001call our session to order I'd like to welcome everyone to the study session portion of the meeting of the canyon sport of Education today is November 1st 2022 and we are meeting at the district office located at 9251 South 300 East in Sandy Utah and first item on our study session this evening is item 2A possible Elementary School grading term adjustment so I will turn um the time over to Dr McKay Robinson Elementary School performance director thank you president employment members appreciate the opportunity I actually had a really fabulous joke prepared for you but literally moments ago Leon told me aside and said I'm the only joke teller in the sisters let me threatened my salary so I'm going to hold to that share any jokes or anything of that um but I am very
002grateful for this opportunity to talk about elementary schools and then specifically the possibility of making some adjustments to raising terms and so I wanted to give you a little bit of background and explain why we're even having this conversation in the third place where this all came about and everything but um several weeks ago probably even months ago Dr Robbins in our cabinet meeting had basically challenged one-on cabinet to do all that we could into problem solving find some things that we could possibly remove from our wonderful teachers place try and ease the burden that is upon them at this particular time that then led to several discussions with administrators with teachers myself and um actually met with a few of our cea reps on a couple different occasions and we just kind of began
003kind of this problem-solving process of looking at some of the different options are there one of the main options is one of those things that continues to rear its head every single year but for whatever reason we forget about it after it passes or we're not thinking about it before it gets to that point and that is essentially that we have that wonderful grading day for our teachers to spend their day putting all their report cards together the grading and everything on January 12 13th 14th depending on the year and that does not necessarily align with our current trimester system because the semester actually ends clear on February 29th so that day doesn't really provide them that opportunity to put all their report cards together it just becomes a day of planning and different things
004in that regard it's certainly not a wasted day by any means but it's not meeting the purpose of that grading day and therefore they have to spend that time figuring out when to do those on their own diamond on time if that makes sense and then we have that character conference which is 1328 so you can see that there's quite a big window there from that degrading day to the actual report card and then it's essentially that other information that's there that I've already kind of touched on so there's some of the background and the reasoning for us looking at this discussing this a little bit further so hopefully um when yes please sorry I just want to point out let me go back to the previous slide we do give them two full days
005of pay that we intended them to work on the report card so I'm just like when you say there's no time to work on the report cards I just want to clarify there we are getting we are paying them too correct but not in the counter correct the difference is is that we have those three different grading or reporting times and so two of those days are addressing those other but this one doesn't align with the actual grading date so it'd be kind and I do understand that but you said we expect them to do it on their own dime and we do not expect that because it's not listed on our own times yes so this um when I first met with board leadership to kind of go through this and give an initial
006proposal um it was requested that I try and make this as visual as possible so here's my first attempt at making it visual so let me explain really quickly the colors so the top and the blue is the first trimester the black is the second red is the third fret the big blue um highlighted areas there the column or the rows that are there that is to address what I was talking about earlier where our January date does not align with the actual grading days that's kind of that weird window of time where things are kind of spread out in an awkward and weird time so that's what it looks like currently in our trimester and this is what it could look like within our shift to quarters same thing remove the third quarter Black
007second quarterback third fourth in the blue and this would allow for you to notice here that it would allow us to get in line with our actual grading day and then we'll do four cards or whatever we determine s p or whatever would be able to be sent home at that particular time so that's kind of in a nutshell what that could look like if we're to shift to that so one of the main questions is how would this impact our calendar so I took our approved 2023-24 calendar and basically broke this far right side that missed all the days and what they're actually intended for and put them into two columns here on this next slide and then highlighted the areas that would would be a necessary impact or what require us to change
008we will notice that they are very minimal in many instances so that first one we would simply change from end of first quarter from 6 to 12 to K-12 we would eliminate the line that says trimester next thing same thing we would change that to k12 and then a trimester and then K-12 so you'll notice it really doesn't impact the rest of the calendar parent teacher conferences would stay the same and then we would just simply be aligning with our secondary schools on that quarter solution so not a Major Impact I will highlight it most of them situation there so again you're going to see this a lot I tried to keep going back and forth to summarize because there's multiple slides a lot of different changes or dates and everything in that regard so
009you can see what the impacts are we touched on those a little bit already but how does this address the challenge that we were given by Dr Robin we shot the line that grading days which you would no longer need to find those eight hours to put that into put their report cards together and whatnot and then we'll talk about more of those possible benefits as we move into the other slide so that does if we were to move to this it does require us to look at our grading of reporting prior process that we already currently have in place sorry Dan so that's where this goes into and I wanted to start out by first sharing with you what we have already in place birds and foremost we have what is referred to as
010our SCP or Elementary student education plans and that is what takes place during our very first parent teacher conference currently early in well the end of September essentially around the 27th 28th and the teacher sits down with the child as well as the parent they talk about the strengths and all the accomplishments that the child has had up until that point as well as areas for improvement and then they set some goals for the remainder of the Year and that next grading period we do this a second time later in the year well that's currently what our NCP looks like and that's what it is when I'm referring to our scps okay the next is an example of one of our Elementary report cards you'll notice that they have three reporting periods on the report
011card currently that progress report period one two and then the end of your summary so that is what the two tools are that we are using to share progress okay just and looking at the presentation I just want to be clear for my own understanding option one is that currently what we're doing like I'm just trying to grab my hand around okay do we have an example of shortly what we're doing it's coming right here okay that is option one that's what I'm saying okay I put at the top of every option what we currently are doing and then what we're proposing at the bottom okay so great clarification So currently the way we have that just to answer that question is at the beginning we have that student education plan that takes place on
012the 27th to the 28th roughly and then and I say roughly because of the material you're looking at and then we have that report card that goes home on the 17th of November so I one of the reasons why I want to highlight that as well is from September 27th and 28th when we're setting goals and talking about the progress that's been made there's really not a large window between that 27th and 28th and November 17th for a grade or to show a lot of growth and progress of that um purchasing oh sorry this I'm thinking of a different thing sorry Clarion thank you for saying that so there's that particular piece that's the first two and then we have trimester two and the blue again is what we were trying to address where we
013have the priority for February 29th and we have a student education plan again at the end of your summary so what you'll see here is the way we currently have it is we have two scps and three report cards does that make a little bit more sense Amendment okay so that's what we have so now in quarters um the proposal and this would be option number one we would do that initial parent-teacher conference in September which is already on the calendar and we would discuss that student education plan then Quarter Two comes around um which would end on January 16th you'll notice that it aligns beautifully with that January 12th grading day so our teachers would have the ability to utilize that day and put all the freeze together and then send that report card
014home order three then you move into a possible again these are the possibilities of what we could do a progress report that would then be discussed at parent-teacher conference and then at the very end of the year we can send another report card home so this would essentially be one SCP three report cards okay now a summary of that will be coming again wait wait why would you not do another SCP on quarter three at that parent conference one of the reasons is again we're looking at possibilities of removing another piece from our teachers plates and still maintaining four reporting periods but removing one more requirement from them to help minimize the the time commitment to put all this together as well as just the overall stress of it all so you're only going to
015meet with the parents one time no no it's still a choice still twice foreign if they do an SCP at the beginning of the year and establish what their goals are and then they that's the only SCP they do all year is education better if we review that mid-year for an indication worth if we review at mid-years that's a really good Chris great because I'm trying to figure out what's going to give it the best product for Education it just seems to me that if we reevaluate that fep mid-year yeah it could be some benefits and that's again why we have multiple options here and one does include a second SCP but I would also like to say that my teachers our teachers could obviously attest to this as well regardless of the reporting period
016that's taking place they're discussing that at length in the elementary with the progress that's being made and talking about goals and everything moving forward regardless of how we specifically outline that whether it's the sap or the actual report except that when you have to do these report cards and you have to do the scps it's not like oh I can open up my grade book and here's where they are in the grading system they have to go through all this testing and they have to go through figuring out and I and and I know so part of my question is we don't have learning skills here right per se like we have we have the quizzes and the exit tickets and things like that but the learning skills where it says if they're doing this
017this is scale one and this is a grade one and if they're doing this this is a scale two and it's a grade two and if they're doing these things it's a skill three we have either it's 80 percent and above and you have mastered or it's 80 and below and you haven't mastered it so you either get a three or you get a two in one and and so when you're talking scps and you're talking report cards and this is the confusing part about standard based grading because it's two different identities what what what one looks like you want the other look looks like there's two different whole stories and when I'm looking at wanting to talk to parents and explain to them what's happening I I really want to have all my data
018in place with my report card in place to match my data with my report card for those parents rather than have an SCP said that says hey kids are doing kind of great and here's some of the things we can work on although I know on that SCP you guys are waiting for data and you're giving them data right and then a report card you turn around and give them just the grades but maybe the teachers are explaining the report cartoon but actually not because when we do parent conferences here our parent conference does not line up with our report cards at any given time so the report cards goes home with no explanation from the teacher unless a parent really wants to dig into it and try to find out about it no explanation
019from the teacher about why they got on the report card either and I'm sorry it's kind of like a past fell thing rather the 80 or above or the 80 or below and the kids don't even know why on their report card they have a three or a two or one so this is the thing that I was trying to go through here and try to figure out was was I know we're trying to take things off the teacher's plate but it just seems to me that if you're going to do this you should line the SCP and report card at the same time with the sap and report card at the same time the same place and not have them staggered everywhere but let's go through all the options and then I'll tell you
020what I recognition thinking fair enough if that works so again that's kind of that option number one piece option number two again just the trimester what we currently have in place up option two would be taking that SCP at the very beginning of the year the progress report or report card on that January 2nd or 12th lines there and then SCP again the second time to discuss kind of that revisit month that you were referring to and then having the end of year summary at the very end of the year which is that report card so again it's still for reporting periods but it's an SCP progress report SCP progress report that one looks a little more sense so then option number three same type of thing progress report progress report progress report end of
021your summary basically eliminating the SCP component or side of things for reporting periods but just all report cards so again I'm Mastery report card whatever progress report whatever you'd like to refer to it as so then um what I did is try to break them down and kind of give you a quick little summary as to what each option entails we've already discussed the majority of the bullets here but you will notice that um which doesn't necessarily remove anything from our special education teachers but it does remove one student education plan or SCP from the Gen Ed teacher's place so we're we're meeting our gen Ed teachers needs in that regard but it doesn't necessarily hit the special education component of it but as again we're talking about some of these others that we've already
022mentioned how it aligns with specific conferences and everything in that regard second one two SPS two SCP priorities out of the line with that the sequo and I apologize I didn't get that date changed in the previous um it would require us to make a minor modification to the progress report itself meaning we would eliminate one of the columns so there would just be the two columns on there it does remove something from the special ed teacher's place as well as remove something from the teacher's plates so we're kind of in a win-win in that regard the third option again all four report cards discussed at the special ed teachers play but does remove two scps from the teachers but does add an additional report card and this clarine had mentioned a little bit earlier
023it's pulling a lot more data and trying to make sense of the three two and ones and all that kind of so it just adds a little bit more time to the whole thing so those are the three so the benefits of shifting from quarters or two quarters from the trimesters and aligning the grading day but it gets us to consistency of the Brighton situation um the middle student aligns with the actual reporting period which then gives the teachers essentially in eight hours to actually put their report cards together special originally intended one or less confusion with the parents and aligning the two report cards or levels if if you will um it eliminates the current deadline of completing the report card writing an sdp and holding parent teacher conference within a very very short
024window of time it's it's pretty taxing and uh kind of a his stuff needless to say our teachers go home and completely exhausted after that short little window there and then depending on the grading option selected the scps and report cards will be streamlined to people in the sense so those are some of the benefits and then again trying to be as visual as possible putting the three options there for you to take a look at again and see exactly in all our side by side so you can see the differences again we're maintaining the four grading periods for reporting periods um it's just a matter of kind of shuffling some things around really providing them that day the 12th 13th of January to do their report cards as well as removing one small piece
025of this to make it not as taxing and overbearing so those are the three options open in questions concerns worries yeah let's let superintendent um make some comments and then um Amanda and then Napper so um just to back up to McKay's uh opening statement uh this is something that I've been discussing with cea for a while and my opinion in looking at it it still boils down to four cycles of feedback and I didn't really fully understand the level of feedback that the SCP actually gives but between the SCP and the report cards and McKay and Alice can speak to this I don't see any decrease in the level of feedback or the cycles that we're providing to parents and kids there's still two parent-teacher conferences there's still four Cycles but as I've got
026into the issue the the challenge is is that because of that misalignment in that day teachers end up duplicating their work you know and it's time they are getting compensated but but really that day is all it's more than a month almost a month and a half away and so this just I think it just makes us more efficient essentially and according to the teachers that I've talked to they've I haven't had any teacher tell me that they didn't support this so I in my mind the SCP report card SCP report card seems to make the most sense but I just want everybody to know I I don't sense from what you've all told me and what I've gathered is that there's any maths or quality of feedback being provided to parents there's constant communication
027that's going on as well throughout the school year it's not we're not limiting this to four different times where parents are communicating so anyway okay so I think they have several board members comments and questions so Amanda and Amber Mont and then Clary and then Holly so and then Steve I guess we all have something to say if you can okay so when I look at this one of the first things I think as well as a parent not getting a report card until January feels really late to me so perhaps you can give me a little bit more insight not just for my benefit but also for anyone else this again of what the fundamental differences are between an SCP and that report card if we can get really granular for a second sure
028So within the report card I think Clarion touched on it really well where we're pulling a lot of data trying to align that with whether or not we've mastered or not mastered or we're getting close to master or whatever yeah and it's all standards based and everything in that regard so it's it's different than what you're going to see on a secondary report card obviously whereas the SCP itself it's literally talking it can address all of those items and how they're performing and everything in that regard but it's it's also getting to me it's almost a little bit more personal in the sense that we're truly talking about the child not necessarily looking at a number and I hate to even make it sound like we're not doing that with the report card because I
029don't see it that way but it's I've always really appreciated the scps side of things because it's I know my son or daughter's strengths are I know what areas we need to work on and here's what they have established as a student as well as the teacher to try and address these specific areas so it becomes it's a little more Broad in that regard rather than narrowing it down to whether or not we've mastered it per se have been pretty specific for my kids and really helpful and other times it's been one year and so there's a part of me that wonders how do we make sure that there's a standard expectation attached to a cpuation a little bit more objective that's one concern I have another one is um this is take us a
030step closer and farther away from being competency-based grading because if that is part of our strategic plan and that's the direction I'm a little bit worried about you know how that functions like what are your thoughts speak to that I'll go first I I think a bigger question with that Amanda is the actual tool that we use um I mean if you go back and look at the you can actually see the report card that we use um I I think there's probably a bigger question on at some point and I know that's we've talked about this it's a it would be a major issue to right now to go out to an RFP we're probably not ready for that at this point because Skyward does so many different things in the district but I
031mean Amber you can speak to this too but I mean we've been talking about you know what that tool actually can look like we have a meeting with Skyward coming up soon and I'm hoping that they bring their game you know in this regard because it really that really dictates what we're able to do so I I don't I don't sense that this move does anything to lessen you know our vision and our direction towards toward Mastery but I mean to me the tool is a bigger question than practice is that is that a fair yeah I was going to say the same thing I don't think it takes us away from Competency Based I think um if we want to go there I was going to say something similar to Rick that we don't
032have a tool right now that allows us to get as close as we I think outlined in the Strategic plan and um that requires just the tools to be able to make it easier to do that the piece that I will add um the benefit of having this system in place is you're building so many uh micro skills that lead up to Mastery of the standards in an elementary and so having the opportunity and an SCP to talk about those micro skills and then the time to describe what being on track and closer to Mastery looks like on the report card that's a little bit further away because also advantageous because you have a lot of time to be able to teach those standards because the standards on the report card often represent the biggest
033Essentials and combine some of those Essentials into one I can statement which often in elementary that first report card anyway uh you just got a lot of kids that are on track because you haven't had enough time to get them to Mastery so moving that further into January if that's the direction you know that that has went that thing that we go you've got time so can I ask like if you have a child that has a disability for instance and like I I just look at this like if I'm a parent that has a kid with a disability maybe hasn't been diagnosed don't quite understand what's going on if I'm not getting that report card until January I feel like it's almost like too late right I mean there's this part of me it's
034like how are we making sure that we're catching some of those red flags early enough and isn't SCP going to really adequately do that I mean so that's that's one of my questions um the other is I know that this is an an attempt to take off some things off of the teacher's plate and in some ways it feels like low hanging fruit but I just wonder whether or not it's still doing enough meaningfully and if there's other things that we can consider or think of that would make a difference I'm just curious how many teachers have been talked to how many of them are aware that we're having this conversation that's a really great question yeah and yes it is low hanging fruit is there more that we could be doing absolutely but this
035was one of the the pieces of low-hanging fruit that we felt it was easy to address as quickly and as easily as possible like I mentioned we've solicited the feedback and the input of the BLTs at the different schools spoke to the principals and ask them to talk to their teachers and not only to necessarily talk to just their BLTs but also just to you know talk to those teachers that are heavily involved in those discussions and then our conversations with cea as well so I don't have an exact number but there's been a large number and all the principles are in full support of this as well um I think I'm trying to remember what your first question oh in regards to this student that may be receiving special services or whatever the case
036may be our special ed teachers and our classroom teachers are always monitoring how the student is doing and quite honestly they wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't reaching out to a parent to talk about any of the red flags that might be coming up that need to be addressed or whatever the case may be so I don't feel like they're going to sit back and wait until a report card because they certainly shouldn't be and if and when that becomes an issue then that's something that can easily be addressed with the principle and whatnot but especially those that are receiving the services that are there during that first parent-teacher conference the resource or the special ed teachers always make themselves available as well as the general ed teacher sometimes they're with them sometimes
037they just make themselves available in the office to where the parent can go and speak to them directly as well about the different supports that are being provided and what progress is or isn't being made and what others what better teacher conference would stay in September either way correct okay that wouldn't change at all so that's yeah yeah I mean I'm good all right Amber and then Mom so my question I think the superintendent answered it is I was just going to ask what option is the administration recommending so you're saying option two is the SCP report card SCP report card okay and then I was also going to ask who you talked to with short answers so that's all I am you know most recently we met with all of our principals even just
038this last Thursday I went through this entire presentation with them and it was unanimous with the the option two just because of when it's spread out as well as meeting the needs of both our agenda teachers as well as our special ed teachers thank you thank you okay month and chlorine I'm glad to hear you say that uh most of them are looking at option two that's one that seems to make the most sense to me to me to use a sports analogy you you've correct me if I'm wrong okay you're the you're the jock resident jock here okay thank you for reminding me just in case you forgot okay quarterback be one right I got it you're going to look like that though anymore you go into it you go go into a game
039coach sits down with the players and goes through what the game plan is then you go out and you execute your gameplay at the end of the half the report card is on a scoreboard and we could make it more efficient by just skipping half time and not reevaluating plan at halftime right adjustments and that would be great wouldn't it no no half time no time no time to revive the game time and so you know I just think the fep fast to stay in place and the the main question that comes to me as you go through this I'm totally supportive of moving them to quarterly uh reporting of some type why don't we do that we're all great at all schools including including the B word you can't say the b word that's
040a discussion about yourself on that one because you know if a quarter if a quarterly reporting system is better than a trimester or a trimester is better than quarterly why don't we take advantage of what the best at all schools and have uniformity district-wide we can't answer that because he's an employee but you can talk to all of us about that and we can answer that sticking with Elementary constantly really ambitious today okay let's see I'm clarine and then Holly they call it the emperor's new clothes to switch to the trimester I'm fine if everyone would love to switch to the trimester I'm just saying are you finished okay okay chlorine and then Holly two more years Okay so this is from my perspective okay there's no difference if I had a report card report
041card report card report card because to do the SCP you're going to make the teachers do all the data that they have to do do all the testing they have to do to be able to sit down with the parent to explain to them on their little SCP that this is where their child is and this is what they've accomplished so far and this is the goals we're setting they still have to do all that data either in Skyward and actually they can't because you only want them to put in the scores that you want them to put in to be able to show that they were proficient so the teachers have to have another form or way to put all their scores in which I now do mine on paper and or I do
042mine on an Excel sheet or both trying to keep track of all those kids and their scores they're getting for the work they're doing plus the scores they're doing for their assessments plus the scores they're doing for exit tickets so I can try to determine in my little brain whether those kids are proficient or non-proficient that has to happen before that SCP and so when you get to the report card the same thing happens all over again I still have to assess all those kids I still have to look at what they've been doing in class I still have to figure out if they've done what I needed them to do or not yeah it's not written on the report card but you still have to have the same data and so um granted that
043order one we're just writing up a one paper that says you know here's here's child's strengths and here's your child's not strengths but it's still the same amount of work to get the data into there if you give to the parents you have to give the parents some information and then but but then I guess you know then they have the report cards so you don't have parent conferences at least you're not there for eight hours working with parents and explaining that one more time um they can look at the report card and decide what they think the parent can look at the report card decide what they think and then if they think they have a problem then they can come back to the teacher and yes we hope the teachers have talked to
044the parents before that time before they see the report card and have no input or understanding about how that child got those threes twos and ones and then we just repeat the same thing all over again so I just I just have a hard time not understanding why we're not having this parent conference the same time they're getting the report card that has the grade on so that they can be explained to why they have that grade not explain to your child is good at this and your child is not so good at this and here's the goal um because granted when Amber gets her child's report card she has to look at it and go oh those real good grades or look at it and go oh you didn't do so well but she
045has no idea what happened on that report card unless you're sending home data binders which I have to do every month send home a data binder with all the data that I have been collecting on spelling vocabulary whatever whatever that the parents sign every month to look at all their scores to see how they're doing and what they're not doing so I'm not I have a real hard time with teachers that are having to put certain things in Skyward then certain things on an Excel sheet then certain things on their book and then trying to align it back and forth and then we're saying we're going to try to take something off the teacher's plate this kind of makes sense that we're having a parent conference and having a conversation and then getting a report
046card and then having another conversation and then getting a report card but we're still doing the same amount of work with the same amount of data so if we were to go back and look at one report grade I could get rid of one report card one last time one thing you'll also notice clarine is that the way it's currently set up is that the SCP is discussed at that very first parent-teacher conference and then we are sending a report card home in November on November 17th so that's just being sent home it's not handed over during or discussed during a parent-teacher conference right and the second same thing where progress report is sent home again without discussion or anything I know we're doing it I mean I know we're doing it and we're taking
047one away I just wish there was another way to do the whole system it's a little different does that make sense makes perfect sense absolutely we're trying to I mean yes it's streamlining it some and it makes sense that you talk to the parents get a report card talk to the parents need to report cards I'm just saying it's still the same amount of data the same amount of work except not to put in additional report card you're saying you you feel like we should get away from double triple entry that would be a more meaningful change than just this is that what you're saying well that would help out it's the timing of the day though January 12th comes and they don't they're not ready because the the actual report card's a month and
048a half after that I think that's I mean well they still have to show they still Rick have to show all the data they have to go through all the acadiance testing and they have to go through all this different testing to come up with the data to say to the parents it looks like your child's doing yeah here but not so much I'm just saying it gives them the day of January 12th to do just that that's that's what we're trying to align because right now they end up doing all the work you're talking about close to February yeah close to February 28th or 29th versus we align in quarters then then the day to do that work aligns with the report card clarification we're really only trying to figure out how to use
049that date more effectively well that's I mean I asked you let's go back to the question I asked them to bring something back to me that it's more efficient that took something off of teachers plates I I had been discussing this with cea probably for a year and a half we've at least pronounced another round of like what can we do with this so that's that was the Genesis of it and then these were the proposals that we well I agree a proposal too is way better than pose the one and proposal three I mean it's it's a starting point I'm just saying that which is but playing with words when we talk about what teachers have to do for scps and report cards he may be more work on this I'm making it more
050work than it is all right I'm good very nice thanks okay Holly um option two for sure in my opinion looks the best because you get to refer back to the SCP I don't know that the SCP is very valuable if you never refer back to it as far as the way we do things that would make things a little more effective I believe is is when we have our elementary school kids and we go to parent-teacher conference and we walk out with this little paper folder in the papers and we have our kids goals and then you have to keep track of that paper or take a picture of it on your phone and make sure you're helping your child reach the goal we have Canyon Skyward and our kids even in elementary school
051are doing homework on Canyon Skyward can't we please put the grades and the SCP on the grade book when you go to your Elementary School child it says nothing is available on this grade book how nice and actually how much more effective to work with your kids on the goals if I can look it up on my phone in two seconds and say remember your goal we have to work on math computation let's do that for 10 minutes a night so that would be one way to help us actually utilize the SCP it's very difficult to ever refer back to the SC p on a piece of paper combined with some fun artwork you know what I mean in a folder in 2022 I think we ought to be able to get there with that
052you know and and we can review it with the kids so because the SCP is only as good as it is only as good as if we're actually going to do something about it so it's a lot of right I mean it's wonderful for the teachers to see okay because they're going to work on it in class of course but if we want any reinforcement in home at home parents need to have access quicker so there's great tools out there the heart of the issue with Skyward is is that it has so many tentacles in the district right so HR Finance it is everywhere and so to pull those apart and then Hal and Leon knows is better than anybody how that information flows up and reports to the state through utrechts is also very
053complicated and so it's I mean on the surface you're exactly right probably like we in cabinet we've talked about this we needed a different Reporting System we need one that's compatible with canvas you know but better than what it is right now they're parallel systems that don't really talk right and have some update coming well I I hope Skyward they've been talking about it it's been talking about it I don't know if they can make my grades Decay called the create decaying averaging so my grade is only worth 85 65 then 32 and then 12 and then zero percent they should be able to do something for us if they can do just pull up yeah you should the other thing is um as far as the difference between the progress report and the SCP
054is typically an SCP has one or two goals for the child and they're usually around math and reading the progress report also tells me if my child consistently listens in class when they're supposed to if they're consistently on task it has some of those important things for your as a as a parent to know how's my child behaving in class are they focused are they on task and and there and it's just it's a lot more comprehensive so the SCP is not supposed to be hey here's nine areas it's really one or two and so that that would be one thing is how can we if we aren't you know we do get the report the progress report November 17th but at that first parent-teacher conference as a parent I would want to know is
055my child on task are they listening so I think we would need to be creative that way whether or not there's the actual grade book at least the teacher is addressing that because some of those things are really important um okay and then the other thing I wanted to talk about is I really love this conversation about simplifying for teachers I absolutely fill our elementary school teachers sure have had a lot on their shoulders with all the new adoptions of curriculums like wonders and our new science and everything that they've been doing as well as the letters i I want to know in cabinet discussions if we've had a little more conversation around the extra letters assignments I I did hear that in that October's assignment was they don't have to do October or something
056Amber and her team brought this forward and it'll be administrative and I really appreciate isd's work on this but and I'll let her speak to this but essentially we would not require the camp the teacher canvas assignment for module six seven and eight so up to five which really is kind of the heart of letters right is that we are requiring the assignment up to that point because many teachers have already completed it and so just In fairness to everybody and and our commitment to that part of the instruction that they would finish that but module six seven seven n eight okay I had just heard October's assignments is that is 678 October's only the rest of the year okay I want to say a big thank you I have actually had teachers emailing me
057I had a teacher tell me if you would have been in that faculty room I said what was the energy in the room she said there were teachers full-on crying they were so grateful so thank you for making that pivotal decision and to help them breathe a little more life into them as far as they're just exhausted so I'm so grateful we're doing that and I know it's our best teachers that are exhausted because they're trying to do it all just right the other thing is we have four professional development days where they come to the district and the difficulty for them for that is that they have to write the sub plans and we have a shortage of subs and so that's kind of double duty have we talked at all about maybe producing
058that to two instead of four or three instead of four so the the planning time the planning time issue my understanding is that we've traditionally negotiated those days in the spring and so one of the things that that we've talked about is just the current calendar as it is and Charice will talk about it later needs to go forward as it's proposed because all these other agencies parents and you know County cities they're all counting on our calendar to come out first before they start building theirs not to mention parents and what they want to do but in the spring I think we've always negotiated for those additional days if they're if they are I think we need to be creative obviously we're moving into budget contraction and one additional day is about 1.23 million
059so it might be it might look a little different and how we what we recommend but I we we've heard lots of teachers Express that that you know we need they need more time um that also means less in-person instruction time if we if we do that but I'm not saying that that's not something that we think okay so I'm not talking about sorry can I interrupt I think we're kind of yeah yes topic so that conversation and yeah to the calendar okay and I'm not talking about the calendar with the I'm not talking about the days they're paid where they're planning I was talking about the the professional development days here that pull them out of the classroom four letters for training for training for the letters but it's mandated by the state and
060you cannot go okay but anyway it's also not quite okay okay so I'm sorry I'm a little anxious just because this is something I've wanted to talk about as you've heard for so long so and as we're implementing the Strategic plan there's going to be more directives so I just want simplification to be part of our process here so anyway okay so if we as long as we have some really good dialogue when we're meeting with the saps so that we can get those other targets with the progress report for parents to know and for the students to be reminded maybe on the SCP if we did like a behavior checkoff sheet it says your child is listening I mean it would be easy to put it on the one side or something um your
061child is listening your child's turned in their work your child's um I think there's four of them right um somehow included that little piece on the SCP that would help parents know the behavior okay all right um good for you yeah first off I want to Dr Robinson I want to thank you in the administration for moving forward on some ideas to to do this we can talk about as a board for a while and I think just ratio has been talked about it and this is just the first apocalypse mini that we will come up with as we try to streamline the system and try to figure out what's working with value um I like option two uh it makes some sense um in that I always hated a master report card coming out
062where I had nothing like Masters you know it was all ones or whatever it was just too early in the year I mean if you're having a grade and it says you got a B's and C's it's one thing to tell that the parents could say oh I got bees but here if it's all ones you go to a parent goes oh that's all it was what did it tell me so the longer you have to obtain some Mastery probably the better it's going to be uh I also like the SCP in that pretty much all of us have an SCP if we're working we do this quarterly evaluations we go in and sit down and negotiate goals we talk we don't talk report cards with our bosses we talk basically those what are the
063most important issues we need to take on and by the time they're doing this I would assume that teacher has enough assessments from the first part of the year should pretty much tell where the child is and where the basic needs of that child are going to be uh not in regards to the Mastery of this but just what they're issues are they need to focus on to get them up to Mastery I also assume that as we're going through the year and I've had those with teachers they were going through the year for having my kids having a trouble with something they're calling me and saying we're having trouble in this or can you help me out rather than waiting for a parent conference to say you know four months ago you should have
064been reading to your kid because he's really far behind I'm hoping to teach recall be obviously your kids falling behind on reading can you help so I think option two would probably if there's one uh there are no additional time off for this correct so the parents aren't going to have to be taking any more time off this we're just moving existing things around and um the one report card day we're getting rid of it wasn't a day off you say was it it would they had to do it at home so we just took that that away from that okay oh it sounds like at this point this may be you're gonna have the chance to get a report card a little bit later in the year so you're going to be closer to
065hopefully getting something on that report card than being a Debbie Downer when you look at it and it's all ones or whatever ones and twos um and then try and explain one Steve to a point that you made a little bit earlier I I don't know of any of our I can speak to when I was a principal not too long ago it feels like forever sometimes but one of the conversations that I had with my faculty and staff on a regular basis was that when you sit down a parent-teacher conference where you're sending home that report card it should never be a shock or surprise what they see on the paper that should not be the first time they're going to know where their child is and everything so a lot of the teachers
066said notes home on a regular basis they've got to check stuff they can send out now so yeah it shouldn't be um and putting this would be very specific I don't know if the record person suffer that specific it measures you against the standard but it doesn't measure against yourself what though the most important things you need to so starting this first off on the year after some initial testing I think will probably be maybe of more value than later on we'll do that so I'm feeling comfortable with option two hey thank you and um just a reminder board we do have a couple other items so but chlorine I just have not had a quick follow-up okay so to the report card they'll only have two columns on it not three columns on it
067and they'll only have a grade for um January and a grade for May correct yes if all right so that's that's why just clarifying that we're not going to have four columns and they're putting them um they're putting in the grades but they're not seeing a report card like you're not going to have the teachers do um a grading system every quarter just a grading system for the report card for those two times but back to Steve's thought too so Steve on Skyward you can actually do a progress report and I used to print one off every week um now that we've changed the standard based gradient I can't do that because I haven't pushed the standard far enough to be able to do the grade there are there is a thing called multiple subject
068grading that you could do but you could do one a month if and just have the standards in there that you have taught and the kids have been tested on that maybe not mastered but at least been tested and have some idea of what they are so that parents would know if teachers wanted to do like one a month and send it home so the parents have an idea with their conversation to your to your point of how to give parents information to thank you Mark you know it seems like uh the focus of our discussion is what will take something off the plate of the features I kind of alluded to this before you know please believe me I I love teachers I've been sleeping with one for over half a century um yeah
069it didn't get to be longer and longer than I've been doing but can we not make a definitive statement whether it be because we are evaluating four times a year whether it be with an SEP or with a report card or that where the teachers are going fresher somebody please tell me that this makes education better for our children that's what we're all about of educating the kids and I want somebody to tell me it makes it better for the kids and they will learn better if we do something I think it does not because it's formative it's four Cycles it's still two parent-teacher conferences and I think rejuvenated teachers that see that day as more value just adds to the positive moral of it and their energy and what they're doing so I going
070back to your sports analogy I think it it just makes sense you you come out with goals you perform you come back you adjust and finish so thank you you said it that's all I wanted is somebody say it all right okay thank you so much for bringing this to us and thank you board for the discussion so I'll just try and summarize here quickly it sounds like this option too is something that um is worth pursuing um comments that I've heard um see Julie what would happen is like like was mentioned that's not any more more less days off it doesn't change the days kids are in school but it's going to change the actual calendar where it notates when the end of a term is and and things like that so um Lord
071I'm thinking that we go ahead and suggest to the calendar committee calendar creation that when they bring the calendars back to us for second reading that they incorporate what this would look like for the 20 um the 20 what we're 23 24 and 24 25 school years and I guess 25 26 right just to so that that is what it looked like and then I think the other component that we haven't really discuss but I think it's important is to do some sort of communicating out to parents just so that when they see as they understand the reason why and that it is a benefit to education what any thoughts or ideas on that piece of it that's great any any other comments yeah well in my my life they use the beginning of the
072school year when their parents came to the open to the um first couple of days of school to have the principal have a meeting to explain the changes and help the parents understand through that that meeting um because there were a lot of parents there and they could um show and show the reasons why and what they were doing and then those parents told other parents but also I'm sure so I think just to ask the administration to figure out the best way to communicate that because parents that are used to getting three report cards um would under this new plan would only be getting to know so but everything else would stay the same it starts to feel like a semester then except right you have three people no we're just talking Elementary and
073I think it's fair to say to Matt's question and to what you're saying with the communication it's very fair to say that if we can eliminate a little bit of the paperwork administrative it helps teachers they know they know what their kids need and it gives them more in-person face to face with their kids you know we can't ever undervalue that you know thank you Okay so that concludes that discussion item next is item 2B proposal for the March 2nd 2023 um early outs or secondary schools and this is in conjunction with the parent teacher the spring parent teacher conferences um this is also being brought forward from the administration and I'll turn the time over to Mr Lee on Wilcox later we are one more time having uh oh yeah well I uh part
074of the calendar is really hoping to bring this back for a second reading because I really want to hear okay joke I wanted to hear one too excuse me sorry I uh sent over I made an adjustment to this presentation and there's going to fall on the ground it's on board Docs [Music] I don't try this one out since uh you know we just got through here we go yeah you gotta remember first date that's it yeah that's it right okay I'll try this one out since we just got through Halloween the holiday season is just starting how do accounts values the value of Santa's sleigh Net Present Value think about that um wow you never you never failed to disappoint me I don't know okay uh really quick we wanted to bring an issue
075to you that we experienced this last pair because we taught calendar and parent teacher conference we want to bring an issue that happened this past September on transportation and just highlight that there is a difference between last and they've seen it's I don't want to go down the rabbit hole too much here but there is a difference between last year and this year as far as Transportation last year with the Friday schedule you know the middle schools doing late start elements early out high schools regular time we essentially had two Transportation schedules we had a Monday through Thursday schedule and a Friday Transportation schedule okay so basically on Friday you know most bus drivers run around a different route students had a different driver on a Friday most of the time uh so you know
076some issues but uh last year on those two parent-teacher conference stays the Thursdays if you will we ran this Friday early out schedule okay that we had in place keep in mind we had about 33 Fridays every school days every every year so we just moved this Transportation schedule ahead and when we built this 30 these 33 Fridays out we were able to do some single runs where we have 15 buses to Jordan Valley and Friday afternoon and so we built that all out last year well then we come around this year which we like because you know everybody's on the same schedule Monday through Friday everybody's early out so drivers keep the same route this makes us more efficient with the minutes and Miles the issue comes is that now we have the same
077schedule but we we have these two parent-teacher conferences we becomes a logistic issue right there and that's what we're trying to solve by not going too far down the rabbit hole if you will uh so we're looking at again it was Friday Thursday September 29th and this would be Thursday then expert teacher conference of Thursday March 2nd you can see the times again I don't want to get through this but you can see we have overlapping times throughout the district especially with Jordan Valley so last September we sent a message out to every that uh all the secondary schools and they were probably going to be a few minutes late picking up your with the bus routes because of this overlapping time so we were anywhere from five to 25 minutes late at these secondary
078schools and I'm doing this it worked out I think okay we didn't hear too many issues I didn't know if you as the board did but we got a few calls because some kids were late it would be the secondary kids not the elementary as much but we couldn't do anything for Jordan Valley they had to go on the full day that day and so and then um of course next Friday the Friday the 30th was the column date what our proposal is is just to make it a straight across early out all schools so we're all doing the same transportation system on March 2nd this would then be built into the calendar starting next year for the to Thursday on parent-teacher conferences they're not it just says right now early out Elementary does not
079say all schools that would be our proposals to make it all schools this could allow us to do all routes without delays uh in the secondary schools it would still be required to hold on plc's elementaries will of course be having the conferences then then as of for the schedule calendar March 30 uh schedule comp day that's where all schools is at Brighton uh right again but keep the as the calendar shows right now Thursday and a Friday literally out uh but their their parent-teacher conference day is April 20th so we were to make even across board we would make them we recommend them having an early art on April 20th which is the same day as our parent teacher conference they would be required a PLC meet his plc's up until their conferences and
080then of course Friday the 21st will be their College's holiday so that's the issue we're going to try to get that quickly is there any questions about that that we can explain that so as it currently stands we let our elementary kids off half day without letting their brothers and sisters older brothers and sisters there to take care of them so the parents probably have to get child care yeah the elementaries are out early and that could be the case and so what this may do is line it up where on those Thursdays at the days are off early or whatever then they would have their older siblings if they do that to be able to take care of them so the family wouldn't have to take off from work or try to come up
081with daycare for that day the parents lots of parents will be coming to the Parent-Teacher conferences so it may actually benefit the parents in some ways because they're not scurrying around to try to get a half day as it is right now all Fridays we have the same so if there's a range of children in each family they can sort of help out that process at least so many of the benefits this would be the same thing with the Fridays across the district so this would now probably in these two cases allow parents to not have to scramble for additional daycare or whatever or have the kids stay off I'm really wondering how many kids in the middle in high school actually stayed off because their kid their elementary kids were coming off anyway that
082the Iration is stable it's only two days a year it is but I mean but still you still have to come up with somebody to take care of your kids for those days that just doesn't matter for Brighton people you're special the conflict of overlap with Jordan Bowie was the mate was the biggest thing and we asked them they ran that scenario I mean yeah we've had them actually go back and try to work it out but there was virtually I mean we just we could not make it work so knowing that secondaries would go up kids would get home a few minutes later we would have to compensate the teachers of Jordan Valley for their time like any other clarifying questions or comments on this one so so essentially I'll try and summarize it
083then um the administration identified an issue a problem and is this the solution to fix it and and um essentially that those two days a year in secondary schools get an additional um PLC time that they wouldn't have had otherwise and so so it's not like it's just early out I mean it's I mean it is for the students but the teachers will still we'll call you update so um but this is also two parts one is this upcoming spring parent-teacher conference and I'm assuming that you're thinking in ongoing years it's also something that needs to be addressed and that this solution would be workful or ongoing we'd like we request that this be added to start into next year's calendar early out those two days early all schools okay so so board um do
084we feel all right about asking our calendar committee to pull them to to show these adjustments in the upcoming calendars and and to um for this year's calendar that the board has already improved we'll need this to be a separate approval item for the board that's specific to this March of 2023. so do we feel okay asking the administration to write up a memo and put it on consent for next board meeting so that then the decision is made and communication can get out to the schools and parents yes everyone okay with that any other thoughts or comments on this item all right so now having given some additional work to the calendar committee the next item on our study session agenda is the 2023-24 um calendar for approval and tentative approval for the 2024-2025
0852025 2026. oh my goodness how fast time goes um school calendars so this is an annual process and I will turn the time over to Charisse Hilton student engagement program administrator who is also our new calendar committee so pretty much we have lots of things to go back and review you will note that on the calendar for next year you will see that both trimesters and quarters are listed for the elementary schools um we knew that this was a pending you know pending proposal you will see moving ahead again pending approval then we we've adjusted those calendars so please know that this is all a proposal and we know it's pending on a decision we did not assume anything um so for next year's you asked president Tu we will go back as a committee
086and revise next year's calendar so that you can look at it and see what that looks like with the proposed changes with the quarters the other pieces uh Leon covered as well those early out days that are listed as just early out Elementary you will see that we are looking forward to changing that to early out K-12 and that's to address the transportation issue that he explained as well so you will see that that's identified on these calendars as well those early out days so that you can see what that would look like in a K-12 situation so really what you had already improved or seen for next year not approved those are the only changes that you might know is that early outs and ending unapproval developing semesters to orders for the elementary schools
087and moving ahead we created the calendar for 24 25 and 25 26 following that same water there so those are really the only major changes that you would see moving forward from what the calendar has reflected before um there is I believe it's 24 25. we do have eight days for winter break and that's just a matter of where the calendar fell um also that we are going into just that last week of May a couple of days past Memorial day as well just to know so then you'll see all of that um we had a our first meeting last week and had a great turnout lots of great representation from all aspects across the district and green robust discussion I'm grateful that Amber and Steve were both there for that discussion and lots of
088different pieces that have come up here tonight as well that will save for further discussions in that just keeping it very simply used to build that you don't understand those calendars okay um any questions board Amanda thank you for explaining the piece about the every Friday will be in early on that that'll be more clear on the calendar that was one of my major questions the other one is um I know that we have a couple days a year where teachers are paid to do work at homes do we have what has it been talked about about putting that on the calendar so that's indicated somewhere so I don't know how far you want me to go into that um Rick and I have talked just feedback from teachers I've received emails as the calendar
089person um what one thing I will note that you will know from the calendar committee discussions are and I've talked about this with Mr Diamond as well um I don't know that we have that there is looking for the right word to use I believe there's misunderstanding amongst many of our teachers about that two days that they are paid and so I feel that's something we need to communicate as a whole that we need to make sure that that's understood I've had many of those discussions since being given this assignment and Dr Robbins and I visited with an Elementary faculty about it and uh it's just that we talk about the number of teachers that we have turning over a new hires Etc we need to make sure we're communicating that piece that needs to
090cut through negotiations like the calendar committee camps inside that but if it's already been negotiated and it's happening well that is on the calendar adding more days yeah that's not what I'm saying I'm saying can we reflect the ones that we already have it's reflected on the salary schedule up at the top the reason why we didn't put it on the calendar was to allow flexibility for the educator that it wasn't a Saturday or a particular day but it was 16 hours that they could use at any point in time and they don't have to timesheet it they don't have to do anything it's just understood that they're provided that so it's there but I think Charisse is very correct about with the turnover I think many people have forgotten that that's actually there and
091so we've had discussions that should be part of our recruiting conversations as we're recruiting teachers to come to Canyons you will be paid for two days and the way I I phrased it and I have phrased it um and Amber and I talked about this at the calendar meeting um I've explained it to teachers this is the boarding not they have not acknowledged that there is time spent out of contract time and they're trusting you there's no documentation you know there are no time sheets required they're being trusted that that time is indeed happening so I do feel we need to up our communication on that to make sure that our employees understand that that there are two paid for full pages right I think there's a couple other questions uh chlorine so Steve mine's
092for you why do we not have the teachers just say that they have done that and signed so that they have it in their brain that that does happen and that you have the paperwork and the administrator can just keep it because I did that this year for four days before school started unless it was just because you'll trust in our Educators and to acknowledge that they were doing this work that we know that they are and so I know you know they are I just was thinking that everybody would know yeah it would just be like you know here's here's my two days I've done them but I just wondered they just get paid for it right I don't have any documentation some teachers may do it an hour at a time what she
093does yeah well that's what I did I had a timesheet and I just wrote on it and then turned it in I think any teacher that's worth worth their salt in the district is outside of contract hours putting in a lot more than 16 degrees for sure and I think we've just started this discussion to talk about ways that we can better communicate this you know to our employees other questions or comments on this um Holly and then I've had some parents asking me neighboring districts have three days and you know asking why don't we do that and eliminate one of our day offs that we have throughout the calendar and I know some of those day offs are coordinated around you know when there's grading periods and all of that but I wanted to
094pass that along but I think there is quite a bit of Interest with have three days instead of the two what day would you pull you guys get out on what day I mean yeah and I'm not I'm not imposing I I'm not proposing a solution or which day saying that's something that I hear a lot my dream is to have a week spring break a week fall break two weeks of Christmas and have it all fit between first and the Labor Day and Memorial Day yeah you and me both up to 180. an add up to 180 days I will I will note these all do equal 180 days those have been checked so then get off every other Friday why not okay so and any serious thought on that with the the three
095days for fall break rather than the two or no just another days that wouldn't come from us on the calendar committee Jimmy and we have guidelines that we've been given um as far as the days and when they fall so I think that would have to come could we could we possibly because this is the first read there'll be a second read and possibly just a review why those random days are off throughout the calendar year and the reasoning for it and maybe I would I would appreciate some uh help to Holly which specific days your teacher just the gravy ones yeah there's then the one in January for planning yeah and the January but I'm talking about that's the only yeah yeah it's the January otherwise you'd have to take it off of spring
096recess fall or or the other two are the yeah that's what I meant so it makes it nice because that one that links onto MLK example they do get an extended weekend for that that is true yeah um superintendent so just to frame kind of a bigger more of a problem and solution but he remembers through the pandemic one of the things that changed with State rule was 990 hours and then there was a lot of flexibility around 180 and the state has not been very clear on whether or not they're going to go back to a firm requirement for 990 and 180 and so in the meantime you see different districts including our neighbor have really taken advantage of that right or wrong but there's a number of days that are now built in
097and I don't know exactly how they're or what they're doing to to make that allowable but I I do worry a bit that if we go down that road and we and we start that you know down that path and then the state reverses field and says hey we're going back to the 180 firm and 990 then trying to you know pull that time back would be difficult and you know I this question came up with the teachers that we met with um because I I get the sense that there's a lot of frustration that you know we didn't continue those virtual days that I think some of our surrounding districts continue to utilize but if you remember during that time one of the things that I felt like was is that the culture that
098was starting to develop and emerge was I don't have to come to school that I can stay home I can get on canvas I don't really need to be in person and we've seen our attendance rates did you know some schools near 70 percent and I feel like we're finally trending the right way you know we're back above 90 percent I think the culture is getting reestablished that yes you're back in school but I think that definitely has come with some pain points around this very issue that that was caused during the pandemic and and I you know I I've reminded people that during that time you know a lot of those decisions were were in an emergency it provides this response but I think you know it'd be very problematic for us to try
099to continue that trend of just adjusting you know where everybody's counting on our calendar parents are counting on those days the we we got to get back to some resemblance of consistency that people can count on um but having said that other districts have you know some of them are down to 173 of in-person instruction and so you know there's a trade-off there's a there's a trade with that and I I take that serious and I also understand our teachers perspectives of feeling overwhelmed and we are as you saw I mean we're looking at every single possible Avenue to try to take things off their plates to help but um I'm just not sure what that's going to look like in the future and know what those days might actually be so I'll go back
100to provide a better or a worse education for the kids to have fewer look at our test scores yeah that's what that's the answer is I was going to piggyback on what Rick said too I'm one of those and academically it's killing the kids because we're losing so many Fridays like it's almost every other Friday I'm gone and it's like I'm going oh my gosh now I have to test on a Thursday now I have to do all my assessments on this Thursday and then the whole week and so it's not it's not benefiting in my brain the students and it really isn't benefiting me because I'm stressed on how to get the academics in and how to get those assessments done and get those kids where they need to where they're proficient when I'm
101losing a day to two days every month and that's a lot of days I mean like some months I've missing five days and I'm thinking I'm behind a whole week how am I behind a week and then I realize I missed a Friday I missed two days I missed a Friday I missed a Friday in five days so when we start talking about like you're you're asking we really need to go to Mom's question this is going to benefit the kiddos because that's who we're here for not well received by the parents they don't like us going on learning unless we actually have to you're not going this way even on learning a lot of the parents I've talked with so it's a fine line trying to do it with we have to do which
102when where we need to do our teachers and support them but also we have a lot of parents that just don't like the disruption in their lives and they don't think it's a quality education on the day we're having and I think we need to return to where there is a sense of urgency in educating the kids yeah and that that's what I think that's what we try to continue it's just bottom line 13 years in our district we need to have those kids prepared when they leave us sure well and ask calendar Committee just to remind you guys we went through a big process like several years ago where we surveyed all parents we surveyed all teachers and employees on what they wanted with the calendar and that's when we got rid of like
103all these random days because that is what everyone wanted us to so so we could get up and then also just to remind everyone one of the reasons why we look out three years on these calendars and superintendent um mentioned that as well as um are people plan and plan around the school calendar and they plan well in advance um including our trying to reserve our venues for high school graduation so that's part of the is to set those start and end dates so that people can plan and then you know there is if we need to adjust something a little bit in the middle like we talked about earlier this evening um with the for the grading term dates lie on the calendar and that doesn't really affect the other events of the calendar
104Steve one of the things we didn't bring up which we always bring up every year on the calendar we may want to take a look at is a and b Days A lot of times the a teachers or the B teachers were really concerned because they had very few Ruby days especially with comparative enrollment or a B corpses in high school so we may want to make sure that ties in the number of days we have off now on the half days we have off it affects the AV days and our quality of education for our kids at high schools that are now taking the enrollment and stuff and those were checked Steve so we are so we're okay with those okay you know Holly if you look at the 2425 calendar you could peel
105two days in January because they go Wednesday Thursday Friday for one two three January you can peel those two days off and drop those two fall break that one that jumps out at me and then but it's sure nice to have those full two weeks up for Christmas because then we would come back you know on the seconds we're lucky that we have two weeks off okay I'm just saying that is an option that is a choice I'm not I'm not saying we should sure because yeah just saying it's it's available yeah great to look forward to you know Sharif you do a lot of hard work in making this pulling it together and making it work and by the time you finish somebody's always going to disagree with you and you make a change
106you'll have another set of people agreeing with yourself completely unhappy Italian doesn't always just affect teachers either it affects everybody in the district office I mean like so then you can't just look at this on at the teacher calendar either because there's the other people in the district office and the custodians and the work ladies and the everybody else that it does affect and so and it also affects out in the private sector and and even like Community Rec programs and you know piano teachers and all of those so that's why um you know it's good to look forward ahead quite a ways but it's also good to be consistent it was a discussion if you line up with all of our other fish sister districts in regards to vacation time because our vacation time
107is different but we're going on yeah every every time I plan a family deal I look at Alpine Canyons Jordan and Davis and match their calendars well our next sweetiness next week so we'll we'll do the things you've asked us to do tonight so that we have updated um drafts to to share with you and any feedback before then just feel free to reach out thank you thank you so much and tell us the committee we appreciate their work as well yeah it was a great discussion we have a good groups all right thank you so much we'll look forward to seeing those revisions okay that concludes our items for study session and um we will reconvene for our business meeting at seven o'clock 10 minutes we are about ready to begin if if I
108could uh have your attention please we're ready to begin the meeting all right thank you I would like to welcome you all to the business meeting of the canyon sport of Education today is November 1st 2022 and we're meeting at the district office located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy Utah um the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda for this business meeting I will ask for a motion on that I'm asking for a motion I'll make a motion make a motion we approve the agenda for November 1st 2022 as written in also on board Docs okay thank you is there a second to the motion all second in thank you any discussion to this motion all right scene none I'll ask for a vote all in favor please say aye
109aye any opposed okay that motion passes thank you next we will be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Ken Rowley Alta High School principal and following the pledge uh principal Rowley will give us some school highlights from Alta High School 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 thank you I was waiting for the USA chant after the pledge um it is an honor and a pleasure to be here tonight and uh and share a few things that are going on at Alpha High School which is an amazing place to be I've learned that over the last few months um first off I'd like to thank the school board for the
110time that they have provided for each one of us in our school to collaborate as teams as we focus on learning together how to meet the needs of our students great things are going on in our PLC teams at Alpha High School the work of an educator is a journey with many Peaks and valleys as Educators we travel this journey together but each experience each experience is personal according to our own learning and beliefs up to that point of our journey if each of us were in the same place as far as our experiences and personal beliefs about education change would be a simple thing but we have a wide spectrum of experiences beliefs and perspectives so we even making the simplest of changes can be a can be a great challenge one thing I
111have learned over my years in education is that we must honor each individual's Educators Journey as they gain new experiences and question their own personal educational beliefs it is the Journey of an entire career even in a journey of a lifetime for many of us it is also a great adventure as long as we have a relationship where we can have honest conversations and help each other progress on our journey we will be successful um it is hard to believe we are two weeks into the second term of this school year um just a couple positives that are going on in our school right now and and other activities our theater students recently went to see your city and competed in the high school Shakespearean um festival and came away with a third place finish
112which was pretty impressive at the highest level of that competition they are also are Performing Arts so we will begin their Adams Family production on the 15th of this month with a matinee for many of the elementary and middle school students in our district and then the 16th through the 19th for the public in our pack which is a beautiful facility um our marching band took third place in its first competition of the year and uh over the last five weeks they've competed in four different competitions and placed very well and they are preparing for their St George trip for the state championship um competition in St George this weekend um our Robotics and Esports students are gearing up for their main parts of their competition season over the next month or two are cross-country
113girls cross country girls tennis and girls soccer teams all represented well in their region and state tournaments our football team has made it to the quarterfinals of the State Tournament winning their first two games the first one in Bonneville the second one at Springville and today this next Friday we play at Orem so kind of an exciting time for that team um volleyball our volleyball team began their state tournament tonight they are playing box elder in our gym as we speak right now so I'm kind of anxious to get back to see how that game ends up um we received we recently held our digital citizenship week where we focused on having meaningful conversations with students about um new attendance part let's see are making good choices in their digital lives which uh sometimes can
114be a difficult thing not only for children but for adults we have implemented a new attendance policy excuse me this year at Alta High School and it's helped the culture of our building from kids hanging out to kids going to class and being engaged in that work and staying away from the hallways and the restrooms while classes in session we've had many positive comments from our community and and parents and stakeholders there in our community about this new attendance policy um we recently had a Latinos night for our Latinos in Action and their parents and we had over 140 people there and that was very impressive to me I really enjoyed being able to give the the bienvenido or the or the welcome in their own language and to be able to talk with with
115many of their parents afterwards in their in their native tongue about what we are trying to do to help the language Learners and and specifically the Latino community in our area um recently the USB announced the school grades and out to earned an A and that was an exciting day to be able to go in and read that and see where we are having some successes according to the data and areas that we need to work on and uh plans are already being put in play into place how to how to remedy some of the areas where we came up short in um but that grade is the direct reflection of the dedication and the hard work of the people that we have working at our high school there now to I'm Amazed by their
116great efforts and and very grateful for the opportunity to be able to work with them each day um every evening when I go home I'm always encouraged and energized by the amazing students and the things that they are learning and doing in their lives at this at this point in their life so in conclusion there's never a boring moment at Alta High School the roof they seem asleep during the day but as soon as three or four o'clock hits the energy level rises greatly go Hawks yeah yes go Hawks and give those volley that volleyball team are our best as they continue their season and thank you so much um for sharing that with us and please extend our appreciation to The Faculty the staff the students we are so grateful for all the good
117things that are happening there and it's just wonderful to hear that report from you thank you okay next on the agenda we will have some recognitions and I'll turn the time over to Mr Jeff Haney and Kirsten Stewart from the Communications Department thank you president tingi for this time to recognize the achievements of students faculty and staff in Canyons District those who are mentioned tonight will receive a letter of commendation from the board and the superintendent and as Mr Rowley said we are honoring those student athletes from The Corner Canyon and Alta High Schools they have fought their way into the 5A and 6A football quarterfinals so the number one Chargers advance to the quarterfinals with a convincing 63 to 18 win over Layton and Alta entered the playoffs as the number 19 seed first
118they won against number 14 Bonneville and then beat number three spring bill to make their way into the corner finals these are the final teams standing in 6A and 5A both Corner Canyon and Alta play on Friday the Chargers play West and the Hawks play aurum good luck to both of those teams as they seek to take State now our next honorees can truly run like the wind congratulations to all of our students from Canyon's District who qualified to run at the state cross country championships Canyon's districts cross-country athletes left nothing on the 5A and 6A state championship course last week all five of canyons districts Traditional High Schools qualified to race in the 6A division the corner Canyons girls team took third place overall and the charger boys claim sixth place with an individual
119put them finishes by Connor watcott who finished 7th and Jeff Lewis in ninth place in 5A girls Brighton highs liabel sellender took eighth place and as Mr rolling mentioned as we're talking about student athletes we want to note today's start of the 6A and 5A Volleyball Championships Corner Canyon faces Fremont Alta serves against box elder and Brightman plays Skyline line and all of those gains started at six o'clock so we will be watching the scores during board meeting of course we'll pay attention to the board but we'll be watching the scores cheering for our students who are seeking those state titles in volleyball our next honoree is Alicia Alicia herner she is one of five National model School of Psychology intern supervisors as named by the National Association of school psychologists congratulations to Dr herner
120she this is a program for recognizing field-based internship supervisors who consistently demonstrate a best practices in super supervising and mentoring to qualify for this from the National Association of schools psychologists a nominee must have supervised at least two school psychology interns over the past five years and have demonstrated best practices for uh for the field among a few other qualifications so congratulations to Dr herner and On a related note next week is school psychology awareness week as celebrated by the National Association that the this year is together we shine in Canyon's District our staff of almost 40 School psychologists they're experts in their fields and they play integral roles in ensuring positive relationships inclusivity and respect are present in all of our school communities so thank you to all of our school psychologists we will
121celebrate them next week and congratulations to Dr Alicia Turner our next honorees are our student performers who have been rehearsing for months for shows that are sure to Delight audiences all across Canyons now the curtains are almost ready to go up on the fall musicals at Alta and Brighton Corner Canyon Hillcrest and Jordan high schools you'll see here that Jordan high schools once upon a mattress opens on Thursday that's when I have my tickets I'm excited to see that it runs from the third to the seventh Corner Canyons crazy for for you is November 10th through the 14th aldehyde's Adams Family is November 16th to the 21st hillcrest's Oliver is November 16th the 21st and you got Brighton highs SpongeBob the musical which is an experience if you've never seen it December 1st through the
122third if you've never been to a fall musical at one of canyons District high schools we would encourage you to go they are fantastic wonderful family entertainment you will not be disappointed we encourage everyone to go to support our students who are in artball musicals our next honorees are the student musicians who make up Alta and Brighton High marching bands Mr rolling mentions this but Alta and Brighton are preparing for this weekend's state competition in St George the Hawks will take the field at Crimson Cliff's height at three o'clock the Bengals will compete at 3 30. since September 17th the marching bands have been competing at invitations in preparation for the state competition so we wish the Hawks and the Bengals much luck at the state finals and this is further proof the Arts education
123is thriving in Canyons District now lastly members of the board we note the district's annual reminders of those men and women who have served and the U.S armed forces November 11th is Veterans Day and that is a day that is marked in Canyon's district with assemblies and events these are some of the photos of an event last year at Quail Hollow Elementary School but we have these types of events all across our district in Canyons we have a firm belief that in the words of Elmer Davis an Infamous War correspondents this nation will remain the land of the free only so long as is the home of the brave every year Canyon schools hold Veterans Day activities they post Flags they invite local veterans to breakfasts they have special musical performances they add to Veterans
124walls and every year as well the Board of Education and administration sent a letter of appreciation to every employee who is a current or former member of the US Army courses and this letter expresses sincere appreciation for the service that they have rendered to protect all of our rights including the right of every child to access a free and appropriate education we will Mark November 11th Veterans Day with a lot of assemblies and activities please watch our website our social media Pages for photographs and reports of those very special events for people who have given so much to our community resident teeny thank you for this time we'll turn the time back to you foreign all of those amazing achievements with us and we celebrate along with those um wonderful students and staff and and
125know that there are so many great things happening throughout the district um okay we have now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting and the first Patron that will address the board will do so until by telephone and I'm told by our our I.T people that I I need to call them so I will ask for just your patience for a minute while we while we get them on the phone foreign hi Rebecca this is Nancy tingey calling from the board meeting you will be the first to address the board but before we give you your time I would like to read a few instructions that will apply to your comments as well as those that are here in the room to make comments we have now come to the patron comment portion
126of our meeting time the board often designates time and meetings to listen to the patrons of the district Patron comment time is limited to Residents and taxpayers of canyons District students and parents of students and current employees of the district patrons May provide board members with written documents these documents are submitted to the board secretary at the meeting and she's sitting right over here or email to the office of public Communications by noon of the day following the board meeting uh this evening we have uh seven individuals that have signed up to address US those representing themselves so we'll be given three minutes and those representing groups will be given four minutes comments made during patreon comment time are part of the public record it is the board's practice to listen and take notes during
127Patron comments the board of education does not discuss matters that are not on the meetings agenda nor engage in public comment on individual students to protect their privacy or employee issues if a patron wants to comment on a district employee's character professional competence or mental or physical health the board requests that these those comments be submitted to the board in writing however if the patron determines to verbally comment on those Personnel issues the comments need to be civil and refrain from personal attacks insults defamatory or slanderous comments about an individual the Board of Education would like to make it clear that critical race theory is not part of the curriculum being used in Canyon school district there are no plans to incorporate it into the curriculum or instruction the Board of Education values input on
128all sides of issues to maintain decorum and respect we ask that those in attendance refrain from Applause or other types of demonstrations during the patron comment time as well as throughout the meeting so thank thank you for your patience as I read through those instructions so um the first Patron to address the board is Rebecca gilka and she will and that will be by telephone and then we'll um Stace turn time to Stacy Peterson and then to Megan j okay Rebecca go ahead we can hear you well in regards to sensitive can you hear me yes yes oh okay I thought you said you couldn't okay in regards to sensitive materials in the public school libraries the legislature has already addressed this under HB 374 and your own board policy addresses it these books aren't
129supposed to be in the library yet Canyons continues to retain these books in the library collection this isn't Banning or censorship the books still exists you can buy them but they don't need to be promoted in school libraries we as a society already acknowledge we have issues with pornography depression and child sex abuse why would we promote these materials in our Public Schools regardless of age it's not positive it doesn't promote anything of real value and I'm sure there are much better books available to promote in our schools that will bring more value to students do we put Playboy in the schools for the article when I set a review request for the books the haters I got an email back saying quote I did not satisfy the criteria for deselection for sensitive materials in
130that when the work is taken as a whole it does not appeal to the Korean Korean interest in sex of minors the definition of hurting is quote marked by or arousing an in moderate or unwholesome interest or desire especially marked by arousing or appealing to sexual desire how does this book not do this one on page 265 there is a graphic elaborately described sex scene from start to finish definitely rated mc17 if it was a film not to mention numerous other references in the book to sexual acts did the reviewer actually read it with the eyes of an adolescent or even a human and why is the burden on me to prove that this book is trash which traditionally it would have never been allowed I think the burden is on you to tell me
131why this book which contains pornographic material needs to be available to Children which leads me to the book challenges why would you want to limit on the number of pair a book a parent can challenge we are basically doing the work for you showing you why it shouldn't be in the school library why can't we all work together there are people who've already read the books and have pulled out parts means to be looked at when judging the book by its merits to be in the library setting limits on book challenges only gives the impression that you don't want to deal with this the granite school district has no limits CSC needs to revise this policy to allow every book to be challenged if they contain pornographic material when you read a book you picture
132images in your mind so does a child it is really isn't really in the best interest of the child to read these sexually graphic scenes why again would we want to put these images in the minds of our adolescent children a question you asked about something earlier in your previous meeting does this benefit the kiddos thank you uh next is Stacy Peterson and then Megan j and then Jessica Smith thank you and Stacy Peterson I have two children in Canyons District I continue to be distressed um and disappointed at the same thing I should Echo everything that the first caller just said um at the the books that remain on the shelves after SB through 74 came out after some guidance at least from the USB and also from our state attorney general it feels
133like yes there are some books that are probably in that gray area that maybe I think is unacceptable but somebody else wouldn't but there's a whole lot of books that are way way far out of that gray area that I think should have been removed right as soon as the 374 was passed um when we look at what books are in there and the standards that we have to meet there are a lot that don't that that just don't belong there and so I'm sitting here thinking why why isn't the board getting them out of here and I thought maybe maybe you don't really know what's in there like I didn't know until someone showed me so I brought a packet that I gave to each of you today and I'll send it electron technically
134so you can have the links in it but the second part of the packet in the middle between the green sheets are just some of or sorry the first part is just some of the books that are in Canyons the pictures of the cover and some of the photos or some of the passages from there I I mean I challenge it's not fun to read them don't get me wrong it's awful but I think you would never read those to your children or your grandchildren and I don't think we should allow those to be read at the school the second section is a list of books that at least one rating site has considered a three out of five which is at least an R rating if it was an equivalent in a movie and
135there's 93 of those in Canyon schools I mean anything that's an R rating or even worse seems like it should be a no-brainer to take it out so I just listed them there and then after the title of the book there's a website that you can go to to to see the rating on the book as description of the story what the concern is sometimes it lists how many times they say these bad words and then pages and passages so the very last thing in there is just that website for the first book that's on that list and none of it's good I mean none of it's good that book happens to be one and the summary says a 14 year old girl um watches from Heaven her friends and family after she was brutally
136raped and murdered and we want this for our children like it just seems crazy to me so I want you to know what's in there so that we can look at our policy and it's been in effect for a year I don't think it's doing what it's supposed to be doing otherwise these books would be out by now um I do have the same concerns why should I only be limited to two challenges a year if I can read the book and and show you where I think it violates the law and I can tell you the passages and the page numbers I feel like I should be able to challenge whatever needs to be challenged um I looked at my daughters at Corner Canyon I looked at that 93 books over 30 of them
137are in her school it would take me 15 years to get all those books challenged so that's a problem also I don't want to waste my Challenge on a challenge that's already been on a book that's already been challenged so I would like for the district to make it available for us so we can see where they are and I don't think they should be on the Shelf while we're challenging them we can all work together to make it safer for our kids thanks thank you Megan j then Jessica Smith and then Alicia Cottle okay so I've really struggled with what to say tonight um I've been working on the book issue in Canyons for almost a year um but I do have some questions um that I'd like to ask the board and also
138people in the audience so what is sensitive material um how do you create and vote on policy if you do not read it I would like to ask every board member if you have actually looked at and read the content that is in some of our libraries um I will be reading some small quotes from each book that I'm highlighting today so I provided the board with some um more of those quotes on a three-page yes um I ask these questions what is considered harmful to minors if this is not from Water for Elephants which is located at Jordan Brighton and Hillcrest her hand slips between my legs and slides over my crotch my head which has been wobbling on its stem snaps upright she says her eyes have closed he's ready now damn I
139love them at this age what may trigger a Survivor if this does not from Living Dead Girl a review form was submitted in May and retained on first review level of our policy this book is available at Brighton the Publisher's website has an age rating of 16 plus this should be deselected under the age-appropriateness criteria after being notified of being in a District Library that caters to students as young as 13. this is a quote from that book he pushes faster than harder and we know what they're talking about there um and slams my head into the floor over and over until my vision is bright and fuzzy what is considered pornography if this is not from what girls are made of a review form was submitted in May and still available this book is
140still available at Alta in Brighton I pull him out of his underwear and he's soft in my hand I don't look up at his face before I open my mouth and pull him into it and I pull and I suck until he grows hard the jet of his warm and salty and the Jet of him is warm and salty and tastes like thickened sweat these three examples violate State Statute 76-10-1227 when a book review or challenge request comes in the book needs to be removed immediately um while they are being reviewed books do not need to be reviewed under 76-10-201 or 76-10-203 if they violate 76-10-1227 it is either or a book only needs to violate one state statute not all three they need to be removed immediately per ages guidance if then the district
141feels it necessary to review under 1227 for serious value which doesn't mean any value they can but the district would still be in violation of that state statute and not protect it against the lawsuit from parents can I just say one more thing and I'll make it quick it's on that form I've notified the District of a book called Orcs And Creek I won't read um details but I want you guys to know that the definition on Destiny so if you search on our database library and you search the word porn it pulls this book up and the detail for that title on our destiny Library database says Jimmy perhaps the last living human unaltered by science struggles for survival in a post-op post office why can't I say that apocalyptic world is he tries
142to make sense of how everything went wrong mourning the loss of his beloved Orcs a girl he met through a kitty porn website the child in this book is eight years old um it's available at Alta Hillcrest and Jordan so thank you thank you Jessica Smith Alicia Cottle and then Holly Mars hello um first off I just want to Echo what Jeff Haney said he loved what he said how we should provide a free and appropriate education I think everything we're hearing tonight kind of Echoes how inappropriate it is so I'm hoping we could kind of Turn the page on that um so I have spoken before about my concern with the inappropriate books in our schools and let me be very clear on what I deem inappropriate so as not to be labeled as
143a book burner or book Banner which is completely offensive and simply not true if some choose to read these sexually explicit and vulgar books then they have the choice of a bookstore public library or online means to do so any book that is available in our schools that is sexually explicit whether in words pictures or any other means is absolutely unacceptable it is in violation of HB 374 and if you wouldn't read it to your children grandchildren or you have problems with us reading it here in the board meeting then it should not be available at our children's school and I include the school library and the classrooms the teachers libraries I know this topic can be difficult considering how much cultural Warfare is going on in our society but the more aware that I
144become the more inappropriate books I find some examples of titles in our Middle School that have children as young as 11 years old include the following the poet X which contains sexual activities and sexual nudity the Freedom Writers diary had sexual activities sexual nudity alternate sexualities profanity derogatory terms violence including child abuse and molestation hate including racist commentary and alcohol and drug abuse the book Speak contains sexual activities includes including inexplicit sexual assault and rape and lastly speak the graphic novel which can contains self-harm and suicidal ideations sexual activities and sexual assault and all with pictures this is just to name a few and again these are all found in our Middle School where children as young as 11 can read them I have heard excuses of policy to literary value from our district as
145to why these books cannot be weeded out it is ridiculous I don't believe that you can't Abide a law you are making a choice to break this law and risking a lawsuit if you don't get these books off of our shelves it has been one year since this problem was first brought to your attention that is more than enough time to change the policy and to get these sexually explicit and vulgar books out of our schools the Attorney General stated the following in this memorandum dated June 2nd 2022 quote there are actions the board and Lease may take in complying with HB 374 to mitigate the risk of a legal challenge the first is to immediately remove books from the school libraries that are categorically defined as pornography under State statue this will help protect
146the LA from potential lawsuits brought by parents or groups alleging the school failed to comply with state laws end quote I am sad that I am here A year later and we are still having the same conversation I know that there has been some slow good progress but it just isn't enough my concerns remain the same and these sexually explicit books remain on the Shelf so my question to you the board and superintendent Robbins is what are you going to do about it and do we really need to file a lawsuit thank you thank thank you Alicia Cottle Holly Mars and then Jessica Anderson thank you for giving me this opportunity um is by an energetic youth are the Future Leaders of our country of our education homes and families the workforce they are a
147target for good and possibly a target for bad there are no perfect people and no easy answers there are however good principles good skills and do and good direction that we can rely on be strong be courageous and don't be afraid to stand for what's right this is what I would tell my children when they leave my home and go out into the world well I need to tell this to myself and to everyone in this room I'll say it again be strong be courageous and don't be afraid to stand for what's right I have every intention of standing here to read these awful inappropriate books um I don't want to I don't like it I've been reading them for a while now and I hate it I hate every minute of that I hate
148how it feels um I just want to ask everybody when I read this passage I just want you to think about the filling in the room as I read it I started to unbutton my blouse no let me please I love how he asked permission all the while taking complete control I also loved how he didn't hurry each time he loosened a button he kissed the skin beneath it when my entire top half was exposed his tongue explored it inch by Goosebump covered inch and by the time we unzip my jeans slid them off my quaking legs my panties had soaked through took me over top in that moment I walked to be in his and so gave him things I'd always resisted oral sex had been offered and received with definite boundaries that night
149we exchanged it with abandon I opened my legs wide pushed his face in between urged his tongue deep inside me asked his fingers to follow I let him bring me right to the edge stopped him my turn he was down to boxers by then I've been with a grand total of four men I quickly learned to relax my jaw coax him inside my mouth and little by little it was intense and all I wanted in those moments was to make him feel like the most important man in the world I do not like reading that I just want to say how do you all feel this bill does nothing but bring feelings of immorality and feelings of dark disgust it's uncomfortable this is not uplifting for any mind especially a child's mind could any of
150you sit here and read this to our children or grandchildren I would hope your answer is no do any of you feel better after me reading this at this time I ask for positivity to come back into this room how do I do that let's start talking about positivity our minds become full of whatever we give it um children need their minds full of goodness uplifting and positive content adults made it too there's no reason to fill their minds with anything less how can we expect this Rising generation to lead this nation for good well I'll tell you how Fill Their Minds with good we as adults need to be courageous and lead by example let's all do what we would encourage our children to do stand up and stand out be courageous show our
151kids the Canyons District wants to fill their minds with all things good let's go in a positive direction let's work together for the good of the children and their minds Canada's District can do this we just need to do it together we all want to be the best for this Rising generation sometimes sometimes I think back to a child and I wasn't going to share this but really quick my little Ellie she's seven years old and I have been sick to my stomach I'm shaking I don't like reading this and she said mom what's wrong with you and I said Ellie I actually have to be really courageous tonight and I don't want to she said well why do you have to do and I said because I love you and I have to do
152because it's not right so think back to a child think back to these children we're adults and we get so into politics and policy and whatever but think back to the children thank you thank you Holly Mars and then Jessica Anderson hi my name is Holly Mars and um I'm a bit of a wreck because I'm reading this smut and it's really interesting the girl who actually spoke over the phone about the book Haters that's the book I was going to talk about and when I asked my husband if he was going to come support me he's like you know what I don't want to listen to those words come out of your mouth because they're so horrible the sex scene I'm going to read it to you because this is what our kids have
153I hit and I can't because my eyes are worried because I'm crying how sad is that um so she pulled up her top and her breast flopped out and I heard them more than felt them and she reached her hand back and grab my dick it wasn't hard and pretty soon she I couldn't really think about anything else I heard her open a crinkly little package and felt her put the cool plasticy middle of the condom snugly on the front of my dick like she was shrink wrapping it and felt her fingernails through the plastic like the legs of a crab finger fingernailing their way down my dick and she froze up a little and adjusted her panties and breathed harder and opened her mouth and Breath Again and it goes on and then he
154says I don't want to this okay um the moment she put her me inside her I mean the exact moment I came Buckeye said and I curled up like a snail and kept coming about 100 times and I said buck buck buck until she said shhh and pushed me back down on my back and just lay on top of me and that was how it's happened no come on you're with me I wish I was and that's the tame part okay I mean it's worse in here you guys are accountable for this this book was taken off it was challenged how in the world did a librarian how did she put it back on there because she didn't think it was bad enough I mean seriously what else did not that I just read how
155is that not bad enough how come I'm here identities trying for over a year now how come I'm standing back here again saying please take these books out and then the these past the law saying that we could challenge him or that I don't even know what all of it these wonderful ladies know all of the rules please take them out if there's anything at all that they might be bad you're we're not book betting we're just taking pornography exploding pornography anymore I don't know how you define it it's explicit sexual situations we're leaving the honor shelves we're putting it back on how is that possible this is it Jordan Alta Brighton diamond ridge and it's obviously indirect okay walk down the halls and I see pictures of these kids smiling and happy and I'm
156like this is where my kids are supposed to be safe they're supposed to come to school and be safe they're not safe anymore and you guys have the power to do something about it I'm begging you please stop putting your kids at risk it's not fair it's not right and this is happening on your watch just pull the books pull them and they will deal with the you know let us challenge more than two we don't have 15 years to challenge everybody there's hundreds to come in every year anyway I know you guys can do it like he said last thing it will always be the land of the free as long as we are the home of the brave please be brave please do the right thing thank you thank you Jessica Anderson hi
157um this would be my name is Jessica Anderson I have three children that attend schools in Kenyan school district and this would be the third time in past months that I have addressed this issue um my oldest is 11 and at Indian Hills where this book entitled burned is on the shelves in our libraries summary this book contains sexual activities sexual nudity drug and alcohol use and abuse profanity and derogatory terms suicidal radiation and violence including child abuse on page three but I do know things really began to spin out of control after my first sex stream as far as as sex dreams go there wasn't much sex just a collage of very hot kisses and Justin Brown's Prouds hands exploring every inch of my body at my fervent invitation page 16 I dreamed about
158Justin last night trundy kissed me and I kissed him back and I let him touch me all over my body and I woke up all hot and blushing page 122 and let Derek pull me up onto his lap and when he kissed me I formed kiss back I even let his hands wander at first I said no of course I really thought I wasn't at all that kind of girl guess what I am then he slid his hands around the front of me lifting my breasts and touching my nipples I wouldn't let him go under my blouse but even over my clothes the way he made my body feel as hard to describe alive page 131 the higher I got the harder it got to hang on to my jeans page 328 we shed our
159shirts unzipped our jeans and would have made love right that minute for just about then page 332 has anyone ever told you how great you look with your shirt off and let me just show you all the all the things in between there's other things in between that's just touching the surface on that book so that's for my where my 11 year old goes right now my sweet innocent 11 year old and in a few years he'll be a Delta High School where there's books like this The Lovely Bones a book that describes the 14 year old girl who watches her family and friends from heaven after she's brutally raped and murdered this book contains mild profanity alternate sexualities sexual activities including sexual assault sexual immunity violence alcohol abuse and suicide commentary page nine my
160father was the kind of dad who kept a nude photo of you when you were three in the downstairs bathroom but when the one that guests use page 13. after this he said you're very pretty Susie this is the 14 year old girl speaking things I said even though he gave me what my friend Chris and I had dubbed the stevies do you have a boyfriend no Mr Harvey I said I swallowed the rest of my Coke which was a lot and said I gotta go Mr Harvey this is a cool place but I have to go stood up and did his Hunchback number by the six Duggan steps that led let to the world I don't know why you think you're leaving I talk so that I would not have to take it in
161this knowledge Mr Harvey was no character he made me feel skeevy and icky now that he was blocking the door Mr Harvey I really have to get home take off your clothes what take off your clothes Mr Harvey said I want to check that you're still a virgin you aren't leaving Susie you're mine now I fought hard I fought as hard as I could to not let Mr Harvey hurt me but hard as I could was not hard enough not even close and I was lying down on the ground in the ground with him on top of me panting and sweating having lost his glasses in the struggle Mr Harvey start started to press his lips against mine they were blubbery and wet and I wanted to scream but I was too afraid and to
162exhausted from the fight I had been kissed once by someone I liked his name was Ray and he was an Indian don't Mr Harvey I managed and I kept saying that one word a lot don't and I said please a lot too Franny told me that almost everyone begged please before dying I want you Susie he said please I said don't I said sometimes I combine them please don't or don't please it was like insisting that a key works when it doesn't or yelling I've got it I've got it I've got it as a softball go selling over you into the stands please don't but he grew tired of hearing my plea we played he reached in the pocket of my pocket and balled up the Hat my mother had made me smashing it into
163my mouth as he kissed his wet lips down my face and neck then he began to shove his hands under my shirt I wept I began to leave my body it goes on and on where is the policy that prevents these books from getting on the shelves policy that allows me to get them out that's one thing that's ridiculous why are they getting in where is that policy thank you okay that that concludes our Patron comments for this evening we appreciate everyone that has taken the time and to address the board and um thank you for being here next on the agenda is the consent agenda I ask for a motion and in making that motion please read each of the items listed under their consent foreign to make a motion to approve the consent
164agenda which includes item a approval of minutes for October 18 2022 Item B approval of hire and termination reports items the approval of purchasing bids item D approval of student overnight travel item e approval of administering administrative appointment item approval of sex education instruction committee membership IMG approval of tssp amendment for Alta Butte Elementary item H approval of tssp amendment for Eastmont middle item I approval of new policy 400.09 breastfeeding slash lactation in the workplace and item J approval of policy 500.27 protection of athlete and head injuries thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second that motion thank you any discussion to this motion see none I'll ask for a vote all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed that motion passes thank you okay next on the agenda is
165item 8A the Fine Arts update and I will turn the time over to Sherry Jorgensen our the ISD teacher specialist over arts in the district thank you superintendent and board of education for this opportunity to showcase the Arts in Canyon school district I'm sure you are aware however that Visual and Performing artists tend to be very passionate about our work partly because of the emotions involved in what we do so we will try to be brief and not get too carried away um I want to start by just going over some basic enrollment figures we can do the next slide please oh I can do it right here awesome no the clicker I can click okay thank you Julie okay so um this data is from last school year 2122 um we will be compiling
166data for the current school year but some classes you know we need to give some time for those enrollments to settle down a little bit um you'll notice and in looking at this data that this represents a hundred and sixteen percent of all of our middle school students and 110 percent of our high school students enrolled in arts courses um that basically is telling you that we have a lot of students who take more than one Arts course um you'll notice also that music and visual art are our highest of the four content areas and that is typical at how it's been in canyons and that's also true around most other parts of the country um I want to spend a little bit of time focusing on some of the milestones here in Canyons since
167we've been Canyon school district um in 2013 we created the Alta marching band with District support thank you for that they're doing a really great job as you have already heard we created in 2014 a partnership with the American West Symphony and the Canyons youth Symphony that is still taking place today in 2015 we created the district theater Warehouse which has been a valuable valuable resource for our teachers and students at being able to have access to a lot of things at minimal costs to them um we continue to build that and have now started renting to schools and Community groups outside of our district which has been great in 2020 with the help of the board we created the Brighton High School marching band and then in 2021 with support of our I.T Department
168we created the instrument inventory database which was literally instrumental in helping us keep track of all of our equipment and who's rented what and what we have it provides a lot of valuable data for us in terms of how many instruments we rent the age of our instruments repairs that have been done and things like that so that we can make more educated decisions in the future about those types of equipment in 2021 we conducted a student survey for electives which gave us a lot of valuable information and insight as well and then I'm being honest with some of you possibly is Hillcrest has started their marching band this year and they're starting small and trying to do as much as they can at the school level um and that's been great to see one
169of the things I would like to focus on now are some of our many teacher um Awards we have had 27 teachers from Canyons 27 art teachers recognized as Teacher of the Year from at their respective school since 2012 and four of them have placed High among amongst the district in 2018 Lena wood who was abandoned Orchestra teacher at Midvale Middle was the district first runner-up the Teacher of the Year Josh long at Hillcrest High School was the high school teacher of the year in 2019. Tracy Raymond as you know as our Alta dance teacher and District teacher of the year and last year's Skyler blue mail at Mount Jordan the choir and musical theater teacher was the District Middle School teacher of the year we've also had in the secondary seven winners to obtain
170the sorts and teacher are the secondary teachers that have gotten the sorts and Legacy award for excellence in arts education you can see them listed there I won't go through and mention their names but I would like to mention that this is a Statewide award um that must be nominated and selected and we have had a winner every year since it has its Inception except for the very first year and mostly because we weren't aware of it but now that we are our Canyons teachers are doing great things there I wanted to include some highlights of our student achievements but there were so many things um I couldn't figure out a way to make it concise without leaving out some of the important stuff but we have so much going on so just suffice it
171to say that we have a lot of amazing students and teachers in the Arts in our district we continue to support several District events for students and some of those are listed here these are ones that we sponsor as a district for students district-wide our high school art stock is actually coming up next week on November the 10th that will be hosted at Hillcrest High School if any of you are interested in attending the picture you see here on this slide it's from our middle school art fest which will be held in February some of these events are ongoing year round like the Canyon's youth Symphony and our Pops organizations which are the professional Outreach programs for the schools that are funded in part by our legislature there's lots of opportunities in our schools for
172students to be involved in those types of opportunities with groups such as the Utah Symphony Ballet West Utah Opera lots and lots of things going on there um if you looked at the secondary enrollment data that we linked to this slideshow and the PDFs were in board docs you will probably notice that's a three-year comparison and I'm sure you notice a dip in 20 21 school year I just want to remind you that that was the year we came back of full time again after being off for several weeks due to covid as you're aware many students took advantage of online learning that particular school year and some students opted out of what were considered the more exposed electives I guess for lack of a better word but I think you can see by the
173data from 2122 that we're rebounding from that now and I just want to thank the board and the district for maintaining some in some cases some smaller class sizes that particular year so that we could maintain programs and we are rebounding from that and I'm very pleased to see that and again we will have data for this coming school year and comparisons for the future um as some of you know I am retiring at the end of the current school year after 43 years in public education so I want to say thank you to the board and to Canyon's district for blessing me with this opportunity to serve in this capacity wasn't going to do that but okay so and now I want to introduce to you Mindy Curtis who's been working alongside of me
174this year as an art specialist and she will be talking about our Elementary programs foreign hello thank you for the time I'm Mindy Curtis as Sherry introduced me I'm joining Sherry as an art specialist in instructional supports this year and I wanted to thank principal Broly and Mr Haney for highlighting the amazing things happening in our secondary schools and especially at Alta for the Arts I'm here to talk about the amazing things that are happening in our elementary schools I've had the opportunity to be at many of our elementary schools in their Arts classroom so far this year and I'm here to just give some highlights of that you'll see on this slide um quite a few highlights but the things I want to specifically point out are that we have the BTS or the
175Beverly Taylor Sorensen Arts learning program in 24 of our schools right now which is an increase and we've been increasing for for many years um and that we have 29 of our 29 schools offering arts in brain boosters which is very exciting that's every single Elementary student getting art in the course of their Elementary time also specifically um we're going to talk a little bit more about Arts integration that's happening in our elementary schools and five schools have teachers reporting back to us that they're being given time and afforded time to push in to core classrooms to work with queer Elementary School teachers on Arts integration so we want to highlight that as well some of the highlights of this slide um are that our schools are really prioritizing arts and their funding that we
176have five schools utilizing our districts allotted two extra hours for Arts instructions so we want to thank the district for that and schools are also using their tssa funds for Arts instruction um that some of it is instructor salary and some of it is to sell to supplies and instruments as well also um we have this is the second year of our elementary arts teacher teams and we have eight teacher teams led by arts teacher leaders and that is going really really well they are collaborating um three times a year with teachers so it's supported by Sherry and myself but it is led by the teachers and they're utilizing that time and finding it very helpful so and also I wanted to highlight that we also have lots of awards received at the elementary school
177level um and I have one of those Award winners we have two and had two Sorensen Legacy Awards in 2021 Marie Smith and Mindy Van de Graaff and Mindy is here to talk about the Arts integration that is happening at her school with the spring so I'm going to turn the time over to her for that thank you I have been asked to just highlight a little bit of my school um I am the BTS specialist as was noted at our school I just want to remind you um the visual arts integration that's taking place so Arts integration is just an approach where collaboration between the classroom teacher and the art specialist takes place prior to student instruction it allows students to better understand their core subjects through an art form and in our school
178it's Visual Arts so I'm going to show you just a quick couple of slides and there is also a video that you have a link to we won't be watching it now but you'll be able to look it out if you want to see an actual lesson taking place so this is sample lesson comes from our school with a second grade teacher named JC densely and then me it would be as the visual arts specialist prior to our um teaching we had time to collaborate and this is kind of the key to integration it's an opportunity for us to sit down and and figure out the needs of the students and then use both of our Specialties to come together and provide instruction for them this particular one like I said on the video that
179you're welcome to watch later was uh an understanding of animal habitats the students had been studying baby bears in their wonders curriculum they also have been learning about through second grade seed science for they've been learning about developing using models and then living things in their habitats and so as I sat on and visited with Ms stensley I had an opportunity to to listen to her concerns things are her students needed and then I'm able to take the visual arts and pair the two of them together and this is the video that you'll be able to watch later to see um the students were able to create they learned about bats they learned about habitats and they were able to build their own habitat and then create their own bat that actually flew through the
180room it's kind of fun to watch but in the end and um these are some of the comments that Miss densely had to say we talked about afterwards and she said the students will always remember what they learned about habitats and this project helped my students better understand the story and the science that's my job at my elementary school is to support our teachers and just as you see the possibilities of Arts integration and the way that enhances student learning it gives them an opportunity to to have Hands-On learning they're able to explore the different areas they wouldn't have otherwise and just learn in a way that they're not able to outside of the art room I am grateful that I'm able to be at my school I'm excited about the things that we're doing
181this is my eighth year as an Arts integrationist at my school I love our students and it's fantastic to see the growth that's taken place and I'm at my school I have the opportunity to integrate with all of my teachers every time there's positive feedback and they're asking for more time it's it's really exciting I encourage you to stop by if you ever have a chance and and just to see the more the possibilities of what we can do within the Arts and the elementary level I'll turn it back over to Sherry okay so I promise we were going to try to keep it brief and concise um and we're just going to open up to any questions that you might have any comments um and will be available to answer thank you so much
182thank you all for being here and for sharing these great things Lord comments questions this is Oaks thanks so much for being here and you guys are speaking my language with Arts integration I totally love it I do have a question um especially knowing Mindy that you've been able to push into all the classrooms and Willow Springs have you noticed whether or not those teachers after you've worked with them tend to feel um that they can also on their own do a little bit more of Arts integration or is it still kind of where they feel like they're dependent on you I'm curious whether or not there's been any sort of crossover effect I would say um at our school there over the years we have about half of our teachers that first jumped on
183this is an optional opportunity to collaborate and so those that have been doing it numerous years are more excited and more willing and are taking more opportunities to provide Arts integration in the classroom those that are still just starting out it seems to be a little bit of a learning process I think over time you would see that that would continue but there has definitely been growth at our school to see that any of them are utilizing that particularly with the new wonders curriculum is it lending itself towards that anymore or and that was the other question I had because I know when we approve that as a board last year that we said specifically we want to make sure that Arts integration is a big piece of Wonders going forward since the curriculum kind
184of lends itself for spaces for that and we'll dress that first yeah um we'll just talk about that just briefly so we did meet last year as an elementary Arts team we met with the ELA team in ISD and we put together a plan for those Arts integrated lessons we have several of those lessons have been submitted at this point in time and we're we're taking the year to kind of bet some of those and make sure that they're quality lessons and put them all in a similar format so that they will be easy for teachers to follow and use and the plan is to have those links in the maps by the end of the school year for use next year oh and then also if I'm up to that I know that there
185are um opportunities for professional development for k-6 teachers throughout the state that focus on Arts integration are our teachers are able to take advantage of that do we ever provide tuition for them to be able to participate or not I would love to see more of our teachers training to be able to sit through one of those the ones I've gone to before as a parent in the past they actually you get to be part of the lesson itself and understand what it feels like as a student it's really exhilarating actually there are as you mentioned lots of opportunities for classroom teachers to attend those kinds of things it's difficult especially these last few years with cobit to have them attend something where a substitute is necessary and you all understand that and know the
186difficulties we have there but some of the ones that are offered in the summertime we do make those known to teachers as far as if schools are able to help support them with any kind of registration or costs it's kind of a site-based um decision and I guess the follow-up question to that is whether or not our teachers feel like they have permission to be able to utilize the things that they learn and what we have and I don't know if that's a question more for ISD or or her school performance but I like the principles of Arts integration I think are so powerful and of course I think they have to work with their school leadership to make sure that they are teaching the curriculum and hitting those those Core Concepts that I laid
187out but to where teachers feel that they have the capacity to be able to use the Arts to be able to reinforce the principles that they're that are laid out for them in the classroom I I don't know that we could answer that very accurately because we haven't really asked the classroom teachers um their feelings on that I do know that I think with wonders being brand new this year a lot of their time is probably going to be spent getting more familiar with that particular program so that they they can get through that in a timely manner as and then maybe free up some of their time there I am hearing some positive things however and certainly we encourage it wherever um I do know that because we have an art Specialist of some
188art form in all of our elementary schools and plus Jordan Valley that um teachers do rely happening on that Specialists as well they should but to answer your question as far as how much is actually going on from the classroom teacher initiated I I really don't know the answer to that okay that might be worth looking at me sometime in the future and obviously not this year because like you said there's a steep learning curve associated with wonders I do have another question and I have to say like being able to participate on the Arts Consortium has been a real treat and I've learned a lot and I feel like I see every year things growing and deepening and becoming better like the quality of so many things are improving with regard to arts and
189canyons sharing knowing your wealth of information in 43 years in your career I am curious what you feel like um would make the biggest difference from us as a board in terms of deepening the quality of Arts education and kids um I know if you're talking specifically Elementary we have some fabulous things going on in secondary and kids can take those courses um the biggest thing in secondary which is to be make sure kids have access to those courses and whatever that looks like it could include a number of components but as far as our elementary what we're hearing you'll notice on the slides and Mindy mentioned this that we only have so many teachers that are actually pushing into classrooms part of that is because a lot of our Arts specialists in the elementary
190are part-time most of our BTS Specialists are 0.5 FTE so they don't really have the time to push in they would like to but they don't really have the hours for that um and a lot of them have said if I had additional hours you know I I'd be happy to do some more pushing and things like that um but they really don't have the time because most of their time is spent in actual brain booster classes and then what prep time did they get their hour two a week that they get in terms of prep time within that contract we do we only have four BTS Specialists who are full-time covering eight schools we have three that are 0.75 so those teachers do have a little extra time and those are the ones plus
191those that are getting the two additional hours from the district that are doing most of that extra collaborating um I'm not aware that any of our Point size ftas are doing that and it's really just a Time limitation so I know that we tried to address that that was it last year the year before and trying to make sure that we had some time available for elementary schools that wanted to like the additional five hours that lady mentioned how do is that being maxed out yes currently it's yes and do we have BTS teachers that would like to be able to do the same or more elementary schools that would like to be able to do the same we have had some of our 0.5 FTE teachers tell us they would love to do more
192of that if they had more time be on their point be on their 20 hours a week they'd be happy to do more based off of the demand that you're seeing how how many hours additional beyond what we have right now could should we I don't know so right now my understanding is there's 10 additional hours and schools can apply for up to two and we have five schools that have been have applied and been approved for those extra hours so we are maxed out on that um if I were just to guess off the top of my head I think we could also do another 10 very easily and get takers for that and that's not just the the art specialist I think there are schools that would be interested in that as well
193I I do have to say I was really pleased when I saw the school grades come out to see that the schools that are doing this are scoring very very high and one of the things that made me very really excited was I the first thought I thought was certainly Arts integration is not hurting them in fact it's probably deeply enhancing the experience the children are having and it's coming out in their test scores so I I as a board member would love to encourage my other board members if if they're willing I'd like to see that we increased how many hours are available for these push-ins because I think it's it's really going to enhance the experience that the elementary students are having um for them to be able to have core content that's
194so deeply enriched through an art form so you know one of the things I'd like to remind everyone about is the push-ins are not you're not taking an extra 20 minutes away from your math lesson all yours whatever lesson you're actually co-teaching that and just reinforcing those Concepts in a way that's more engaging for a lot of kids in a way that is helps them to remember and do that recall and it fits right in with our strategic plan I'm just going to put it out there like Hands-On learning it's very it's it's definitely it fits within all of the pieces of high quality learning and so I feel like as a board we really should be orienting ourselves to some of these opportunities I think it also supports just students well-being in general because
195they are engaged they're having fun you know um if you noticed on the very first slide when we were introducing our topic there's a little picture there that says creativity is intelligence having fun and that's really what we do you know the kids love it and fun and education do not have to be exclusive of each other at all thank you this is my power and then Mr Wrigley thank you for this presentation I'm I'm lucky enough that my kids go to Willow Springs and have benefited from Miss vandergroff's awesome Arts integration and I have to say uh the art nights at Willow Springs I've never been to a better event at a school ever this last year's art night was fantastic and you could see how the Arts are being integrated into the curriculum
196I actually had all these notes and Miss Oaks has said some of them but I wanted to to read this aloud with our strategic initiative under high quality learning CSD will provide all students access to engaging challenging and diverse Pathways for successful learning the very first success criteria is CSD classrooms embed science technology engineering arts and mathematic principles Interactive Learning experiences Arts integration and cross-curricular Hands-On and evidence-based learning so right there we have in our strategic plan and the first level of the success criteria what we're talking about here and so my thoughts are it's amazing to have the Beverly Sorensen Taylor teacher at Willow Springs and at Lone Peak but we have these other elementary schools that don't have those Miss Oaks talked about this a little bit but how we can incentivize teachers
197to do more of this Arts integration with professional development days if we have these Beverly Taylor Sorensen teachers teaching and helping these teachers see how to integrate it into their English into their science because all Canyons kids should be able to have these opportunities if you want to talk about how they're retaining their learning they retain it when they create it and they're using their minds and their creativity in their hands and and so I just my my question to the board is when we're looking at implementing the Strategic plan we really need to think of how to move this forward to our other elementary schools that actually is one of the initiatives that Mindy Curtis and I put in the instructional supports department is one of our proposals is to set aside some funds
198and do some budgeting for some professional development for the classroom teachers so that's part of what we're hoping for the future also the state Beverly Taylor Sorensen Association has they have the funding now for every Elementary School in the state that wants BTS can have that funding and so we have five schools that do not currently and I have had at least one of those principles reach out to me so far and say they're they're very interested we do have some excellent paraprofessionals and technicians in the Arts in our elementary schools and I don't want to discount them at all because they're doing some great things but the requirement of the Arts integration is part of the BTS program just elevates yes what those folks can do and some believe it there's a lot of
199integration that's taking place in secondary schools but it's so subtle you wouldn't even notice it I know that they highlighted for you tonight the high school musicals that are coming up and what a better place to get kids involved in public speaking in front of an audience to boost their confidence teamwork collaboration that's all of that takes place in those musicals and again it's an integrated way of learning that kids don't even realize and most parents don't even realize what is happening until you see your student just glow in the success and here this is where the passion is going to come out and the benefits of that you know are Priceless really and it's stuff like that is happening all over the place we just need to make sure all the kids have access
200to that if that's the direction they want to go or something they would like to try and that's so that's just so perfect a wonderful example the other question I have for you is what do you think about having ISD in the curriculum map actually have it built into the curriculum that teachers have some Arts integration throughout the year that they need to incorporate into like the Wonders and things like that yeah and that is that is the purpose of those lessons that we are working on we were hoping hoping some of that this year okay but then as lessons came in we realized that um we needed to format them so that they were easier for teachers to follow because some of our outstanding Specialists have been submitting those great lessons that we can
201connect to those that wonders curriculum okay but then we just felt like we needed more time to vet those more time to put in examples uh more time to get those formatted all the same and but that will be in place for next week oh wonderful and as hopefully by then the teachers will be more familiar with the Wonders curriculum enough that they'll feel like they can add those integrated lessons as part of their teaching awesome I'm so glad you're doing that and I just want to say thank you so much and we're sad that you're retiring thank you I'm not [Laughter] is there anything else um yes I think Mr Wrigley has some comments or questions first off I I want I've had a blessing of being on this board for 12 years and
202the biggest blessing is being able to serve with you most of that time I had got to serve on the Arts committee sure always been passionate your passion for the Arts is carried through through our district into our teachers it's really interesting sometimes we never know as teachers the Legacy we read you know um especially when you get to administrator because you don't have direct contact but you just that Legacy just grows and grows and grows with each teacher and each teacher they touch so I think you could walk away from this job knowing that you made a difference you made a difference in thousands of kids lives and thousands of teachers have made the teachers better for what they did so I think we all want to leave the Legacy I think you have
203a great one and my legacy is continuing because Mindy vandergraph was one of my students in Middle School good good so she cloned her she was wonderful then and she's still wonderful she's just gotten better and better so it will continue in the data that you gave us here yes it was good to see that the corner Canyons Orchestra has ways from 142 to 236. uh because we've had some real concern on the band and their orchestras yes so we are seeing that Trend we also saw a trend go from 180 to 231 at Draper Park so I'm hoping that that Trend will continue as we do some differences in their schedules and stuff but we've had some real issues for a long time in regards to that yeah I think you're seeing some of
204those changes because we have had a couple of fantastic teachers at Draper Park that last six years um they do have a new teacher this year and so um we kind of need some time to see what's happening there yeah i i in the same Trends we say some issues with Eastmont and other Jordan feeder now and I worry about the Jordan uh is that a typo or is that really 37 kids in choir uh I'm sorry what school uh Jordan Eastmont he says 5639 and then 37. that is not a typo um I remember last year um Miss nibao asked for some longitudinal data that included changes of teachers and I have been working on that that's very time consuming to compile but I'm still working on that for you um Eastmont the situation
205with them is it's kind of like most people can relate to if you change a coach every year it's very difficult to build a program and Eastmont choir has changed teachers they've had they're on their fourth teacher now in five years and that's made a big difference in the drop um the teacher that is there now this is her second year there she's doing a fabulous job and I'm hoping to see that jump up once again okay yeah because I see that and we saw a trend in the band also but I don't know if that's just because of enrollment at the school well enrollment at the school is dropping you can see the total enrollment there um it is dropping at Eastmont and that does create some issues especially in terms of scheduling classes
206it's harder to do with a small population yeah overall the number of Arts when you take the total 123 sure uh 100 at 116. it looks like we're pretty stable in all of our different schools that's great to see so thank you your comments Mrs show so I just want to add my thanks to Sherry um I wanted to know that she has a special place in my heart because she was my daughters my oldest daughter's choir teacher many years ago so anyway I just really appreciate everything you've done and I know you're so passionate and it just really means a lot to the board and to me personally so thank you and best wishes my second passion in life is cleaning and organizing and I know that sounds really weird but um I have
207told several teachers don't worry I'll come take care of your inventory for you we'll get your library in good shape your music library not your library library so we may see you yeah you may see me here and there great just as a volunteer and anything else Mrs office that passion for cleaning is why we have that whole theater Warehouse so yes and it's a good skill set if any of you ever want to come and see it it is a thing to behold he's having fun we've had three different school districts now and a couple private schools come and look at it yeah with the idea of this is maybe something we want to get going so if you haven't had a chance to come see it yet it's housed at the former Crescent
208View Middle School and it is lots of fun Sherry literally took her own weekends with her husband to haul costumes back and forth back and forth props and all sorts of things for sets like it was a labor of love way above and beyond so I I Echo what everyone has said we are so grateful we're better for you having been here and a lot of kids have really benefited from your passion um I'm wondering if it's possible for us as a born to provide direction or any sort of recommendations in the administration to increase those BTS position hours an additional 10 hours because it has how did the recipe feel better um I I think that there um I it's probably something I think the district is aware of and it sounds like they're
209working towards increasing that yeah we'll take that back and see if we can do I know that's a great idea that there is interest okay what can be done um and um that was going to be one of my questions is if the school wants to allocate some of their trust lands or TSS P Money they they could do so right I mean there is a there's a framework in place it's just kind of coming up with the funding correct correct and so and yes we do have what was it four schools that are using their tssa funds to help support their arts in their building um so that is a possibility um but a lot of it again is budgetary things that need to be looked at beyond what I handle and and but
210but to that end the sec's received information that that is something that they can consider and I believe in principles too and their training have been told to look at those as strategies for meeting some of the goals that they set in their plans so and I hope that they look at those in terms of academic growth as a way to help improve their academic growth as opposed to um something extra yeah yeah and and they should because those plans are sure tend to be centered on academic things so sure absolutely just a way of further um solidifying that that understanding of how integrating the Arts does help with academics um so I I just wanted to make a comment on your slide about the Milestones okay that I think I think we could credit
211much of the credit for everyone those Milestones goes to you and the work that you've done in the district and I'm so um it's been an honor to work with you and I'm glad that you're here for the rest of the year and I get to serve on the Arts Consortium committee so that we can still I can still learn from you and and your great team that you have now and so thank you for providing this update it's something that is the board looks forward to every year and thank you thank you for the opportunity and we're leaving things in great hands so yes we're I feel very confident about that and I hope my fellow board members do as well so thank you thank you thank you very much next item on the
212agenda is to um the second reading for policy 500.24 student educational travel I will turn time over to Jeffrey Christensen assistant legal counsel thanks president tingey so again this is for second reading uh not action requested uh if we're to bring it back my thoughts are could potentially be on the consent agenda as you recall from our first reading we were approached by high school principals as well as uh some administrators and looking at the increase that we have in our Utah High School Activities Association Sports across the district and we looked at several Provisions in our educational travel policy to broaden the opportunity for students that are part of those new groups lacrosse wrestling and uh drawing a blank I can recall the new sports because there's quite a few so volleyball yeah thank
213you so in looking at the provisions we're expanding the overnight travel window uh to reduce costs because um travel arrangements are more difficult to acquire in terms of overnight trips the recommendation was to move that from 15 to 20. then one of the other recommendations was prior to the beginning of the school year each High School will submit a list of eligible groups for travel that does not include non-curricular clubs but it would include those groups eligible to travel and then one of the modifications from our last meeting was to look at developing uh an every other year at tier two travel gross expense cap Rule and how that would work is once a group exceeds 50 percent of that total expense cap in one year the next year they would have to stay below
21450 percent so you could travel up in one year to the maximum amount of the approved board fee but in the next year you have to stay below 50 so a group could and not have a restriction on where they were traveling within the 48 states provided they remain under 50 percent of that cap and that's outlined in the policy and then the um the last element is we had a multi-school exception developed for smaller groups that might be traveling and um and speaking with principals they recommended rather than maintaining that at three schools but reducing it to two and increasing the number of students this has had input from all of our high school principals and and has had their review um I'll just note that in the policy we still maintain that this
215is the criteria and then there is an appeal process uh that any High School principal if they were to have a situation where this criteria and some um situation would not be applicable they can appeal and then that's reviewed by a panel and then the board ultimately makes a decision but there's a recommendation from the panel I can respond to questions if there are any or yes okay all right important questions comments Mrs dybar then Mrs schill I'm really excited about this this policy changing the number of trips is is such a big deal when we've had over seven new sanctioned Sports in the last several years for from the uh SAA since this policy was first written as well as so many other clubs like Robotics and other things that have been added I
216think um I was talking to a principal I think the number was over 15. so that's pretty amazing I'm also just very excited about eliminating the the mile radius and the stud that was initially created I think to help with budget restraints and we've gone ahead and provided that provision and then updating some language with the trips I I am interested I know we have a set up so it can be on the consent agenda last at our next meeting I know a few meetings ago um I Believe Miss Arnold requested permission from president Tangy to go ahead and make an actionable item and I would be interested in in doing that and requesting permission just to go ahead and make a motion to approve this tonight rather than waiting till our next board meeting
217for consent so that's what I'm asking presenting oh okay um let's let's hear some other comments and then I'll pose that question to the board okay thank you Mrs Shield so I just wanted to thank the policy committee because they worked on that language that we kind of brought up that we thought was a little confusing and I I do think it's much better so thank you and and I do think this policy is needed because we do have more Sports and I I think we want to give as many students the opportunity to travel as we can so so thank you thank you other comments or questions Mrs Oaks I do want to give a shout out to the policy committee and you guys have had a lot this year and I do appreciate
218you taking a look at all of these things there's a lot of issues to consider and I know it takes a lot of time so thanks I think it looks great okay any other comments okay oh Mr millerberg just so you'll know I'm alive and breathing what they said okay thank you anyone else okay so a request has been made to go ahead and take action on this um this policy revision is is the board is there any objection to doing that at tonight's meeting foreign objection then um a motion will be allowed I will make a motion to adopt the policy 500-24 for student educational travel in canvas they're second to the motion I'll second in thank you any discussion to this motion okay see none I'll call for a vote all in favor
219please say aye aye any opposed okay that motion passes thank you and the policy revisions are approved thank you president taking any members of the board thank you thank you okay um that concludes our um business on the agenda for tonight's meetings so next we I will um turn time over superintendent Robbins and then to Mr Wilcox for their reports thank you president I too just want to express my appreciation to Sherry um you know when I got here in the spring of 2020 at the start of the pandemic I remember meeting with her and talking about how we might keep our Arts programs actually functioning and I remember one of the first discussions was to find covers or filters that would go over the instruments I don't know if y'all remember that conversation but
220um again just her dedication and commitment and seeing you know the positive uh effect that keeping our programs open and kids continuing to participate and just the the value add that that made uh during you know that time uh I just really appreciate uh all that she's done and wish her the best in retirement so thank you thank you Mr Wilcox yes thank you president a couple things I too want to thank Sherry I've known her since we started in 2009 so thank you my if you haven't been to the elementary orchestra monster concert you should go I went last year as my boys one of those in the elementary Court Orchestra as is my middle school student at Draper Park so again big impact on all our kids so thank you to her and
221all that she's done uh honor we're in the middle of our open enrollment for our health insurance so I'm speaking to all the employees out there who have not completed that open enrollment please do so as of this morning we've only had about 50 percent complete the window ends this week so call our principals directors please remind your employees tomorrow to get that done thank you it's important that everybody goes in online and completes their enrollment uh finally just a quick update on Peruvian Park we've made some excellent progress the last couple weeks uh yesterday we had five trucks of furniture show up there to deliver all the furniture all the carpet is now down uh the white boards were on a truck from the Midwest that got in a wreck they had to go
222back and make all new white boards for us and that got delayed but they showed up yesterday as well the second truck so uh they started hanging those yesterday so we are in great we are very good shape moving forward there excited to have the ribbon cutting uh two weeks from tomorrow and then of course there'll be two virtual days that the board approved on the fort excuse me the 15th and 16th we'll have a little bit more update on the our next meeting which will be the day before the ribbon cutting but we're in very good shape they're a big thank you to Hogan other subcontractors all the extra hours they put in also to uh lovely Jukes and her staff were all the patients they've shown and and the community there as we
223get ready to get in there there is one section that we probably won't have done and that is the tile on some of the main floor we'll have to work around some nights and maybe even into the Christmas break to get all that done but uh uh we'll work around that as we get in there but I think the more what we know the most important thing is get the teachers and students in that new building as soon as possible so we're excited with that and uh that's all I have thank you thank you okay for um board comments let's start with Mr millerberg I guess I'm going to start by apologizing for not making comments uh when Sherry Jorgensen was speaking I absolutely love the art I love the music and once upon a
224time I was really really good at it and I held back because in all honesty the most traumatic experience I had in the public education system was eighth grade band at Midvale Junior High School and that's his guard me from 1964 until now I mean literally it changed my uh direction to where I wanted to go and why and so I appreciate so much that we have quality people teaching music in our school and people that make it fun to be there and understand what it is to be a kid uh the second thing I would like to do is uh Mr President I would like to make a proposal that in a future study session we get some instruction on House Bill 374 as a board so that we will better understand what that
225law says and how we can make sure that of the school district we are in compliance uh third thing on my uh list I went over to Mid Valley Elementary yesterday for their Halloween parade it was so much fun uh they have a great bunch of uh students they have a great bunch of Faculty people that are there um and it was pretty subtle but it was interesting for the for the parade every uh Halloween parade I've ever been to before the school doors are open and parents walk in and out of the building very very freely uh the parents were moved to the back of the school on the playground and the students did the parade insight and then came outside and back through another door back into the school and I was very
226impressed with the people at Mid Valley that they preserved the security of the school during uh the Halloween parade and the last thing on my list is uh Jeff thank you so much for making Veterans Day a big deal thank you Mrs Arnold foreign I was going to mention the same thing mentioned that we need to do much more I'm looking into this and studying it I don't personally read porn but I learn more tonight than I ever wanted to learn um I'm too old for that stuff and I wanted to use the S word but oh no I'll keep it clean um so I too want to put that on our priority list um sap and see what else we can do because I remember when we went through the policy I couldn't understand
227you know like why we were um keeping it to two books per person when there could be lots of peop books out there and that would take forever to do and so I do want to review that um other than that I too love the Arts and I would really encourage the administration to look at their plans they have for land trust and tssp tssp um and see if they can't figure out how to do more um integrating of the Arts because the year my students scored the best on the end of year test was the year that we had a dance teacher came in and she danced all of the science and my kids scored off the scale they were making clouds with plastic and doing all the clouds and doing all the vocabulary
228and they were um for weather and then they were animals doing all the different animal vocabulary and doing all these different animal movements and they learned it they remembered it it was in their body and you could see them when they were taking the test waving the plastic to make the clouds be whatever the clouds need to be but um so I too would like really encourage them to and not not only that but give them the time like we had for 45 minutes to an hour once a week to do those lessons you can't quite do it in 20 to 25 minutes once a week but to make it a priority and make um make sure they're integrating the math and the science and the language in there because um when I started teaching
229um well it was a few years into teaching they did multiple intelligence and I know people say well there's no research on multiple intelligences no evidence that it works however when I started my evidence is that most of the kids scored in learning by listening or learning mathematical and now when I do it and I still do it every year I have one kid's score and by listening and one kid score by math and the 20 other three kids that are in my classroom they score by visual by moving and by music so if I have 23 kids scoring that the only way they learn is to doing visuals moving and music obviously if I don't do that they're not going to grow and so we really need to look again at why we're staying
230stagnant and not growing and that might be a piece of it because also there's a book called spark that talks about if you spark your brain like this School District had all the kids do activities for an hour and they found that the next two hours they could remember almost everything that they were taught and then they would also do it again right after lunch they would give them activities and then the next two hours their brain was sparking new brain cells building new brain cells and the brain cells would get filled with the new information so as we're looking at what we're doing in the future I think we need to look at those arts and see how we're going to implement them into education thank you Mrs Oaks thank you and I'm just
231going to hit the big topic up front HB 374 I feel the same way as Mont and chlorine I actually I think Miss Peterson's suggestion regarding um being able to see which books are already being challenged I don't see why we couldn't do that I think that that would be a good suggestion it would be helpful I've also um I'm wondering whether or not it would be worthwhile for the policy committee to take a look and maybe with some assistance from from Dan to see how compliant or how congruent our policy is currently with HB 374 so um those would be a couple of my requests um with regards to um what I've been able to do the past couple weeks I've gone to band concerts Orchestra concerts I'm actually thrilled to see how well
232attended they are so many parents and grandparents and friends that come and it's a joyful time and experience and the Halloween parades were awesome yesterday I was so happy I made it to two of the Elementary's in Sprucewood and Draper and I just sat there and I thought because it still feels really fresh to me it wasn't that long ago that even that like traditional activity that all of us grew up doing was challenged by cobid and the kids missed out on so many things and so to see their lives like moving forward normally and that they're able to have that kind of exuberant and happy experience just it brings me a lot of Joy um to Cline's point and what she was talking about with movement I I do want to remind all of
233us as a board and District that healthy movement is part of high quality learning in the Strategic plan and um Outdoor Learning is also there and I have been able to have some conversations with Sandy mayor Monica zoltanski recently about the idea of doing an outdoor classroom space in dimple dough and to work collaboratively with Sandy City she's really interested in being able to promote something like that so that we have a space as the district to be able to take kids and to do science learning and do some things that are Hands-On they recently preserved or have a building over there it's now been registered on um as a historical building and they have possible interest in doing some some of those things with us so I that makes me really excited I would
234love to be able to see our students learn science in an environment that is really engaging and takes them in a place that's fresh and new and and different so anyway I want to Echo the sentiments of my other board members I'm so grateful for Sherry and everything that she's done and I'm really excited to see where the next stage of the Strategic plan leads us and making sure that we're really moving forward on implementation so thank you Mr Wrigley thank you I'll try to keep it brief um I was really excited I got to go on a tour of the Peruvian School a couple days ago Brian Park and amazing to see it all come together I was really worried but they have done a great job and your team has done just a
235great job in pushing things along uh for a while there we didn't have Windows even and we've got that so I think that's gonna be a fantastic school I also have the opportunity to do the first ever Glacier Hills Memorial uh um parade for Halloween um and that was a hoot uh I'm not sure they'll probably do the same format next year because we started up The Kindergartners and walk through every single classroom all the way up all the way back down and out the front door all the way around the block and back by the time we came back we were still meeting the fifth graders we were leaving the door it was uh crazy I had him convinced that I was a cowboy I had several people ask out they also commented several
236times on the police officer was with us how real his costume was so yeah yeah we said we can't carry guns and he couldn't figure out why he was carrying a gun but anyway so it was really an exciting thing we had maybe seven eight officers that were there uh helping in the street the kid just this it was a great activity um tonight they touched me on our book presentation about our parents and I understand where our parents are coming with their pornography and that concerned their sexually explicit information we we are working on that as a committee the policy I mean we need to continue as I've knocked on hundreds of doors I have also people saying what's that definition and how far it goes so we really need to come up with
237a career I think we've moved in that direction we made you do like a little bit more uh but I've got a lot of people been knocking on doors we're concerned about where's that line what where is it uh concern that we may go too farther Direction so I think that's the battle we're trying to deal with is where where do we what do we do so I think the board is working on that all this humidity is working on that but it's a real fine thing with our parents as far as we want to be sure we don't have pornography and solicit stuff but we also want to be sure that we don't cut out so much stuff that parents are concerned on the other end so I think we'll continue focusing on that
238and I think we'll come up with the solution I know we will because it's something that's the board's concerned about thank you this is my bar well first off I want to say congratulations to Corner Canyon the girls volleyball and girls cross country teams earned the Utah interscholastic athletic administrators Association academic state championships in 6A it's a mouthful but basically those two teams have the highest team GPA in Utah so that's pretty amazing and also of our of our Varsity cheerleaders we have five National finalists for the academic chair um for the nation so that's pretty exciting also um I also enjoyed going to the Halloween parades um yesterday at Willow Springs and and got some fun pictures I need to send over to Communications our our FTE music teacher was out there with her
239speakers and and the kids were singing and dancing as they paraded so that was pretty fun um I appreciate those parents coming tonight this is something that has really weighed heavily on my mind I'm on the policy committee and last year um as we were discussing this was my exact concern is that the books that have this sensitive materials while we're waiting to see if they get weeded or not they're still on the shelves and one thing that that I proposed last year that I really feel makes a lot of sense is any books with sensitive materials could be behind the circulation desk because a lot of those books we look on Common Sense Media and all these other forms that actually give an age-appropriate rating the age-appropriate rating is older than the kids that
240are circulating our library so if we just put any of those behind the circulation desk and kids who want to check that out would have to have a signed parent informed consent we do that currently with movies so if my kids are going to watch The Outsiders that's a PG-13 movie that's way Tamer than any of these books that were read I have to sign something saying I'm okay for him to view it and I think that may be something we could do that wouldn't exhaust our resources and would be quick we can still do the weeding process but at least it's behind the circulation desk and the parents would be informed and have a signature there if their kids were going to check it out at least there's a level of protection you know
241um I do think that those books you know are very dangerous and I think that I know as well as all of you that these phones are really dangerous too and I I'm under No Illusion that just by by fixing um the distribution of those materials in our school library that there aren't dangerous places for their kids there are but we don't have to be the distributors especially without parents knowing what's going on and I we do have a provision in that policy where parents can go in on the database and say my kid can't check out these things but the problem with that is how many of our parents are educated to know to do that you know how we don't necessarily although it's there how many of our parents know that they can
242do that and is it easy for our parents who speak different languages and it just you know there's the whole gamut of you know I I don't know as a busy mother I don't know that I would know and have the wherewithal that I can do that on the destiny database even though there's a provision for that so I'd love something like um putting it behind the circulation desk and I I believe Mr Wrigley has has kind of thinking about that as well so I am anxious I know we have a policy committee meeting on November 10th I'm really anxious to discuss this further because this is a heavy matter and I I do believe we can do a lot better and I'm thankful for the parents that came and and spoke to us and
243I appreciate all of my fellow board members comments regarding that as far as the Arts go I already spoke to that I'm really excited to see that art integration implemented as per our strategic plan and I think I saw outside the door there ISD and and the Arts they're talking and I was just so excited so can't wait to see how that goes thank you so much thank you this is Chill so um I attended on October 19th it was the education interim committee and they did have a presentation that summarized the Utah code 53g-10-103 the sensitive instructional materials and um I don't I mean I'm not sure if there's new information in that but I would request that the policy committee look into that and just make sure that our policy is following along
244with code because I do think they had some new definitions in there so um I just wanted to report that and I do appreciate the parents coming and speaking today also I also attended since our last meeting the South Valley Chamber women in business luncheon and that was really great they had a speaker that had written a book and it was very well attended so I appreciate the opportunity to attend that and then also I just look forward to the calendar committee and just the feedback we got from the board today and we will get working on that so thank you okay thank you um I just wanted to mention that I was able to attend the band bash at Brighton High School which um they invited the two feeder middle schools to come and
245bring their bands and orchestras and how to how to just a an amazing concert slash bash I guess is the best word for it um they it was held in the gymnasium at Brighton High School and then at the conclusion of the program the Brighton High marching band did an abbreviation of their field program that they've done this year on the floor of the gym and it was it was just great the gym was full and there was so much energy and it was it was really a wonderful event so I I appreciate everyone's all the schools and the efforts that they make and in supporting students that um that thrive with this type of learning experience and that was the thought I had while I was watching the students they were coming and going
246you know Butler group would perform while an Albion group is setting up and then they would switch out to a Brighton group and the kids were coming and going and moving um chairs and moving instruments and things and they they all knew what they were doing and they just were so excited it was it was um you know for them the equivalent of of someone on an athletic team playing in the state tournament or something it was they were showcased and they were um they they've obviously been rehearsed not just their musical skills but also the organizational things and how to behave and where they needed to sit when it wasn't their time to perform and it was it was just really a wonderful evening and and so I'm grateful that I was able to
247have that opportunity to do that and I look forward to our high school musicals um every year I try and get all five but it doesn't always work but I I just would encourage anyone out there not just board members and District folks but people out in the public you know what go on those schools website call the office and see what you need to do to get a ticket to go see a play because it's it's just really remarkable high level quality of entertainment and and I promise you'll feel good if you do it so anyway with that and is there anything else if there's nothing else then um I will adjourn the meeting meeting is adjourned