Board Meeting 10/7/2025

001It says it's ready. So I guess that means that we can everyone welcome to the meeting of the Canyons Board of Education. Today is October 7th, 2025. remaining at the district office located at 9361 South 3rd East in Sandy, Utah. Um, Miss Schill has been excused and I believe Miss Nyar and M or Mr. Lewis will be joining us very soon. Um, the first item on the agenda is under study session is the school nurse update by Jen Gerard, school nurse specialist. Hi Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk about nursing. Um it's my favorite with all of our data also really important on the right side. Okay, students need to be healthy to learn and they need to be healthy to feel well uh in class and it directly impacts their ability

002to learn when they're feeling well and they're in class needs met. Um school nurses, we manage the daily care of students. We manage their chronic conditions and emergencies if they come up. Um we identify and barriers access and learning. So this an example of this is we have a student who's in a wheelchair. uh we look for ways to help them transfer to do toileting to get in and out of the building. So we're supporting a lot of students. Um that's just one example that's come up recently and then we have increasing demands um that really requires safety and equity and then the nurses do a lot to reduce their liability. So when I started with Kenyon I had five schools so we've come a long way. All of our nurses right now cover between

003one and three schools each. able to increase our services and do a lot more with our resources because we have fewer case loads. Um, but we're still stretched a little bit of some of the things that we're doing. >> Okay, this is our health room encounters. So, this school nursing a lot of students in the health rooms um that number continues to increase in there and help out with our office personnel are seeing a lot. So, each year numbers in total to right here's our chronic conditions that we manage. So these are the four most common asthma type. >> So our asthma the first bar is 2023 24 for each of them is 25 and then we have our individual health funds for each different diagnosis for those two years as well. So you can

004see that it continually um emergency medications. I put this in here because one it shows a lot of our prevention that we're doing through training with um school teams but then also just to kind of demonstrate the difference in urgency for all of them. So alth for as far as individual orders that we have for student specific medications and then the second bar is for the staff that are trained for those individual diagnoses. Um anoflaxis is our largest one that's the law requires we offer training to everybody that works with students and so we do the most training for aniflaxis and we've only administered for the last two years three epipens. So that's really good. So we're doing a lot of prevention there. Um our type 1 diabetes we do a fair amount of individual

005training for those students and we haven't ad inner schools for a couple of years. So that's awesome. It's awesome. >> Seizure rescue medications. That's something that we can't really predict or avoid. So we do training to teach them what to watch for and when to intervene. The six doses of Caesar rescue medications that were administered were all done by nurses. Um and that's for the last two years has been six doses. And then Narcan, we train a lot of people. We administered that for several years, which is awesome. And that's the one for like an opioid over overdose. Yeah, Katie like to say something >> just real quick. What is the difference? You know, you showed with like uh some of those asthma like kids that are being treated versus those on individual health plans.

006What determines that they're on a health plan versus just being managed? >> So, a lot of those are parent choice. We offer the health plan. The health plan's going to give an emergency action plan for the school team to follow in case they have an exacerbation of asthma or have difficulty breathing. So, it's a lot of if you see this, do this. Um, we have additional students that have medication orders that the doctor signs and a lot of those kids will selfcare their inhaler or some of them will take them in the office if they need support administering those meds. So, it's really parent choice. Everybody that has a medication order, we always offer the health plan. They don't always want one um for whatever reason or the parents are difficult to connect with and

007we just have other barriers that make it so that we don't have to come for every single student. Thank you. Okay, so going back to other prevention care that we provide, um, vision and hearing screenings from the past two years, those are our numbers. And then vaccinations, students that we vaccinate here at the district office and throughout the district at their schools. Um, CPR and first aid training, the numbers of people that we've trained each year, and then stop the training, it kind of fell out really hard last year because it's required every other year, and it's mostly the safety specialists that are doing that. So next year, that number will bump up again. You good? >> On the hearing screenings, will you just speak to how long the nurses have been doing that, who

008did it prior to that? >> Yeah. So, that's on this slide. Um, hearing screening we added in February 2023. Prior to that, we had two aologists for the district that coordinated all the hearing screenings in our schools. Um, one of the aiologists retired, the other one resigned and then we weren't able to replace them. And so, they asked the nurses if we would take on hearing screening and we said yes. We're really good at screenings. We coordinate mass screenings all the time. So, um, we started those February 2023. That first year we were needed for special education. And then, um, the following year, we went into the math screening. So, we're screening grades K through three, um, seven and 10. And then month and year, we added vacines. Month and year, my team was like,

009what are you doing? This is so much stuff. But we added vaccines. That program has also been hugely successful. and we've been able to help a lot of families with that program. Um I think our numbers really demonstrate that if the community has a resource available, it really just demonstrates that there's a need in the community, right? We've had so many families that have needed vaccines so that their child isn't excluded from school. Um and then we're also vaccinations. Um we added standing orders over 23 and four. We always had them for secondary schools, but we added them for all students and we expanded them. So, it includes things like or really achieve bug bite that's super distracting. Um, it includes cough drops. It includes just a few additional things so that we can help

010support students uh to feel comfortable and then in class as much as possible. And then stop the bleed training. That's also a newer training that we added that 23 24 school year. Um, and then our tea health which I know most of you have heard a lot about. We did a pilot last year with 11 of our uses which covered 17 schools. It was it's it went really well. We don't have a high volume of uses yet. Um but I anticipate that that's going to continue to increase. This year we expanded it to all nurses. So all nurses have equipment to be able to provide tele health in any of our buildings. Um and that's looking really promising. We've already had a good handful of people utilize that service this year. So it's been really

011good. Um most of our visits result in zero days missed. So, a student with an ear infection can see a provider right there at school. The parent can join the call remotely. Um, antibiotics can be called in. We can keep them comfortable and then they can pick up their meds on the way home if they prescribe them and come back to school the next day. Uh, historically, I've had students working in a title one elementary that had an eariction or at least what appears to be in school and they've missed several days of school. Um, and that's just really unfortunate because it's so unnecessary for them to anytime really as long as they're comfortable enough to remain at school. Uh most of our people that miss any time at all related to us positive and

012that requires a little bit of isolation while they're still contagious and so for the most part people are able to stay at work and at school. We've been supporting both students and employees with that program. Okay. Other services that we've increased over the last couple of years, we increased our vision screening this year too. vision screening coming in in about 2019 which just requires a bigger evaluation of the eyes. Um we were having so many students in that needed a benchmark screening in grades one through three. So second grade needed a distance screening too. So then we just we'll add fourth and then the law changed to include 10th grade. 9th through 10th grade we opted for 10th grade and so we added those three grades to our vision screening in 22 23. We've increased

013our CPR and first aid classes from quarterly to twice a month. This was to accommodate coaches so that they can get the training that they need to be able to coach. Um, and then we also people train in all of our buildings. And then we have increased enrollment in our EEC's in all of our special programs um throughout the traditional schools which is putting a heavier burden on my team simply because those kids generally require more care. They typically have medical conditions or medications or something supporting. And then um we've had more students moved into life skills which required a little bit more nursing coverage. They've moved out of Jordan Valley and into life skills economy problem. Um we've increased our individualized health plans and we have increased time insulin injections for students. So this

014is really about diabetes care. Our nurses mostly do all diabetes care unless a student is very stable, independent. They have all the technology and they're able to um cover it themselves. And so all my whole team is running around at lunchtime covering kids that need insulin. They're covering kids that need G2 feedings and G2 medications. They're covering kids that need urinary catheterss throughout the day. Um I've got one nurse, for example, has two schools and she has a student that needs a urinary catheter twice a day at 10 and at 1. And so she's running back and forth between the buildings to try to split her time and and make sure that that care is met as well. Here's a list of our school assignments and how many nurses have three schools. We still have

015seven nurses with three schools. And those are our nurses that really um have a heavier burden because they're trying to meet the same level of services with an increased case load with just a building involvement. A lot of the recommendations both nationally and well, as you read about them, they recommend like a number of one nurse for every 750 students or one nurse for every 2,000 students or whatever that number is. But the number doesn't m like the number of students in one building doesn't it's not as impactful as the building space because if you have 25 employees in one building and you're there all day, you can manage so much more and you can follow up with so much more. Um it does still come with increased referrals, increased health funds and all that,

016but it's a lot easier to manage when you're not running around from building to building. So, uh two school assignments, we have eight nurses there and then more school assignments, we have seven nurses. So, we did put a full-time nurse in all of our title one elementaryaries and then Midville Middle School, uh a couple of years ago, years ago. And that's been hugely impactful for those communities where those students aren't getting regular followup and they don't have as much access to healthare resources related to health. Um their healthare visits are also really high schools and then valley they have two FTE so there's three nurses and um they have 11 and so that makes sense. >> So that's the end. Um, I just wanted to point out we have increased chronic health conditions, increased nursing

017services needed. And we've also added a lot of services to support our students, which has been great and hugely impactful for communities. And I'm really I would really appreciate additional nurses. My recommendation is three. So that's I'm going to end there, but I appreciate you all letting me share our little story and questions. Any questions or comments? Thank you so much for all you did. >> I was just gonna say thank you for what you do. I mean, the nurses are critical and especially as we're seeing more and more needs in our school. So, thank you. >> Yeah. And I I just want to say thank you so much and um the the committee that we've discussed this as much as we have. I you know, we talked about how amazing like especially the teleaalth

018piece has been and what a blessing that's been to so many teachers. I did have a question now that it's being expanded every nurse has access to one of those. What are we doing to communicate with staff that they have access to that resource? >> Yeah, that's a really good question and I've been working with Kristen. She's prepared communications to go out to both families and employees going out really soon >> and the discussion about cost or lack of cost is made clear. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay, so that brings us to the next agenda item which is the strategic plan focus group report for access and opportunity with Paula Logan, director of federal and state program. >> Hello everybody. >> Um just thanks for giving us this opportunity to kind of report

019what our committee's been working on for the little a little bit. Um, last year we kind of started with a deep dive into I guess that's our committee, but we started with a kind of a deep dive into what our task was. We've replaced several people on our committee and we actually have a really great group. like we have some representation from quite a few different perspectives and experiences and I think and I mean the committee members can speak to that like everybody really cares about kids and wants to do what's best for kids and so we've had some really great discussions and opportunities to look at that our purpose really is to kind of look at resources and opportunities to build that positive inclusive environment right and we kind of have what we would

020say three groups of students that are mentioned and we look in our strategic or three groups of stakeholders. We've got students, we've got parents, we've got teachers that we're trying to make sure all have that access and that opportunity to work on that department. So, if we start with students, um the superintendent in his last presentation last time I believe mentioned these four groups of kids and these are our biggest groups. So we just kind of went I went through and kind of tried to give us a scope of what those different groups are because they are quite large um and they have a lot of needs that we want to really work on. So when we look at our multilingual students um last year we had almost 5,000 students which encompass 79 different languages.

021Our top ones are English, then Spanish, Portuguese, um, and Arabic, but then Chinese, Russian, and, um, Parsy kind of compete for that next position. So, we've got about a hundred in each of those this year, and they kind of rotate a little bit depending on who's moved in and who's moved out. But then we have 61 languages this year that have 10 or fewer students, which again speaks to the idea that we need to have something district-wide to support the student and they're learning, not to support a specific language. Um, so we're working on that, but I thought it was interesting that nationally right now, um, and this came out in 2019, but that's where we're at, that we would have about one in four students that's a multilingual learner. As a district, we have

02212.6%. But we, interestingly, have six elementary schools that are over 20%, two of them are over 40. We have um two middle schools over 20%, one's at 45, and two high schools that are over 20% as well. So, our number, the 12.6% across the district, doesn't always tell that story that in some of our our schools, this is really impactful. Um, another group we work with are looking at our special ed students. We're a little more in line kind of with that national structure of, you know, well, I mean, it's hard. 12 to 21% is kind of a big grouping, but we're running about 12.9% across the district. What's interesting is this year we saw an increase in the numbers. Um, and you can see that there was an increase in both our students receiving

023resource services as well as self-contained. And last year we'd talked a little bit about some realignment with our special ed services in our committee, but we've put that on hold due to the boundary discussion. We thought, well, Terry thought that, you know, as we put that in line that we would just make sure that that opinion was shared and those kind of supports were just matched as we looked at that boundary thing instead of on our underserved students were a low SCES group. Um last year as we ended the year we had 9,255 over the course of the year. Some of these students move in and out. So fourth quarter we had a little over 7,000 in the district. But it's also interesting in then that in that group that several of those double up

024on services. Um so we had about 1 1500 who also um received some special ed services, a little over 2,000 who um are in that low SCES who were also receiving multiling multilingual services and about 700 of our kids were also um had some unstable housing at some point in that group. Um and the these are just our numbers this year. But it's interesting that poverty is so impactful just across all of those services or those groups of students that we serve in those different areas. And we know how important it is to get those supports to help them progress. As a matter of fact, on the next slide, uh this the lack of a high school credential is the single largest factor placing youth at risk for experiencing homelessness. So all of those groups

025of kids, if we're not giving them the supports they need and they don't make it to that graduation point, we're talking it's over it's 346% higher risk to be homeless. And these are these are students in our district that we want to help become really impactful citizens. And so it is something that we need to keep our eye on um with our McKenna Vento group. So these are students um who are experiencing unstable housing. About uh8% so not as many of them are unsheltered. Um about 3% are in hotels and motel and 12% in shelters. 83 84% are doubled up. This is pretty close to that national trend. The only one that's different is we have more kids in shelters. That's really because we have a shelter within our districts, the road home. So that

026pushes our numbers up just a little bit. Um but it is it's across kind of our whole school or our whole district. We do have three elementaryaries with 40 or more students who are experiencing that instability. Middle schools that have 50 or more and two high schools with 80 or more. So again, it's across the district across our levels that these students need our help and support. And I'm not quite sure what happened to my other little thing on there. I goofed it up. But um just when we're looking at our gifted and talent, our gifted and advanced students like this is an equally important group um that sometimes gets overlooked because of the the different needs, right? We're looking at housing, clothing. This is an academic need, but it is just as important. And

027last year we spent a considerable amount of time making sure that the elementary schools had that extended learning week so parents can see what opportunities were. We worked with the middle schools um created a flyer for middle schools when kids when our fifth graders come up. So helping with that transition to better introduce what is happening with adolescence coming to middle school because a lot is happening there. Um and and we um have kind of you know in elementary school we do elementary we have two salt locations. We do the application that's accessible to everybody and we do testing at all the schools. Um we only have the program at two schools. In the middle school we just have Salta at Midbell. We do have honors and ELA in most of our middle schools in

028seventh and eighth grade. Um the exception to that is Eastmont because of some funding and size issues. So and then in our high school we've got the IB program at Hillrest and then we have honors AP and I don't know why I put night schools but concurrent classes at all high schools. Not running night schools everywhere. Um so then the other groups we're looking at are teachers. we um kind of just put together from let's say Jul J June to now just a a kind of a basic list. We actually found out that we don't have anywhere that we're actually capturing all of this information about where how we're training teachers and what trainings they're getting. So we're going to work on that. Um but this is kind of what we put together. Um so

029we had training kind of in all levels for specific things and then training across the board for for several things. And that just helps build our teachers capacity especially as they're trying to work with the students that have these kind of needs in their classrooms. Um we did the similar thing with the parent outreach just kind of brainstormed on things that were happening um more recently because we aren't kind of collecting that as maybe extensively as we we would like. So we're going to kind of look at that as well. One of the things I wanted to point out was um this registration night that we did and thanks to Jen who left, but they did a vaccine clinic there as well and we had 250 students and families come and either get vaccines or

030help with registration or both. And it was really super successful. I needed about 20 more Spanish speakers. Um but we did have multiple languages that we were able to help and support kids with. Um, we've got the boundary open houses coming up that we'll have some Spanish translators at. We have some vaccine clinics, parent square that really does such a nice job translating to um, whatever language that parent has selected and that has been really helpful in communication um, for our teachers, for our schools um, for those parents too. And then with parent teacher conferences, um, we had 168 interpretation requests and, um, I was a little high on this because that's where we were at when I put the slide together, but when we did the totals, we had 17 that actually were not

031filled. >> Um, it is a little tighter now that we've gone to three days instead of four just to get interpreters to all those places, but and our most used Arabic interpreter was on on vacation. somewhere. I told him he can't do that. We were going to get his schedule ahead of time now. But as you can see, like there is a lot of data. And so as a committee, we came up with this list of data that we wanted to look at and review. In our first meeting, we gave all the data. It's an overwhelming amount of data. And so kind of what we decided to do is review that data, then come up with better ways to discuss and really look at it. So that's those are upcoming meetings. But just some over

032some things from the data that we looked at. We saw some attendance patterns that we were a little concerned with. Um we saw some disparities in our chronic absenteeism. Um and then with academic performance specifically in our ninth grade, um we saw some things that we wanted to look at deeper. But when we get that much data in a meeting that's an hour, hour and a halfish, like it's hard to analyze that data, have a discussion, come up with something. So we've decided to kind of move into a little bit deeper discussion option and so move some of these topics out so they have their own meaning. So theoretically the idea is that the week before I send out the agenda with some of data attached that we've talked about in the previous meeting and

033said hey these are things we want to look at. So then we all have that information a little bit before and we can then have a discussion about the data having had time to kind of review it and think on that um and then really discuss that. Look at our successes look at our barriers. particular resource allocation like what what are maybe the next steps? Is this something we need to look at deeper? Is this something we have a couple recommendations for? Um and maybe action items to push out to either levels or schools to consider. So this is how we kind of organized what we wanted to look at. So in October looking at our parent and community community engagement, which again is is one of those things that we're not gathering as much

034data as we would like. So having a discussion about maybe different ways we can collect more data um and get more feedback from our parents in strategic ways um looking at parent teacher conferences and the participation there and those kinds of things. October having a or November having a deeper discussion about those different transition points um because those are key places that we give information to parents. Um, and a lot of times that first year I was in middle school and in high school, but those first years like in when you come into middle school, you come into high school, parents are a lot more involved and have a lot more questions. Um, especially if it's their first kid to go through that. And so we we felt as a committee like that's a key

035time to be getting some better information to parents. And so to be more strategic about that is the conversation we want to have. um December or January, depending on when our meeting falls, look at teacher prep, professional development. So, at that point, we would have some kind of a better plan on how we're gathering all that information and recording it together. Um and then talk about the ways we're preparing our teachers and if we can identify gaps that we see. Um February looking at our multilingual and McKini Vento students. March looking at our special ed and 504. And then in April looking at our advanced learners and possibly in May just following up on any of the things that have kind of come along that we wanted to make sure that as we move into

036that next year that those resources are being distributed and getting to where we need them to go. Um so this is just you know as we have those discussions pulling the information that's quarterly attendance um credit accumulation course force enrollment demographics parent engagement metrics last year Brian's department shared with us the CCR did we change that is that CCR now >> ECCR >> changes it was SEO back in the day >> um but um we as we looked at that we found that our multilingual families weren't participating as much. Um, and so trying to come up so that there are some metrics that we can pull and we want to just have deeper dives at that. >> Hey Paula, real quick just to add to that, >> one of the indicators for graduation and we've

037talked about this a little bit, but um any of these populations and their enrollment in CTE pathways >> as concentrators or completers is and maybe you already have that built in. that's going to be in this enrollment demographics analysis. If you looked at the data that I >> I mean I gave you a lot of things. Panda even said like uh Paula >> it's a lot of stuff to talk about in 15 minutes. Um and it is so that's why I kind of gave you a bunch of data but that's what we were looking at what we found like we can't have this discussion about all of this at one time >> but that is something we want to look at. Well, just thinking about too with the innovation center coming up and the issue

038with transportation and how do we what what does that look like with their day, you know, being part at their home school and partly at the center. So, those are a lot of things to think about as we get closer. So, that's great. He met I met today with um Reed and he met well he met with the middle school principles and I tagged along did a little tour but we talked a little bit about really doing a bigger push specifically in our eighth grade as we move the CCA class into eighth grade and hopefully building that connection and that enrollment because one of the things we mention he mentioned today is Hillrest actually has one of the highest um percentages of kids participating in CTE programs but when we go to the tech center,

039they're one of the lowest. So, they're participating at their school, >> but the more robust, let's say, programs that I come out with a certificate or something that really can help me move forward. Um, we aren't as >> involved. So, that is something that our committee would like to >> language, travel, all those things. Yeah, there's all those things. All those things weigh in. >> Yeah. and specifically with moving that CCA class to eighth grade. >> Um that was something that we thought would really be helpful. We started that discussion in our committee >> years ago. >> While we're on this subject real quick, sorry to interrupt you. Um in high quality learning last time we talked about how there is such a strong dip in attendance and grades when the kids hit nth grade.

040So it sounds like a lot of the data that you're going to be covering would be really useful for our committee to understand, too. So, let's definitely >> So, Amber and I have talked about that. She pulled some data that she shared with BLT is actually showing the correlation between grades and attendance. And so, I'll be bringing that to our committee, too. So, we Yeah, we're talking about that because it is a big concern right now. >> Yeah. Um getting all of our kids are as close as we can to graduation, right? Tom's talking about the 24 credit diploma and if we do the GED, can that count? And just different things to try and make sure. And our committee, I think, specifically, needs to be aware of those things. those discussions so that we

041can again make sure that those supports and that access that information is getting out to everybody. Um so then our immediate priorities which would mean we're talking about this year not we're solving tomorrow but we're talking about um the school transitions and family engagement and resource distribution. then kind of long-term obviously continued efforts to identify and address those barriers so that every student has access to that rigorous and relevant learning. Um looking at those transitions and making sure we've got those supported parent partnerships. Um because that really does change whether or not kids graduate the amount their parents are involved in schools. Um and then educator expertise and serving our different kinds of learners. Right? If we're if I'm teaching a salta class and I've never had a gifted and talented class, I might not

042be aware of some of the strategies that really are going to help move these kids forward. And so that's that's our committee. >> Awesome. Okay, >> I did it in time. >> That was awesome. That was fast. >> This is a lot. Yeah, a lot of material. >> What impacts are we seeing from the changes in the Department of Education? Um well that's an ongoing thing. Um the only one for my department specifically that's really been impactful was um more of a state issue. Um the state didn't do the 21st century learning grant this year. Um they decided in March they were going to go to an every other year program and not do it this year. So it wasn't available and our grant ended. So that impacted our title one schools and that we

043do not have an afterchool program this year. >> Um >> that's not >> yeah that being said we did sit with the title one principles and we looked very carefully at our title one budgets and what we could move and shift um and we decided that summer school we had more kids going and less it cost us less money to do the summer school program so it was a bigger bang for our buck. So we we focused on that and then put that off until hopefully the 21st century grant comes available this year. We've not heard whether or not it is off the table. >> Um >> we are we heard about this at listening tour at East Midville. It's had a massive impact on them already. >> And how much was that grant for?

044>> That grant gave us about two Well, it depended on what year we were in, but we started with I think about 400,000 and then it was 200,000 that last year. Is that the program that Mindy came to us originally to get additional funds for? >> That was a different one. >> Interesting. >> So, we're hopeful that that'll come back around and that it'll open up and we can apply again. >> Oh, go ahead, Carrie. >> First off, I want to say that I Wow, my voice is weird. Okay. I love being on your committee. I have been so impressed. >> our committee. It's true. It's ours. >> It was before me. >> It was um because we are kind of the umbrella of the services and then the details. I mean, we know what's

045going on overall and then we're I really liked how Amanda said we really need to make sure that sending that information that we see concerns about or even successes to the proper other committees that it may may affect which I don't think we've had the collaboration between committees. And so I think this year with us focusing on very specific things each time and I think that will help our meetings get deeper. >> We've covered all of that all the time every time. >> Yeah. That's a lot. >> We're running in that like little rat trap. Like >> we are we're running 110 miles an hour. >> Wheel isn't better. We talk and talk and talk and talk and then we talk about this and then this and then you get to the end and you're

046like, >> "Well, I can't do all of that." >> No. Tomorrow. >> And then it turned out that we had to do fire control. >> Yeah. >> Because like the MLS's coming in like a fire hose kind of just forced that to be our focus. I really like that the direction we're heading this year is that we will be able to address things at a little deeper level and I definitely will make sure you know we'll keep make sure that the other committees um have pertinent information because there's no point in collecting it twice. >> Correct. >> We've done all that work to collect it. we have it in in place then we need to share and that's what I like about the directive the superintendent has um indicated he would like to support of

047us focusing in all our groups >> on specific things so that we're more co cohesive and we feel like we're making progress. I think we've done a lot of progress but um I think as a whole we all need to understand what's happening. So thank you. I it's one of those committees that um I feel like is so important. It's so valuable and it it touches the one every time if you go down the line and uh so thank you for the hard work and then that was amazing. You did well. >> Thank you >> condensing it down because I know what it looked like. >> You did great. >> Anyone else like to share or ask a question? >> Um I just had a couple things. One was I was astounded by the data

048that you shared about the 346% likelihood of homelessness. >> That was shocking to me. >> You get us that that >> goes to our legislator >> that data. Yes. For our legislators. I'm just thinking the legislative committee says that would be Karen, myself, Amber, and um >> yeah, I'll get you the link to that >> and Charlie. I think having that in front of our legislators, especially when they're going to be talking about compulsory education this next session is really important. >> That would really help. In fact, a lot of the data that we have, >> we just have to identify which are the most impactful, right? >> So, we don't drown them like it sounds like when we see it, >> but have those most impactful things. And that is one of them. Yeah,

049I think that that's pretty compelling, especially when our legislators are trying to figure out how to deal with the current homelessness issue if they understand this is what you're going to be staring at. >> Yeah, it it's like looking at reading levels in third grade and saying this is what's going to happen, right? This is a predictor and we know what's going to happen. So, the more we can do to impact that, change that >> graduation and get kids there, the better off we'll all. >> Yeah, I I would love to see the article. And then um just as a celebration, did parent square come out of this committee's work >> was that or was something? >> Okay. Well, I just have to say I do think that that's turned out to be a success

050in languages. >> We were nervous about it for a while, but I have heard very few complaints. I feel like it's working smoothly and I love that it's serving all of the students with so many different languages and their parents. So anyway, thank you to whoever really No, that's that's been huge. >> And as I've talked with other districts and stuff who don't have that, they're just like, "It does what?" >> It's magic for us. I mean, and and you just think about if you're new to the country and you don't speak English and many of our specifically our newcomer families come haven't had great experience with, let's say, government in their own communities. And so they're dropping their poor child off at a school that the government is going to take care of, right?

051And there's just a lot of, I think, angst and anxiety around that. And this this tool alone has just helped us communicate with them and alleviate some of those fears and really help schools and teachers reach out to kids. >> Awesome. >> So, it's awesome. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Well, if there are no other comments, we have ended exceedingly early. It was not what we anticipated, but anyway. So, I guess we will adjourn until the business meeting at 7 p.m. So, feel free to break, eat something, and thanks for being here. >> I'm just going to run home, take a nap. [Music] Here we go. [Music] Yes, you got it. [Music] behind me. Welcome to the Canyon's Board of Education um meeting. Today is October 7th uh 2025. We are

052meeting at the district office located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy, Utah. Um we are excusing um uh board president Amber Schill. My name is Amanda Oaks. I'm vice president of the board of education and I will be sitting in for her today. First item to approve the agenda um for tonight, October 7th, 2025. If I can have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight, that'd be great. I move to approve the agenda for tonight um for October 7th, 2025. >> Great. Do I have a second? >> I'll second that. >> All right. Any discussion to the motion? Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. That motion um passes in the affirmative unanimously. Now we will be led in uh the pledge of allegiance from um Jordan High School Principal

053Kelsey Kemp. After which we will have school highlights by Principal Kemp. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you uh board so much for uh having me come and share some highlights about Jordan High School. I first want to just start off and just thank you for um for all that you do for Joran High School for um the time and the money that has been invested in the school with our new construction updates and and the updates that are coming. Uh our community is very grateful for um all that you've done to support our high school in that. I wanted to talk about a few

054things that are going on at Jordan High School. Um, I guess I could start with the construction update. The bathrooms are just about done on the inside. Uh, they should be done by Christmas, which will finish um, uh, our phase one of our building. Um, the genderneutral bathrooms upstairs will be will be done by Christmas, and then the downstairs should be done, uh, in a couple weeks. Uh, so we'll have two sets of genderneutral brooms, uh, one upstairs and one down. Um, and then the overall construction of the fieldhouse and the blackbox theater is scheduled to be completed by uh July 2nd. So, we look forward to being able to utilize those spaces as a school. Um, a couple things going on in the school this year. We have implemented a new hall pass policy

055uh where the first 10 minutes and the last five minutes of class students are not allowed on a hall pass unless it's in dire need. And we've seen that that's really cleaned up our halls. uh we don't have as many students wandering the halls. Um they're in the classrooms getting instruction uh from our teachers and we feel that's been a really great um uh uh policy that we've implemented at our school. Our teachers this year are are focused on AVID strategies uh wicker in the classrooms. Uh they have all been working diligently to implement three to five wicker strategies in each of our classrooms to engage students at a higher level and get them more engaged in their learning. Um, as far as our student groups go, um, uh, Mr. Jeff Haney will talk a

056little bit about our Shakespeare, um, festival that we attended with our performing arts groups this last weekend and the, uh, the highlights that they were able to have there. Uh, we've had numerous student groups participate in some of the fun runs at the feeder elementary schools and, uh, they've, uh, enjoyed doing that and and, uh, being with the elementary students. Um uh we recently had um our first pores avias of the year. Uh it was one of the most highly attended um events that we've had in the past couple years. Um we had uh speakers come and uh talk about mental health and suicide awareness. And then there was a community lawyer that came and talked about um the immigration laws and updates uh to support our our community there. Uh, as a note of

057athletics, we recently um renamed our football field uh after Henry C. Jorgensson, um a former um alumni to Jordan High School uh principal and advocate for us as well. And that was a great event. We're grateful for all that were able to attend uh that event as we were able to recognize him and his uh donations to Jordan High School. Um our boys region cross country team won a region championship today. Um we want to recognize them as well as our our girls uh finished quite well in that event. And our girls soccer team will be hosting a state um uh state soccer game this Thursday. And last of all, I just want to again thank you for the time and concern of looking at Jordan High School and the things that we need. I

058know that uh some of our athletic parents, namely our baseball parents, have been to advocate for um our field and our community and uh uh we had uh numerous members of the board and superintendent come out and check out our our field and uh the needs there. Um and we're grateful that uh we feel like you've listened and we look forward to being able to have those needed improvements take place uh at Jordan High School. So, thank you for uh listening to our community and uh and taking action on that. We appreciate that. >> Thank you so much. Please give our regards to your your staff and to your teachers. We really appreciate them. I had a chance to go visit Jordan High School in the spring to go see some of what you're doing

059through those AVID um the AVID program. It was impressive. So, thank you so much for coming. >> Thank you. I'll do that. Okay, that brings us to the next portion of tonight's meeting, which is the Canyon Strong Student Recognitions by um communications director Jeff Haney and Associate Director of Communications, Kirsten Stewart. >> Thank you, Vice President Oaks, for this time to recognize the achievements of the students in the Canyon School District who have truly gone above and beyond in their pursuit of excellence. It's been a historic start to the school year in Canyons. In just a matter of days, we've watched our students capture national and state titles, as well as state and national recognition for their artistic and academic endeavors. Now, we start with the results of the 49th annual. Here we go. Looks

060like it's not flipping, Derek. There you go. Slowly moving toward this, we start with the 49th uh annual National High School Shakespeare Competition results. We give a standing ovation to Hillrest High. The Huskies won their sixth consecutive sweep stakes award for their division in this national competition. It also marked Hillrest's 12th overall sweep stakes honor in the past 16 years. But the awards for Canyon schools did not end there. It was actually a Canyon's district sweep in the sweep stakes competition. Brighton took second place and Corner Canyon took third. And in addition, at the end of the event, all five of Canyon School District's high schools took home at least one first place national championship trophy. Brighton won first place in the duo trio scene category. Corner Canyon won first place in ensemble. As Mr.

061Kemp said, Jordan High excelled in choir. They took first place in the Triador category and an Ala High student took first in monologues. All five walked away with the national championship. The full list of winners has yet to be sent to us by the competition organizers. When we do receive that, we'll put that information on the website on our social media pages to appropriately applaud our theater, music, and dance students who competed at the 49th annual Shakespeare competition at Southern Utah University. Now, let's talk for a second about repeating as champions. Hillrest repeated six times. The Chargers have just three more to go to tie that consecutive uh championship. This afternoon, Corner Canyon accomplished a three repeat at the 6A boys golf tournament. Yes, that's right. The Chargers have won the state title for three

062three years running, firmless firmly establishing their reputation as a golf dynasty and justifying their recent number one ranking on the national rankings. The Corner Canyon team includes brothers, one a senior and one a freshman. This was the only time they could compete with each other in high school for a title and they did it. So congratulations to them. The Chargers came back from a onestroke deficit after the first day of the competition to win the state trophy. We were thrilled to see the results and get the team photos from principal Dena Kohler. So congratulations to the Chargers, their coaches, and their supporters, including their very supportive parents. Now, as you can see, Ala's red, black, white, and silver uniforms sparkled under the stadium lights at the Band of America Arizona regional competition in Flagstaff, Arizona.

063At the competition, Ala's marching band faced some of the very best student musicians and color guards in Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, California, and Arizona. And after the preliminary round of judging, Ala's marching band was granted one of the spots in the final round of competition. But unfortunately, lightning and inclement weather pushed back the judging so much that they just awarded the trophies based on the judging in the preliminary rounds. But still, regionally, Alahai walked away with 11th place. So, congratulations to the Hawks who placed so high and made it for the very first time into a finals at a regional Bands of America competition. Last week, Alah High's band competed closer to home and took place took second place in 5A Open Division at the Bridgerland Invitational. In Hillrest's marching band, took third place

064in the 5A Scholastic Division at that same competition. So, go marching bands. In a few weeks, we'll have the state competition. It's called the Red Rocks. It's in St. George. We'll keep you updated on how well all of our bands and marching band and our color guards do. Congratulations to Corner Canyon's Adrien McIll, who is chosen through a competitive audition process to perform with the Utah Symphony at the 65th annual Salute to Youth concert on November 12th at Bravanel Hall. Now, this event showcases his hard work and talent. He will be performing Mosart's obo concerto in C major, movement one. If students want to go support Adrian at this event as he performs with some of the country's very best musicians, tickets are at 50% off for all students who want to attend. So, congratulations

065to Adrian on this accomplishment. We can't wait to see how well you perform with the Utah Symphony. The Utah Department, the US Department of Education recently released their list of the 161 students across the country who are named as US presidential scholars. It's an incredibly prestigious status for students to receive this. One of our very own, Blake Hullinger, who graduated in the spring from Corner Canyon High School, who is now at Harvard, was named of one of four US Presidential Scholars from Utah. And like I said, only 161 students were chosen for this status. So, congratulations to Blake. It's only been since 1964 that the Federal Education Department has given this very prestigious academic award. Congratulations to the Chargers. Now, tomorrow is a very big day for the unified soccer players in Canyons. It's the

066region competition at the Real Salt Lake facility in Haramman. More than 1,500 students from across the valley will be competing. And then the very next day, we're hoping our teams make it to the state finals that'll be played at America First Field here in Sandy. That's the home of Real Salt Lake. Here you can see some of the action at the all CSD soccer matchups. It was held at Brighton High Soccer Field was right in front of Butler Middle School. The goal of unified unified sports programs and we have very active unified programs at Alta, Brighton, Corner Canyon, Hillrest and Jordan and all of our middle schools. We want this program to encourage our special education students to compete with their peers in general education in athletics and other extracurricular activities. So if you'd like

067to come and support our unified soccer players tomorrow in Heramman and then the very next day, cross your fingers, we'll have teams in the state finals. We also are are cheering for Hillrest and Brighton girls tennis players who are vying for state titles in the 5A tournament sat Thursday and Saturday. The Bengals and the Huskies are some of the highest ranked girls tennis players in the state. Also bundle up on Saturday perhaps grab an umbrella for the championship middle school intram murals cross country meet which we call the Mike Soy Invitational. The three best boys and girl runners from every grade at each Canyon's District Middle School are expected to compete in a two-mile race around Jordan High School. If history holds, we'll have a lot of parents and supporters lining the route to cheer

068their students as they make their way through the course. We also want to extend an invitation to the entire community to attend the 16th annual Apex Awards. It'll be held one week from today on Tuesday, October 14th at Butler Middle School. A catered reception is at 6:30. The ceremony will be held in the auditorium starts at 7:15. This year's Legacy Award winner certainly deserves the honor. It's effectively Canyon's District's Hall of Fame. The legacy award is. And the Legacy Award winner this year is Mrs. Nancy Tingy, the former president of the board of education. She's seen here with former Utah Governor Gary Herbert and NFL star and former Brighton football standout Seami Fo Fhoko. Other winners of the Apex Awards, which are the highest awards given by the board and the administration, are the following.

069Our teacher of the year was announced in the spring. That's Lucia de la Cruz Rodriguez from Midvil Elementary School. Our school administrator of the year is Indian Hills Middle Principal Shelley Karen. District administrators of the year, Shaolo, our payroll director, and Kirsten Stewart, the associate director of communications. Our education support professionals of the year are Charlotte Graham, the head secretary at East Midville Elementary. She's been there for 47 years, folks. 47 years. and Kathy Hilton, the head secretary at Corner Canyon High School. Our student support services professional of the year is our development officer from the Canyons Education Foundation. That's Denise Hayok. Our community partner of the year was mentioned by Mr. Kemp, Dan Jorgensson, a Jordan High benefactor who has given so much to his beloved beat diggers. Our volunteer of the year is

070Trevan Cole. At one time he worked in the cafeteria at Eastmont, but his job interfered with some of his federal benefits, so he just quit his job, but continued to show up every day as a volunteer. Congratulations to Trevan for winning this award. And the elected official of the of the year is one of our greatest supporters from day one. It is Draper Mayor Troy Walker. So, please consider joining us at Butler Middle School for this special night. It'll feature performances by the Alta High Ballroom team and some members of the cast of Corner Canyon's upcoming production of Mary Poppins. We also will broadcast the event on CSDTV, our streaming and video service in the district, which is producing and broadcasting tonight's board meeting. Vice President Oaks, you can see that it's been a big

071week in the Canyon School District. In canyons, we are the district of champions. in canyons. It's a place to learn more, do more, and be more. Thank you for this time for recognitions. We turn the time back to you. >> Thank you so much, Jeff. That was a a great update. It's really exciting to hear all of that. Okay, so we have now come to um the public comment portion of our board meeting. The board of education encourages public engagement and values input from our students, parents, employees, and other patrons of the district. Let me briefly review guidelines for public comment. Public comment time is limited to residents and current employees of the district. Um, the board of education does not engage in public comment on personnel issues of a district employees character, professional competence,

072or mental or physical health. If a member of the public wants to comment on personnel issues, the board would would request that those comments be submitted to the board in writing. However, if the member of the public determines to verbally comment on personnel issues, his or her comments need to be civil and refrain from personal attacks, insults, defamatory, or slanderous comments about an individual. Comments must be age appropriate considering children who may be present or viewing online. Um, speakers may um need to indicate whether they are um representing a group or just themselves. Um because we have so many people speaking this evening or have signed up. Um we typically limit our board comments to 45 minutes but we will extend that to an hour this evening. And each individual gets two minutes to comment

073and a group gets three minutes. So if you can indicate who you're what you're representing when you stand up here um that would be great. Also um just to give you a heads up sometimes the public doesn't always understand this. We as a board will take notes and listen to what you have to say, but we won't engage back and forth, but we are taking what you have to say under consideration. So, just be aware of that. So, um I have let's see um I'm going to read the first three names and it so if you can come up and wait if if you're going to be coming up fairly soon. I'll read those names out loud and please I I'm sure I'll probably mispronounce the names. Please introduce yourself and correct me if I

074say it incorrectly. I pre-app. So, first we have Janette Knight, then Diane Nahalooski and and Johanna Williams. Um, we'll start with Janette. >> Good evening and thank you board members. My name is Janette Knight. I represent myself. I'm a proud member of the Parklane community, a community defined by communication, connection, care, and belonging. Parklane isn't just a school. It's the heart of our neighborhood. Students walk together each morning, greeting by familiar, greeted by familiar faces. Parents walk alongside, watching out for each other's children. Teachers, administrators, and staff know our families by name. It's a web of relationships that supports every child every day. That walkability is a huge part of what makes Parklane special and functional. More families can walk to Park Lane than any other proposed alternative. which not only reduces traffic and transportation

075costs as others have previously described, but it also benefits our children's well-being. Studies show that students who walk to school experience lower levels of stress, improved focus, and greater emotional resilience. The daily walk becomes a transition transition ritual, an important moment to pre mentally prepare for learning each day. To disrupt this community, to relocate us to an unfamiliar building with unfamiliar routines would be more than just an inconvenience. It would be a loss. A loss of safety, a loss of tradition, a loss of connection. I have the pleasure of volunteering as Parklane's choir director, and every week I am reminded that a choir is more than just the voices singing together. It's a living symbol of community. In a choir, every voice matters. Every part plays a role. Melody and harmony all are essential. We

076listen to each other, we adjust, we support, and we rise together. That's what makes music so beautiful. Parklane is no different. Our school is a harmony of unique voices. Students, teachers, staff, and families, each bringing something distinct. Yet, we work together as one. Disrupting that unity is like pulling a section out of a choir in midsong. The music falters, the harmony breaks. Um, this school, this space, this community, it's working for us. In a world where so much feels so uncertain, we must fiercely protect what is already thriving. Just like a choir, our strength comes from our togetherness. Please keep our community whole. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Diane, then Johanna Williams, and then Julie Bean. >> Hi, I'm Diane Naleki. I've been a teacher um teaching resource at Parklane for 18

077years. As a faculty, we've come together, we've had celebrations, we've done fun things together. We've also had great losses. I have sat next to co-workers and community members and my own students as we've attended the funerals of two teachers and just recently my pareducator. These experiences have shaped our identity and caused us to have great passion for our school. We have, as teachers, we've had more and more demands put on us. And yet, our school has risen to that challenge. Our academic scores are amazing. We are third out of 28, only behind two Salta schools. And I think if you took out one of those salt scores from one school, we would probably be second. And we have ACC in our building. But the true, set those all aside, the true accomplishment we have is

078how we have blended our school together. When I started years ago, we had ACC and gen ed and we didn't do much mixing. We didn't do much mainstreaming because teachers just weren't really comfortable with that. Now it is completely different. Collaboration is our norm. We mainstream. We reverse mainstream every single day. Since 2019, we have released 12 students from resource. Some six of those had moved in from other states and other districts. ACC has moved two students back into gened with more coming. Our community has embraced ACC. I'm from New York. I can talk fast. I hope you're with me. Um I work with every single teacher in our building and I can tell you that this has been a total effort. It is if uh ISD is here John Hattie would say the effect

079size for this kind of collaboration is 1.57. You cannot find that anywhere else. All of our students are thriving. ACC ACC students are passing rise tests. I have a former student who just got his four-year degree and he's now up at the U on a scholarship um studying medicine. This is amazing. But this change has taken 20 years. We don't have that kind of time. We need to keep Parklane open with our ACC students there. They deserve that. They are they are going to suffer immensely if they get moved to another school. Just imagine a school I'm almost done. My name took longer than 10 seconds, so I have just a few more. Um, imagine a school where everyone is is involved in the community and included, has stellar academics, and where teachers collaborate on

080a daily basis. It might sound like a like a fairy tale, but it's not. It's Parklane Elementary. Change is inevitable. I know that. I'm committed to consolidating with kindness and I thank you for letting me speak. >> Thank you. No applause, please. Okay, so next we have Johanna Williams, Julie Bean, and then Katie Walker. >> Hi. I'm a teacher also at Parklane Elementary. And I just want to thank the board for taking this on. Like you've got to be the most unpopular people when you come visit our schools all across the district. And I am grateful you're willing to because we care about our schools in canyons. I've worked at four different schools in Canyons. And um I think it's worth considering and listening and looking at all of the possible things. I also love

081what Diane said about consolidating with kindness. And I know um some people who work at Granite and go to Granite and they're wonderful. This isn't an us versus them, but it's simply looking to see what is best for Canyons as a whole and also what's best for the students and the kids that attend these schools. Um, so in that realm, I have two kind of things that have been floating in my brain. The first one is when I watched the original proposal, one of the main um goals with of the boundary changes was both boosting up Eastmon and Jordan recognizing that they could do this and having Parklane as the main one would draw more students in. We work with the PLT group. We work with them at the fund run and we have the

082Jordan students in our school. The second thing is obviously the schools, the teachers, the programs at both schools are great. However, we need to look at what is best for the greatest number of kids and looking at how many kids would have to be on buses. I appreciate um what Miss Knight said about the effect of busing. I go to I have been at schools where there are a lot of buses coming and going and it's hard to arrange playdates and it's hard for them to feel um like a community and there is stressful quite honestly. I can't imagine having 10 or 12 buses going to one school. And so, in my opinion, I think we should look at the results um what would keep the least amount of neighborhood kids walking to school in

083a safe environment where they can um be with their families and their friends as much as they can. And thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Okay, next we have Julie Bean, Katie Walker, and then Shannon Herbert. Okay. Hi, my name is Julie Bean. I'm an ACC special education teacher at Jordan High School as well as special programs representative for Canyon's Education Association where I also serve on the negotiations team. Thank you for your time. Um, our ability to provide pertinent meaningful feedback for students along with our ability to plan engaging lessons that will bring our students forward is constantly being eroded. At the end of 2023, the board granted teachers two additional work days with two hours of PD, allowing teachers an additional six hours of preparation time to help with the teacher

084overworkload that we were constantly in. Now, what I understand is that we will be expected to do eight hours of PD for these days. Doesn't this mean we'll be losing 12 hours of prep time this year? Demands on our time have already been increased due to many factors including behavioral issues which we are all working to address the addition of advisory periods in high school that took away some of our prep time while also adding additional work we're expected to manage and the many additional policy and procedures that have been steadily increasing especially this year with the USPE courses we were expected to complete but given no time to do so. We were told to do it during our 32 legislative hours which is now also being eroded with all this extra work. Those hours

085were supposed to be at our own personal discretion where we would be able to breathe, be creative, learn more about something that can improve our teaching. I'm exhausted and frustrated and very un and feel very entrusted to be the professional I work so hard to become. I love my students. They need so much support and guidance as we are constantly being pulled in all sorts of directions. I feel that I am not able to give them what they need. I wish I wish I could just demand that I be creative and amazing in the average of 1 hour and 15 minutes I get daily for all all the grading feedback issues that constantly come up. Communication with families and I'm not even going to mention the additional work I must do as a special educator.

086I'm asking that the board reconsider and um to please limit our PD on teacher work days to two hours to help us with our workload. Thank you. >> Thank you again. No applause, please. Okay. Next, we have Katie Walker, then Shannon Herbert, and then Emily Paige. >> Hi. Good evening, members of the school board. My name is Katie Walker. I'm a mom of three Canyon students. I'm a kindergarten teacher here at Parkane Elementary. So, really, I have like 27 kids this year. Um, this is my eighth year with Canyon School District. I came back to our district when there was an opening at Parklane, which is very rare. And I knew I wanted to be a Panther. When I say that this school in Canyons is a unicorn, I truly mean it. I have had

087the pleasure of working at several of our schools and with dozens of amazing colleagues, but as you have heard from our community members, there's something magical about our school and that is a huge testament to my Parkling family. Um, we have carefully and meticulously created an amazing place for our community and with our community. I'm excited at this opportunity of combining and welcoming more students and families and colleagues into our building. Um, but I wanted to speak a little bit more about a long-term planning. Um, we're here to discuss more than just the future of a building. We're here to discuss the future of our neighborhood communities. If consolidation is inevitable, which I don't envy your place right now, so thank you for being so considerate. I urge you to maintain Park Lane as the

088location of the combined school. This is a crit this is critical for the entire progression of our students canyons journey into middle and high school. We are a neighborhood loyal to Eastmont and Jordan. Park Lane is the foundation of that loyalty. Last night, last month we held our annual fun run. And who shows up every year but the Jordan Beat Diggers cross country team. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am and relieved as a kindergarten teacher to have those runners cheer us on, to motivate us, and to help my students get back to the school. Um, because of events like these, our kids start to identify with Jordan at an early age. Parklane is an essential link to that Eastmon to Jordan feeder. If you close Parklane and send our students to Granite, a

089school inside of Albian and Brighton boundaries, I'm worried that we may start to see more and more of our Parklane students permitting into those schools, and those schools are amazing. They are absolutely wonderful. But I am also a proud mom of an Eastmon Patriot student, and I don't want to see the possible closure of our school, potentially severing our neighborhood's bond with Eastmont and Jordan. I am hopeful that the board will choose to honor its commitment to strengthening that Eastmont and Jordan system and keep our school open. Lastly, I just want to say thank you for your hard work, your consideration, and your openness to the best possible solution. >> Thank you. Next, we have Shannon Herbert, Emily Paige, and then Lisa Meterhouser. >> Hello. I'm a Parklane parent asking you to save our school

090because keeping Parklane open is the more economical option in the long run. Simply put, keeping Granite open would require three more buses than if Parklane housed the new combined school. That's a difference of $150,000 per year on busing costs, according to your own numbers. Money that could be spent on teachers and support staff. Parklane's parking lot is the most cited reason for closing the school. For 10 years, Parklanes SEC has been asking for the district to fix the lot. And for 10 years, we've been passed over for more urgent district needs. In Parklane's SEC minutes from May 2017, I found this quote, "Parking lot is on the district 5-year plan to be redone." End quote. It's a bitter irony that this inaction might now close our beloved school. But when talking this week with a

091district bus driver, we were shocked to learn that some think the granite lot is perhaps worse than Park Lane's. Park Lane has issues with our entrance and exit, but our completely separate bus and parent areas reduce risk. Apparently, they don't have those separate areas at Granite, and it gets chaotic as everyone merges together. And getting to Granite can be tough in the winter. The narrow, windy roads leading to Granite are shady, icy, and dangerous in the cold, while the roads around Parklane are wide, straight, and safely lined with sidewalks. Moreover, Parklane has room to expand. There's a large, mostly unused blacktop area behind the school that could be repurposed as a bus drop off. Fixing the Park Lane lot would be a one-time investment, but the costs of busing, if Parklane closes, will be a

092recurring expense. Year after year, the district would be spending taxpayer money to bus 300 plus kids to Granite when there is a perfectly good school building in our own backyard, a building that's actually newer, larger, and in better condition. Granite already buses most of their students. I think or many of their students, diverting the buses five minutes down the hill seems a simpler and cheaper option. If the goal is budget reduction, then saving park lane is the better solution long term. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Emily Paige, Lisa Meterhouser, and then Wendy Nielsen who will be representing your group. I am Emily Paige and my son Silus goes to Park Lane and I am here to discuss the ramifications I feel by personal experience would happen by taking the ACC program out

093of Parklane and moving it to a school that does not have it already established. Uh my other son s uh Celely Page was moved to Sprucewood last year and had been at Granite for two years was established with the teachers was happy was moving forward towards advancing up into the ACC program. They moved him to Sprucewood his third grade year and he fell behind six months worth of educational knowledge because the principal, vice principal, mainstream teachers and the school in general was not set up for an ACC program. They tried their best. They went as fast as they could to get the program up and running as fast as possible and have the mainstream teachers and the program up and running. But unfortunately, there was time lost and my child and several children in the

094school suffered due to it. I am concerned that if this is done to our ACC program, the ACC program at Park Lane for my son, he too will struggle while they are playing catchup. And that's basically all it is is that they are playing catch-up. It would be different if the program was already established or if the two to threeyear we were told originally was the plan for this idea that you guys have to close a school. We were originally told last year that it was going to be a two to threeear plan. Well, if that was the case and that would have given us or teachers or the schools in general time to set up the program. Unfortunately though, that that is not what we have now. And we have students, my child in

095particular that I am speaking for asking me, "Mom, how do I fight the fight?" Well, that's why I'm here. I'm here to fight the fight and ask you to consider not moving the program to a school that does not have it already established and having our children suffer in the process. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Next, we have Lisa Neerhouser, Wendy Nielson, who's representing a group, and Amanda May. All numbers have been taken from transparentututah.gov and our public knowledge. Canyon School District has an enrollment of 33,000 students. Our current CEO or superintendent has an annual salary numbers include a benefits package of $422,000. This is an increase from last year's salary of which was $366,000 up $55,000. This is the largest increase in the position since our current superintendent took the role.

096In an effort to do my due diligence, I researched other bordering districts, their enrollment numbers, and their salaries. Granite School District has an enrollment of 58,000 students, and their superintendent salary is 367,000. Jordan School District has an enrollment of 57,000 students and a salary of $399,000. Again, our school district currently sits at an enrollment of 33,000 students, again with a salary of $422,000. To break down the discrepancy further, the price per student because we're here for the students for Jordan School District is 69 $6.99. Granite is 6 $6.35 and Canyons is $12.70. Again, in the midst of declining enrollment and closing schools, moving on, this past school year, current administrator of an elementary school was taken midyear to fill a new district position, not one that was already being filled, administrative, not with students. That

097new salary and benefits package total $216,000. Again, this is money that was not previously being utilized in this manner. This is money that was taken elsewhere from the district. Now, let's dive into this a little bit more. While the money is a slap across the face for all the underfunded schools, both teachers and students alike, let's talk about how this impacted the school that she was taken from. The fourth and fifth grade children in that school had seen four administrators come and go in their tenure at school. This made five. The teachers have seen even more come and go. If we're talking about the true impact of top level seuite decisions, the true harm is happening to the kids and the teachers. The same people that all the school board and the top level employees

098came to care about the most. This canyon school, this Canyon's district could not even simply wait to fill the position after the school year ended. They needed that principal from her position in January again to fill a new position that was not there previously. The kids came back to school and they got to meet their fifth new principal since they started kindergarten. Same kids that went through COVID in their kindergarten and first grade year. To circle back, this year alone, we have declining enrollment. This school board has been given has given larger raises, made new top earning positions, and the fix that's being proposed and carried out was to close schools. Can you >> your time is up? >> Is I'm almost done is run in a manner where the top dogs keep getting richer

099from taking from the small guys, which is kids. Thank you. >> Again, please no applause. Thank you. Um, next is Wendy Nielsen, then Amanda May, then Ashley Davis, >> and Wendy represents a group. >> I do. Thanks. Um, I just wanted you guys came and came to our school that I'm Wendy from Bella Vista. Um, and during your visit, you mentioned a key goal was to keep schools together and avoid splitting established communities. However, the current proposal to relocate Bella Vista students would in effect divide our school. The ABS program is not a separate support. It's fully integrated into Bella Vista's culture. These students are among our most vulnerable and they thrive in a consistent, stable, and inclusive environment. Uprooting them would be a disruption that many of them may not be equipped to handle

100easily, and we're deeply concerned about the impact such a move would have on their well-being and academic progress. You also mentioned proximity as a factor in the proposed combination of Bella, Bella Vista, and Ridgerest. With that in mind, has the board considered relocating Rididgerest's DLI program to another underenrolled school such as Oakdale to help boost its numbers and allow Ridgerest's neighborhood students to transition to Bella Vista. This option could help maintain Bella Vista's strong community identity and integrated programs, avoid overcrowding at Ridgerest, allow for a more balanced and harmonious school culture rather than Bella Vista students being absorbed into a much larger Rididgerest population. create a smoother path for a long-term planning, especially considering that Ridgerest may be high on the list for a rebuild in the next four to five years. If Ridgerest is

101due to for a rebuild, wouldn't it make more sense for Ridgerest students to temporarily move to Bella Vista so that in a few years both communities could move together into a new building as equals. This seems a more thoughtful and strategic way to merge communities on equal footing in a shared new space rather than the one community being absorbed into another. We recognize Bella Vista as a smaller school, but we have a large flexible property that can accommodate portable classrooms if needed. With three classrooms per grade, three dedicated ABS classrooms, and all general education classrooms inside the building, we could comfort comfortably serve more students, and portables could just be reserved for support services, not core instruction. Ultimately, we're asking for the board to seriously consider other configurations and creative solutions. The current proposal feels

102like it was shaped around Bella Vista's size and location rather than the value of its programs, people, and potential. We understand difficult decisions must be made and that the school closures are on the horizon. But we also believe there are smarter, more equitable paths forward, especially if we think long term about how schools will be rebuilt and how communities can be blended in a way that honors their identity and contributions. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Amanda May, then Ashley Davis, and then Elaine Nielsen. >> Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. My name is Amanda May. I represent myself and I have three children attending Parklane. In the last board meeting, Dr. Robbins mentioned that boosting student achievement and student engagement are main goals of the district. The culture at

103Parklane contributes to meeting both of these goals. Our principal has done an amazing job of picking the right people for every corner of Park Lane. This is demonstrated by our rice scores consistently being some of the top in the district. Our scores include our wonderful ACC population which further highlights the amazing administration, faculty, and staff at Parklane. As Vice President Oaks mentioned, high quality education should be our number one goal. Unfortunately, research has shown that shuttering schools decreases student test scores and they take years to recover. Secondly, reducing chronic absenteeism was another goal presented by Dr. Robbins. Students ability to get to and from school is a large factor impacting school attendance. Before and after school chair is a lifeline to many families h that have two working parents. Unfortunately, there are not a lot

104of options in Sandy for afterchool child care. Of the 11 Sandy Daycarees that I called, only three offer pickup and drop off to Parklane and only one does it to Granite. These programs are difficult to get in and have long wait lists. Park by moving Parklane students to Granite. Working families will lose their afterchool care due to the less centralized location. Even moving start and end times could jeopardize these programs abilities to offer this as an option. Finally, Dr. Robbins mentioned reducing negative behaviors as a goal of the district. During the truth and taxation meeting, the board discussed the part of this tax increase was due to implementing vice principles into the elementary schools. The board mentioned that principles are being tasked with administrative duties and are unable to manage negative behaviors in the classroom.

105However, by combining Park Lane and Granite, you are increasing the case load on the vice principles and putting more stress on the teachers. I'm almost done. If these are the district's main goals, how will the district combat the negative impacts of closing either of these schools? Canyons is a leader, and I know if we pause and take more community input, we can find a better solution. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Next, we have Ashley Davis, Ela Nielsen, and then Tessa Reese. >> Hello, my name is Ashley Davis. I'm here as a Park Lane parent of four kids, and I'm asking you to keep our walkable neighborhood school open. My family moved here a few years ago because of Parklane's excellent reputation. I heard about it over and over as I was walking

106through houses. I heard about its positive school culture, high acade academic scores, and inclusive environment. I'm a former elementary school teacher myself. I taught in CA in Jordan School District, and I recognize an outstanding school culture when I see one. Going in Park Lane, I can tell over and over that this is incredible school. It's really special. Um, I know that if Granite families were to join us at our school, our community would welcome them with open arms and excitement. Um, I'm one of the families that lives in Parkland's boundaries, one of the furthest homes away. Um, and it I have a first and fourth grader at the school currently and they can bike uphill to school in less than 10 minutes. We have timed it because they really like stopwatches and it's seven minutes

107and it's uphill and we're the farthest ones away and it's so wonderful for them to bike to school. They love it. Um, every day dozens of families in our neighborhood walk to school. It's a huge reason that families love Parklane. It brings people into our neighborhood. Um, it doesn't make sense to take a high-erforming, fully walkable school that requires zero education, zero general education buses and move all those students to granite where there are not safe routes with sidewalks for our kids to get to school. Walkable schools are invaluable. Research shows that students who get physical activity in before school are more alert. They're ready to learn. They're better and they perform better academically and I know our teachers want that. They start their day with less stress and they're in a better mood. It's

108a simple routine that sets a positive tone for the entire day. Socially, kids walking to school strengthens their neighborhoods. Families build friendships and kids build friendships as they go to school. Um, please remember that our kids live in a world of technology and screens and they spend far too much far less time outside and outdoors than they used to in the past. and anything that we can do to build a routine of daily movement and spending time outside into their lives is a huge win for us. Um, Parklane stands out as one of the most stable and viable schools to remain open and I know that Parker parkane will continue to attract young families to move here. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Ela Nielsen, Tessa Ree, and Casey Ree. Hello, my name is

109Ellie Nielson and I'm a pair professional at Bella Vista. As I'm new to this industry, I've been very brighteyed at everything I've been learning and experiencing um the last four years that I've been pleasured to work at Bella Vista. Um, something that I've been wondering is I've noticed that the district keeps claiming that the budget is very tight, which is why there's leading to school closures, but um, like I forget her name. Someone else came up here and said there's been positions added to the district offices and there's also been significant raises in the district offices totaling to $1.7 million. So, I'm confused why we don't have the money for the schools, for the kids, for the teachers teaching the students, but we have the money for people sitting up here. And that's all I

110wrote today. Thank you. >> Next, we have Tessa Reese, Casey Reese, and Kaylee Carly. >> Good evening. My name is Tessa Ree. I have four kids, two of which currently go to Park Lane. One that went to Park Lane and that one that will be in kindergarten next year. I'm actually really excited about combining Park Lane with Granite. I know a few families from Granite, and I'm really excited to grow our community, increase the number of friends as school, and increase the parent volunteers. I'm thankful for all of the work your committee is doing to and putting into making the right decision. I do do believe the Park Lane building is the right building for our combined school. One of the biggest reasons that I feel this way is I believe it is fiscally irresponsible

111to spend $144,000 per year on the three additional buses that would be needed to transport the current Park Lane students to the Granite Building. $144,000 is a lot. I don't know how the red tape works with these things, but if we have an extra $144,000, I'd like to see that money go to the incredible teachers of both Parkland and Granite. The teachers and administration are the heart of our schools and they already don't get paid enough for the incredible things that they do. So to see 144,000 per year spent on transporting these kids past a viable school feels irresponsible. Maybe the money couldn't go to the teachers. Like I said, I don't know how the red tape works on things like this. But at the very least, the money could be saved and not spent

112at all. I would ask that if you have a moment at the end of this meeting, could you address this issue and let us know how the funding works? Could this money be spent on our teachers instead of transportation? Could it be saved or could some of these funds go toward a one-time expense of adjusting the Parklane parking lot? My last comment is that I am very ready and willing to accept whichever building your committee deems the most responsible choice. But I would ask for the sake of both Parklane and Granite families that when you present your final decision that you make it very clear why you picked the school that you picked. If Granite's building truly is superior fiscally and in every other way, then I will accept it. But right now, when I

113look at the pros and cons on paper, it doesn't look that way. So I think it would be very valuable if you can present us with a solid reasoning and fact when that time comes so that we can come together in a great way instead of with angst. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Casey Reese, then Kaen Carly, and then Amy Query. >> Man, I'm the minority here. My name is Casey Reese. I'm with Parklane and I've learned a lot more reasons than I had before than just tonight. So, um I I understand that the name of the committee that is looking at this school decision is called the long range planning committee. And that title obviously really matters because you're not making a decision for the next year. You're obviously looking 5,

11410, 20 years into the future. And I'm grateful that people like you think and have that vision for the district. And I think it shows that you've done a great job so far because this district is flourishing and generally I think people are happy and kids are happy and safe and learning. However, if we look at the numbers, we have to acknowledge the most important question and that is what decision will serve the most kids ultimately and Granite's enrollment has dropped nearly 30% in the last seven years. And from what I understand, about 160 students now live within its boundaries. And that number will continue to go down as home prices continue to go up in a luxury neighborhood. Park Lane, on the other hand, our our our enrollments have more or less stabilized and

115they're not decreasing anymore. Our home prices, although ridiculous, are more affordable compared to compared to some of the other homes in the area. So when you think about what area will continue to actually grow with families, it will be Park Lane's area. And ultimately having a school at the heart of a community like Park Lane, I think is just an amazing benefit that will continue to yield great results for families, for parents, for kids, and ultimately for the district as you look at the results. And so while I think about the the all the reasonings here, I know that emotionally it can it can get involved with what's fair, what's justified, and what's not. But ultimately, if you look at the logical standpoint, I believe that Parklane's community serves more kids. And as a result,

116I think Parklane should obviously be the choice. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Kaylee Carly, then Amy Query, and then Lisa Curtis, who will be representing a group. >> All right. Um, my name is Kaen Carly. I have two stu uh students that go to Park Lane. Um, and I'm also a professional real estate agent um in Sandy for the last 15 years. I'd like to bring that perspective to point. the average home values is an argument that families with childrens are not moving into the area. Um, just so everyone knows, the median home price for Salt Lake County is $630,000 for a home for a single family home. 42% of homes sold in the Park Lane boundaries are within that range between 500 and 700,000 versus Granite's 8%. Only two homes in

117Park Lane have sold over a million dollars this year versus uh Granite's 58% of homes are sold over a million dollars. So, which area is going to bring in more families over the years? Families are moving into a walkable neighborhood where they expect to have a local elementary like Park Lane. Um, I specifically have clients moving here from Australia and Florida for the Parklane community and will not look outside of those boundaries. So, I ask you, does it make sense to close the school where 42% of PE families can afford the homes or to the 8%. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Amy Query, then Lisa Curtis, who's representing your group, and then Lori Richardson. Hi, I'm Amy. Um, just to kind of give you where I'm coming from from a perspective, um,

118I do have three kids at Parklane and and I love it and I agree with a lot of comments made. However, um, my whole professional career has been over a decade of working with kids in special education. Um, I currently teach future special educators in higher ed and um am finishing up my dissertation right now in a doctoral program all related to research and special ed. So, I've spent the majority of my professional career advocating really and speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves. And um that's where my perspective is coming from today. I think that's really important um for you to understand. I you probably have heard some speak already um about their personal experiences at um the accommodated core classroom at Parklane. Um from my background and experience and the research

119that goes into it is that um we know that both classrooms from Granite and Parklane the you know both of them are going to be disrupted and greatly. But I need you to understand that when these programs are dismantled and relocated, statistically and with personal stories, you've heard that those gains are seriously at risk. This decision needs to be made not lightly. It's weighted. Um we need to consider those um disruptions of the consistent routines, the trusted teacher relationships, familiar peer groups. All of those things cause regression and anxiety for these students as they move. Um, you have such great faculty buyin and administrative support and a system and a program that works at Park Lane. And it sounds like it should just happen anywhere you move a program. I can tell you I've been

120in tons and tons of classrooms and schools and it doesn't just happen. So, I hope that you get, you know, consider that even though 40 students at Parklane isn't the majority, that you really consider um that their education has never been about serving the majority. Federal law is about the individual. So, I hope you take that in consideration and and get some extra feedback on this decision of make moving those students. Thanks. >> Thank you so much. Next, we have Lisa Curtis, then Lori Richardson, then Rebecca Hill. And Lisa is representing your group. >> Um, yeah, and I just want to clarify that group is the fourth grade teachers at Bella Vista. Um, I've taught and worked at Bella Vista since 2012. Um, I've taught 10 years, but I was a parah for the years

121before that. Um, in these years, Del Vista has experienced chronic leadership turnover. And it's, um, during my 13 years of time, I've had eight principles. Two of whom we only got for one year. One of them we only had for four months. Most recently, we're just looking at a recent period of time. We've had four different principles in the last four years. I didn't know that other school agree. That's it's hard. Um, I want to highlight a contrast, though. Our neighboring schools have stable leadership. Butler's previous principal served from 2017 to 2024. Ridgerest principal had been there for about has been there for about four years now. In addition, Bella Vista has approximately three times the percentage of disadvantaged students compared to Butler. They are 14%, we are 39% while Ridgerest is around 30%. Those

122figures to me raise a serious question. Why has Bella Vista been treated as the district's revolving door? We've kind of referred to ourselves as the training ground for brand new principles. Get your feet wet for a year, then we'll give you your real school is how it's felt to us. Um, we became we were responsible to be the stability for our students. Um, we house an academic behavior support unit. Over the years, we've refined the methods and just like the other schools successfully have mainstreamed them and it's been a really successful we've really prided ourselves on that and been told that we've been doing a good job. Um unfortunately though um it's come to our attention that over the years there's been concerns in our community about the safety of their own students. So it

123has also served as a deterrent for people coming to our school. So the unstable leadership um we've raised concerns over the years. Um, we've just been told it's happening everywhere. You're not alone. Um, birth rates, declining enrollment, etc. Um, sure, other schools were also losing FTE. We believe that. But the response disregarded the degree to which Bella Vista was uniquely strained by repeated leadership turnover and the extreme staffing decisions that we were forced to operate under by being forced to go down to less than two teachers per grade level for the last three years. We just are asking that you give Bella Vista a fair shot. We ask for experienced principal and that you commit to us that they will be there for a multipleear placement. We recommend that you reconsider boundary moves that will

124send students to us. Um those 100 Ridgerest students that may not want to go to East Midville, we'll take them. Um let's balance out the numbers in our area. We all feed in the same school. Um, if you choose to proceed with the closure, despite the comments you hear, and we kindly insist that there be a rebrand of Ridgerest, we want a new name. We're okay with the Tigers. We are Tigers, too. Um, we insist that you provide a neutral, seasoned principle with the multi-year commitment and you offer teachers as much choice and dignity in as possible regarding our future employment. >> Thank you. Next, we have Lori Richardson, Rebecca Hill, and Gioonda Valz. who is representing a group assault. >> My son Rowan is seven years old and was diagnosed with level three severe

125non-verbal autism at the age of two and he's here with me tonight and he attends Granite Elementary. Um I want to talk about safety. Nearly half of all children with autism elope. When that happens near major roads, kids die. That's not speculation. That's our reality. Elopment is not an a behavior problem. It's a safety emergency. Park Lane sits near two major roads. There is no protective buffer, no margin for error if a child runs out during a meltdown, and many do. There's no time for intervention. We're not just talking about fear. We're talking about the the kind of grief that follows you for life. Granite, by contrast, offers distance, fencing, and natural barriers. It gives staff the seconds they need to respond and gives kids the chance to deescalate without being in danger. Last year,

126a Utah student was found in the street after eloping from school. The board case ended in a letter of warning and it could have ended much much worse. The board at the last meeting said that it will do what's best for the majority. But I'm here to ask you who's protecting the minority. Um who is standing up for the kids that can't speak for themselves but who absolutely deserve to be safe? Now I want to talk about the human cost of disruption and transition. These students have already transitioned between schools. Granite is Rowan's fourth school. ECC students thrive on routine and trusted adults. When you strip that away, you're not just changing their classroom. You're changing their sense of safety and belonging and slowing progress. It causes regression, meltdowns, and emotional distress that can take

127months to recover. The staff at Granite knows these children. They are trained. They built trust. That continuity is worth more than any logistical advantage you think Parklane offers. This isn't just a move. It's trauma. Please don't shuffle these kids because it's easier on a spreadsheet. their progress, their comfort, their care. That's human life and it matters. This doesn't only affect ECC students and their quality of life. It also affects parents and siblings. Did you know that suicide rates skyrocket in parents who have children with autism? Studies have shown up to 50% increases in suicidal thoughts, ideations, behaviors, attempts. Rowan's dad, Kelly, took his own life just six months ago. He's now a a statistic. Um, I no longer have a husband. The stresses, difficulties, and hardships these transitions cause for ECC students, our babies, as

128well as our families as a whole, goes much, much deeper than you can imagine. It causes fractures, and they can be irreparable damage that you don't see or can even begin to understand. Thank you. >> Again, please applause. Thank you. Next, we have Rebecca Hill, Gioond, and Michael Query. >> Good evening. I'm here in support of Granite Elementary and I would love you to keep our school open. At first, when I thought about addressing you, I thought about all the pros of our school, such as walking my son to kindergarten next year and stopping by grandma's on the way home and my neighbors commenting about how they love hearing the students out at recess. However, while I reflected on the hard decision you have in regards to closing an elementary school and what I should

129say, I ultimately want to voice my sadness. I know it's not an easy decision, but I feel like the way it's been proposed has pitted Granite and Park Lane to fight it out and see who can make the better argument. Rather than unifying our efforts to have both schools support one another, it feels like you are setting us up for a winner and a loser. As a result, I'm not sure how anyone can feel good about the outcome of your final decision. There are some logistics like working with Sandy City to ensure there are reasonable sidewalks between the two buildings that need to be done before anything can progress. However, I highly encourage you to rethink this decision and come to a conclusion that can actually unify these two communities rather than cause conflict. I

130commend you for going to your the schools last week and listening to the faculty members and their comments and concerns as they are the ones who you need the buy in for whatever decision is made. As we as a Granite community have worked hard to foster an environment of inclusivity and caring for one another and we hope to continue that. Yet, as I hear comments, I'm amazed at the misinformation that is being spread and I feel that our granite voice is being lost in the sea of arguments as we're having not only to fight for our school, but also fight our community from getting split. I would love for you to postpone this decision for another year and reconfigure your approach um um rather than letting the arguments continue which ultimately divide us rather than

131unify us. Thank you. >> Next we have Gioondles who's representing a group then Michael Query then Brienne England >> just to be clear for a group. Is it still two minutes? >> It's three minutes for a group. >> Thank you. My name is Gio Condez and I am the fourth and fifth grade ACC teacher at Parklane Elementary and I'm representing the ACC teachers from that school. And um I gave you guys copies of my PowerPoint, but I won't be going over all the information, but I just wanted to start off with last year in 2024 2025 12 out of 43 ACC students in K through 5th grade mainstream for academic subjects. That is 28% a little over a quarter of our students moving fluidly in and out of general education classrooms. That is extraordinary. That

132is a lot of minutes. Our kids know each other, general education student and ACC students by name. And um in six years of working in education and 10 years working with adults with disabilities from Utah County to Salt Lake County, I was an employment specialist, recreation director, and day program service provider as well as group home manager for adults with disabilities for 10 years before going into education. I'm I've never seen something more beautiful than being able to walk into a fourth grade general education classroom in Mrs. Mitchell's class and not be able to and this is science and not be able to identify who the general education students are and who the ACC students are. And I realize we have a hard decision to make because we are comparing two special education programs. My

133degree is in severe special education from the University of Utah. I have a master's and this is my life's passion and I'm telling you in all my experience I have never seen something more beautiful when you cannot identify who is who. This is students learning rigorous academic subjects together and it's just it's astounding. I love working for Canyon School District. This is my heart. I've poured six years into this job since coming out of COVID as a student teacher in the lead teaching position and I'm very passionate about this and so are the other ACC teachers that were there before me for more than 10 plus years. Um and we collaborate so much with our resource teacher moving students up and down in in these programs. Um we have a transdisciplinary approach at Parklane. This

134is this is what this means is we work as a team um to collaborate with team members, related service providers um and we share input and we just make sure that our students are making progress which leads me to this graph right here. It is absolutely impossible to compare elementary schools to one another because there are so many different um elements. There's title one schools and English language immersion and salt programs. But what we can do is we can compare our whole school outcomes in ELA math and science. And I actually I'm not a huge person on the statistics of RISE scores. I know they're important, but when you look at whole school outcomes and you look at patterns among our ACC programs, we have something really special at Parkland Elementary that I haven't seen

135in all my experience. I just want to say that it is our smart general educators, our related service providers, and the community that supports these ACC kids um that makes it so successful. We should be using that as a model when we try to configure and find new ACC placements for students in our district. Thank you so much for your time today. >> Thank you. Next, we have Michael Query, then Brienne England, and then Brandy List. >> Hi, good evening board members. I'm a parent of three Parklane students, soon to be four, and I'm also a 12-year CEO of an engineering firm where I spend a lot of my time in long-term planning and expectation management through difficult decision- making. The four recommendations in the long term in the long range planning committee's boundary study

136proposal fail to qualify as long range planning. The data is clear. After implementing recommendations one and two and closing Bella Vista and then combining Park Lane and Granite, you still have six schools that are operating 25% below the low end of acceptable capacity. These recommendations fail to address the core issues the district faces for the next year, let alone the next 5 to 10. What I would like to and there's and there's options that aren't being considered. Uh, Willow Canyon and Granite have the same statistical population volume and the same shrinkage trend. Why is Willow Canyon not being considered for closure? That would keep sensitive EEC uh at Granite and flourishing ACC at Parklane. As you've already heard, combining Park Lane and Granite in in at the same building will not have an equal impact

137in the feeder relationship from Albian going to Brighton and Eastmont going to Jordan. This will not cut both ways. students will be more likely to go to already strong Albian than they will to be to go to uh the weakened or the vulnerable East Mont Jordan feeder. Whispers of a new elementary construction deserve to be heard transparently by your constituents. We deserve the right to vote on bond sale funding. Um therefore, I request that one of you uh add an an agenda item for next meeting to postpone the action on the boundary study for recommendations two through four for the long range planning committee. While the long range planning committee completes an actual comprehensive five-year plan, this plan should project elementary enrollment through 2030, the current plan only shows next the next nine months. It

138should determine optimal number and configuration of schools for long-term sustainability and it should be presented by March of 2026 for decision in 2728. Uh that adds an additional year of operating expenses. I get it. But you have the authority to direct more thorough planning and you have the obligation to create vision and present that to your to your constituents. Would one of you please add that to next meeting's agenda tonight? >> Thank you. Now we have Brienne England, Brandy List, and Laura Miller. >> Um, hi. I live in the Raintree neighborhood, the area that has been proposed to move from Granite Elementary to Willow Canyon and from Albian Middle School to Eastmont. I myself grew up attending Granite and my husband and I both attended Albian and Brighton. These schools played a big role in

139shaping who we are. We deliberately chose to buy our home in our neighborhood so our children could attend those same schools. However, the proposed boundary changes would remove the children in my neighborhood from Granite and Albian. Rather than choosing to align our high school boundary to match our current elementary and middle school, this proposal uproots our children from every school community they know. After the proposed boundary changes were presented, one committee member stated, "We tried to balance these changes so that one community was not impacted more than another. But respectfully, it feels like our children are bearing a disproportionate burden of these changes. Our kids stand to lose their schools, their friends, and their communities. And for what? To add our small amount of students to Eastmont and Jordan High School. Meanwhile, other schools remain

140fully intact. While they worry about a longer walk or possible bus ride, our children face the loss of their classmates, teachers, and shared history. They are losing the sense of belonging that comes from seeing familiar faces year after year from siblings attending the same schools and from being part of a community that does not feel balanced. We are more than just roads and houses on a map to be moved. We are real families and real children with established connections and feelings. For me personally, I have a seventh grade son who already has a strong friends group at Albian through school lacrosse and basketball programs, a 10-year-old who plays many sports for Brighton, and a first grader who has attended events at Granite since he was a baby. It's the only school he knows. I have

141lived in the area long enough to know that my neighborhood was not placed at Granite and Albian of their choice. That was the district's choice choosing and our kids do not deserve to be negatively impacted at this time by that. We are not asking to stay where it is convenient. We are asking to stay where our children feel they belong. Thank you. Next we have Brandy List who is representing a group then Mara Miller then Danielle Buunner. Um, I'm representing the Granite EEC teachers and I want to say first of all, thank you to the long range planning committee for keeping Granite's EEC program with the general education population. Um, the faculty and staff at Granite truly see our EEC students as GenEd students first, which they should. Um, the students at Granite all have

142significant relationships with each other, the EEC and our GenEd students, because we truly have a culture of inclusion. From day one, EEC students are in all opportunities of inclusion that they can be. Um, when we talk about kids moving, kids in my class, um, they've gone to one school for preschool. They've gone to DK, which has now been closed. Some of them went to Willow Canyon, which has now been closed. Now they go to Granite. If they go to Parklane, that'll be their fifth school through no fault of their own. That's a lot of schools for kids who have a really hard time moving routines. So for the EEC teachers, our real concerns um are on the outside of the grounds and they're really accessibility, inclusivity, and safety around accessibility. The parking lot's been mentioned,

143so I'm not going to talk about that. Um, it's the hill to the field because it's not ADA accessible to any student EEC or otherwise that has a disability that makes it difficult to walk up the hill and it could be beyond a wheelchair. This could include vision impairment, slow muscle tone or even severe asthma. So that could be any gened student as well. Um, any school activities that would be held on that field without ADA accessible would be a denial of equal access. Second of all, um, as Kelly mentioned, Parklane is closer to two roads than Granite is because we have more buffers there. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder are all statistically more likely to alope, which definitely puts them at greater risk for traffic incidents and putting us

144closer to a road. Putting us closer to a road just puts us at more likelihood of a traffic incident and a student getting into the road. Um, my third point is inclusivity at recess. Inclusivity is one of our most important times for my EEC students because this is when they just get to play with their friends. They are just out there with their grade level peers playing. They're learning social skills. They're interacting. They're learning how to play games. Granite has several areas where we have large mature trees. Um, and the CDC does recommend shade because it promotes inclusivity for heat related conditions and several EEC students do have heat related conditions. Um, and so it would limit um their areas for interaction with peers. So I'm asking to keep Granite open because it's more accessible

145outside, it's safer, and it's more inclusive for our students outside as well. Thank you. Next we have Laura Miller, then Danielle Buunner, and then Aubrey Cornelius. Hi, my name is Laura Miller. I'm representing Granite's ECC. Upon hearing from one of the board members, I was encouraged to hear that many of the concerns I raised about accessibility, safety, and the well-being of our ACC students was acknowledged by the board from my many emails. It's clear that you understand the importance of these um of these issues and I'm grateful for that. However, that still weighs heavy is how these changes are going to impact these students at a deeply personal level. The ECC students at Granite have built strong trusting relationship with their teachers clearly um with their peers as well as with their emotional and academic

146success. Moving them to a school that isn't equipped to support them properly isn't just a logistical issue. It's a decision that risks their emotional security and their future progress. I urge you to consider the profound value of keeping these students with the faculty who understand their needs, peers who've formed bonds and supportive environment where they've come to depend on. In addition, there are financial implications to consider. Moving these students to a different school will require additional transportation costs and the retrofit of the facilities at Park Lane to meet ADA standards. costs that are not required at Granite, which already provide an accessible, supportive environment for these students. Keeping ECC students at Granite is not only the right decision emotionally, but it's also physically fiscally responsible choice for the district. So today, I'm asking you to

147please prioritize the emotional and educational well-being at Granite where they feel safe, supported, and it's not just about convenience, but it's doing what's best for these kids. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Danielle Buunner, Aubrey Cornelius, and then Mary Bailey. >> Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Danielle Beer. I'm representing myself. My family lives in the rain range village that was previously mentioned that is being moved out of both elementary and middle schools. We have deep I have deep roots at Granite Elementary and Albian Middle. I frequently volunteer and sub at Granite, so I see firsthand how this school creates a sense of safety, stability, and belonging for students and families. My daughter is a seventh grader at Albian. I have three sons at Granite in fifth, second,

148and kindergarten and a pre preschool-aged boy at home. My top priority is to remain as part of the Granite and Albian communities. I support the con consolidation of Granite Elementary and Parklane Elementary. I just want my neighborhood to be included in that um combined boundary so that our children can stay with the peers and teachers that they know. If that isn't possible, we urge the board to adopt a grandfathering plan allowing students already enrolled to finish in their current schools with younger siblings able to follow them. This single step could spare many students from the most disruptive effects of boundary change. In our area, there are many seventh graders at Albian who would otherwise be uprooted before their final year with the teachers and friends who've guided them. Likewise, there are many fifth graders at

149Granite who have been looking forward to starting middle school with their siblings and classmates who would instead face the challenge of entering a new school building without those connections. Grandfathering would protect these pivotal transitions and preserve continuity for families. While this doesn't solve every challenge in the proposal, it demonstrates that the districts prioritizes student well-being alongside logistics and it would help maintain families trust in the process. I want to point out that the unmade decision on which building will be selected for the granite park lanes and consolidation for um has created unnecessary tension between the two communities which is the opposite of the unity that this consolidation is meant to foster. These aren't just boundaries boundary lines on a map. They represent children's friendships, their academic progress and their sense of stability. Keeping us included

150in the new consolidated boundary or at least grandfathering families in will minimize disruption and help children thrive through the transition. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Aubrey Cornelius then Mary Bailey and then Lacy Hok. >> Thank you chair and members of Canyon School District board for the opportunity to address you tonight. My name is Aubrey Cornelius. Um, I'm a parent of a first and third grader at Bella Vista Elementary School and an active member of the school community and I'm representing myself. First and foremost, I am seeking greater clarity on the financial estimates surrounding this decision. I and others have heard varying figures about potential savings, but without detailed breakdowns, including costs for student relocation, facility maintenance, transportation adjustments, and long-term impacts on district resources, it's difficult to fully understand the rationale. Transparency

151in these numbers is crucial, especially given the board's long-standing commitment to open communication with the community. We believe that sharing this information openly would help build trust and ensure that any decision is based on solid verifiable data. Moreover, our community feels that this closure process is moving far too quickly. Bella Vista has been a cornerstone of our neighborhood for decades, fostering a nurturing environment where students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. Rushing into this without adequate time for input and alternatives risks disrupting our children's education and well-being. It doesn't seem that their best interests are being fully prioritized in this accelerated timeline. We've seen the emotional toll already. Kids anxious about losing their friends and familiar teachers. Families worried about longer commutes and overcrowded classrooms elsewhere. That being said, we are not here to oppose change

152outright. Our community is committed to working collaboratively with the board and district staff to find a resolution that benefits everyone involved. Whether through town halls, working groups, or joint planning sessions, we are eager to contribute ideas and explore options and preserve the spirit of Bella Vista while addressing any fiscal challenges. In light of these concerns, I urge the board to delay any final decision on the closure until a clearer, comprehensive plan can be developed and agreed upon. One that incorporates community feedback, detailed financial transparency, and safeguards for our students futures. By taking this step, we can ensure a thoughtful process that honors the district values and strengthens our schools for generations to come. Thank you for your consideration. >> Thank you. Next, we will hear from Mary Bailey, then Lacy Hock, and then Elizabeth Reid.

153My name is Mary Bailey. I currently have four students attending Bella Vista Elementary. I am a former teacher, a consistent substitute at Bella Vista, and an active PTA member. I am concerned about the effects closing Bella Vista will have on the student, staff, and community. My youngest daughter has dealt with a lot of school anxiety. I want to make sure that the changes you are proposing are in the best interest of not only her, but the many other students who this will affect. Your plans to merge Bella Vista with Ridgerest have left out one of the most vulnerable vulnerable groups of children within the district, those in the ABS program. The students in the ABS program are a vital part of our Bella Vista school community. They currently have a solid support group of friends

154and mentors. My children know the kids who are in the ABS program and have become their friends. Not having the ABS program move with the rest of the students in Bella Vista could be considered discrimination against those who need the additional behavioral support. These children need to stay with their support group, both mentors and peers. If your intent is to keep entire schools together, you have to include the ABS program as part of Bella Vista. Today, I propose two alternative options to closing Bella Vista that I believe would better serve all of the students, including those in the ABS program. My first suggestion is to build a brand new school that adequately houses all of the students from Ridgerest and Bella Vista, including those in the ABS program. The lot Bella Vista sits on is

155huge. You could easily build a new school while Bella Vista and Richest remain as they currently are. My other suggestion would be to reboundry school surrounding schools and move more students to Bella Vista. In this situation, Bella Vista could continue to house the ABS program. According to the study you conducted, Bella Vista's FCI is only 38.28%. As a parent, I do not understand why you would choose to close a building that is in really good condition while keeping open multiple buildings in terrible condition. I would like to invite the board members to meet with the parent advocates of Bella Vista on an intimate level to have an adult conversation that would provide answers to questions and concerns. I am certain that together parents and board members can come up with positive solutions that would benefit

156all students, communities, and Canyon's district. >> Thank you. Next, we have Lacy Hock, Elizabeth Reid, and then Cody Mcconi. >> Hi, thank you board members for hearing us out. My name is Lacy Hock. I have two girls currently at Parklane and a son who is now in seventh grade. The decision whether to keep the Parklane building or the Granite Building will impact students for years and years into the future. Your decision should be based on which building will be the most beneficial to the highest number of students. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to peer into the future and see what our neighborhoods will look like and where the students will live? Well, we can. We can because Canyon's District paid Applied Economics LLC to do an in-depth analysis of demographic trends in our

157neighborhoods. This study, published in December 2023, is less than two years old, and the findings are remarkable and extremely relevant. Here's what the study found. Between 2020 and 2030, the study predicts that the Granite area will lose 49 kids. That's 8% of its enrollment. The study predicts that during the same time period, Parklane will lose six kids, six. This is not surprising at all. The Parklane neighborhood has smaller homes, less expensive homes, and simply more conducive to families with elementary age children. We are now halfway through the decade that the study analyzed. And just as the study predicted, Parklane's enrollment is stable. In fact, our 2025 kindergarten class is larger than our 2024 kindergarten class. Young families continue to move into our neighborhood. Granite, on the other hand, continues to see steep declines in enrollment,

158just as the study predicted. This school year, there are only about 160 Granite students who actually live within the Granite boundaries. This isn't surprising at all because of the extremely high cost of homes in the Granite neighborhood. This study's predictions appear to be highly accurate. It's a fantastic resource. You paid for it, and it only makes sense that you should rely on the study's findings when deciding on which school to keep open. That same study looked at the service rate of every elementary school. The percentage of elementary kids within the school's boundaries that actually enrolled in the district school. Granite service rate is 60.9%. Parklane service rate is 87.9%. That's 27 percentage points difference between Granite and Parklane is enormous. This data shows that the Parklane neighborhood is simply more invested in public education than

159the Granite neighborhood. It's that simple. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Now we have Elizabeth Reid, Cody McConi, and then Michael Adams who will be representing the group. >> My name is Elizabeth Reid and I am so lucky to be a parent of a Parklane Panther, an Eastmon Patriot, and a Jordan B digger. We are deeply concerned about the potential closure of Parklane Elementary. Closing Park Lane will not only displace our students, but also create significant challenges for our feeder schools and communities that they serve. One of the strengths of Canyon Districts has been the sense of choice and flexibility for families. However, in our neighborhood, that choice has already created division as families split between um schools outside their natural feeder system. If Parklane is closed and its students are redistributed to

160other elementaryaries, that problem will only worsen. Eastmont Middle and Jordan High are working hard to build their build build strong reputations and school spirit. I actually went to all three of the schools as well. Um they need the support and involvement of Parklane families to thrive. Splitting our community and sending our children to other elementaryaries undermines that effort and weakens the continuity our students desperately need. Parklane Elementary itself is more than just a building. It's a heart of our neighborhood. Its traditions like the annual fun run where the Jordan High Track team comes to run alongside our students demonstrates the deep bonds that already can that are already connecting our schools. Watching high school athletes encourage and support elementary students is an inspiring reminder of why feeder patterns matter. Jordan High in particular needs Parkling

161families to help help both build momentum. My own Beat Digger is a freshman at Jordan preparing to try out for the Jordan High baseball team this spring. Jordan is known across um the Valley as a standout program for their baseball. Yet, our community struggles with the mixed reputation of the school itself, especially as facilities like the baseball field have fallen into disrepair. As one mom expressed at the last board meeting, "We aren't asking for fluff, just well safe, well-kept um spaces where athletes and students can thrive and feel proud to represent Jordan. Closing Park Lane would only compound the issue by weakening the feeder system that can lift Jordan back. Um we respect respectfully ask you to keep Park Lane open and allow its students to remain together as they continue into Eastmont and Jordan.

162Strong schools grow strong feeder patterns and our neighborhood deserves the chance to continue building that strength. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Cody Mcconi, then Michael Adams, and then Christy Delaney. >> Hi, thank you. I'm Cody Mcconkey. I'm a parent of two current Parklane Panthers and two who will be um attending in future years. I understand that declining enrollment is a serious problem and that sometimes it becomes necessary to combine schools. I have tremendous respect for the difficult decisions facing this board. Of the 28 elementary schools in the district, the three smallest are Bella Vista, Granite, and Willow Canyon. Sadly, enrollment at these three schools has shrunk to a point where they are no longer sustainable. It makes perfect sense that Tiny Bella Vista, who I love dearly, and my husband is an alum,

163um will be merged into the much larger Ridgerest Elementary. Similarly, it would make perfect sense for Granite or Willow Canyon to be merged into the much larger Park Lane. We are simply looking for logical reasoning that has been used in the decision-making in Cottonwood Heights to be applied in Sandy as well. Park Lane has much higher enrollment than Granite. Parklane is a centrallylo school in the heart of a walkable, bikable, middle-class neighborhood that will continue to attract young families with children. Parklane's enrollment is stable and and even growing with a larger kindergarten class this year than last year. One of which, my kindergarteners and Miss Katie Walker's magical kindergarten class. Um, with my remaining time, I'd like to call an audible and scrap my um, prepared remarks and just commit as a parent, I'm moved

164by these parents, how much they love their children, the beautiful children in the room. And so, regardless of the board's decision, I want you to know that these Granite and Parklane communities will come together. We will support both the majority and the minority. and we just plead with you to make the best decision for our teachers, for our faculty, and most of all for our beloved children. And regardless of the decision you make, I want you to know that this community, both Parklane and Granite, is strong and that we will always do what's best for our children. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Michael Adams. And then Christy Delini is the last individual to speak for this evening. And Michael is representing a group. >> My name is Michael Adams. I'm a professional

165engineer and a professional transportation operations engineer. I live in this pocket surrounded by Highland and Eastell, 20 uh 23rd East and 94th and 98th. Again, um in particular, I live in the little four circles at the far northeast corner of that area. I've looked at the hazardous walking route and evaluation form that's been on the district's website and I filled it out for some of these different options. Um, and and as I was looking at that, I tried keeping an open mind, but I and as I live in the area, I was able to recognize some of the issues in the area. Um, additionally, as an engineer, I've worked on a a project recently where we looked at 9400 South and looked I was able to see recent traffic data, safety issues, crash data in

166the area. And as part of that, I can say that it it doesn't take an engineer to figure this out, but there's a lot of crashes at 13th East and Highland Drive, uh, crossing 94th. After that, traffic drops significantly as it goes towards East Dell and far uh farther up the hill. Anyway, as I as I filled out these evaluation forms, the the district's website notes show that if at least this was some years ago with the score 36, they don't get a bus route. Um, if it's anyway, whatever the scores I came up with were for Granite it would be a 63. Park Lane for our area would be like roughly a 38. Willow Canyon would be 94. And then I also looked at Quail Hollow Elementary School because our son goes to Albian

167and it's really not that far away. So that had a score of 33 or 37 depending on this area. I understand that there's some scores that could be discussed, whatever, but that's the idea. Basically, for our little pocket, it doesn't make sense from a safety standpoint to go to Willow Canyon. Um, even for those that are within that mile and a half distance, we would have basically our whole area right there would need to be busted to Willow Canyon. The safest routes just to walk are again Park Lane or even to Quail Hollow, which is crossing 94th, but doesn't feel as as much of a safety issue as it is at Highland Drive. Um, okay. Okay. Um, anyway, I I suggest looking at boundaries that would allow more students to be able to walk and

168ride their bikes closer to schools rather than passing by these other schools that are closer and sending us farther away. Um, thank you. >> Thank you. And last for this evening, we have Christy Delaney. >> We're almost there. Hi, my name is Christy Delaney. I am the BTS visual arts teacher at Bella Vista Elementary. In addition to teaching at Bella Vista, I have had two children go through the school and I have taught many neighbors throughout my nine years of working there. It is a small school and I think that's what makes it amazing. Teachers know every student and have a relationship with students across all grades that you just don't see in larger schools. Most class sizes are smaller and allow for a student experience that is different from that of a larger school.

169As a parent, I appreciate our small neighborhood school and knew my children would thrive in that setting, and I know many other parents who feel the same way. At Bella Vista, we have three classrooms of special education ABS students with needs that are easier met at our smaller school. Every ABS student in our school is successfully mainstreaming with their grade level peers. This is only possible because we have a smaller school. Successful mainstreaming takes time. Over years, our students have worked hard to become comfortable with their peers and build relationships that allow them to integrate more easily. The board's plan to close Bella Vista and consolidate into Ridgerest doesn't allow for our ABS students to go along with them. This is simply unacceptable. Every Bella Vista student should be thought of in this decision and

170frankly it seems discriminatory to exclude our ABS students when they've worked so hard to be successful where they are. I understand our school has been low in enrollment. However, the teachers and staff of Bella Vista have asked the district for help time and time again. Over my nine years in Bella Vista, we've had five principles. We've repeatedly had FTE cut and reduced the number of teachers at our school. This has resulted in our community looking to put their children in other schools that appear more stable and fully staffed. All the while, our teachers and staff have become a tight team, supporting each other, and continuing to work hard to make our school the best it can be to attract new students, even winning the title of a national blue ribbon school. Yet, the district continues

171to move administration quickly through our school, take up classroom space for the preschool program, and ignore our pleas for boundary changes that would help uh boost our enrollment. While we all understand the board's position of wanting to be responsible with their money, it feels like Bella Vista has never been given a fair shot. I am asking the board to reconsider closing Bella Vista and instead move some more students our way. We have the capacity to have 12 classrooms and at the district's guidelines of 25 students per classroom, we could have a school enrollment of 300 students with two grade teacher level teachers and an additional ABS grade level teacher. This would allow our ABS students to continue to be successful in the school they are comfortable in with students and teachers they have relationships with.

172Our school building is in good shape and was recently upgraded. Closing it would be a waste of tax dollars that were approved by a bond. Give Bella Vista a fair chance. There's real value in small schools. >> Thank you. All right. We want to thank everyone again who came out to speak to the board. We appreciate your time and we've all taken notes and and we'll continue to listen. Please feel free to continue to communicate with us via email and at the meetings that will be held at your school communities here this month. Okay. We will now move on to the consent agenda portion of our meeting. Um, would anyone like to um make a motion to approve the consent agenda? And in doing so, will you list out each item separately? >> I move

173to approve the consent agenda. Item A, approval of minutes for September 16th, 2025. Item B, approval of hire and termination reports. Item C, approval of purchasing bids. Item D, approval of SEC exemption for gold miner Daughter and LSA for the 2526 school year. >> Thank you. Second to that motion. >> I'll second that motion. >> Great. Is there any discussion to the motion? Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. >> That motion passes unanimously. Okay. Okay, next we will move to the new business portion of the meeting where we will um hear from Leon Wilcox, business administrator, going over long long range planning committee update small capital process. >> Thank you, Mrs. Oaks. And again, we certainly appreciate all the many uh patrons who came and and uh spoke with us tonight. We certainly

174take your input and uh appreciate all the information that we're trying to gather in this in this difficult process. Uh what we're trying to do here is just go over our process for small capital. It's not the proposed projects. I want to emphasize that for next next uh summer, but we we're still trying to gather those and look at options with those. But it's the process how we go about doing that. And also I think it should be somewhat retitled as we look at uh you know more of our rotation of our fields mainly at our high schools and our our roofs and our basketball courts and things of that nature. So just just to give you an out look of that. So and Derek does this go like this? Okay. So what we do

175uh there we go. Thank you. What we do is facilities gets a, you know, they're constantly reviewing every B building and every site and they're getting their list of improvements that need to be done. And keep in mind, we always have far far far more needs than than we have dollars available to make these improvements. But we look at risk and ADA factors, flooring, carpet, tile, roofs, parking lots, kitchens, irrigation, fields, maintenance. then maintenance such as our boilers or HVAC systems, chillers, electrical needs, plumbing needs as well. We also get with school performance who gets with each of their principles and we look at what they would like and that more is more cosmetic inside. I would say the facility is more of the backbone what they're looking at. So they're looking at more of

176again carpet, but also would look at mill works and remodeling, restrooms that need to be upgraded, storage spaces, things of that nature. So we take those lists and then we combine them together and then the biggest problem is always our budget. We have about four to five million we look at spending on these. We really need to be in that 7 to8 million to really get going, but but we only have four to five. And that's so that's really you know with the instru construction costs going up that really limits at what we can do but uh we get the list and we start prioritizing things and we always look at one student safety you know u what needs to be repaired to keep our students safe. That's always our top priority. Then we look

177for comfort and learning. So that could be more of a chiller, a boiler, something like that that needs to be replaced. We also try to give priority to elementary schools and you know Bella Vista, Park Lane, Granite all fell within that that have not been rebuilt and also to elementary schools that have not received an upgrade for some time. So we try to spread that four to five million out best we can. It does not always go as it never goes as far as we'd like. So once we get that list as a team, then we take it to the long range planning committee. Then we bring it to the board. We'll try to do that by December. And then we'll with your okay, we'll start going out to bids and designing these pro projects

178and then beginning on them when the school year ends. If something can begin in May, you know, a few weeks before the school year ends and we'll start it then. And lots of them, you know, like Indian Hills band room that we're doing this year, you know, is wrapping up, but most of many of those will go into the next school year with that. So that's the process and it'll hold that way. Okay. Uh one of the things that we also want to look at is just you know rotations. Uh and that is our our turf. We'll start with our stadium fields or turf fields. Rick and I Rick stepped out but uh we always laughed that you know when we were in high school and played football you know we never thought of playing

179on turf. We actually had to my school, we actually had to chase the cows off the field before we could play. But uh uh but you know, times have changed and everybody has turf fields, but they have to be replaced every 10 to 12 years. And it's really based on usage. That's the biggest thing. You know, we have teams that go deep into the playoffs every year. We have teams that play lacrosse and soccer on them. Practices, weather can play a big factor, and also what's underneath it. We have an underlying base. Alta has an issue with their base that's underneath that. But you can see where the fields were last replaced. Hillrest done this past summer. Corner was done a couple years ago. Our next one, you know, to replace the turf fields about

180$650,000. Uh we're looking at either Brighton or Ala for next summer and then the one we don't do would be the summer after that. But again, that's, you know, a rotation. We probably about have to do a field every two years with five five high schools, you know, to do that 10 year rotation phase there. Also, uh you know, one of the things that we're we've tried to be blessed with here is building the field houses. So, each of our high schools will have a field house by the end of this year when Jordan's complete as uh Kelsey Kim said. Uh but you can see their turf will actually last longer. that could go up to 15 16 years because it's protected by the weather. You know, no sun or snow. But you can see

181where they are. Again, we'll be in pretty good shape with our turf indoor turf fields, you know, for at least the rest of this decade. Another big one is that we're trying to work that we've worked on over the last decade is that is post-tension tennis courts. Let me just tell you what post-tension is. You put down steel be steel be steel cables and then you pour the concrete over that. Then you tighten the cables and that creates a flexible surface that really will last for 30 plus years. And so all of our 10 all of our eight five high schools have eight tennis courts. You need eight to be able to play in the region and host the region and state state uh tournaments. So all of them have the required eight. All of

182our post-tension, you can see when we've done the post tension into each of the schools there except for Alta. If you look at their four east courts, they are not post tension. And there's a big difference. If you walk over there at Alta, you could see the they actually have cracks in it. Uh they're probably okay for another year or so, but they will need to be replaced. And certainly we want to go to post tension with those to get that lifetime savings. I don't know when they were they were these four on the east side were done in the Jordan days. So I don't know when they were uh uh created then but uh it will cost quite a bit of money to do post tension for those four courts. We're looking about 750,000

183there. One of the things that many schools are doing and that I'd like to see us do is go to posttension stadium tracks. Uh so when we did Hillrest track this year again it's the same thing. It will last you're putting in the cables it will last 30 plus years with just a simple resurface every five or six years. But uh but when we did Hillrest track this past summer we made it post tension for that reason. And so we'd like to go to that route. You know it's going to take probably a decade to get the other four high schools done. that you know when we do reinstall a uh a track we'd like to make it post tension. So and to do that it's about another 300,000 to do that uh at each

184of our schools remaining four schools. One of the things that we've also looked at and we've heard and we appreciate it being brought uh is the baseball fields particularly at Jordan uh baseball soccer fields, softball fields as well get impacted by irrigations and use and you know everybody's wearing cleats that tears up grass. Uh but you know we try and keep them maintained as best we can with our facilities and our custodial departments as well as our our coaches. But you can see what where we've done with those. So Alex's Field, we we redid that in 2022, both the softball and baseball. We always try to do them together to make sure we maintain title N requirements. Uh Brighton and Hillrest, we did all their fields as part of the rebuild in 2021. This past

185summer, as you know, with all the irrigation issues we had at Corner Canyon and with the turf, you know, the inability to really grow the grass there on the clay we put in turf fields again all for all three, soccer, softball, and baseball. We'd like to look at that at Jordan High over the next couple years, how we can go turf to those fields. We know we can do we are part of the project that we're doing now is to do new locker rooms and concession stand for the softball, but we'd like to look We probably whether or not we probably won't be able to do it next summer, but at sometime in the next couple years adding that turf to those fields to those areas there. Probably won't do the soccer field because that's

186in really good shape and good grass. But and they seem to really like that. But the two the baseball and softball field there. So overall outside of Jordan, our our fields are, you know, in pretty good shape. And so we commend our everybody who helps take care of those. Another one is our gym floors. Uh gym floor will last us about 30 years, but we refinish them every 1 to two years, but then every 10 years or 12 years or so, we have to sand it. So we take off all the finish coats that we put on, sand it down, repaint it, and and then finish it again. And so you can see where we are with our floors there. We just did Altas and and Brighton and Hillrest of course are new. Jordan's field

187Jordan's floor is original in 96. They'd sanded that down in 2020 as the second time that was sanded. It's still in good condition and we still think we'll get another five or so years out of that but is something that we have to keep on our radar long term because that's you know a fairly million and a half or so bill to replace a gym floor with that. So just to keep that out there maybe may even be two million now. and also our middle schools. Uh again, we've all all the middle schools are, you know, from their first bond in 2010, we rebuilt or remodeled many middle schools. The one floor that we're that we know we need to replace in the next couple years, not five years, but the next couple of years

188is Indian Hills. That's goes back several uh we believe that's uh has only been either that's we don't have any really records on it from the Jordan days. We don't know if that's the original floor or has been replaced once, but we it does need work there. All the others pretty good shape, you know, or new there. So, uh, but is we will have to watch Indian Hills in the coming years. Also, our roofs a big thing, a big ticket item. Uh, again, they use with the product we put on them now, they can go about 30 plus years. All our secondary schools are actually in good shape with their roofs. Many have been Jordan's been replaced. Uh Eastmon was replaced. Other schools were new. We are looking at elementary schools there. Uh these would

189be the next four, next three, excuse me. Brookwood, Okalo, Sprucewood. The warehouse also needs a new roof. Uh right now, we think all these are in good enough condition for next for another year or two. So, we don't plan on replacing any next next summer. So when you get the list that there won't won't be any roofs on that. So that just gives you an overall view and flavor of where we're at with our process and the rotation mainly on these big, you know, I'll call them backbones of the buildings on that. So any questions on that? Okay, we'll work on again bringing that list. Okay, I'm going next. area. >> So, there's no questions or comments. Okay, good job, Leon. This is really helpful actually to see this. I know I'm one of the

190board members who requested to see how this process works. So, thank you. All right, so that means we will go on to the next presentation, which is under new business item B, long range planning committee proposal regarding school boundaries and school consolidations and closures update. And again by Leon Yeah. So we've met as a committee several times in the last month to talk about this process and again we appreciate all the patrons who've come and spoke with us tonight and tried to and gave us more information. We appreciate meeting with all the faculties the last few weeks at at uh Bella Vista and Ridgerest as well as Parklane and Granite and appreciate their feedback as well. Uh just to give you an update of where we're at and what you know we all know our

191population is declining uh and our you know we just see that in pretty much all of our neighborhoods. you know, we're just aging out, getting older, if you will, and you know, the birth rates down, housing prices, we've we've talked about that at length, and all these impacting our enrollments. And you can see, again, we've gone over this several times, you know, how much housing has increased. You can see in 2021, our average was about half a million. That's in Canyon's district, not the county or anything, but just in Canyon's district. And you can see this year we're up to 740,000. uh you can see our our enrollments and that's what I put out there on board exc I'll call it diligent or we'll still call it board docs you know we completed our October

192one counts required by the state and I want to just spend a couple minutes again with that I gave you each of the board members a copy but we're down uh about 660 elementary students from last year from last year's October one count uh you know It's actually come up a little bit on our 10day count. We were down exactly 700. So, we have got a few back. But that really impacts us. You can see where we were, you know, nearly 15,000 in 2020, 2019, 2020 year and then being down roughly 125 now. So, you're down, you know, close to 2500. You can see our projections. We've rounded those to the nearest 100 because you get out there, but you can see we can expect continual drops again for all those factors. We do see

193us getting in close to that 2030 year being down to around 11,000 or maybe under that. There's an interesting article in the Desert News on October 2nd. you may want to go read on uh you know shifts in marriage and fertility rates and just you know uh uh all the issues with that. I know one of the patrons mentioned our demographic study that we did in 2023. We put that out there on board docks. I mean bit diligent again and you can see again the issues that we had two years ago as we started to really study this issue the the the problems that we would have. Uh I just note that only we only had about four schools five schools that had an small increase in students from last year and all of those

194were under 10 students. So, it's really a district-wide problem that we know we're going to confront. And as we've said, this is not the last time we're going to be doing this. We we know this is going to be an ongoing process as we struggle through this as we struggle through this. And we're not alone. Most districts along the Wasatchet front, I should say, I think all districts along the Wasatch front are facing the same issue with this. Uh why are we studying it? You know, we always talk about the optimal class size and doing what's best for kids. We want to do what's best for kids. That's why we're here. We care deeply about all all our children and their success. Uh but uh the challenge comes when schools drops to a certain level.

195It just becomes hard to staff these class sizes and you get these big bubbles there and it just creates that issue that we've seen in you know class sizes of 15 and then down the hall they have class sizes of 31 32 and some of our many of our schools see that and we're trying to address that again the best educational outcomes for our kids. Here's an example that we put in. Again, a school with 33 first graders, you know, based on our funding formula gets one teacher. But do you split that and double the cost, you know, at 16 or 17 each, but then if you had 72 first graders, you can divide that out by three and have 24 or more your ideal class size with that. Again, trying to get those class

196sizes balanced out. uh again and also dealing with our budgets, we we put in there the you know subsidizing smaller schools to maintain the staffing. So what what I did is look at our five lowest enrolled schools for this is for last year. So that would be Bella Vista, Copper, Granite, Parkland, and Willow Canyon. And I took the employee cost, just the employee cost, no books or utilities, but just the employee cost. and that would include employee benefits and divide it out by the number of students there. And you can see per student it cost about $12,300. I did that for the five largest elementary schools, Draper, Glacier, Midville, Mil Valley, and Sunrise. And again, the same calculation, and it's about $8,300. So about $4,000 less per student. You can also see the cost there

197for our middle and high schools with, you know, all of their all of you know for each middle school it's about 7,800 and for each high school student it's about 7,200 so you can see the economies of scale again we try not to make it about the dollars but that becomes an impact because you know many of our area is aging out they don't have kids in the schools but yet they still have to pay property taxes so we have to they have to be factored into this equation as well and so that's a difficult thing again losing these students also impacts us so big financially. Again, states driven off funding formulas. And so, the biggest one is the WPU. So, for this year, each student that we have who's in our schools on our

198roles for 180 days, we will get $44,674 from the state. But because we had 350 roughly last fewer last year, I mean in the 24 323 24 year than we did the year before, we take a hit. And so we're going to get 1.6 million less from the state doing that. Again, with the 660 students that were down down uh this year from last year, that's going to be about a $3.2 2 million hit next year assuming we there's a 4% increase on the WPU. So that's that's the that's the also the problem that we have to deal with. How do we budget that and how do we make up that revenue as well? So that comes into f into into account. Uh we want to more focus on uh parkling and and granite right

199now. and we we've heard lots of issues and valid issues about our parking lots and transportation. So, what we've done is actually hired a we have a traffic engineer on contract. We've actually hired he is doing a study right now of traffic patterns for both schools, both walking and driving. They've been flying drones. I don't know if people have seen those, but they've been flying drones over both schools last couple weeks. We've also hired, we also have a civil engineer on contract and they are doing a study of both of the parking lots at both schools. We hope to have their reports back within the next one to two weeks and we'll let you know what those results are there. We've also done try to do a deep dive into both Park Lane and Granite

200and we know that uh uh they both need lots of work. We know that uh they both have carpet that needs to be replaced. Lighting that needs to be updated. Granite parking lot. We've heard about the grade and grading and redesign needed there. Park I mean park lane, excuse me if I said granite. Then granite needs a slurry and a restripe needed. Uh boilers are old. You know, I can see the age there. Back then they just did the a whole HVAC update. I put it on those R2 R22 chillers. They are no longer made. So, it's difficult to get parts for those when they break down or we need parts there. But you can see when restrooms were remodeled, both playgrounds are new. Uh in the kitchen and and uh in the kitchen area,

201you know, uh Parklane has a walk-in cooler. Granite does not. Granite has its front line uh complete. That's the serving area while Parklane does not. So, and then you have a the wall wall partition doors. Granite right now does not function. Park lanes functions not great but not great. And other things there. The roof a little is newer at Parklane and it is a a granite but Parklane has a galvanized irrigation system harder to maintain if we have leaks there. Granite has been updated. So, we know they both need a lot of work and uh but you know, at the end of the day, these are just brick and mortar. It's all about the kids and hopefully the community is coming together and making it all about the kids once we get into once we

202decide what school to go to. One of the things that we've talked about as a committee is again trying to keep going back to the our premise of trying to keep communities together. And so what we're looking at is a proposal two and that would be keeping that area in granite that's in granite right now that's west of of eastel north of 98th that section there that would stay with the granite community and go to whichever school we would see we would go with again there's roughly 50 students in that area there okay so they would not go to well opinion. Again, that's a a proposal that we are looking at right now. Should be noted, everyone south of the Dimpledale, the goalie is still we still plan on putting them and going to uh

203Lone Peak. There's about 50 students there. Again, they are right now already bounded for the Indian Hills Middle School. So, that would clean up that boundary there. So, that is an option we're looking at. We've heard a few comments tonight. Uh we also want to emphasize on we'll be putting out more as we finalize it more uh information on permits but we want to make care you know take special care to accommodate those students who are affected by this. So we plan to, you know, once the permit process opens here in November, November 15th and we've told our principles they can, it will open, but they cannot actually accept permits until February until it closes. The reason being is we're going to give priority to those who are impacted by this decision. And we also

204want siblings of those students to also have priority consideration. So, and a student who's on a permit that's going to a school right now, if that school's closed, that permit will carry to the next school. So, again, we'll come out with more information on this as as we move forward, but again, we want to maintain kids going to the, you know, keeping their friends going to the schools that they're at. Here's the things that we're looking at planning wise. we've heard a lot and and deservely so and that's something that we're really pl trying to play pay a lot of attention to is our special our special uh education programs and units. So we're still looking at the preschools particularly that at Bella Vista but also the ABS the ACC and the EC at these

205schools and what is the best to serve families and balance enrollments for the long term. So, we're trying to get a long-term we don't like we certainly don't want moving these kids around. We try to find the best long-term solution. Also, we are looking at again trying to rebuild schools. We really, you know, these schools that are get 50, 60 years old, it's just so hard to maintain and we'd really look to rebuild in the future. And so some of the options we're looking at is building building a new richest and Bella Vista once you know combined and then building a new school. We know we need to rebuild East Midville. Uh the combined Granite and Park Lane would like to rebuild that and include Willow Canyon into that mix. Where it's going to be

206rebuilt, you know, still discuss. We know there needs to be some mix of Brookwood, Quail Hollow. That seems to make the most sense right now, but also Oakdale and Silver Mesa need to come into that mix as well. Same with East Sandy and Sandy. And through all this, we need to monitor the growth in the West Draper, the old prison area for, you know, a potential new school if we need one there. Uh right now, if things go according to plan, we could look at building two to three schools, putting a shovel in the ground in 2029, maybe. But there's so many variables between now and then that we simply can't promise anything. Construction costs and interest rates would be the two big ones financially, but also enrollments or other buildings and and you know,

207just the taxable value of of the district at that time. in the overall economy, the state and the nation at that time as well. But that is our long-term plan to try to replace these schools with new new buildings again hopefully at the end of this decade. Uh and then we've also mentioned our upcoming uh public hearings. We'll be at Granite next Wednesday. That's the 15th. uh Bella Vista the following night the 16th uh have Park Lane on the 28th that's after our fall break and then uh on the 30th we have many other boundary issues but uh they will all be here at this building on the on the 30th. So that's and if you'd like to get more information or submit a comment and cannot attend the meeting or do not want to

208speak at the meeting when we go there there's a QR code and you can input the information there. So with that that's the presentation we have. So all I got have to answer any questions or any discussion. >> Thank you so much. Does anyone have any questions or comments they'd like to make? Oh, Miss Dolly, >> what is the typical life on our chillers and boilers uh in the schools >> until they break? Uh I would say you can get uh the new ones we put in these new schools, they'll go 30, 40 years. The older ones we're constantly repairing. We can repair them. Hard to get parts because they're not made. hard to get parts, but they can go 30, 40 years. Yeah, >> we got we got boilers from at Albian. We've heard

209a lot about Albian, but we have boilers from 1983 at Albian, but they keep on going. >> Wow. >> Working well. >> Okay. It's those Energizer Bunny batteries you put in. Um my my uh concern is and it we haven't really truly addressed it when you go back to the changing map version one and version two that one if you'll notice little teeny tiny Willow Canyon over there. Okay. And they are landlocked. There is no way we can pull a lot of people into that school. So that is something that needs to be looked at long term. Um I don't know that we can combine three in any way right now. There's just not the size. >> Um but I do want it understood that if we leave Granite all together, that community with Parklane

210altogether, it it injures Willow Canyon. It does. There's just no way we can get them any more kids because we can't go over the gully. We can't come up over 13th and we can't go over 94th for safety reasons. Same ones you were talking about when we're bringing people down. So, we're going to have to in long-term planning, just so you'll know that as we're looking in long-term planning, we are talking about, but we haven't studied at all and it's not the issue now. But in the next few years in our long-term planning, we will have to look at special programs and we may have to move the SLTAs and the DLIs and see if that helps balance things out a little bit better. Or we may have to create a new program that can

211be housed in one possibly even in Willow Canyon. It is right next to um Blessed Sacrament on across the street and next to Waterford. Prime property, guys. They've already asked if they can buy it. Um Waterford has and we have no intention to let them have it. So, we may be looking to see if we can do um some sort of program, a magnet kind of program where it can draw in like DLI does in Salta where we can um have students from all over the district because again, it's the same thing that Parklane's saying. We're in a central location. This is the center of the district. So, just be aware that when we're talking about doing this, it's not done. We have so much more to do. And that when we move somebody to

212somewhere, it hurts someone somewhere else. It just does no matter what we do. But long term, if we can plan, it's like chess. You move your piece up and then they'll counter piece and then we're going to move another piece here. if we can plan well enough and we are looking at some of that but we're just not ready to present some of those ideas until we kind of settle some of our parts. So this is our first version. Um but we will be looking ahead next year at other issues like how are the schools still um filling? Are we getting students up? Are we getting students down? Um looking at our special programs, looking at boundaries. We do have to address some of the middle school and high school boundaries. We haven't we haven't

213addressed those yet and we need to for the feeder strengthening the feeders as we were talking about before. So this is when we call ourselves long-term planning. It really is a long term and a lot of times we've been focused because we have to be right now on just this and it's not just this. It's going to be an ongoing process and I hope everyone will understand that if we can do this one really well and not have to move it around that we can move some of the others and hopefully you can help establish the trust that we can do it well. That's our goal. We want to try and do this well. So we really appreciate everything that you've told us. We have made adjustments in our conversations all along the way already.

214We just don't have a final decision. We need to hear from our four open meetings any more additional facts because you guys have come up with some amazing points of view for all of our schools and we haven't heard any impact yet from our special ed that's going to be presented um in our next long-term planning meeting. So until we can settle them, we can't really decide what we're doing with the other two because that is so important. those kids are are most needing support and love and we don't want to break up anything that's going well, but sometimes that may if we're looking at the long-term special ed program, we don't want to impact that negatively for them as well. So, we still have some big factors to look at. Um, I appreciate um

215Leon leading our committee and we've had some very robust conversations with many, many people at our meetings. Since we have 16 people sitting around the table with people that come in and out that we need to have additional information. So it's not a little tiny committee. Um it is it is a larger committee. We just had an initial tiny committee to get something to start with. Does that make sense? That first proposal was never intended to be the proposal. Does that make sense? It was just something to work with. If we start with this, then we can say this is good, this is bad, and we can start moving because if we left it wide open, everybody has an opinion and we wouldn't get anywhere. So, this helps us to narrow it down and really

216evaluate and and honor the input that you're giving us. And we do. I can guarantee that we have made adjustments multiple times already in what we're thinking and what we're planning. You have made a difference, but we can't tell you the final results because we're not finished gathering the input. You say you need longer time for input. Yes, we need longer time for input. Um, putting it off just puts it off. It's going to be painful no matter what we do. And that just pushes everybody else further down the road. So, I wish we could go sm shorter and we can discuss it as a committee whether we need to lengthen this back out again, but it's kind of one of those, okay, rip the band-aid off, let's get going. It has already been put

217on the back burner for years. We have seen this coming for a while and we just want let's do what's best for our kids and get it settled instead of having this always possibly coming. We're finally to the point economically where we kind of need to do something definitely. I'm not really supposed to answer. >> All right. So, so we sorry we are happy to engage with you after the meeting. talk to us after >> and come talk to us at that during the public meeting. We don't engage back and forth with it. >> Anyway, uh I just wanted to point out that this doesn't answer all our problems and we know it does not. Okay. But we do know I want you to know that we are very happy to get the information that

218you've given us because you live this we live around you but we aren't in it. Does that make sense? We're not the parents in those schools. And that's probably good. um so that we can be object as objective as possible. But I appreciate what you guys have been doing and I appreciate Leon uh leading our committee and if you do have questions you want to ask about ask us after because we really can answer from the podium. >> Okay, Mr. Edel, >> uh just a quick thank you to start for all the input that we've received um and for all the work that's gone into this by numerous numerous people. Uh, I debated whether I even wanted to bring this up, but I think one of my biggest concerns that I look at this um

219is is the numerous comments I've received of uh students being split up from their cohorts that they go to school with. Uh, and so I think it's important um that at least the ideas floated uh and potentially looked at for our middle and high school feeders in the new school area. Um, splitting students is hard in an elementary school and it's probably something that we need to consider for the students sake uh as the students are going to have new friends now. Uh and uh in the current configuration, they'll be split up into two different directions. Um two different middle schools, two different high schools. Um and that is impacting on students. Uh so I want to throw that out there that I think um that that is a serious consideration and uh it's something

220that has been important to me as we've looked at boundaries as a whole is to reduce uh split feeders in a school as much as possible. Um in this case I'm gonna I'm just going to throw this out and then you can yell at me afterwards. Um, but the Eastmon Jordan path, um, would definitely be the ideal path for that. And I'm happy to get yelled at for that and explain my rationale for that later. But, uh, uh, I just want to make sure that that's that's said and stated as as something that I think is uh, going to be important as we move forward. >> Okay, Miss Nar, first off, I want to thank all of the public that came and commented. Um, I I feel like we witnessed something really beautiful tonight. I

221My heart uh was swelling with pride for these amazing schools and communities. To have parents get up and talk about the awesome community and the amazing test scores at Park Lane and that special ed teacher that got up with that graph. I was fighting back tears. I was so excited that we have these rising test scores with our special ed kids and that integration that is beautiful. We are doing a lot of really wonderful things in our schools and I'm so happy about that. I love that our parents and our community love their school this much that their school means this much to them that their children are coming home and they're being well educated and that we've created this sense of community and there's high quality learning. this is exactly what we aim for.

222And so I love that. I also love to hear from the Granite community. I loved hearing about the wonderful things about your school. I took copious notes and your considerations for the EEC. And I the one thought I had permeating from all of this is I would hitch my wagon to to any of those communities. And I loved the mom that got up and said, "Hey, if we combine I'm excited to join hands with this other community." And I think that is one thing um we can all gain from tonight is what amazing parents and families and students and community we have. So I have I have great hopes for what the future will be as we as we move forward and combine. Um some comments that we had, the gentleman, the engineer I see

223right back there about the five-year plan. That is something that I have had multiple conversations with um my fellow board members who sit on the long range planning committee. I do think that is really important and as as Mr. Wilcox presented, we do need to be clear about that. We do need to be clear about if in the end we're going to be combining three schools. In fact, u Mrs. Stal and I had a big conversation this afternoon about that where would be the most optimal place if we're going to end up um combining even more than two schools and what what property would have that space to build out. Um I am really grateful that the long range planning committee is going to be um talking to Terry Mitchell. She's the head of our

224special ed department. Um, I I was in committee meetings uh this last year with our our past special ed department chair and I have really been excited for and pushing for a five-year plan for our special ed too. Um, my heart really goes out to our our students um that are part of that experience and recognize that they are our most vulnerable population and how important it is for them to be able to go to school with their neighbors. There are neighbors that know them and love them and look out for them. And sometimes the growth that they can have with their peers and that acceptance and that socialization is is going to be far more impactful in their lives than what the what even what we can do test scores wise. So I think

225we need to very much look at how to protect those populations. I look forward to our community input nights. Um, I look forward to the opportunity to work together with you, the public, and the parents and the students to to get to a place where we can feel confident about the future. Absolutely. Looking at the five-year plan, and I'm grateful for all the work in the long range planning committee. Uh, I I just recently learned my my brother actually just recently moved about a year ago, and he's in the neighborhood as Mr. Leon will cox and I I told my brother I said you know that man is incredible for what he does for our district. Um I I said I think he's irreplaceable and uh he's probably one of the most humble guys you

226know so he wouldn't like to hear me say that over the microphone but he is he's very capable. Um we get accolades all the time with our district the way he keeps our books and he's also the head of the transportation department does a lot for our district. So, I do know that this topic will be well researched. Uh, my heart goes out to you. Um, I've been through boundary changes um back when I lived in Tennessee with my boys in elementary school. In fact, um so so um I was so involved I ended up um working with the superintendent there and helping with the policy that they wrote considering the boundary changes. And then, interesting enough, now our state legislation has us do some of those exact same processes that we came to in

227Tennessee years ago in Williamson County Schools about having the community input. How important that is. I'm so grateful that we do that and and um that there's a certain amount and duration of time where we can gather input because that's the most important thing we can do. So, thank you for showing up. Thank you for walking the distance with us and I hope that we can come to a good conclusion and thank you for all the work. That's it. >> Okay. Anyone else? No. Oh, Miss Dolly, go ahead. >> I was going to save these for comments, but it really is uh related to this. But first of all, thank you, Leon. Um I know there's been some some talk that there's financial mismanagement or something in this process and that's why we have to

228close schools. But I can assure you we have the best business administrator in the state and probably even the nation. that it's amazing what he can do with stretching every dollar um to provide the best education for the students in our district. Um I was met with one of the neighboring districts board members uh this last week that they have gone through multiple school closures and she had said she has had parents and teachers come back to her after the process. people that were actually quite angry with her at going through the process that actually came back and apologized and said, "We didn't realize it could be this good." So, we hope that you can help trust us in this process. I assure you that all of us are our our goal is what is

229best for students and teachers and it change is not easy, but we're really trying to to improve the education for our students. And it's not going to be ideal for everyone. Unfortunately, we don't can't magically just build a brand new building that can fit everybody together. And so, there's going to be some some tough decisions we have to make, but we're really trying to do the best we can for all of our students and teachers in this process. And it's not just the $1.5 million that we save a year from keeping a school open. It's the $50 million in five and 10 years to have to replace these schools that are 50 years old. So, there's this long range we have to look at of cost savings over time and trying to keep these schools

230going. when one of these chillers go outs, that's a million dollars to replace the AC to have a comfortable school for our kids. That you never know when that's going to happen. And so we have to uh be prepared for that. And this is not just a canyons problem. Uh NPR Planet Money just had a podcast about two weeks ago on their indicators called why are schools closing. It's eight minutes. I encourage you to go listen to it. It's interesting to understand the dynamics that are h happening across the nation uh related to that and thank you so much for coming and providing your feedback. It is important to us. We hear you. We're making adjustments as we can and as we're able to things work out. So, >> thank you. I want to also

231add my thanks. Um Mr. Wilcox, you you seem highly uncomfortable with all the compliments you receive. I can see it on your face. Um, I will say, you know, to the the discussion about look ahead. Um, it's it's interesting when I graduated from law school in 2004, it was right at the beginning of when people started talking about population demographics and they were talking about an approaching demographic winter, similar to what we've seen in countries like Japan or in Europe. And I remember thinking, oh, this is this is interesting stuff. I mean it it was right on the heels of when everybody talked about overpopulation and then all of this discussion started to emerge and there was um a scientist he was a population demog demographer who received a Nobel Prize award for his work

232and everybody thought he was off his rocker um that didn't understand this. The truth is what he predicted that I thought we would never see in the state of Utah is happening. Um, when I got on the board and started at the beginning of 2019, Leon down here was the one who informed us that that was going to happen for Utah. And I was like, "No, we're never going to get under replacement rate. We have the highest fertility rate in the country. There's no way. There's no way." And with each passing year, he would report numbers and say, "Remember me talking to you about the birth rate? That's happening." He has been warning us for a long time. And we have been looking at these numbers for a long time. I think it's important to

233recognize just like what he was showing in the numbers, we have been subsidizing the smaller um enrolled schools for a long time. And that has not come without um a lot of complaint and frustration and criticism from elementary schools that have very large populations. And um so that's something to consider. But the other thing is when we're looking at the big picture of what we want for our students, a lot of what we want for them are the things like school counselors or school psychologists, nurses. We just had in our study session a report on our school nurses. Well, nurses go based off of how many students you have. So when we have nurses that are spread across three schools or multiple schools, it's very difficult for them to meet the needs of children with

234um disabilities or things like diabetes or other sorts of allergies. You know, some of them are even putting in catheterss. It's it's a fullcourt press. Well, when you were spreading across multiple buildings, their ability to be effective significantly diminishes. Um, we want every school to be able to have multiple classes per grade so that when the teachers come together and and have their professional learning communities, they can learn from each other and help coach each other, it actually produces better teaching. Um, so it's reasons like this that we have tried to hold off as long as we can, but as we've seen the the demographics decreasing so significantly, we are left at this place where we really can't move forward unless we do something like this. Um, I want you to know every single board

235member on this board without question cares about what you have to say and they all take notes and they all read every single email. I have 12 pages of notes, single spaced. Um, we are considering and listening to you. In fact, it was a result of that that immediately after last meeting, um, there were board members that talked about the fact that they needed to go out to your schools and they needed to see the the site. they needed to see the schools. They wanted to walk the walking routes that you're talking about. Um I think every single one of us probably by the end of this process will have done that. We're we're listening to you. And it was a result of that that we suggested getting traffic studies done. We said we want,

236you know, a third-party objective um professional to be able to come and look at the traffic patterns at each school so we better understand and that we could actually do some um research on what would happen if you add buses and and whatnot as a result of the different plans. So, um I want you to know we are listening. This is a tricky process because you have hundreds of families involved, right? and you can't necessarily have individualized conversations with every single one. So, we're doing the best that we can. Please email us. Please come to these meetings. Feel free to talk to us afterwards. We're we're going to do our very best, our very darnest. And I I do want to thank you for being so civil and kind and respectful and appropriate. Like, we

237live in a world where that is not happening as we know in the space all over the place. And I am crazy proud of this community that you're showing up so well. Your kids should be proud of you. It's pretty awesome. So, and I'm with Miss Nyber on that. So, with that, that concludes the new business portion of our meeting and we will move on to um agenda item eight of staff comments and we'll start with the superintendent report and then business admin administrator report from Leon. >> No comments tonight. Okay, >> just a quick reminder to all our employees, we're in the middle of our open enrollment for insurance for starting our plan year in 2026. Please go on on uh on our navigator system and complete that. Should take you about 10 minutes

238and uh it's very important that you do so we can make sure you're on the right plan come January. So please please go ahead and do that. Thank you. That's all I got. >> Okay. So, let's start on this side and have Miss Nipar go first. We're here listening to um board comments. By the way, this is item number nine. Okay. Um well, uh I failed to mention the one other thing I wanted to say with this boundary study is I really do appreciate I think this second proposal is better than the first. I like ha keeping communities together. So, I liked that and less splintering. Um the uh second thing is I wanted to go ahead and congratulate Corner Canyon for winning state golf today. That was really exciting. Um really awesome to see

239the great the great rewards with Alta Marching Band. Uh as as Jeff mentioned, Adrien McIll um playing with the Utah Symphony at a Bravanel Hall and then the US Predent presential scholar with Blake Cullinger. I handed that kid his diploma and asked him and I like what I like to do is every kid that I hand the diploma I asked them what's next and he told me he was going to Harvard and I was like wow that's amazing very cool that he got that that prestigious award how awesome are our alumni Canyon Strong I had the opportunity to go to a second grade field trip we went to the Museum of Natural History up at the U and it was so awesome to see the excitement for all these kids. They had just recently done

240an art integrated project with Mindy Vandergraph where they had made out of um salt dough. They had made these crystallized formations of different Utah landscapes and then they used foam. So my son came home with this plate and he had the arches and he had lakes and then he had slot canyons on this little plate. And there we are in the museum and they're playing around with and and there was the exhibit showing how water is so powerful, you know, it it carves these pathways and makes these river beds because when we have these flash flash floods in desert Utah, the ground can't absorb it. So then it creates these new pathways and and talking about how powerful water is and how it shapes our our land formations. So the fun thing is is here

241they are second grade sevenyear-olds and they're like just like art class with Mrs. Vandergraph and I just wanted to cheer like we are doing a great job there. I love that. I love what we can do as we integrate art with with our um core subjects and how it helps these kids internalize what happens. I don't think in second grade I could have explained that or understood that as well. Um, so that was really exciting. Uh, I'm really excited for this time of year. We're just we're just having a a great time seeing all the awesome things coming together. I'm excited to have our student here, Brody Meyer, who's being an awesome awesome advocate. He's emailing all the board. He's coming to the meetings. He's just going to do a great job representing and talking

242to legislators. Uh, thank you so much for coming tonight. Canyons is the place to be. We just work with really wonderful, amazing teachers, staff, faculty, administrators, students, parents, and families, and I'm grateful to be a part of it all with you. That's it. >> Okay, Mr. Lewis. >> Awesome. Uh I just want to begin with uh not this last weekend, I don't believe it was the weekend before, I had the opportunity to go to Bryce Canyon for the Utah School Boards Association uh leadership academy. Uh the board up here, we also receive uh professional development just like all of our teachers and staff. Um and that was incredibly valuable as a somewhat new board member. Uh I attended some incredibly valuable breakout classes. those they Utah school boards school boards association is great professional development

243for our board. Uh I also want to congratulate Hillrest's Shakespeare team. Uh they're state champions. That is super super cool. And as well as uh Canyon Sweep. We swept uh the entire uh tournament uh the Shakespeare tournament as Jeff said earlier. Um, I also did want to acknowledge Bod. Uh, I had a meeting with Bod uh, uh, in Draper couple uh, I think last week and he we just had about an hour and a half long conversation about our district, about the state board of education, about just a bunch of stuff and I'm super excited that he's here to represent our district uh, to the state board of education. Uh, and finally on my final point uh, I did want to make a comment about our board our boundary study process. There are some Utah

244governments that do not care to keep communities of interest whole when they're drawing their maps. Here in Canyons, we do. Uh we have a we do take great care to keep our communities whole. Um so please keep communicating with your comm communicating your neighborhood's needs to us. We do read each and every single email. Uh I can't respond to every single email. There is literally been hundreds, but I am reading every single one and taking diligent notes. Um, and we on this board actually take the time to listen to community feedback and will actually read your public comments. So, please keep leaving them. That's all I have tonight. >> Okay, Mr. Edel. >> Uh, just to thank you again for all the public input that we've received. um to say that we know everything would

245be um the biggest failure that we could possibly have and fortunately that's that's never been the case. Uh so I do appreciate the time uh that everyone spent. I mean it's 9:38 right now and there's still a room full of people and so I really appreciate uh your dedication to the students because that's literally why we are all here in this room. So thank you. Uh and with that that's all I have. Okay, Miss Tally, >> thank you. Thank you again for being here tonight and for being such an involved and engaged community to as we work as a team to to really do what is best for our students and teachers here in Canyon's district. Um, it's a joy to me as I talk to my kids in college and they can they talk

246about something that they learn from their Canyons teachers and how it's really helping them and things that they're applying and being able to share with their their roommates and classmates. Uh it makes me proud of Canyons and and the difference we're making in these these children's lives. I want to take thank our teachers. I know Brighton this last week had parent teacher conferences. Those are long days for our teachers and so we appreciate them putting that time in to work to help our students uh achieve to their best abilities. I attended the unified sports tournament at Brighton High School which was amazing. Um, I'm an adapted PE teacher by training and so this is my love and I love to see how well this program has grown over the years because uh when I was

247in doing my masters at the U, these programs didn't exist for these kids and so I'm grateful for Canyons and the effort that's been put in to really support our unified sports here in Canyons District and thank you. >> Okay, Miss Patterson, thank you. By the way, >> I said a lot before. So, I am looking forward to I also attended the unified sports at Brighton and then we have two more events and I think it will be awesome. I think our students will be in the state tournament because they're that good. I've noticed as I've gone to these over the last couple years that our students are actually learning how to play and not having to be coached so much by their peer tutors and they're they're doing an amazing job. So, I'm just

248so impressed that we have even the quality of students at all levels that our that our students represent Canyons really really well. Um, I'm proud of our athletes. I'm proud of our sports and all the things that extra things that our students participate in because that's the part of schooling that they're going to remember the most. Those extracurricular hands-on kinds of activities are your memories. If you look back to what you did in high school, that's probably more what you remember than a particular lesson in class, although I have a few of those uh from really awesome teachers that I had in my past. And I also want to mention, we said that Leon wasn't the most awesome finance um director, but our superintendent, we are not just paying money for nothing. We we purposely

249raised his rate rates so that we don't lose him. The districts like to pirate each other. They do. So, we have to keep ahead of the pack because he's worth it. We hired him specifically for his vision for our innovation center, for looking forward to how we can get career career readiness um built into all the levels of our schools and that our kids can graduate and have jobs whether they go to college or not. And it and he's helping with that vision. We need him. He's does a fantastic job. He is has an open door policy. You could show up anytime and nine times out of 10 you'll find him in his office. If not, he's in a meeting. But he is an awesome he's he's awesome. So I don't think we're overpaying him.

250Um the the financing is a different pot than schools. The the monies are two different animals. Yeah, the red tape is kind of crazy, but um I just want you to know that we value very much our our our finance and leadership in with the superintendent because they give us as much as we give them. In fact, they probably give more. This man lives practically in the district and he's available to everyone. So, I I I just feel like he does such a good job and I didn't want you to feel like, well, we're just, you know, throwing money at someone. Um, we're not. We just are a little higher than some of the other districts on purpose. Um, we have also paid all of our beginning teachers higher than any other district on purpose

251except for Park City. We can't compete with Park City. They have way more money, way more money than we have. But we don't want we don't want to lose these really core key people that have helped us build this vision for Canyons and the momentum that we have. So I wanted to say thank you to my our two our two employees to be honest. The boards we the board are their bosses and they we value what they do and and we appreciate everything that they have done as a leadership in leadership for our district. they're open to suggestions and we're all just human. So, we all make mistakes from time to time. But I just wanted to um complement or or explain to you how important our the vision is um so that we have

252that kind of continuity for the next 10 years or whatever it's going to take. Um I appreciate all the comments. I've learned so much. I'm looking forward to hearing more. And um that's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay. So, um I appreciate your comments, Karen. I'd echo those as well. Um by the way, I I know that a lot has been spoken about some of the student achievements and I want to um throw out a congratulations again to Adrien McIll. Um he it is really difficult to be able to play for salute to youth and he's actually being looked at by um conservatories like Giuliard and other um major musical institutions. And he didn't start playing the obo or any woodwin instrument until he went to Draper Park Middle School and met um

253Zack Giddings um a teacher there that is very beloved that the the community absolutely adored. Um, that's highly unusual to not start until you're in sixth grade and then be able to have such a strong trajectory for a professional musician. It's pretty awesome. Um, I want to highlight the time that I had an alt legislator in the classroom day. That was amazing. I got to go with um three legislators um all from the House of Representatives that went into U AP US history and government classes and they got to answer questions one-on-one with the kids and man we had some great questions coming from our students. It was awesome. I also on September 12th got to celebrate Constitution Day at Corner Canyon and they had a breakfast with other elected officials and the students asked

254questions about the Constitution and what it's like to be an elected official and what our roles and responsibilities are. That's where I met Brody. Um and that was awesome. So I also want to throw a shout out to um the bands and orchestras at Quarter Canyon. um they received a major award where they were named um the Utah State winner in the national competition for band and orchestra by the foundation for music education. That is really significant and it wasn't just one ensemble. It was all of them. So, we are it's to Miss Nyar's point, we're doing some really wonderful things. And I do know, I have absolutely no doubt that when these school communities um are consolidated, you're going to see some magical things happen. I am excited for your kids to go into

255their classrooms and meet kids from the other neighborhoods and other community. It's going to be great. And a lot of your teachers, your favorite teachers will follow you. I mean, it's it's not like they're suddenly going to disappear from your community. They're going to be a part of it still. So, it's um I know this is a difficult process, but again, thank you for being patient with us. We will continue to work at it. Um we're all planning, as far as I know, and being at all of those community meetings. So, um thank you again and I'm call this meeting adjourned.