergarten students at our first grade clap you can play the rest of our grade levels also are doing excellent work our first grade in the top five in the district second grade talking lab third race

087top seven fourth grade top four fifth grade top four in our sixth grade for growth in Reading another thing to look at is in the scene and I know that's hard to see I just pulled this off of the data Gateway the report that the pairs schools with the most liked schools in the higher state our goal is to always be in the end and I was very impressed with us we look at this report showing that Parkside only has a few schools in the top five in every subject proficient schools that are similar size demographics all of that across the state of Utah in our first year we were in the top five our goal is this year is to continue to increase our rate of efficiency by eight percent focused on our ell

088students like Cynthia about 50 of those and it's focusing in other speaking uh I sit there and then also we have a connection pool and we hope to be able to have our students connect more to the school and decrease the like pretty much every school across the board the last few years that 32 of our students actually have over 10 absences last year so our goal is to decrease that is helping them connect we have a unique character education program at Parkside that we started some of you have heard of the house system all of our first through sixth grade students are sorted into one of five houses that are based the character traits that we want to instill in respect self-mastery resilience ambition and compassion houses or comment of all grade level to

089love that because they cross the bridge the points for various reasons all sorts of things the leading houses announced each Monday we have flags and Banners that advertise that and in the house cup big important piece of sorting day our first graders were all sorted there I didn't see the excitement on their face as they pulled out which house they're going to be in for the rest of their time at we have house meetings throughout throughout the year fun way for them to connect and look forward to it they have fun they friends and others Parkside support Beverly Taylor starts at Art School we have an after school clubs program written by the boys girls club a lot of students stay until 5 30 haven't every single one of our students is able to get

090a snapback snack bags every day after school having that forests we also have specialty places that continue classes for starting by Atlanta like I said it's all about the kids at Parkside just some of these spaces look at the things that they're doing look at how they're enjoying school and we are just so grateful for them for their parents for the community with all the great support that we have some good things are happening thank you principal Shelton um as one who has been in your scc's and seen you rally your community to support your kids and your team I just congratulate you on all that you've accomplished and invited board member Hackett to help me today because we both claim you she doesn't want to give you up because uh she represented Geneva for

091so long and as I represented Suncrest and we both are going to claim you tonight thank you at this point those of you that came to support your children who were receiving Awards you're welcome to stay and if you're welcome to leave if you have other things that you're getting on to tonight that that would not be inappropriate thank you so much for being here to support your child I think we forgot to have them stand up so now we're going to recognize you thanks so much those of you that have come to support your children uh it's now time for public comment uh patrons who wish to address the board have been asked to sign up prior to the meeting and this opportunity tonight is preserved for patrons living within the Alpine School District

092boundaries individuals who are living outside Alpine School District are invited to submit written comments to the Board of Education tonight there's time on the agenda and we've allowed for 30 minutes for public comment and so we have about that many who have signed up all right so there's 10 patrons will be given the maximum of three minutes each to address the board each and written comments can certainly be submitted at alpineschools.org we'd like each speaker to introduce themselves by stating their name as you will notice we will not engage in a discussion during public comment but if you would like to arrange to meet with someone a staff member afterwards that will be appropriate Personnel issues are not Personnel issues are not appropriate discussion items for an open meeting environment so if you have a

093Personnel concern we ask that you contact a member of the administration or put your concerns in writing address it to the board the Alpine School District is a legislative body and as such it functions under the same operational rules as other similar bodies such as the state legislature public input during its formal meetings is to assist the board in ascertaining public attitudes and interests it is not a forum for open discussion or toward and patrons with those notes about public comment I'd like to turn some time over to the superintendent member Wilson I just wanted to make the public aware we have received several comments regarding House Bill 370 74. policy seats just wanted to share some general information about that and how we are proceeding with them summarized two guiding principles that guided the

094staff and the Board of Education in drafting policies and procedures to make sure that sensitive materials are addressed appropriately first would be our desire to support our patrons and our students in having access to appropriate appropriate alignment with that we are committed to adhering to state statute and federal statutes with respect to free speech loans worked on our policy we have been in regular communication with legal counsel our own legal counsel external counsel as well as the Attorney General's office and the State Board of Education Board of Education reviewed and adopted a policy work on and Learn by doing with the desire to come back this evening and make any amendments that we need to to that policy during that time we have reviewed material that we determined over a summer procurement review that required

095to necessitate we recommended additional review some of that material has already been reviewed by committees and we currently 23 committees reviewing District procured material to determine if it is appropriate for our students if you have information that you would leave is very we would recommend that you follow that appropriate process that you make your local school aware of that concern and reward tonight and study session review policy 6161 made some suggestions and agenda to make any amendments to this evening as you share public comments would have objectionable material that you wish to share with the board or staff just to be respectful of the audience that is in attendance we are happy to look at that material to review that material and to make sure that we address that material through proper chance thank you

096um we will now begin public comments with Greg Adams followed by Joe Jenkins a ction Greg Adams 36 North 400 East in Pleasant Grove I'd like to speak about two things today that concerned me as a parent that should also concern you guys the administrators first would be SB 244 as well as policy 6161 SB 244 is speech legislation signed by Governor Cox on May 12th this year [Music] has passed through this non-elected body before being accepted by the board looking from the lot itself ethnic studies means the interdisciplinary social and historical study of how different populations have experienced and the building of the United States of America including the study of culture history and contributions a few tons of diverse ethnicities it's great let's describe and then line 52 Utah's of diverse ethnicities means

097individuals who are residents of Utah are Native American Alaska native native Hawaiian Pacific island or Hispanic or Latino black African-American Asian African-American or a horse backgrounds and experiences line six you should scare you according to how this really the teacher could have somebody from the KKK black lives matter a clean drag show Story Hour coming to your children's classroom and speak about their ideals and Life Choices safety line 62 the State Board shall incorporate ethnic studies into core standards for Utah public schools that is K-12 also within the Raw live reads the following the happiness and security of American society relies upon the public virtue of its citizens which requires a United commitment to a moral social order where self-interests are willingly subordinate to the greater common good that's a codified law give that person's

098freedom for the greater come and get some an awful lot like marshes I'd like to finish by quoting from Paulson 6161 the review Community which has to have more parents to Sapphire is limited to one request at a time to review instruction material I think it's adults we can actually review more than one piece of material at a time this is unacceptable a Review Committee should work with the responsible timetable and is recommended to complete the 45 days or less one book at a time 45 days about three months that's 45 school days we could barely get four books done in a year again unacceptable any item that has been subjected to review under the policy and retained or removed may not be subjected to another request for another three years so in three years

099been removed from pornographic material can be re-reviewed to be reinstated so you say in the SMUD and filth has been removed will match the change into a Book of Virtues once the back please be the good stewards that we elected you to meet parents rights protecting our children Trump bureaucracy and personal interests [Music] Joe will be followed by Tiffany Barker so I would like to thank you for your continued uh and policy that protects our children I am especially grateful to one of the board members who's been willing to talk with concerned parents while I am grateful that your policy gets us closer to state law there are several items that are limiting this policy from following the state law and the guidance issued by Sean randson Attorney General I am proposing tonight three amendments

100which will bring this policy much closer to state law number one your language references Utah quota incorporates the brightline rule your policy does not follow the DraStic School that are memo is clear there are actions that leas may take and comply with HB 374 to mitigate legal challenge the first is to immediately remove books from school libraries that are categorically defined as pornography Interstate statute to be clear this is not referring to an opinion of parents administrators or Julie King it's referring to the state law the bright line gives distinct rules it across the liners to be removed here 's such alternative being reviewed it is not subject to personal interpretation it is the law s board meeting did this put in gushing about how much parental involvement was valued in discovering born in schools

101it's funny how that's changed over the last couple of months that's why I would ask that amendment to be creative so that all parents within a School boundary can proactively and especially with the stipulation that a book cannot be reviewed for three years that is the entire time that some of our kids are in number three parents teachers and Librarians deserve to know this is not a moving Target s in the process of removing books or before they even enter the library creating by creating a collection of text that's not appropriate is the right thing to do we need to proactively prohibit these titles from finding the ways in our Library without this list there is no protection also also um here's a few uh Thoughts by some influencers that I've read recently online the

102first is by Julie King says let me be clear no one is encouraging pornography in schools no one is advocating for Playboy or Hustler magazines to be placed for checkout pornography is much more than that she also said I think the state code is too strict sex is not corn I agree to differ Mark at the last ing you to school libraries I am not sure if it's in someone's personal Library you said The Passage would be offensive you're right it was offensive what's offensive to this board is surely offensive to our kids please conclude okay Tiffany will be followed by Aaron Davidson um I have been actively involved in my children's school as a chair of the reflections committee and PTA for multiple years I've serviced roommother and who spent countless hours volunteering the

103school for class parties and almost every other event in my professional career as well as my political leadership roles I've been in the position to acquire a lot of followers across multi multiple social media platforms I understand this and have been very very cautious with the risks that come with that I've been very diligent in my efforts to protect myself and my family and I don't post my children's names Ages were hardly even their pictures online I've been cautious not to post anything that even identifies this city in which I lived I've also had situations where I've been seriously threatened on National level by those who disagreed with me on particular political issues and because of this I have had to take further measures to protect myself and my family this past August an elementary

104school principal and Alpine School District whom I've never even met in Boyce Campbell identified on a public city page of more than 22 000 followers where I live and where my children attend school he would only have had access to this information as an administrator in ASD I have never ever disclosed this because I know as I was reminded by a sheriff's office post a few weeks ago that is literally all a predator needs to know to find your child I've written numerous social media posts about written them myself about this exact issue for years reminding my own friends and followers that dangers of identifying your child's school um once a predator knows your school they can track your child's schedule as well as get a pretty specific idea of where you live and can

105easily find your child voice did this as a threat to intimidate me into silence on an issue in which we disagree I guess when he has no truth in his argument he has three personal attacks is this the level of behavior you applaud in ASD I was shocked a few meetings ago to see you present voice with an award I've witnessed similar measures taken by previous board member Jody sunburg identifying excuse me this is Personnel manner that you're addressing it was on a public page that's my personal matter too I you were warned that there is no personal issues to be discussed appropriate inappropriate for this meeting and you are welcome to submit this information I'm going to keep going your own code of conduct States employees are prohibited from subjecting a student to bullying

106cyber bullying harassment or hazing you also say that an employee found in violation will be subject to disciplinary disciplinary action it is appropriate to disagree on issues of policy and even politics but when an administrator at asc's leadership posts private information that he uses illegally that poses a threat to my family it compels me to take action you have broken my trust in classified to my family I have had to take drastic measures to protect my children's safety Ada Wilson was also active in that threat as well and did nothing to reprimand voice for such gross abuse of power in fact you joined in in exposing more information about me that I do not put public again this is disgusting I expect a higher level of conduct for people and positions of authority who spend

107their days with children you both know better but if you truly don't I would suggest you both not be allowed to be in positions where you are privy to Children's personal information Alpine School District is broken listen to the comments tonight this evidence is everywhere since this has happened to me I've had a few people reach out to me with similar experiences some even involving voice real quick last year's stats showed that one in six children in ASD don't attend ASD schools I personally know many more who've withdrawn their children just this year so I assume that number will become more drastic stop ignoring parents stop allowing gross intimidation from administrators to silence opposing voices and please at a very minimum get the crappy porn out of the schools [Music] I'd also like to refer

108to a policy of 1970 paragraph two which states audience participation in meetings and governing body of Education regularly holds public meetings to conduct a business occurred to the Board of Education recognized that it is the response it is response attendance of citizens and outboard meetings has encouraged timely contributions of opinions from interested citizens citizen tenants are welcome to its opportunity the following rules have been established in the Board of Education in at board meetings conducted a period of 15 minutes to approximately three minutes paragraph 2.1.2 the board meeting conducted on the fourth Tuesday to allow patrons in various schools High School neighborhoods hoods to dress the Board of Education patrons May address very soon related and gets no limitation on duration so that the invitation it's not it's not nor is the number of speakers

109should your policy at the following rules have been established for the Board of Education those honestly to speak as Cheryl Aldrin who has a disability could make it completely so should limit it herself because there's plenty of people who speak but it should not be extremely alarmed with the amount of exposure to pornography sexually explicit this is primary sexual arousing this is done through Chromebooks they do not have blocks to filter upon learning this I educate myself on how to download the app to block the biggest charging station in a classroom parents cannot add bugs or any other filter but the device is locked at school but not in our possession without proper filters blocking all dangerous sites and devices that are being as possibly possible to keep all students complex and check browser District

1103 class each class period this saves many children exposed to home for content my child helps us no problem with the students use and centered by sound degrees and our students sitting next to the child view project and continue priority at the same time children are exposed to pornography in the books the state of Utah is illegal for adults to expose children to pornography and talk about sex and Passions the board has stated that these pornographic books are to help them marginalized community we've never treated mental illness nuclear disorders depression and HD anxiety reviews uh straight with with these issues that are not chronographic corporate with children who are starting books instead of books that continue graphic biological problems exposure to pornography at a young age Portland helps and many of the negative risk such

111be taken Aaron I'm just going to note that we are aware that you've just read a statement that has been emailed to the entire board so we have that statement in our email responses our next public comment is Aaron Bullen followed by Rachel Farnsworth Aaron of Lehigh Rachel of the Highland if you don't mind me saying where you live I wanted to thank you for working so hard on policy 6161 to where it kind of is when I saw many of the changes that had been made since last month I was pleasantly surprised to the definition of indecent material and state code the improved composition of review committees and the possibility of multiple review committees are all great changes I didn't however still think that you are going to run into trouble with this policy

112first as I mentioned previously on the last board meeting the Attorney General's guidance from June 2nd clearly states that you should remove violations of the pipeline rule immediately It also says that you can review the material poster or start your removal decision however there's more some committees at every school to read likely indecent or pornographic material for seemingly no reason at all material that you already know violates state law is to make this process even more slow and hard drives so in the review timeline in the policy it's a bit concerning while I applaud the district's effort to speed the review of the original list of 52 books a minimum of an additional 60 books are going to be challenged in the next few weeks um nowhere close to the United States for years watch

113as their kids graduate after four years with the eternity they challenged still in their school I would encourage policy that opens you up to continue the legal action in years of continued battles over this issue you can't take the approach and follow you the law directly and save yourself the thousands of headaches that are going to come your way if we continue with this policy the way it is written thank you right my name is Rachel Farnsworth and I'm the parent of two children in the Alpine School District we've been here for eight years we have six more to go my kids and I are all Avid readers and I am an internationally published author I'm here today to voice my support for policy 6161 numerous founding fathers spoke about the about the importance of

114libraries and access to books of all kinds they are foundations of our democracy Librarians are key are key guardians of knowledge and they play a crucial role in our society I understand that the district's policy for Library materials are as close to the library Bill of Rights as is possible under state regulations and I'm grateful to the board and the administrators for their work on this issue concerns about censorships of books were growing in the 1920s and 1930s and were specifically voiced to the National Library Association in 1924 and 1929 and 1934 their position wavered and they took no stance against the Nazi regime machine when it ordered books to be burned in 1933. on June 17 1939 they finally took their stand and the first Library Bill of Rights was approved by the American

115Library Association at its meeting on June 19 1939. I want to read the first part of that document which guides libraries in America today including Public School libraries for those who are unaware of the foundational principles of libraries article number one books and other Library resources should be provided for the interest information Enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves materials should not be excluded because of the origin background or views of those contributing to their creation number two libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues materials should not be prescribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal foreign should challenge censorship in the Fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and Enlightenment and number four which is what is happening in our school district

116today libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas I understand that there is a need for book challenges I on the board of the Highland Library so challenges are up to people like me and I understand the challenges associated with this but I strongly recommend taking that stand and containing policies that allow our children access to information of all kinds and Safeguard against those who would challenge books that are based on people's religious beliefs personal background or sexual identity or gender gender identity politics abilities anything like that the libraries need to serve thank you Rachel next is Samuel Gonzalez Cedar Hills hello my name is High School I just want to say that I can see where all of you guys are coming

117from your parents and like it is totally reasonable for you to be scared and concerned about the materials that are in the classroom in her Library add to the pool and you just want to protect your Twitter and there's nothing wrong about that I just want to make that look clear [Music] um but you don't need to protect me you don't you're not okay I'm really sorry why it doesn't make any sense [Music] if I'm finding myself and I will soon be another so it doesn't make sense [Music] go away each other [Music] just because [Music] um just because it makes you uncomfortable it doesn't necessarily make me it's bad the Holocaust makes me uncomfortable reading about someone else [Music] there's a difference between sexual activities [Music] entertainment [Music] and also one of the most

118wonderful things [Music] there it goes apologize [Music] you know guys wait no no accessories [Music] thank you Sam yes [Music] to become irresponsible and educated thank you Sam I will next hear from Abigail Hawkins of Cedar Hills I feel slightly ill-prepared compared to the posters that are here um ends and I live in Cedar Hills and Samuel is one of my four children that have all attended online school district I have three Juniors right now I have a PhD in instructional psychology and technology and I work and volunteer in our community in fact cumber Bonham your son has been on my Lone Peak mountain biking team for the last three years Isaac he's lovely well done um I'm here to talk about 6161 first of all I'm grateful for the library um Samuel came home

119this week or last week with a book called white trash and I looked at it and it's white 400 year old untold story of class in America that's not on my bookshelf I'm grateful if you had access to it through this whole Library I'm Matthew Gonzalez is a non-reader and has been his whole life despite my dismay and he goes to the school library and checks out anime books those are not on my library my bookshelves and I'm grateful that the library offers that for him to have access I'm grateful that there are source is beyond my home that my children can go to to spark educate Inspire provide alternative perspectives to um to their lives and to the community in which we live um a couple concerns I have with 6161 and it's about

1205.4 an item may not be removed because uh disagreement with the items content related to politics religion nationalism or other materials matters matters of opinion but some may seem as inappropriate others do not and C is fine um I want my children to be able to read what others may not want their children to read I respect their bite their children don't have to check out these books but respect mine as well if I want my children to have that right to check out books I want my kids to have access to books I don't want them filtered down by a small number of voices um I am concerned that um I'm concerned that one parent or one child can block access to the 99. I saw a screenshot of the 500 books that Utah

121parents United proposed to be banned 20 books on the list were listed as objectionable in the column the only reason given and I have the screenshot if you'd like to see it was lgbtq that is homophobic bigotry right there that the only reason why a book is objectionable is because of sexual orientation well as a mother of the son who is gay in this community this community is hard enough would like him to see himself I would like him to see himself have a project right introductory and production of a happy life in some of these [Music] 2021 and 2022 in my on my fences I would like my kids to be able to see and read other perspectives and I would like other children to benefit from seeing other perspectives and I do not

122think it is other parents rights to challenge our children and their freedom of speech in Freedom of Information by having access to these books and employ libraries and for what they offer our communities thank you thank you Abigail we'll next hear from Steve Sparky I decided not to direct my comments to the board because they have all the information that they need all of the content that you now have and so I just wanted to review a couple things um the letters that you have accelerator this is the school board that details the directions from the attorney general and what they should do more and some of the issues issues like dressed um and so I don't think that the new policy that came out last night is different from the old policy and it

123still creates massive problems of material works that we are specific Ally talking about and the content in those page numbers of the content so I did the next best thing and committed all out so I can't get all of you so that you know what we're talking about um we are specifically not talking about lgbtq all the content graphic content but I would just like to point out the reverse cowgirl is not an alternate position or an ultimate point of view I am making an impassionately this is about protecting our children as parents we have been charged with the protection of our children to see what I've used this example before but if there was a pornographic magazine in the school library that we notify the school district there would be immediate action taken to

124remove that type of material from the library it would not stay in there with a committee being created sexually explicit material stimulant the drug the parents we are in charge of our minors and there are many things that his parents believe away from our children we don't allow them to use drugs all cigarettes it says pornography because as we don't as adults we know that it's harmful I'm not really sure if you received this much to know the content that we're you know that we're talking about sexually and when we ask we asked by that it really was sexually explicit you all have the content this is the content that they've had for months they know what it is we've detailed It Out by Page by paragraph by book you can read the content if

125you'd like to see it come contact me [Music] I was including uh public comment will be from Chrissy Suiter from well I don't know Cedar Hills thank you I didn't write a comment because um I just want to talk from my personal experience as a mother I have four children and from a senior in high school to a third grader and when I heard that there was this ban of the books thing going was like oh that's ridiculous what are these people doing we don't need to ban books because of racism or other things I just ignored it for the last year or two however long this has been going on and over the weekend I got a notice this meeting was happening so I decided to actually look at the material that was being

126challenged and I was horribly offended I mean I'm an adult woman I've had four kids and I have never read anything like these sentences and paragraphs that are in these books I was seriously in shock and I could not believe that these are available to our children now these books have nothing to do with lgbtq or anything like that this is sexually explicit material that children should not be able to have in their schools this is material that an adult shouldn't have access to in my opinion but if they want to they can go to a public library and get it a child can go to a public library and get it when my third grader has to go into the library each week on a Wednesday and check out two books it's required Library

127check out two books do not want her to flip open a graphic novel and see a rake and I saw the pictures of it and it is allowed in the schools and I don't want her to see that that is not appropriate for a child to walk into a school library and open up a book those pictures so I would suggest like the other man presented if there was a pornographic magazine in the school they would immediately remove it and that is how we should be treating this material this is not up for debate this is not opinion this is sexually explicit material it is not lgbtq it's not anything like that it is anything that has to do with sexually explicit material material so I challenge you guys to please look over the material

128and remove anything that is pornographic it is the law it is in the Utah State law to remove it immediately so that would be my plea to you and then on this whole other note I have a daughter in high school her teacher is asking that all of the honors English students read speak this book is about rape a student's experience experience of rape I know there are many different opinions on this my concern is that teachers are allowed to choose what they would like their students to read and discuss and us and I have the right of as a parent and they've let us know to get a different material for our daughter to read so she doesn't have to participate but then she is kind of left out of this a while while

129they discussed this and that I really don't see the educational purpose behind this I feel like there should be a better standard across the board of what teachers can and cannot choose instead of just opinions like oh well I think this is a good book so I'm going to allow it in my classroom and I would just like open for teachers and the library say this last point to the librarian and the assistant principal about this and they're both very frustrated because they said policy 6161 is for their interpretation and so they feel very overwhelmed by it because there's a lot of lines that say constructive if it it can have this material if it's for instructive purposes or something to that effect and so they as Librarians and principles feel very frustrated with the

130policy because they don't know what to do they're like it's kind of up to me if I want to let it in I can if I don't I don't have to so I just feel like there should be a better standard across work so that they're not confused and overwhelmed and frustrated to the policy as well along with the Committees that are reviewing the books they're being exposed to materials and they're feeling overwhelmed trying to decide if this is right or not right we pretty clear-cut instead of up date thank you thank you very much Chrissy I'm sorry I've been informed that Wendy Hart um Highland I'm playing thank you board members um well I will try to be really fast I wanted to capitalize on something that superintendent Barton Torres said where he talked

131about the values of our families and one of the things that I think would be very helpful in dealing with all of these issues issue is if we instead of we always talk about you know we care about kids or focused on kids and kids learning and that's all good but let's focus on the families and building those family relationships and so if there are books if there are materials that Educators that Librarians that administrators see that they think well this might be helpful for a child but it might be controversial bring the parent along Julie King has said for years you may have a Masters in Education I have a PhD in my child bring me along to this discussion if my child is struggling with mental health issues and there is a book

132or a material that you think would be beneficial for my child bring me into that discussion because I should be there on the front line to help them that's what I would say thank you so much Wendy thank you all for for being here for for being involved and for being willing to participate in our meeting tonight we want to summarize the comments that have been made she does not reside in the Alpine School District I I read the the criteria before and you my name is Natalie Klein right an elected member of the yeah just so that you were speaking against the rules that I read before I am a member I am a member of the State Board of Education and my constituents live in this district and I'm here to represent him

133I have had countless constituents and exasperated parents and teachers who have contacted me with serious concerns about the obscene books and other materials in their children's schools the bottom line is the alpines a proposed Library materials policy is full of loopholes subjectivity strategic ambiguity all creating contradictory guidance that only confuses those that are trying to do the right thing the height of intelligence is being to be being able to make something so clear and so simple that it can't be misunderstood if I were to ask each board member here what different parts of your policy meant and how it should be interpreted and applied I would probably get seven different answers post policy ignores clear aspects of the law while elevating academic inquiry and an agenda of inclusivity above the law and allowing pornographic content

134to remain in the school in violation of the law case in point Alpine claimed that pornographic books had been removed from the classrooms and yet a substitute teacher found multiple books in a teacher's private classroom library books that violate the provisions of HP 374 which prohibits pornographic or obscene content in all School settings many of these books are championed by organizations like the UEA the ACLU the American Library Association Association and other woke activists who claim that these books are somehow necessary in order for kids to quote see themselves after alerting the board of the violation The Substitute Teacher was subsequently blacklisted from subbing in Alpine Alpine School District is making teachers and parents want to follow the law pay a high price for doing so it is not right that a whistleblower on porn

135in schools should be retaliated against it is also it is also not right that you limit the number of book challenges every book or material that is pornographic according to the law must be removed on the ground so it has no serious value for minors period this is the new standard according to HP 374 for judging what is acceptable in our schools the taken as a whole standard is secondary to the primary inheritance to remove materials that on their face are clear and obvious violations of or not or examples of pornography as defined in state code 76 10 12 35 and 76 10 12 27. and I want to make the point that there is no such thing as age-appropriate when it comes to pornography pornography should never be allowed in the school setting even

136on a restricted basis porn inflicts lifelong irreversible harm on the developing minds and hearts of our children and desensitizes them and promotes um the Deviant the sexual deviances of minors and creates an unsafe School it is a it is the very last thing that should be tolerated in any degree especially in educational environments it is the opposite of Education it is degradation as adults we must not be complicit in the destruction of our youth thank you [Music] that concludes our public comment I do want to acknowledge everyone who's made the effort to be here tonight thank you to Greg Adams and his concerns about Senate Bill 244 and ethics Joe Johnson your concerns and your work with three amendments that you propose tonight which we did receive in our emails thank you very much for

137your work Tiffany bucker thank you for your involvement in schools and yes and we appreciate your willing to desire to keep your information private and Davidson thank you for uh your reminder of public policy in 1970. thank you Cheryl Allred for your concern Aaron Davidson about safety of Canada and the use of Chromebooks thank you Aaron Bullen for your reminder of the black line and your desire to have Speedy reviews thank you Rachel Farnsworth for your perspectives as a parent and as an author and as a Chief librarians thank you Samuel for your perspective as a young man about to launch into this big wide world we appreciate your perspective Hopkins thank you very much for reminding us that school libraries can be a great resource augment at home libraries and your concerns about the

138lgbtq community thank you Steve Sparty for bringing I think materials that you did here to share we appreciate your enthusiasm and passion for this subject and you're concerned about the process thank you Chrissy a Suitor for your being here tonight and your concern about the graphic nature of things that you have seen and the concern that you have about alternate materials has provided to students thank you Wendy for being here and reminding us of how important it is to involve our parents in this process of learning and growing together Lee I apologize I didn't consider that you also represent students that live in High School District and I should have done that I'm sorry for your passion on this subject thank you with this we will continue with our regular agenda the next item superintendent

139board member Wilson do you have received the routine business for this meeting the Lea specific licenses and the student trip requests and then you accept it I believe that we accept the routine business okay we have a motion from Sarah hacken and second from Mark Clement all in favor of accepting the routine business AI thank you action Adams items before the board thank you board member Wilson resolution [Music] -025 is the authorization of the sale of property North Point Elementary to Lehigh City I would invite our business member business member of business administrator Rob Smith to give just a brief description of that property thank you superintendent um into the mic and a little louder [Music] purchased a piece of acreage across the street from North Point 2300 West North Point on the west so

140Remnant parcel is on the East when the city purchased a fire station or a parcel 4A fire station there was a small sliver this is that sliver um there was a purchase agreement signed many many many months ago about two years ago the board of access and do what fell through so the city approached us and said can we square up our parcel and allow for the development of that property across the road and so that's why you might use here it was reviewed in our facilities committee and was supported by that committee the value is about double what it was a couple years ago it's not a lot of money but property it's about 50 some thousand dollars and again it's about 20 something thousand dollars a few years ago my recommendation candidates we

141sell it to play My City thank you Rob do I hear a motion resolution 2022-20 thank you we have a motion and the second is there any discussion we'll call for a vote all in favor of resolution 2022-025 say I I are there any opposed the measure passes the resolution passes unanimously we will go on to our discussion and action items items to form the selection construction materials the that was approved in our previous board meeting we had made revisions to that and recommend your approval of that policy your whole notion on policy 6161 the employment policy 6160 um that's do I have a second I'll second it all right discussion I would just like to thank everybody who has worked on this policy and I would like to let the uh the public that

142are here know that we carefully and we've had a month to have some of these committees at schools we've taken their feedback on things that worked things that didn't I feel like we'd like to address most of the concerns that hurt and so I appreciate that I think there is a lot of work yet to do I'm guessing that we will roll this out to broader more more of these committees working on this that will get some additional feedback and we'll like to revise this this week as we move forward that I feel I feel great starting place and I allows us to perform with the law and hopefully to respect parents and host others that are um I'm just going to ask Craig did you want to present on this item are you prepared

143to present would you please be available for questions um yeah I I can relate to some of the things that were said this evening by our public is I was we've been going through this policy and I'm I can see that they're definitely some things that I have read on my own that are um I mean they're horrifying and I I agree that we shouldn't have these things in our school and I struggled with this because I and I fought quite a bit and my policy team knows that I I was going back and forth of like so many things now here we are version eight I think six draft of this policy it's been an arduous journey and there have been many eyes on it let's go through a lot of directs and I

144I didn't get everything that I wanted put into this policy but I can honestly say it's probably a fair compromise and I think we are addressing concerns from parents um while allowing uh feedback from our Librarians who are concerned and our teachers who are concerned and those that were concerned about the First Amendment which I can also empathize with and so I feel that we're accomplishing something great in the sense that we have been working together as leadership as a TLT as t as T Ward as parents as Librarians and all this input input and I can honestly say in my position I have tried to listen to every single point of view and try to figure that out I think the most difficult part about being on a school board is being to have

145the ability to balance and appreciate two points of view and being able to come together and compromise and I know that's like a swear word no one likes to hear the word compromise but I think it's crucial and you should expect that from your elected officials to be able to look at things and from a lens of logic and reasonability and to to make those decisions um I I do want to point out that one thing that I that I thought was good with this policy is the procurement policy which is going to be an important part of this policy from this point forward and that we're we have the opportunity now to let our Librarians and when I speak to the district librarian and she's pretty positive about this policy and what's interesting and

146as a note to our public is they may not be aware is that this this is the policy this is the procedure board we approve the policy but the procedures can always change and it's not laminated and that's I I know we heard some frustration tonight on some procedures and those things can be changed or amended as needed to be um I also uh wanted to point out that um and maybe you can address this a little bit correct of the messaging that we're getting back on the legality side of this from the ages office and what they are saying five or ten minutes in contact with us and the last thing I want to say before I give my fellow board members more time I know that we have the discussion and study session

147I thought it was a great discussion Julie brought up some good points and Julie as I was looking through and that each one when you're kind of concerned there without with all the toys in the district must adhere to this policy and are subject to employee code of conduct in the instance of any violation as I was thinking about some of the things that you had mentioned on that I thought you know this this policy will be different than any other policy that's that's online I think this one will probably be the one that will at least for a little while because it's such a hot but people will be going to and this this uh this line isn't well I mean I know it's for employees but I think it's mainly for parents having

148a reassurance to the Fidelity of the policy and building trust with our public and I don't think that part of it of and when it comes to our teachers I don't think it's a surprise to them that they're supposed to adhere to upon to to a policy that's why I I want to leave it as is I respect it that you have that opinion which I thought was a great thought but that's just where I said is that I would like to pass this policy as it is so I um this discussion has been difficult for me because um I'm not supportive of graphic sexual material in our kids schools but I also am supportive of students getting to read a wide range of materials that have multiple different viewpoints that they can look at

149and learn about the world around them and about other people and so I think sometimes this discussion discuss hopeful that we have been able to the things in this policy like the section that says that if a book is removed because of um uh because it doesn't meet the current law that we would like it to be replaced with something with a similar theme I think the theme of the book you know if it's a book about I don't know if they were wanding a holocaust that we're looking for another book about the Rwanda Holocaust that doesn't have that graphic material in it and so I was really supportive of that Amendment because I don't I don't think we need to pit this as a um one side against the other um so that's been

150difficult and I'm appreciative of our policy team for all of the hard work they've done on this did want to check we had a big discussion about this during study session also and I proposed an amendment to one section to have it rephrased do I do we need to make that part of the motion no that was part of policy where it says it's on page three and I have no idea what bullet point it is now because they've all changed so many times but it starts with the word restricted in quotes um my concern with that was the phrasing there it looks like it's been edited a couple times and the way it reads now it doesn't makes the idea was okay so is that the motion then Mark with that change because I

151thought this section Sarah's talking about I thought we had also talked about so I do that we did make do you have the language for for 13 I guess yeah I was the one that was trying to edit this and with the insertion of a comma after the word material it's restricted means the determination to keep but restrict access in the school setting to the challenge material comma accessible only by permission it's confusing I think it needs to say restricted means the determination to but restrict comma access in a school setting to the challenged material period about it would be something like that it would be accessible only like the way it's written it's it's confusing and that's why I was looking for I swear we came up with wording and studies so I can

152read it that's my question is does the motion include a change I just want it to be more clear that if we do put a book in a Restricted Section that parental permission is required for that section but feel like the way it is now it's a little bit could you read this understand sure the term strict to access the school setting only accessible by permission currently this is like when you look at a word too many times and now you're like is that how that's supposed I know that spells because it still sounds weird to me but we'll accept give that friendly Amendment and move on to work guys are you okay with that on a second okay so what I've heard is a striking the words to The Challenge material uh and then

153the rest of the sentence reads only accessible by permission of a parent Guardian accessible sorry only okay here's what I'm hearing restricted means the determination to keep but restrict access in a school setting to be just be to be only accessible by permission of a parent Guardian is that okay Stacy's looking concerned now okay not my fault I'm over it to be accessible only the only needs only to be are you getting into this crate yes I believe that ADA has a version and if you'd like to read that I'll tell you that I accept that as a friend that way I actually prefer it to be accessible only to be ex to be only accessible by permission okay okay and then as the last part of my comment I want to thank Samuel for

154coming because I can share their viewpoints with myself so thank you because I know that was probably crazy with all of these little tips thank you I hope we see you around another discussion I feel like we're kind of going in line um I do want to thank the policy committee this is why I don't serve on policy committee because this is like brutally painful um just want to make a couple of comments um first I you know I articulated this in study session I don't like 3.4.2 I feel that potentially that classroom displays I'm concerned about how this could be weaponized against marginalized communities so I I understand that that is procedure piece but I also feel that I need to say that I don't agree with that um I also am concerned a

155bit about um some of the hyperbolic language that is surrounding the policy um I will say one of the things that I'm concerned about specifically in the state definition is that there's a significant piece um missing when it defines pornographic materials that um part of the defining pornography is that it's intended to cause sexual excitement that's the whole purpose of it and if we have a book that's 400 pages long it has six paragraphs um I don't think that qualifies as pornography I did some research today speaking with the Librarians in my secondary schools contacted one of my schools that has over 2 700 students there have been zero book challenges zero parents have chosen to opt their child out of restricted access another school that I have serves over 1400 students there have been

156zero book challenges zero parents have opted their child at a Restricted Section now there are a school that I represent has 15 over 1500 students there have been zero book challenges and no parents have offered their child on restricted access um another high school I serve has over 3 000 students there have been no book challenges no parent has opted their child at library access another school that I serve has over 1600 students there have been no book challenges and there have been no parents who have chosen to restrict their child from access um I appreciate what the policy committee has done my personal opinion um and the way I have to vote with my conscience I feel that HB 374 is unconstitutional in a violation of the First Amendment and they can't support a

157policy um or assign my name to something that they deem unconstitutional but I do want to acknowledge that I appreciate what the committee has created thank you other comments this has been a very very difficult process um as many of you know we've spent over 20 hours on it we've written like Rewritten and take comments to each other listen to parents Community looked at our email Rewritten and I am not sure it's going to get much better than it is right now um one of the things I think the public needs to be aware of is that we have zero of the books on that 52 book list in any of our elementary schools they are not there children are not checking out pornographic books they are not being corrupted by them in our elementary

158schools they're not even there and so I think that's important to to start with that the impression you almost get is that our schools are flooded with really awful books and that is just not the case our secondary schools had one or two titles and they've never been checked out so we are looking at what we actually have we're reviewing we're looking listening to parents process that I think is a really good process we've got a whole bunch of District committees I mean you said it was 23 23 committees have been looking at all of the books that were on the list uh whether or not they're in our schools and we're reading the entire book we're giving input we are on it folks we're taking care of this we're not sitting on our hands

159waiting for children to be corrupted that is not what's happening in Alpine we are vigorously do everything we can to obey the law the statues to listen to parents to balance First Amendment rights with um all the with the law and to really do everything we can to protect children but you need to know that most these books are not in our schools they are not there and so we will do everything we can to make sure they don't get pitcher to make sure our procurement processes are very clear and very effective because we don't want porn in our schools just like you don't want part of our schools that's not who we are that's who our community is and that's not where we're at so we want to assure you we're doing everything we

160can to make this policy fall in line with every guideline and every statute and every request we had I think it strikes a really pretty good balance the the portion of it that has procedures we will be constantly modifying that and reviewing that often as we actually get into the process and work through these books and see what what's working what we need better or different I I don't think this policy is is going to be stoned I think it's going to at least the process and try to try to rectify the problems simplified thank you board member hacking but I became a reader on the lap of my mother my father my grandparents my mother was a librarian my earliest memories center around going to the library and choosing a book and to this

161day I am mocked by some of those in my world who like to call me a book nerd I don't mind I am one I find a comfort in libraries I find expansion of thoughts that I may not have previously had stand here today and I represent everybody in mind and there are a large majority of people who they could come tonight because of the environment that would be and I absolutely told them to stay home this is to a larger problem in our society evil conversations and get to a place where we can come up with things that are good for kids and support our teachers one of my English teachers one of my secondary schools books that they do out of 600 students the first of her career on one particular book there

162have been 10 requests for an alternative assignment of all the secondary teachers I know there is always an alternative side there is never any exclusionary Behavior happening and I absolutely support pencil Wright to decide what is right for each individual child what I will not do is tell another parent what their character home we have a wide diversity of thoughts and opinions my children don't often believe that things that I believe I am never going to tell them that they need to believe something different or that they need to think what I think because I think it I want to be very clear that I stand in support of all of my English teachers my Librarians and other staff members who are professionals and they are experts at their job and they spend a lot

163of time and effort to create an assignment that allow children to have an opportunity to think about things outside of themselves to present objects that maybe they they wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to I think that's the role of school is to help kids decide what they believe what they stand for you don't have to agree with every parent our world certainly isn't built that way um I'm really disappointed in the way that our community has responded to some of this I spend more of my time talking with people that I don't agree with from people that I do and I'm absolutely happy to do that because I do represent multiple opinions and please View what I am not okay with is people who decide that they can attack another person or Heckle a student

164because they don't agree with what they believe and I believe that is our duty as Citizens and Humanity to do better um I thought we were going to change the removal to review um which I guess we didn't and I really wanted to see the removal of the last section under statement of policy policy so um since we have not done that then I speak against this policy and this motion we can do a better job thank you Stacy anyone is free at any time to suggest in a minute that's still a possibility would be a substitute I serve on the policy committee and I'm I just wanted to recognize the principles the principles we've been wrestling with and the first is that we the board recognizes the importance of freedom of inquiry and study

165as guaranteed by the Constitution that's written in the policy also written as in the policy is the board asserts that school libraries are different from public libraries and that they are not open to the public they primarily serve the school students who are minors and they are part of the instructional resources of schools so that's another principle that we have entered these libraries are different public library for children um another principle that we've talked about is um we specify the process of identifying materials to be included for use in our schools and libraries based on principles of freedom of expression and belief high standards of content age appropriateness and adherence to state and federal law I think other board members have expressed that very very well I do want to and show the public we

166have the policy and in procedures is a link and I really appreciate our team who've created this it's really a how-to for our Review Committee it's called the materials Review Committee protocol all those that have had I do want to point out that the bright line is there in the total column so we are adhering to State Line this is for our parents to see that this is what the law is I want to personally say that I I hold dear the freedoms that that we that we enjoy here in our in our free land and I think the closer these decisions are made to the local level the more they reflect the local values and I think that is where these decisions need to be made and we have made every effort in these

16723 committees to locate the challenge where the book was found so that it's this can reflect the values of the local community I think it's law that we have are putting into effect our state legislature has essentially said that they are redo committee it concerns me when a state legislature can say this and this and this constitute a bright line and there is no redeeming value because I know that bright lines can move up and they can move down that concerns me greatly when we talk about a bright line can move up or down I think we're doing the right thing in encasing this in a process that the local involves parents and I support this place hey we have a motion second any further discussion if we will now call for a vote all

168in favor say aye aye I am not in favor say no I have two Nays and five eyes the motion passes for the policy penises thank you board member Wilson the next discussion accent item is the adoption of the changes that's been made to the Alpine School District board members handbook appreciate Rhonda Mortensen and her work and editing that and updating that and I believe that be appropriate for the board to adopt that handbook with the understanding that changes could be made as needed thank you very much superintendent I would like to hear a motion on this I like to make a motion for us to adopt the board member handbook stereo I did motioned by Julie second by Stacy is there any discussion on the handbook I just wanted to send a shout out

169to Rhonda I know that she has spent an insane amount of time um really seeking Clarity with this and I just want to extend my gratitude to her also that when I end up making like 15 suggestions on a Sunday night that they're resolved the next morning by like 9 A.M Rhonda's a rock star I love that it finds a perfect balance to me of it is enough information for new board members that it's very readable and easy to digest and I also feel like it covers enough that it's also a good reminder for sitting board members and so I just want to extend my gratitude to Rhonda because she found the perfect balance of clarity and detail um I just maybe Rhonda should do thank you Julie others discussion I think we're all just

170grateful Rhonda Mortensen put that in the minutes all right seeing no further discussion uh we'll bring this to a vote all those in favor of adopting the new ASD board member handbook say hi any day those opposed all right because we're we're going on to member and superintendent reports and information um I I do have something to share with um the board superintendent do you want to go first I jump in so that is that okay um as you know I sit on the human sexuality committee and I just want you to know that there has been a newly created parents guide and it's listed at the Utah core standards and learning intentions and it lists the district approved materials that will be accessible through the URL starting on the second semester and the URL

171will um basically it will be listed on the parent letter that goes home to every 8th and 10th grade parent and the parent will be able to view the approved materials and then contact their students health teacher to review which materials they'll be using in the classroom and the list will include access to view the contraceptive PowerPoint that was approved by our human sexuality committee a few years ago and so I'm just gonna giving you a little update on that it they have how much human sexuality part of it and getting parents involved and being able to approve materials and if they're curious of what their health teacher is sharing your class they'll be um Eric Woodhouse came with me as close today um this morning to meet with Highland and Alpine cities about some

172Transportation needs there and I just wanted to thank you to both of those cities for being great partners with us that I appreciated getting to hear their concerns and we were able to talk about um I just wanted to give a quick report and Tech uh and our CTE connection we um how to get the scoop night at mtech where um it was fantastic to see so much of the community excited about our CTE program and our partnership with mtech it was fantastic it was awesome to see so many of our students um go I I actually went through the culinary arts section and I saw students from Westlake and Cedar Valley also was able to talk to our CTE leaders at Wesley Cedar Valley and Pleasant Grove and it was just fantastic interacting with

173our students seeing what they had done um and I was talking with a parent a few days afterwards um because the student I said oh there's a whole thing about welding and this is like the brain that I have now that I've been sitting on the board for a while he said do you think I'm going to get to will and I'm like that feels like a liability risk I'm gonna go with no because he's a seventh grader right in seventh grade boys sometimes do not make the best decisions in life um but one of the things that I was so excited about was his um mom sent me a photo later later and she's like he got to weld and it was this awesome photo of this student who was so excited it was

174a little bit panicked about him holding that very fiery torch um but I had another interaction with a parent um just two days ago who had an identical experience a student who um was not necessarily excited to come and then found something that he really gravitated to and so I just want to give a huge shout out to Michelle price to all of our CTE coordinators do all of our CTE instructors Career and Technical education is so valuable for so many of our students and Opera and it like opens up so many opportunities um for them to experience new things and job opportunities and I'm incredibly grateful for the wonderful relationship we have with President Christensen and the m-tech community in our k-16 alliance it is one of the things that I don't think we

175talk about enough that I think makes Utah County in particular a stellar Dynamic the way that we have ownership for every student kindergarten through their secondary education and that we own it and work together as a team it is something that um I don't know that maybe most people understand or appreciate that we have people in all of these different places and spaces who are dedicated to the success of our students and we're seeing the results of that in our classrooms and I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity let me just say real quick that I also got to go to that because my daughter's teacher told them they could have extra credit if they went so of course she was very anxious to go and it was amazing really was amazing we did not make

176it out of the cosmetology section but um I saw you there but my daughter got hair tinsel and got her nails done and they're still hanging on so she's very excited but um I would like to request it any Tech in a parking garage before the next time because the parking was a nightmare it was so busy it was awesome we saw a ton of kids that we knew there and they were all having a wonderful time since mtech's Capital dollars come from the state legislature I will add I will see if we can add to that to the Yoshi list okay so I've got a couple of thank yous shout out and then maybe a plea to the public um so one of my favorite things that we have is Advanced teaching as a

177profession and it's where our students get to be with some truly mastered Twitter if this is a potential career for them and given the climate in our world today um I really personally want to hug and highlight any student who is considering um joining this career because we need Dynamic and amazing people and so I just want to publicly say thank you to Mrs MacArthur as Skyridge for giving these kids an opportunity now to consider later that this is what you might want to do teaching what's not on my list of things to do until a professor said to me and maybe you should try this out and I was like no way um and then that is essentially what I did so um having a teacher who gets respect and are connected to say

178I really think you might be good at this is sometimes all kids need to consider that and so I love there they did an interactive bulletin board lesson it's very cool I will share pictures with everybody but I'm just grateful that the opportunity to exist before our kids even leave High School to be able to brings that also Viewpoint inspired you doing this fabulous thing but I thought was everybody turns out it's only them where your child misses a class you get a caller immediately to second period you get a caller in second grade and if your child misses third period you get a colored third bridge is where I'm going you can get four in one day so I'm getting all these phone parents saying this is amazing what's going on um it has

179allowed parents to maybe sometimes we kind of just cancel that call when it comes through because variety of things and so I just want to say thank you to those administrative and Leadership teams for one thing that we all feel very strongly about there are a number of reasons so I think enabling parents to have a very um through it as it comes why reuniting these places with my own child I may have asked why are you not at school to which he sent me a photograph from his class I am here well then you must have been tardy and so it is teaching some of our students who maybe take the long way to class that perhaps they ought to be there before the bell rings so um those administrative teams leaders and Leadership

180teams for putting them in place and very helpful to our community and lastly we have seen over the last couple years my City My City my desire to maybe do things differently and maybe it was the extremes of covet we started with this just absolute Adoration of teachers and then it was so and we've had a lot of conversations about what the right way is to do things and I know sometimes people think if they just call the superintendent that it might fix things but the reality is there are probably other people who are expert level in those particular subjects and so I just want to say thank you to for when they have a concern or a question that they're reaching out to teachers first and shout out to the teachers for taking the

181time to help parents understand different things and this is not maybe the way I saw it even six or seven years ago and so way to go Lehigh thank you for um the thing that our teachers are professionals and maybe um setting an appointment to move in that is really an awesome way to do it and all of my principles are fabulous and always welcoming to parents who want to come in and have a discussion and a concern and so I very much appreciate people who are willing or something very passionate response responsive I love the way that our city is going I hope it will continue to dialogue in conducting manners and shout out for David Stevenson and Karen Ashman in our Communications committee meeting about a week ago we the idea came up

182with doing an account for the school community councils and it's up it's online I downloaded it yesterday and I could not believe how quickly they did that if they felt like that would be really helpful it has a lot of information for Community councils it's about deadlines and rules just everything you'd ever want to know so shout out to them for putting that together it looks great and it was quickly done and so useful so thank you I had some difficult conversations today many of you are aware that we had a director development on Monday unfortunately for their loss players go out to Ashley Scott family I lost the daughter my sister in that accident and took a long time to heal and for the phone call and his book out to Caden's mother Lorraine

183he rivaled the vehicle and he's still in critical condition for your prayers foreign our hearts thoughts go out to those families affected by that okay thank you we do have a need for a closed session a Personnel property litigation station it will have a roll call Sarah Amber hi Julie hi Ada I will adjourn to close session thank you