001good evening I'd like to welcome you to the meeting of the Canyon's Board of Education today is January 18th 2022 and this is the study session and I would like to excuse Mrs Holly nbow and Mrs clarine Arnold okay board um first on the study session agenda is an update on strategic planning I'll turn the time over to superintendent Rick Robbins thank you President we have drew on the phone with us to update it so Drew are you there I am can you hear me okay yep go ahead okay awesome good evening everybody glad to be joining you virtually here hope you're all uh well and staying safe and healthy um is it possible for me to share my screen or um should I just uh do a talk track through the slides and send
002those to you afterwards uh just a second we'll check on that I'm gonna send it through the chat just in case for whoever is Manning the tech on Zoom oh okay um Drew go ahead and try to share screen and see what happens let's give it a shot did anything change oh I think so aha I think we see something you see that wonderful okay um so just put together a couple slides to guide through um our conversation today um couple key uh key things I wanted to point out um first of all just a a quick step back um we've we've done a lot of work so far I really wanted to take the opportunity to to both celebrate that work and quantify um some of the work that we've done so hard to
003believe but it was back in May of 2021 that we got this process started with our kickoff um went through a couple steering team meetings throughout the process to kind of put guard rails and guidelines um around the strategic planning process engage stakeholders um and then worked most recently with those planning teams to articulate which what were going to be the focus areas of the Strategic plan the Strategic initiatives and the success criteria to make sure that we were making good on the Promises we are making in that plan um if you were to Total all of those um hours up so far not counting project team meetings these board updates and some behind the scenes work um we're we're just over 50 hours invested so far majority of which have been in stakeholder engagement
004efforts um back in back in September so we put a lot of time in so far um and still have a little ways to go we're we're nearing the finish line and I I think we're at a at an exciting time where we've actually got a draft plan on paper and we um we we've we've really you know made it made a tremendous amount of progress in the work that we've done um now it's just all about um about putting a bow on this and and really finishing it up so that uh so that we have something to share with the public and actually get this work done um so something I just wanted to call out that we want to avoid and what we've noticed that can happen with districts we've worked with in
005the past is this whole idea of uh diminishing returns so what what you can see on the screen here is this this curve where the beginning of our work we were really the most productive we had a a lot of momentum building up um and we've kind of reached this point right now where um the amount of time that we invest in this process is going to gradually um decrease in terms of the total output that that we're able to see what we don't want to get is this point of Maximum yield where our our our time invested is is instead giving us negative returns we're at a good spot right here where we've just kind of reached this point and now it's just about finishing this work to make sure that we do get
006to that point where we can start act uh start making um our strategic plan actionable so something that we just want to make that we continue to consider here um is as we're continuing to involve um additional voices in the process is making sure that we avoid this Pitfall of watered down or false promise of consensus we have a lot of and in numers of the project team you've seen this slide before way back um way back I think in the summer but really just want to call out something that we're going to try as as um external part external thought Partners to um prevent against is um seeking uh when making big decisions Communists seek feedback um to inform the decision and you should um but what we want to make sure we don't
007do is erode trust when uh feedback is shared how to incorporate it sorry one second I think okay I think can you still hear me yes okay sorry my audio was was playing playing games with me um so what we as you've heard us share many times in the past is to really opt for this idea of safe enough to try um so as we're nearing the end of this strategic planning process we really want to make sure that we're sharing decisions that we've determined are safe enough to try and clarifying um additional opportunities where that Mantra can kind of play into the process um so we certainly again want to continue um involving voices of stakeholders throughout the district but at the same time we want to make sure that that that feedback is
008really being used intentionally and then another Pitfall that we're going to try to help um prevent against is this idea of delayed decision making um so there's a there this process has has gone on for a long period of time and there's been a lot of decisions that we've made up until this point what we don't want to do is to avoid kind of getting to a place where we can say um we're we're s we're ready to actionized or act make this plan actionable um because we don't either have enough information or the right people to decide um and and we fall into this whole situation of analysis paralysis um we employ this idea again of this this whole idea of safe enough to try by developing protocols in the steps that we're going
009to take um that I'm going to outline in just a minute where we are being really efficient and agile with our decision-making to create a proposal and either approve or uh amend that proposal to make sure that decisions are being made in a really effective way and that pertains specifically to the um the addition synthesis and editing process of the draft draft strategic plan that we've shared so far so getting into um the information or the resources that we have at our disposal uh we put together a a comprehensive I think almost 100 page document for you all um that was shared at the be uh the end of December or uh yeah end of December I believe um that includes uh version one of the synthesized strategic plan content which is um a culmination
010of all of the the work that both the uh the pro the planning teams and the steering teams have done that also includes feedback gathered from the steering Team U planning team workbooks as they were kind of developing the initial drafts of what those impact statements strategic initiatives and success criteria were going to be we included stakeholder engagement data in there that encompasses both uh the survey that we administered to the district as well as focus group data and then also details from that accreditation report so um a a question that I I have for you at this point and I'll pause for just a second is what other information if any do we need right now to move forward with this process or what what do you think would be helpful um to take
011these next steps okay Bard any thoughts on that question from Drew about additional information that we would need Mrs Oaks hi Drew I I personally I love the document that you prepared for us for December you know it was right before the holidays and I know that there are still some of us who are wanting to respond in some of those I wish I wonder questions but other than that I I think more than anything we just need the opportunity to work together as a board in the workshop to be able to come together and Hammer some of it out I don't know if anyone else feels differently other other thoughts Mrs shill um I agree with what Amanda just said and I don't think we need any more information I think we have plenty
012of information I think we just need to make some decisions and continue to synthesiz so thank you Mr Wrigley yeah um I I agree I think there's plenty of stuff I read over again today it's it it encompasses a lot of things I just sort of need a road map for the future what we're where we're going what questions the Board needs to ask and just sort of give me an idea of the structure what we need to do give me some kind of idea of what happens to Cur from this point on um that would be helpful um you know if the questions we need to answer the other things that we need to do that process just I guess the future process is what I'm looking for okay and then um Mrs Nar
013who is excused this evening sent me a couple of thoughts that she wanted me to share um she says thank you for the recap and the second opportunity for board members to contribute to the I like I wish I wonder phase of collaboration um she says I understand the point of diminishing returns with output and at the same time know it's very valuable for board members to contribute to this process of shaping impact statements and success criteria because we were able to watch and participate in these working groups once the task was to go from granular size to 5,000 foot above you some vital elements may be lost and then she gives an example of the working of a working group dedicated to access for high quality learning experiences I might know what shift that
014might take in the district to provide these opportunities by adjusting start times and standardized schedules so she brings up that um idea as as well but a broader impact statement might look like duplication of another working group as poos secondary Pathways is also let's see the intent is different between both topics um and looks forward to an in-depth discussion on the 1 of February so so it sounds like at this point the board really wants to be able to dive into it and and um just for as a board just kind of look for any opportunities of duplication or overlap or gaps just kind of make sure that the that the plan is very congruent any other thoughts okay Drew does that answer your question yeah that's helpful and um Steve I think you might
015have looked ahead on my slides because that's exactly where I was going um so essentially the the two touch points that we have proposed that we we get together with you all to walk through our what we're calling uh the launch Workshop um and and really the theme from now until the end of this process is refinement and Alignment um refining the content that we've developed so far and aligning it to um what the district views as uh what needs to be a priority for right now um as well as um the district mission vision and values making sure that that language Rings true throughout the plan um so during that launch Workshop we have a couple and that would be comprised of you all as board members as well as the superintendent's cabinet to
016review um the latest version of the Strategic plan as um as we have proposed so far um also to start defining ownership and timelines for when we want this work to actually happen talk about additional opportunities for stakeholder engagement um again because we know that that's a critical piece of of a strategic plan roll out and then also discuss how we're going to make sure that we are successful in the goals and initiatives that we we set forth um from there we will move to um a project team meeting where we will synthesize what has happened um with uh with the launch workshop and put together another hopefully um finalized version of the Strategic plan content and then that will then be presented to the board we're setting the deadline of um of February 15th
017that um is it seems like it's pretty soon um because it is um but at the same time we recognize the need to kind of light somewhat of a fire so that we can make sure that the content is able to be put into uh to get over to our designers and get into a form that can be um shared really easily with the public and that can be really accessible um to members of of the Greater kenyons Community so we have set that deadline we if if we come to a point before the 15th and we say that we need more time we're obviously going to be flexible and responsive to to your to your needs but we um we would like to to have at least the finalized content the words that are
018going to be in the Strategic plan complete um and ready to share by then and just a couple um reminders here um as we've gone through this process we've used this term of responsive strategic planning um and what we are creating here is uh is not a to-do list or set of to-do lists it is guidance for people to make decisions um conditions are going to change in the future and what's not going to change is our North Star this strategic plan as the superintendent has shared is is our North Star this is this this is the direction that we want the district to go um things are going to happen in our world and in the community that will that will need us to do some pivoting um and what's going to be nice
019about um having a strategic plan is having the guard rails and the conditions to make the necessary decisions to navigate that level of ambiguity so what we're what we're not trying to create here in our impact statements um are are specific uh you know examples of of things that need that people need to add to their to-do lists we're really creating the conditions for um positive change and positive momentum to happen and then the other perhaps uncomfortable call out to to mention is that not everyone's going to be 100% satisfied with a strategic plan when it's complete it's just impossible um we we can't please everyone and Steve I think you might have mentioned when we were in our design um our our planning team meetings um that if if uh I I'm I don't
020want to misquote you but if if nobody's if everybody's happy then you're probably doing something wrong um something along those lines but I think it's important for us to call this out and and not let perfect be the enemy of the good because perfect is not something we're going to be able to achieve what we will be able to achieve is to create something that's going to again create the conditions for decisions to be made in the future and adapt to different situations as they come our way so an ask that we this is getting to to the other question that was that was mentioned here um is is what are the questions that we want the board to answer between now and when we get together on February 1 and I'm going to email
021this um this slide deck out to everybody so that you have this at your um easy access to this information but three primary questions that I want I would like you to submit to me um by email um by Friday the 28th so week from this Friday the first question is as the Strategic plan stands right now the version that was shared um in late December what is currently missing from the plan as it currently exists second question is what needs to be taken away from the plan as currently exists so addition and subtraction there and then that last question is what would it take to get this plan to an 85% satisfaction rate for you so this is this is speaking to the notion that it's not going to be perfect and you're you
022yourself might not be incredibly excited about every aspect of the plan but if you could get to 85% satisfaction rate if we could get everyone um on the board among the superintendent um cabinet um District leadership if we could get everybody 100% of people to 85% satisfaction rate what would we need to do in order to achieve that and by answering those questions what we'll do is um synthesize those responses and then come to you on the First with really some some concrete next steps for how we're going to get to that place of uh of a strategic plan that's safe enough to share with uh with the Greater Community um so that's when we'll really put our not to the grindstone go line by line and start chipping away at what's been created so
023far to to um reveal what the final plan is going to be so that is the ask for you is to submit answers to these three questions and again I'll send this out via email so you have access to them and that is all I have um in this slide deck happy to to um happy to answer any questions or entertain any comments from the board thank you drew I think there probably are a few questions and comments um no Mr Wigley so Drew you said can you send us an email with these questions and so it's easier to go ahead and send it directly back to you yes you got it and what I'm hearing in this is is the um this plan needs to be pretty broad as you said the the conditions
024will not change this s the Northstar sometimes I think it's what the legislature does they put out a bill and then they have so many writers on the thing like I had need to add this bridge in and this bridge and this in we're not going to put that in the plan right that'll be later on there so there's things if people want to address we can actually later on in the process put it in but we're not going to put those small add-ons to this bill or whatever in in your plan it's a good good analogy I I think we don't we don't want this strategic plan to have a bunch of Band-Aids on it when we look at it in five years but what we will have are supporting documents that will outline
025clear strategies and tasks that individuals are going to do in order to actualize the goals that we have in the plan so we're we're thinking very broad here okay well thank you I think that's probably if you say this di is be for five years I think everybody will get the stuff addressed that they want to in this I'm not sure everything needs to be in this plan like the Maj Federal bills that come out thank you other questions or comments Mr millerberg and then Mrs shill yeah I was just wondering why we didn't have the deck of the this PowerPoint presentation is attached to our agenda so we could be better prepared for what you were going to [Music] present I uh I did not think that email that in advance I apologize uh
026but you will have it after the meeting Mrs sh so Drew I don't know if you can see us but we're missing a couple board members and so I actually think that would be really good if you went through this at the beginning of our February 1 meeting because I think everyone needs to understand what you just explained to us before moving forward oh for sure I I did send it to um I did send it to Holly but I didn't know that Claren was um also going to be absent so everyone will get this um like I said after the meeting but I I'm more than happy to walk through it um on February 1st as well I think that's a good suggestion okay thank you anything else um I have one question Drew
027so this um those the the worksheets that have I like I wish I wonder for each of the main areas um is that something too that you would like submitted to you in addition to those the answers to those three questions or is that more of a worksheet for our benefit to bring with us on the first as part of the discussion so that's uh that is more kind of for your benefit to process the plan as it as it um has been shared with you these three questions are really A variation of that I like I wish I wonder so something that um but this is more actionable for us because we know there U what's specific PL what specific things you want to add what specific things you want to take away and
028in general how are we going to get this to a place where you are um are proud of what's been created so these questions are more important the I like I wish I wonder might be just a good reflection exercise for you um but some of that I like I wish I wonder feedback has been Incorporated in that comprehensive document that we sent out in December okay great any other thoughts or questions bard M Mr Wrigley what I'm sorry I went through the report I only saw one I like I wish I wonder in there was there more that I missed somewhere they there were some pages that were a consolidation of because the entire steering team went through that exercise so we combined I believe um we combine those responses on a couple different
029pages if my memory serves me right I have learning experiences access and opportunity and I didn't think I saw any back in the back here that's that was it so if there was any more attach those when your email you sent because I only have two pages okay let me look into that and make sure that that's been been communicated out I think what was in that document was what came out of the the steering team and then what we're talking about is just a blank document for the board individual board members to put our own thoughts yeah I was just didn't same lines I was looking over there to see if it covered everything I wanted right so that I'm not g to make a comment that it's already been made so that's why
030I wanted to Define what we actually have so I could say it's already there I don't need to add it okay thank you any other thoughts or questions well Drew thank you so much for giving us this update and report and our homework assignment for the first I board I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to that Workshop I think it will be very productive and we will look forward to that we are as well look forward to to uh getting that information or these slides so that we can review them in preparation as well yep AB absolutely pleasure to be with you all as always we will uh we will uh be in touch before the first but uh looking forward to being back in kenyons on February 1 to meet with
031you all great thank you have a great rest of evening you too bye bye bye okay um next on the agenda is 2022 legislative update I will turn time over to uh Mr Charlie Evans director of external Affairs and Susan Edwards public engagement coordinator Susan Susan's not here she is under the weather and has been uh for a number of days and so she has stayed away indifference to keeping us all well uh Kayla I should have and I I will next time she's here but Kayla cmore is our intern this year she's not here she has been here in the past and I neglected to interview or to introduce her and I will do that uh next time in addition to being famous in her own right Kayla is also the daughter of Senator
032cmore and has started off and gonna be a really good intern I don't have a lot new to report but uh uh on what we talked about last time but um we have two bills well um now one bill when they read the bills into the Senate onto the Senate calendar this morning they put two um bills that affect us at the very top uh one was uh a resolution repealing the Sal Lake County's Mass mandate they uh substituted that bill to repeal all mass mandates Statewide uh and that bill uh passed the Senate today on a 22-5 boote and I expect it to pass the house by similar margin tomorrow um and and because that bill it's a resolution I keep referring to it as a bill but because that resolution does not require
033a signature of the governor I expect Mass mandate to end effectively tomorrow it could be as late as Wednesday I haven't had a chance to confirm what the floor time on the house will be tomorrow but I'm pretty sure they do have floor time and this will probably be considered then uh the second bill was circled and I would expect a substitute Bill uh sometime tomorrow that it's got a text let me see if that's Susan saying that I've done something wrong no um and that is a bill dealing with the test of stay legislation that they passed last last year and repealing that and replacing it it is Senate Bill 113 I believe I sent a copy of of that bill to to each all of you guys today as soon as that became
034public I expect a substitute Bill uh for that tomorrow I had hoped to talk to Senator wer who was a sponsor of the bill today before coming down here but I couldn't do that Susan and I both talked to Senator Colmore who's helping us get some amendments in that bill to make it a little bit easier uh for us to deal with and so I'm not because I haven't talked to Senator Wier yet I hope to later tonight I don't know that I can answer all of your questions about what he is planning to do I can talk about what's in the current bill and what I think he may be doing and I'd be happy to do [Music] that thank you board questions Mr Wrigley thank you a question on this Mass mandate one
035because I know people will be asking us this question so the county had originally had the authority to do that the County Council that was overturned by this bill it would be if it passes if it passes it'll be overturned by the bill there was nothing in this that authorized school boards to overturn the legislator's overturning of the county bill is that correct no the prohibition on us requiring masks is still in effect yeah so that goes back revers back to what the original laws because I know there's a lot of people that are asking us to basically defy the state legislature in the county and though we may personally want to do that legally that's something that has not been authorized to the boards in regards to any bills is that correct right you
036know in fact if we had put a mass mandate on the way the this resolution is worded now would that this resolution would have repealed that as well so it's pretty broad so it covers everything okay than I just wanted to clarify that I know we have a lot of people sending us and I I sympathize with them my understand where they're coming from but if you look at the the board under under statute does not have that authority to do that right and if you look at the substitute Bill there was language added to that was a catchall or you know basically I don't have it right in front of me but it says something to effect or any other mask mandate in effect anywhere else in the state and that would would have
037called us or anybody else okay thank you you bet Mr shill um Charlie would you explain the sb13 the other bill that you just talked about like what what you think yeah explain what's in it now because we don't know I guess what could change Tom thank you this I expect to change uh significantly but what uh I think uh Mrs nbow texted me today um about the questions that she had about this bill as it related to the statement that was made by the governor the president and the speaker last week and that statement was um an admission that the test to stay protocol that they had adopted and put into Statute in the 2021 session was not adequate uh for the Omron situ ituation they're dealing with and the and the lack of
038uh testing supplies um nor in their opinion um I'm I don't I hope it's obvious I'm trying to choose my words carefully um but nor in their opinion did the data back up the law the way way it was and again I'm relaying to you their opinions not my own although I'm not saying they're not my own but I'm just I'm relaying to you what their opinions are I don't want to be I don't want branded with this and so well the fact of the matter is as we all know they didn't have the testing supplies to do the test of stay and in their opinion based on the data and science that they are looking at um they didn't need it anyway and so this is a bill that would eliminate uh test to
039stay what I expect to be in the substitute bill which I have not seen in this current bill and I will admit to not being able to sit it down I have read it all but I haven't sat down and read the whole thing its an entirety which is not a good idea you know you need I need to I need to read the whole thing in one sitting to really understand it which I haven't had a chance to do uh but I think that um what the new bill will do is eliminate any uh testing to be required for any student at any time Mr millerberg so Charlie if uh test to stay is gone is the 2% rule gone as well [Music] can we have I believe what they're attempting to do Mt
040is to move to a system more like what they do for flu where they only uh track hospitalizations and deaths if you're sick don't come in yes that is my understanding of what they're trying to do so you know I looked at the num that we received this last week from Ala High School I was surprised that they only had like 1300 almost, 1400 kids tested in a school that's got what 22 2300 and you know we're right around the 400 student Mark which is Way Beyond the 2% um are our schools just becoming a giant petri dish to breed Co or what I don't know that I'm you don't want to answer that question I don't blame you I will say I have a son that goes there and I have not had any
041quals about sending him but um so there's basically no limit on the number of students can have covid in a school that is that is possibility of this yes is my understanding let me say it that way yes so and you know that was the case we had before we did the test to stay there too because you know my understanding is that you know there was 300 kids that showed up there thinking they were fine and tested positive so those kids had gone to school there the day before as well so we will have no mask mandate and we will have no limit on the number of kids that can be in school with covid so it's kind of become the freefor all I I don't want to speak definitively on either of those
042last two points that you made that's my understanding okay but I'm not certain that that is going to be the case the first point I do think is correct so oh can I oh yes Mr um so are they changing the whole dashboard thing I feel like the whole dashboard has to change then but I guess that's the health department I mean I think it does say in the bill something about changing that 14 days right I mean it does say something about that yes right and I don't know exactly how the dashboard will change you know I no one's asked me for my opinion but if I was in charge I wouldn't I I don't think we should do a dashboard I think we should just point everybody toward the county dashboard but that's
043a decision for you guys to make or somebody else because you know they just don't it's impossible to keep them sink up at this point and when people check both it makes it look like and they usually will think that the County's data is correct and that we're somehow behind or we somehow haven't updated ours we're somehow not doing what we're supposed to do when none of those none of those things are true Mrs Oaks so I have some specific questions regarding what it says about remote learning and the require for requirement for it to be synchronous um while I am a big fan of synchronous learning and I've talked a lot about it in this boardroom Amber's back there nodding her head I recognize it also has its limitations particularly in elementary schools so
044I'm curious as to whether or not they have sought out or receiving feedback from schools or educator Educators at all on that we're working with them um right now through with Senator colore who's been very helpful I want to thank him for that publicly um here to uh allow that the um online education to be either synchronous or asynchronous and uh I I'm I'm going slow here because I have not had a chance to speak myself to Senator Wier about it Senator wer is the bill sponsor but having talked to uh Senator cmore about it I I think that they will accept our Amendment I'm not sure that either I we'll hopefully know more later this evening but we uh working with Amber we developed some language which we shared with them and I think
045it makes a lot of sense and I and and Senator wer is a sensible person so I expect them to accept it thank you that's helpful to know Mr Wrigley yeah with the previous versions of Co the county pretty much had control of the testing because it went through the county now they've been talking about putting out home tests for so more it just sort of shoots that whole thing you will not know the number so keeping all these graphs and everything and being you may be twice as much as that so I don't know if they're addressing that at all maybe that's why they're getting rid of some of these numbers because it doesn't make part that is part of the reason it doesn't make yes that is part of the reasons my understanding
046that's correct yeah I mean it's going to give us way and then we're also having a lot of people just not going uh I mean that way they talked about that on Chell this morning that they're worried about tracking other people and then giving up their friends and other stuff so I mean it's been sort of an interesting process so it'll be interest to see what the final bill looks like um so while while we were talking here I just looked it up and I I think we need to be careful that this point is not totally doing away with test to stay I don't want to give that impression but it's just saying that unless the Department of Health the governor president of the Senate speaker of the house and state superintendent Public Instruction
047jointly determined that a variant of covid-19 currently affecting the public education system is of a type that testing and isolation under a test State program would be effective in mitigating what line are you reading there uh 121 to 126 so it sounds like they're leaving it in place if if it's something that is determined to be helpful but they're admitting at this point that at least with the current variant that it's probably not effective yeah I mean they're taking it out of the hands of the the health the county health departments and I guess the State Health Department too from that language yeah yeah so so I guess um I mean effectively test to stay isn't really a tool in our toolbx at this time but I think you know in the future it could
048be brought back I guess is what I'm saying you know and I I never have been sure it's a term that uh I'm not familiar with when they say had to jointly agree I don't know exactly what that means whether it's a bare majority of them or or all of them together so I don't know yeah it's certainly interesting oh how how the first day can just be well they they telegraphed this to us whenever they sent that statement last week and um it's good this to happen today I did expect to see a draft of it before showed up on the board but that's not the way it happened yeah okay any other comments or thoughts on that um one thing that um just a reminder to the board that there will be a
049daily tracker sent so we can track different the the various bills and that if any members of the public wish to sign up to also receive that tracker they may do so Jeff is I didn't mean to interrupt no go ahead Jeff has just letting me know that the Salt Lake County Health Department dashboard has already reset to zero all the Salt Lake districts so we it speaking of dashboards huh I don't know exactly what that means to say that there are zero tests Co but we're at zero okay so well we will look forward to another update in couple of weeks I would expect to Senator wier's Bill to get UNS suckered and substituted tomorrow and to pass over to the house and to pass um uh on Thursday I'm day off because of
050MLK yesterday and I expect the mass mandate to be ended uh tomorrow probably after morning floor during morning floor time in the house and that would be that's effective upon passage by two-thirds majority on of each house right okay well I think this a resolution doesn't require two-thirds but but I don't think they're gonna have trouble getting it okay great thank you and we look forward to to an update again in a couple of weeks in our next meeting and you bet and I just want toate please feel free to contact me or Susan either by text or by phone we're happy to to talk about any of this stuff at any time that we can heard from Amber today and and that was very helpful thank you for your time today Amber great thank
051than you and please extend our appreciation to Susan and Kayla and the team we'll do it all right thank you okay um next on the agenda is construction update for Glacier Hills Peruvian Park and Union Middle I will turn time over to Mr Leon Wilcox business administrator thank you president tingi uh something like following up a mask mandate with a construction update so and somewhat the news is someone also con concluded here as we talk about these projects that we have underway uh want to just briefly talk about the three projects that we started last spring so we've been going about eight or nine months on on these uh Peruvian Park Glacier Hills and Union Middle uh I'm going to start with the the the one that we're really struggling with first that is Peruvian
052Park uh we're we've had some major problems with well with lots of materials to go into the building but the main one is still and we just haven't been able to get the steel we've got a lot of the steel on site a lot of it's been put together but we're still missing some steel it's we do expect it all be here within the next few weeks that being said we can almost say right now that the school will not be ready the new building will not be ready when school starts next year uh we are looking at a date of about September 30th when we met last week that date was September 16th that being said we still May slide back another week or two that's why I put September 30th on this presentation
053right here that's five weeks after the start of school I mean this is seven weeks after the start start of school so uh with that being said next school year of course they're down at the Crescent View building next school year they're going to need to start the school year still down there until we can get the Building completed uh should follow the same procedures there in now with the same classroom same organization that time same start times same end times the busing transportation routes will continue as to flow as they have been right now uh when when that building is finished we do intend to move the students back you know we're not going to wait for a long weekend or a long you know fall break if it's if I guess it always
054could go to fall break but if it's we're not going to wait for a long weekend we're going to try to get them in there as soon as possible uh that being said we'll also need likely a virtual learning day for the staff where the kids stay home and learn virtually and the staff can set up the classroom this shouldn't be too Pro problematic moving them back because all the furniture will still you know we moved all the furniture down there but they'll have new furniture and the new building but it's all the teacher materials and supplies that we'll need to move back so that's that's uh that's where we're at with that uh right now we feel like we've got everything ordered and we don't see any other significant issues requiring these materials that
055it's going forward whether it be sheetrock or tile and the other items needed uh we're still within our budget there we've used some of the contingency but not as much as we as we have on other projects uh we'll be bringing the furniture to your approval at one of our upcoming board meetings in February either the 1st or 15th working on that now and we'll just continue to update you and the school community on the construction progress uh the ribbon cutting will announce at a later date when we feel like we're ready to do that uh so there's where we're at with uh perian Park I know there has been some rumors at the school about where we're at with this but we want to make sure that's public now that right now we just
056right now really there's just no way we will be ready by school I think it starts on August 15 that billing will be ready by then we do hope within five to seven weeks after that state that that it will be but right now we're just that's that's our best hope scenario right now uh so we're uh moving on here or here's a couple pictures here the picture on the left is the lunch multi-purpose room obviously at this time we would like to see steel beams and a roof on that and we just don't have it right now we just don't have the steel uh but on the classroom Hall this is on the East Wing there there's a couple wings uh we do have some you know we do have the steel up there
057so as soon as we get it in our Steel Erectors get it in installed but it's just getting the materials there uh so that's how it looks if you looked at again Peruvian Park is based after the Mid Valley model we really liked Mid Valley so we put that same exact design there but if you looked at Mid Valley in January of 2020 and approving park at January of 2022 you would see a big difference where the construction is and it's and it's and it's centrally Lo centrally caused by Steel but what you can't do anything until we get that up installed there so um that being said want to acknowledge Leslie our fantastic principal there she's been at all the construction meetings she's been working with her staff again thank you to her and
058her students they've been I think doing well at the Crescent View building this year and of course the last few months of last school year but again uh uh you know we really apologize and really want to get them in as quickly as they can they've been great to work with and really want to bring this to that a new building to that school Community but still going to be a great building it's just going to be a few weeks after later than we thought uh we'll move on to Glacier Hills we have a little bit of better news there as far as as far as uh the time right now and that's as of today and it changes all the time that right now we do believe we will have that building we are
059on schedule to have that Building completed in time for uh when school starts next fall that being said with this Omron wearing its head we still may come into labor shortages and material shortages and so that could push that building the start of that building back again we're still struggling with lots of things last week all our roofers they had lunch in a couple weeks ago all our roofers there's about 10 of them had lunch in two trucks couple in one in each had Omron and spread it to everyone so they were all out last week so uh those are the those are the problems we're dealing with at all three projects right now uh but due to steel prices that are really increased since our bid date and to get this one on schedule
060we are we do need to increase the contingency Budget on this one so we do have a a purchasing bid out there for you to review it's for $555,000 there uh again these prices are just to keep the contractors on site and working you know we have to try to work with them the best they can as these prices have just really inflated over the last uh several months again we'll also be bringing you the furniture and Equipment of the next couple in the next couple meetings in February we'll continue to update you and the community on the construction of the this building we've tally have the ribbon cutting set for one of those three dates right I'm sure we've settled on one but that's the week before school starts and also keep in mind
061we we're building that that Youth Academy there that will not be done until about a year from now you know next December January so uh we can't open up the regular school without the academy but again that just not wing of it will not be done until then here's a couple pictures of of Glacier Hills uh on the on my right is is the lunch multi-purpose from week see we do have a roof on there we do have the steel beams going across there and that's of course where we want to be where we wish we were with provian Park and you can see see a lot more steel there this is on the East this is east facing west that still that cement pad there is the Youth Academy pad and where the steel
062starts that's the end of the regular building so we need to complete everything from that steel West but you can see all the steel that we do have on site they we make we're making you know they are making making good progress there like I say as of right now we do expect to be in there come the start of the next school year which would be important because we're combining the two schools there uh last one we have is just Union I didn't put any pictures as you drive by I think you can get a good view on Seventh East there of the progress on Union Middle Of course that one will not be done as scheduled not scheduled will be done until August of 2023 we do think we're on schedule for that
063uh I guess we're not late enough in the year to be on behind yet so sort of speak if you will uh but again a year and a half out we do feel like we're in good shape there again just a reminder the parking lot and the site will not be completed till about two years from now is we got to knock down the old building and put those the playground I mean the new soccer field and the parking lot in there uh we have used quite a bit of the contingency more than we wanted to as of right now the the issue is again just inflated steel and mainly electrical prices on this building too so trying to get these has really been a challenge this far getting keeping these three buildings going it's
064I'm glad we're started and when we have you know several other districts are just doing groundbreakings for schools that passed bonds for recently but I'm glad we're where we're at but uh has been a a uh struggle there but again a big thank you big thank you to Cena the principal at Edgemont for all her leadership down at down at with school at at Crescent View as well as Julie renfrey she's done a great job of gearing up for next school year with Glacier Hills and Kelly tooli and her staff they at Union so with that uh be happy to answer any questions questions for Mr millerberg as I drive past uh Union Middle which I do quite often um it seems like the walls are going up and it looks like it's moving along
065well uh but I don't see any steel trusses on the uh you know a roof starting at all is that because they're not to that point in construction or is that because there's not steel available uh yes in both case probably yes in both uh they're doing the Tilt up so they're not to that point with a lot of those are KT up walls there so they're not quite to that point there I drive by there and I just keep thinking those guys have got to be freezing their butts off out there it it's so cold you know it's a you know they have a way of staying warm though you know if you go walk on site these guys do a great job and both men and women they have a they've kind of
066figured out how to tuck into the corners and build little windshields and get the work done but yeah it is it is cold there in the morning yeah any other questions just so you know we oh did you have a question Steve Mr brigley just a question based upon our experience with Hill Crest and and seats didn't come in for months because we're on boats are we going to be ordering the furniture pretty soon and maybe storing it if we have to before right now on like I said we hope to have we'll have you'll have to approve the furniture it's going to be around 600,000 at each School uh it right now we've been told it's a 12 to six week out on getting Furniture delivered we're going to plan on these 16 but
067if we have it by ordered by uh beginning of February or end February that means we should have it by June it may not be ready to be installed but our our manufacturers can hold it for do we have any space to store that I mean the price is going up as fast as they are man yeah our our re our manufacturer will will store for us we will not have them deliver it on site until we're ready but we want to make sure okay so it sounds like we'll order it as soon as possible and then they'll wait rather than because I'm my thinking is that the prices are going to go up within four five they gone up they've gone up dramatically just you know last two years when we bought furniture at
068uh for Mid Valley the same style of desks gone up dramatically since that last two years Hill crust and bright were different because it's bigger bigger desk you may want to buy extra and sell it to the other school districts and make a profit if we could find out how to do that with steel we'd probably do that yeah any thank you other questions or comments um I Mrs nbow did send me a couple of questions that she had just about the uh relation between the contingency money that's budgeted and the um percent of construction completion I I believe she's probably just asking if it's if it's correlated at all or if it is um the contingency money is yeah there's really not a coration there uh uh again contingency we have a contract and
069then we have what we call a contingencies to 4% on top of that that we've set aside uh for unforeseen events or in case we need to add something on as we go along the on the construction progress and so there's not necessar correlation we we've gone through it a lot faster than we have expected to at this point though really all three projects even Peruan Park we're haven't used as much but we're used more than we thought we would at this point and that's just because prices have inflated on us substantially yeah and and and in regards to the um extra contingency fund for um Glacier Hills that will just be added onto the overall budget of the project and I guess in the just my question is in the future like you said
070we're kind of dealing with inflation and increased costs and if any additional contingency monies are needed then they would also be added to the general overall budget of that particular project yes so we've you know if youve in the past you've done that quite a bit for Brighton and some for Hill crust too yeah yeah okay yeah great thank you other questions or oh it's kind of amazing that we're these three projects are underway and we're Greatful for you and the facilities team that are coordinating with all of the contractors and Architects on this and um oh I thought of one other question I had for you about um construction update the um if Glacier Hills really is um going to be finished on time then that will open up the Belleview Building right and
071and I know there's been some talk about needing some time to get that ready for a future use what timetable are we looking at with that that's good question that's why it's so imperative well not you know I guess nothing's impossible we work around we you know we got miracle workers here with our principles and they can work around all kinds of of issues but if when Glacier Hills is done into this fall we we intend to just empty out all the stuff out of bellw and then what stuff they will be taking will over to in Glacier Hills we'll store here for them most of the stuff will not because that's mainly desk equipment which they'll be getting all new uh we'll then go in and start doing some renovations to uh for diamond
072ridge we plan to do that over two summers uh we just need to get enough to get them up been going with some counseling centers uh a sick room uh renovate the restrooms you know for the larger students and I think that's all we'll do this summer then next summer we'll be doing some science labs and some facts uh classrooms for them as well so and then may even be something in the summer of 2024 as well as we get out there so it's going to be about a two to threee process to get that building renovated up for a diamond r so it's a domino effect you know we then we can move diamond rge over and look at some things at ctech as well in the future so great thank you I think
073it's pretty incredible what this District's been able to accomplish in regards to our buildings so um I guess that concludes unless there's any other questions for Mr W Cox just you know as Leslie's here she'll be letting her staff and Community know about this we wanted to update you know we know there's rumors out there now but we wanted to update you first and then this will she'll start letting per Community know so parents uh teachers can start making plans for next school year the first you know again we hope it's only five to seven weeks and and you'll keep us posted we'll keep you posted any of you have any free time or still workers please come join us for an now well I don't think we came through when you invited us to
074show our tile Lane skills so I don't know if you have any other skills we'll we'll try to try them that's still an option too you can yeah drive a bus in the morning afternoon and do some we'll see okay thank you and thank you principal Jukes for being here with us and thanks for all you're doing to make this school year as successful as possible for the students there approving in Parks so all right thank you okay board that concludes our items on study session uh we will take a short break and reconvene for the business meeting at 7 o'clock pm good evening good evening I think we're ready to begin I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the canyon Board of Education today is January 18th 2022 we are meeting in
075a business meeting and we're meeting at the uh district office located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy Utah I would like to excuse Mrs Holly nbow and Mrs clarine Arnold from the meeting this evening and like to welcome all of those that have joined us in person as well as uh viewing the proceedings of the meeting through the live stream the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting I will ask for a motion to do [Music] that I'll make a motion to approve the agenda for January 18 2022 as so written thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second it thank you any disc discussion to this motion see none I'll call for a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed that
076motion passes thank you um we will now be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Peruvian Park Elementary principal lesie Jukes and then principal Jukes will give us some highlights from Peruvian Park Elementary 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 I'd like to thank the board for the opportunity to speak to you today and tell you a little bit about provian part um I already written my comments and as our discussion is gone tonight they're going to be appropriate for another time next year as well um in December I received a communication from the Communications Department that US News and World Report had uh named provian Park one of the top
077three elementary schools in the state now my first reaction was how on Earth did that happen with all the crazy stuff that went on last year um many schools throughout the state were dealing with the pandemic and all that that entailed with changes but in addition to those challenges our school weathered major disruptions as we moved locations in the middle of the Year this included dismantling classrooms packing bins that were scattered throughout the school all while teachers kept teaching and students kept learning the answer to the question how did this all happen well I think it was easy to figure that out it was our our school community that banded together and decided we were going to do this and we're going to do it in a way that was best for our children the
078parents at our school rallied around us they rearranged their schedules to account for new buses remember many of our students had never ridden a bus before they also uh changed their driving schedules we had over 120 students who still decided to come down to the other end of the valley and their parents drove them so they adjusted morning and afternoon to still bring their children to our schools also along the way they volunteered to help us with all the fun activities that we were doing and getting the students ready for the trans transition and they put a very P positive spin on this to their children they to told them that this was going to be okay and that you were going to be okay and the children showed that every day their patience and
079support for us and the changes that we were making provided us the opportunity to still focus on children and learning and then our teachers managed to do the impossible the entire staff pitched in with them they always kept their eyes on the most important task making sure students were nurtured emotionally while their daily routines and and rooms were disrupted and they provided topnotch instruction throughout as more and more materials were moved in the Crescent View building teachers t taught out of what we lovingly called their March walks that was where they had to plan ahead because many of their things had already been moved down at the end of February so they planned for the entire uh month of March put everything in a box and Tau out of that box for the entire m
080month of March many of them were also doing this while suffering the side effects of their vaccinations and they kept on plugging along our support staff was everywhere planning packing and moving to take the pressure off of the teachers and our office staff and custodians went above and beyond organizing and even at times having our secretary and custodian out their moving furniture to get it to the movers faster teachers spent so much time just watching and listening to the children so they could guide them and assure them all hands were on Deck to provide the students the smoothest possible transition but our most important and most shining examples of persever perseverance and resilience were the children their worlds were rocked for a couple of months but they persisted with determination in their class classrooms that
081were changing all around them materials that were disappearing to other locations and routines that looked a little different yet they still focused on their goal getters and they accomplished those goals they participated in their morning meetings and took care of each other they jumped in with both feet and participated in the farewell activities some of them even drying Bull's eyes on the school so the wrecking ball would know where to hit as we moved into the other building there res resilience was even more evident when Mrs peek and I walked around the school at 10:00 a.m. on the first day in our new building classes were running just like nothing had ever changed one little guy in Mr Beck's class was the epitome of resilience as he walked into his new classroom he was doing
082a little jig and announced this is so cool so now that we have had that successful year there's no doubt anymore what happened it was the entire Peruvian Park School community that band together so I'd like to think of this designation from us news and World Report not as recognition of school scores but as a celebration of the school Community thank you thank you we appreciate you sharing that with us and and yeah perian Park really has gone above and beyond in a very trying circumstance so we congratulate you and thank you and your staff please extend our appreciation to your staff and the students and everything it's pretty pretty exciting hopefully the new building as we talked about earlier will will come online but maybe not right at the beginning of the school year
083but we're looking forward to good things well we're well practiced so yes thank you lots of resilience growing there yeah thank you okay next on the agenda are recognitions and we'll turn time over to Jeff hany and Kirsten Stewart from the Communications Department president tingy thank you for this time to recognize the achievements of students faculty and staff in the Canyon school district tonight for our recognitions we are honoring the best of the best and they are found in our own backyard now those who are mentioned tonight will receive a letter of recognition from the board and the superintendent and our first honores are the students faculty and staff of the Canyons district schools that earn top rankings from us news and World Report as Mrs Jukes has so eloquently talked about tonight you can
084see there that Panther in the middle of the slide that's from Peruvian park now we also have the sunrise Eagles in the Draper Park Vikings as schools that have hit the rankings for the US News and World Report now the uh the rankings are a part of a national effort that ranked more than 61,000 schools across the country mostly using performance on state test as a measure now they also this also is a comprehensive ranking on school size student to teacher ratios and other important important data about school achievement Sunrise where 86% of students scored at or above the proficient level for Math and 85% for reading was ranked number one in the state provian park ended up at number three with 82% of students scoring at or above the proficient level for Math and
08578% for reading Draper Park among all Utah middle schools is at number four with 73% of students scoring at or above the proficient level for Math and 69% for reading so congratulations to the principls The Faculty the staff and the students at those three Canyons district schools for their achievements for ranking in the top five as listed by the US News and World Report now our next Honore joins a prestigious Club of Canyon's District Educators who have been honored by the Utah Association of Secondary School principles as principls or assistant principls of the year now we're cheering for Mindy Robinson the principal of Midel middle school for being selected the Utah Middle School principal of the Year Mindy is known for her positive attitude her can do demeanor and her Innovative approaches to Major challenges
086at her school now this includes an initiative as supported by the Board of Education to increase achievement among Midel middle students uh as we well know Midel Middle's student body is quite diverse the vast majority of whom come from families that face socioeconomic challenges U Miss Robinson requested was granted by the Board of Education additional funding to reduce class sizes and provide Afterschool programming several days a week and we have found that it has worked at her school even during the covid-19 year Midville middle students did not experience a slide in math achievement and actually notched an uptick in Reading skill attainment now more students are attending their classes fewer students are being referred to the principal office for disciplinary measures and with the extra me uh Educators multilanguage Learners receed more support and math
087class sizes are smaller as well now Mindy was informed about the news that she's the Utah Middle School principal of the year at a faculty meeting recently at her school this uh uh faculty meeting was attended by president tingy Mr millerbird superintendent Robbins and Cindy Hansen a school performance director and uh her faculty Mindy says kind of perplexed her a bit because they kept asking the craziest questions and they were basically waylaying the announcement until all of us could arrive many he kept saying why are they doing this in front of the superintendent they're just asking the student stupidest questions but it was a big surprise to Mindy we were so proud of her congratulations to Mindy Robinson the mutah Middle School principal of the Year this extends a streak for Canyon school district for
088having our Educators named as the top administrators in the state previous winners include uh 2021 Utah high school principal of the Year Dr Brian McGill 2020 Middle School principal of the year Paula Logan 2018 assistant principal of the year Sandy lant 2016 High School principal of the Year Mary Bailey 2014 assistant principal of the Year Doug halenbeck 2013 Middle School principal the year Mary Anderson and 2011 assistant principal of the year the late Dr Paul Kirby congratulations to miss Mindy Robinson she will receive the award later this month at the midwinter Conference of the uasp uh and also all of our teach uh schools certainly will have a lot of nominations s to sort through when they select their teachers of the Year nearly 650 nominations have come in so far uh this year in
089the nomination process to pick the 2022 teacher of the year the community has until February 4th to submit those nominations by tradition every Canyons District school is invited to select one teacher of the year those school-based selections are announced the week of March 28th now from that field of 50 we winnow it down to three finalists a teacher of the year for the elementary level a teacher of the year for the Middle School level and a teacher of the year for the high school level and from those three we select one overall teacher of the year to represent canyons in the state and hopefully national teacher of the year competition and also the dancers in our district are preparing for their final bows and kicks and twists and splits best of luck to the drill
090teams of Canyon District High School January 29th will be the 5A and 6A state tournament quarterfinals and February 2nd and the 3 are the state championships for our drill teams we wish the best of luck to the alal Lael Brighton a cadians corner Canyon charel Jordan Char lonians and the Hill Crest drill team if you've never had the opportunity to see our drill teams in action I would encourage you to tune in and see the live streams of the competitions I think that you will be amazed at their athleticism and Artistry also the Canyons Education Foundation is proud to co-sponsor a CSD teacher of the year program and the foundation is sponsoring a fun run later this month don't forget to sign up for the Fun Run on 2222 or 22222 anytime between those dates
091the 2nd and the 22nd of February you're in invited to jog for 2.2 miles or go for a 22 minute walk as long as you get the job done between those two dates now the whole point of the 2.2 run is to get some exercise have some fun celebrate the seasons Let's cross our fingers for good weather and to also support our teachers the funding goes straight back into Canyon's District classrooms we support our teachers in many way the foundation is one of the major supporters of Canyon's district teachers we thank them and the board of the foundation for their support of canion's District students and teachers so president tingy thank you so much for this opportunity that you grant us during board meeting to recognize the students faculty and staff of Canyon's District thank
092you Mr Haney so question on the 2.2 run are two twos optional for picture I will require a two if you decide to jog the 2.2 miles now honestly I told Denise that I would be willing to Dawn my tutu for the 2222 race to benefit Canyon's district teachers so pull out your cell phones you get video and photos of me running those 2.2 miles in my tutu oh thank you thank you okay um we have now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting while not required by law the board often designates time in meetings to listen to the patrons of the district in observance of the board adopted remote learning day today the board will hear from patrons via telephone only Please be aware that Patron comment time is limited to Residents
093oh thank you Cindy I will start over when the line is open now unmuted thank you um we've we've now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting while not required by law the board often designates time in meetings to listen to the patrons of the district in observance of the board adopted remote learning day today the board will hear from patrons via telephone only Please be aware that Patron comment time is limited to Residents and taxpayers of Canyon's District students and parents of students and current employees of the district patrons May provide board members with written documents these documents must be emailed to the office of public Communications at communications canyonsdistrict.org by noon of the day following the board meeting time allotted for public comment is at the discretion of the board president
094tonight um individuals we have one individual that's signed up to address the board and that person will be given three minutes it's the board's practice to listen and take notes during Patron comments the board of education does not discuss matters that are not on the meeting's 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 employes character professional competence or mental or physical health the board requests that 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
095is not part of their curriculum being used by Canyon school district there are no plans to incorporate it into the curriculum or instruction in Kenyon schools the Board of Education values input on all 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 this evening um Jenny mazaro has signed up to address the board are you there Jenny yes can you hear me yes go ahead you have three minutes okay thank you so my name is Jenny nazaro I have two Elementary age children in the Canyon school district I'm very concerned about the spread of covid-19 that's been happening in our schools community and I'm worried about keeping schools safe and
096functional as well as the strain this has created on our hospitals I'm very grateful Canyon made the decision to have today as a remote learning day but a long weekend I fear is not long enough to break this surge there were over 8,400 cases of covid-19 in school aged children over the weekend this number is likely much higher due to the availability of atome tests that are not counted the stoppage of test to stay programs picking up asymptomatic individuals and the difficulty getting a testing appointment at testing sites recently with a shortage of staff and large absences of students and the ramifications of spread in our community I ask that you extend remote learning in Canyon schools through the next week or as long as needed to get through this current surge I encourage you
097to take advantage of the ability to rotate to remote learning set forth by the governor and the legislature if we sacrifice inperson learning a little longer we will avoid further exponential spread and school closures I also ask that for you to continue to post School covid case numbers on the dashboard despite test to stay events being put on hold this information is very important to us as parents and helps us make decisions about sending our kids to school I really appreciate all that you're doing to keep our kids safe and keep our schools open I encourage you to please continue to do everything in your power to slow the spread of this disease by following CDC guidelines including supporting any mask requirements facing students out postponing assemblies doing enhanced cleaning and air filtration and requiring
098sick children and staff to stay home in addition to these measures please consider continuing remote learning until this current covid-19 surge has passed thank you thank you okay that concludes our Patron comments for this evening and next on the agenda is um the consent items so I will ask for a motion and in that motion please list each of the items on the consent agenda I'll go ahead and make a motion I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent agenda which includes item a approval of minutes for January 4th 2022 andem B approval of minutes for January 11th 2022 item C approval of higher and termination reports item D approval of P purchasing bids item e approval of student overnight travel item F approval of December Financial reports and item G approval
099of ala view cell tower thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second that thank you any discussion to this motion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor say I I and opposed that motion passes thank you next on the agenda is item 7A covid-19 update I will turn the time over to superintendent Robbins yay well after thank you president tingy after listening to Jeff I really don't want to share this part of the meeting but but um and I just want to say congratulations to those schools that were highlighted that's pretty awesome um not only did we have we those three were in the top five but I think we had another 10 or 15 that were in the top 20 so um it just uh is another great
100reflection of the hard work and and everything that goes on in our schools you know each day uh even in the midst of the Pand mic and a crisis that the focus is still on the kids and achievement and what they're doing so um I think that's pretty awesome so I appreciate uh principal Jukes sharing that with us tonight and want to congratulate her and her staff as well um so uh as part of the covid uh update um obviously a lot is happening we heard Charlie to brief us on what's currently happening in the legislature so that um we'll likely have some impact but I I wanted to share just some numbers on kind of currently where we're at and then um take some questions and uh moving forward um so first off uh
101today uh as mentioned the county is has already reset all of the school districts uh dashboards so um I think it's important to understand that obviously does not mean or reflect that there are no cases in our schools uh there are and um as of this morning uh in Canyon school district we had 1,22 of student cases of those uh by Weekend had the dashboard stayed current 500 of those cases uh would be coming off uh so I you know I'm cautiously optimistic that that is a little bit of a downturn I'm by no means saying that we're at a Crest but um that is a a positive sign in some ways on the other side of that uh looking as we've talked about before looking at the 14-day uh cycle um as well as
102uh the the F day and in our elementary schools uh over the last five days we've increased by 173 cases in our middle schools 159 and our high schools 173 so at the High School level again that's a little bit of a downturn uh at the middle school and the Elementary uh that that will uh more than surpass the 14-day total if it stays on that same trend line um one question about uh just to answer up front about the dashboard uh so um I can't explain exactly why the reset occurred um the closest thing that it can be aligned to is CDC guidance but um my understanding from County Health is that uh it will remain on a 14-day cycle that is aligned to the incubation period and not aligned to quarantine or isolation
103so going forward uh if the dashboard remains uh that that's how it is calculated and that's problematic as we know because we're allowing students and employees to return at 5 days so um and without test to stay and that being suspended uh it does make it very tricky in how we're able to accurately uh demonstrate numbers in our schools um on the employee side of things uh heading into this morning uh through the holiday break we had 162 uh uh employees uh that uh were positive over the last 14 days um within like the last three hours of board before board meeting occurred that up ticked another 47 employees taking us to 209 and um with that of that 209 95 of those are teachers um 74 up until this morning and then an additional
10421 teachers uh were added uh this afternoon um over that time though interestingly uh beginning last week uh there by this Thursday 131 of those uh employees are scheduled to return to work so uh on the positive side the vast majority are coming back but obviously we're still we're still picking up uh positive cases um last Friday uh the district held an additional a booster clinic and 457 employees received their booster shot uh we did have uh 200 plus employees uh not show for their booster but that did raise our uh booster rate from 36% to 43% uh in the district on booster shots and remember uh we're still over 80% um of our employees are above uh or have uh the first two vaccinations so um so thinking about kind of from where we
105left off this discussion last time uh I think you know one of the concerns uh obviously the number of cases but having said that Omicron and the spread is much different and I think we have to look at it a little bit different than we did in the past with Delta variant as I mentioned last time in that report hospitalizations and deaths are much lower uh than the last time at at this point um doesn't mean it's any less serious but I think that's that's something to consider when I look at the total uh distribution of cases across the district uh it's relatively low uh in it in each school with staff being out so yes there's 209 staff but when it's spread out across the district the the highest number right now is at
106Corner Canyon High School at 11 uh even with today and then that falls off to Jordan high at nine and from there uh you know it's just a scattering of 5 four three you know all the way down to one uh across the across the district so um are we at a a Breaking Point uh I would consider no are we getting closer to that Tipping Point where we would look at critical mass and the ability to staff our schools uh we know you know last week we had the situation at Jordan Valley where we did reach that where we had 14 staff out at the same time and so uh I would recommend that we continue to use our our targeted approach that we have from the beginning um and I I I think
107that's really the the best approach to uh mitigate uh and still uh ensure that our kids uh are able to attend inperson instruction and let me just say this about that over the weekend I had uh some long conversations with Dr Webb uh about this very issue as just as a reminder to the public Dr webs Brandon Webb is the IHC uh chair of over covid uh for their covid uh uh Council and um we've relied on him from the start and he's not led us astray to this point and I I really trust his judgment and it comes down once again to this balance between trying to ensure that our students academic and wellness overall Wellness needs are met and at the same time ensuring safety in this environment and I you know I
108certainly don't um wish these decisions on anyone uh they're not they're not easy and I appreciate all the feedback and the emails from patrons and the public and parents you know about what they consider as as best practice there's really not a Playbook that I can pull from behind the chair um and say yeah this is exactly what to do because uh Omicron is much different as We Know Than Delta and there's likely to be to be others so I respect greatly everyone's opinions but in his mind and and looking at our data the number of cases the number of cases coming off the severity of the situation that trying to thread the needle and maintain in-person instruction uh balancing that with the five-day uh uh break that we took along with um the intervals
109with the Fridays which in his uh calculation he felt like that could potentially give us up to 60% more protection um that that we stay we stay the course now having said that obviously if we get a run on employees um or things change where we can't staff then it may be a situation where we would uh potentially move a school to remote learning but I I think at this point that would also take board approval to to if we move a school to remote so um we'll we'll be watching that uh closely so for the time being um what I would recommend we move to is that we move uh with the spread and and this was also under advisement from from uh Dr web is to move our district to tier three status
110uh earlier today we had 15 more schools reach tier three so um we're pretty much there across the district as it is but um a few highlights with that moving to tier three and I think most people and parents in the district are familiar you've already re you may have received our tier three vigilance letter and what that actually means but um just a couple of things to add to that one is um one of the greatest weapons we have to fight this is and this is also according to Dr Webb if you're symptomatic please stay home for those five days uh it's very very important that uh if you're experiencing those uh to stay home um we'll also uh continue with our testing clinic as test supplies are available BJ informs me today that
111we are receiving another 4,000 test kits soon so um I think we'll be able to continue that but we are advising that you only test if you're if you're symptomatic so we'll continue with that um we'll also if possible uh we'll try to uh survey our employees to can see what kind of continued interest there is uh in uh boosters and I think uh you know one data set with that that's important to mention is um and this is a little bit different from Delta is out of the 162 uh positive cases as of this morning 85% of those were breakthrough uh 29 of those were uh those uh with a booster so 21% of those uh positives were breakthrough with booster and then another 25 of those individuals not vaccinated so Omicron is acting
112a little different than what we've seen in the past its transmissibility across um you know all of those populations is is high so that I think that's something uh else to kind of support our our strategies considering where it's at I would recommend that we um stay in tier three at least through the weekend and then Circle back uh to this on on Monday we'll continue to monitor the data closely um this thing as you know is almost changing by the hour and we ALS have legislation that's changing so I think to try to project something out you know more than a week would would probably be a little premature in the environment that we're in I think you know we stay as close to the vest as we can and um respond accordingly as
113needed but um it's not perfect I realize that I know it you know um no matter what we do it will come under criticism I I get get that but I think um keeping our schools open uh the very best that we can is that's the commitment and promise that we made from the start and the board set that direction forward and we'll continue to try to do that so uh questions thank you superintendent for that update questions board um Mr millerberg and then Mr Wrigley this may be a little back and forth okay um I understand that teachers get ill I get it I know bus drivers get ill Food Service workers get ill um and I think we all know that remote and I hate to even use the word learning in this
114sentence because I don't believe that there's a lot happening for learning learning remotely we all know that remote learning uh is not as good as face-to-face classroom instruction yet we have continued to add more and more remote learning days I certainly understand today being a remote learning day because we were trying to get a reset uh for our schools and kind of the part that I don't really understand is what remote learning looks like I've talked to a few people I had one con constituent tell me today that her son spends less than 10 minutes on a remote learning day receiving actual instruction over the computer Amber told me today that her son spent five hours doing homework homework is not instruction that's somebody's printed off worksheets or some made an assignment that can be
115done absent a teacher's instruction um I guess what I I'm really looking for is first what is expected on a remote learning day from teachers and students second I'm sure that what expected is not what's happening and so I'd like to know what is happening and I'd also like to know once I get those two questions answered who is holding whom responsible for what's going on is there anything happening in the district that uh spells out expectations and says somebody is accountable um because i' kind of like to know what's happening on these remote learning days you know since the district was formed or created we've always said that it's about the students and what's best for the students and I don't know that if we don't have somebody being held account that that is
116what is best for our students um and I'll go back to what I said at the last meeting with the remote days that we put in it was sort of because we talked about uh it would reduce I think your word superintendent were it would reduce their exposure by 20% and I still maintain that students and adults still get exposed at places other than schools we have said now for the last two years is we have diligently strived to clean our buildings have fil air fils tried to do everything we possibly could that our schools have been the safest place that our students could be and yet we want to push them into the unsafe places on those remote learning days uh I just I'm just kind of baffled on this and it's I don't
117know that any of it's making sense to me no hopefully my questions are making sense to you no it's all good I'm trying to just keep them in order um well let me say first I um backing up to your first question ultimately I'm responsible and and you should hold me accountable to that and so how's that working out for well I you know I I agree there's there's pockets of good and bad and I and I we can definitely I don't have any excuses for that um the quality assurance line of communication has come through school performance and and ISD uh mostly in my mind principles holding their teachers accountable to that and that's that's where I've focused my attention but having said that obviously you know there's breakdowns in that and and I'm
118accountable to that so I'm not passing the buck to anybody else we've got to we got to change that that culture it can't be this idea that because there are expectations I've seen them Amber can email them all to you so you can look at them but our teachers should at minimum engage the kids for two hours on that day and and it sounds like to me in you know in some of these situations that flat out is just not happening so um I'm not making any excuses that lies with me and and um you know I'll take I I can show you where six of my grandkids were to today I I know that's I I don't have an excuse for that it's it's not what I expect or want um I think you
119know when you look at when we talked about this last time about the absenteeism um that's happening and the continued weight of the crisis and the feedback that I get uh you know that's that's the best that I can put forward that addresses and balances both right because teachers are at least I would say the majority and there are some that obviously are not following through but um especially in our elementary schools to try and teach in a a dual role where kids are on canvas and they're in person and they're moving back and forth and missing school and really without you know compulsory education laws to enforce that it puts us in a very precarious you know precarious spot so um so that that's that but I will address it and you know I
120I don't want to be misunderstood I'm not slamming our education professionals at all I believe we have some of the best yeah I do too in the state if not in the entire nation teaching in our schools but I'm just feeling a lack of accountability because I have no idea what's really happen happing and I would like to have somebody be able to tell me that our fantastic teachers this is what they're doing and this is a success they're having but I'm not I'm not getting any of that no I I will come back in February in the in the next Co update and have a better handle for you and be able to address that in in a way you know more comprehensive way so good and bad I mean I'm not I'm not
121going to try to sugarcoat anything that's not there but but I'll I'll have a better picture for you in February what was the last your last question sorry uh part of the question in there was whether or not this is what's actually best for our kids uh F the I think the final question slash statement was are our schools considered one of the safest places that kids can be so I you know on this question with Omicron I used to believe what you said like I I believed our schools were the safest uh place and I still believe they're very safe but I also recognize the challenge Omicron presents and talking with Dr Webb about it you know his comment was it it can spread 10 to 15 times faster than any other variant that
122we've ever seen and and he said you know to him his opinion uh was that between encouraging uh or supporting masks and uh staying home if you're symptomatic right now to weather the storm and The Surge that you know that's that's probably our best bet but he also was very cognizant and supportive of the fact that in Canyons we have really tried to thread the needle and keep our kids in school the other three of the county districts in Salt Lake have all gone remote for over 10 plus days and um you know I the the damage that that also causes while it may address some issues at some level you know we know from last year about this time it was in December when we were moving schools back and forth the Whiplash effect
123that that caused um was almost as detrimental as anything that we did so so I'm slow to do to pull that you know trigger I I recognize the impact that that that has but I also can see you know just the the sheer numbers the Omicron is it's moving through our schools at a rapid Pace yeah this this whole thing just feels like a bucket of smoke to me you know it keeps moving it's drifting and no you can't really get a grip on it and like I said I don't want to be overly critical but there's nothing I would love more than to come back and say this is what our amazing teachers have been doing these are you know we feel like our kids are receiving the curriculum that they should be receiving
124and it's being and it's very effective but right now I'm not hearing that I'm not hearing anything as to what's really happening okay no that's a fair criticism and I'll be prepared to address that thank you Mr Wrigley I gotta get a breath air first thank you um you mentioned earlier uh some action that the state legislature has taken we talked about that in our study session but I know our meetings are riveting but not everybody attends the study session uh maybe we want to just quickly go over what's going on in the legislature because we there's we get a lot of letters either way on mask uh and a lot of times the assumptions on mask is that the school board chooses to or not choose un mask and oftentimes we're asked to do
125stuff that legally we cannot do um despite what the board feels I mean and I understand parents and we want to support our parents but sometimes we cannot do certain things uh even if they choose to tell us we have to um so from what I understand earlier today the Senate uh passed a resolution and now it's going to the house correct and by tomorrow morning that resolution will overturn the mass mandate for Salt Lake County for the entire State for the entire State correct and part of that mandate is that you know if the county can be overturned and definitely a school board can be overturned but that's part of the the let the the language is also that no entity can overturn so just to back up a couple of things there Steve
126to address one is in statute from last spring school boards were not ever allowed the authority to mandate masks so I think that's important for everyone to understand uh where the Mandate came through is through the county health director and in that statute it had a way for the county health director to issue a mask mandate with support of the executive which is the mayor and the County Council which County Council uh did not uh overturn it so it went into effect but there's also a piece in that legislation that allows the legislature under a resolution to also overturn a mandate without the signature of the governor and that is currently where that's at it's not occurred yet but as Charlie said it's likely to happen tomorrow morning by tomorrow and once that occurs my
127understanding is it goes into effect immediately immediately I understand there's also a bill that seems to be moving forward in regards to test a state because I know that was one of our options we had against this was test toate but it looks like omicron's moving so fast that the test toate doesn't make any any sense once you do it two days later the numbers could be crazy and that and that was supported too in my conversations with Dr Webb um his his comment was is that it's moving at such a rate that the threshold set out by Tesa will never keep up with that so we really we do need to look at this in a different you know in a different Manner and kind of I think we have to change our mind
128mindset about how we maybe looked at Delta variant and testate versus Omicron and testate and just the sure fact that Personnel shortage and Supply shortage uh is also part of that equation so so the other thing is I've had some parents say they would like us to go on online um there's a limitation what the the legislature allow what's the the new things that may be coming so this is tenative I believe in the new in the bill that again Bill not law not they're moving fast way tomorrow maybe moving fast but who knows right is that to move Remo it would require Senate President uh house Speaker Governor State superintendent and the board I believe or the board would submit like some type of application is that what you understand ncy that's how the
129language is now yes in the bill so that to go remote at all or go remote more than two weeks school school or Lea so if it was an individual school we would you would have to I Envision it as we would make application those four sign off and then you the board would approve it so if we have a school get too high now to close that school and move it on to to online we'd have to go through the legislature if that bill passes correct okay so that's going to sort of restrict what we can do I guess a little bit also so yeah um the other thing is is I've had several teachers concerned um as we how do I put this I guess um some of the teachers are feeling that
130the parents don't are not concerned about their their welfare uh they're not trying to figure out what they can do um we're going to a tier three and maybe you can Define what that is you've brought it a couple times up I don't know if our public knows what a tier three intervention is so if you um o over the last year in this year's plan we designed it in tier one tier two and tier three uh intervent mitigation intervention strategies and each level uh is more um more restrictive than before so for example um stay home if you're symptomatic uh we would also um cancel or postpone assemblies remember you know one of the one of the main ways that Omicron is transmissible is by congregation and mixing right so while we can't or
131want to stop it across the board because of our students academic and overall Wellness we can do some things to help slow that down so uh field trips dances assemblies uh any time that the students gather like that uh we would cancel or postpone that um for a future for a future date we would also uh restrict and limit Volunteers in the building we've done that before as a strategy that's been effective to slow it down and then we would also cohort our students so um for example in a lot of our elementaries they might have in a grade level band students mixing in reading groups right the regroup to to read together uh what this would put in place is they would stay in the same class with the same students throughout the day
132and we know that cohorting can be also an effective measure we still we're we're doing the very best we can we're short staffed on custodial staff um but we'll continue to try to maintain our buildings I my understanding is omicron's even more Airborne than Delta than the measles from what I understand right so I don't know at what level but I I do I think one thing that does go a little bit underrepresented is we're still utilizing MV 13 filters and my understanding is that will stop it so along with and I I don't know where we're at on this Leon but um uh ramping up our um air flow back to occupied the best that we can that moves the air through the building throughout the day um more than usual so there are
133still tools that are dispense that we can that we can utilize to try to slow this thing down so we're doing about as much as we possibly can and encourage mask that's another part of tier three we have been asking sending out vill vill vill what vigilance Vigilant Vigilant letters uh to parents uh basically asking for their help and support in this process to help keep schools open I mean that's what they want they want the schools open we've been asking for help um in that case what the two things we're asking have been asking for is if the numbers go up to be sure to keep your kid at home if you think sometimes you got it before you even know which is a problem but to keep your kids at home and the
134second one is we're not forcing anybody body to wear a mask but we're asking if at all possible that especially during this time we may want to wear a mask for a short period of time because if we don't have the staff in the school the school will not stay open I mean that's one of the few things that we have I know the teachers have been concerned of of the spread and especially if you put out a Vigilant warning and The Mask go number go down that sends a letter to the message to the teachers that I may not be valued um so I mean those are the things I guess we could ask right now of the parents is and I hate these stupid things I mean I don't like to wear them
135at all umse I think if you do wear them they're saying get some medical grade ones because the cloth ones don't do a thing with anything so we're well stocked in NK uh 95s I think Leon another 40,000 is that so we got several thousand in the warehouse and each school has a large inventory so we've got some really good quality masks for parents that if you have to wear them that we can not the children's could be issu because we don't have the children's Mas and if there's we have a 40,000 children's k95 masks children's one so so we have some mask these have been shown to do some good in that process but I guess that's what we're asking the parents right now I mean um my help at the very beginning is
136I don't like forcing people to do anything but we we have very few options at this point in trying to educate I've heard from teachers saying that remote learning there's some questions that M had in regards to that side but kids don't open their even contact sometime and get on to to ca canvas or anything we're just not getting the response it's a free day off in some cases so to go remote learning we lose control of the students education um I think I hope parents understand we're trying to do the best we can in some extremely difficult situations I mean one day we're told one thing the next day it changes um we just have to work as a community like Peruvian was saying we really need to work as a community and try
137to figure out how we could overcome this together uh and hopefully we'll be able to keep our schools open keep our kids education solid and and keep it from sliding like it has in the past and um I don't know I mean I don't know what else we can do maybe a little patience with us but our hands are really limited with the legislature uh and their mandates over the last couple years I mean well just to add to that too so we did like I mentioned we did receive 4,000 more tests so I I'm confident that we can keep our testing clinic open that's been positive I would just encourage the public that and employees and parents that if you come that just you know we're we're recommending that it's only those that are
138symptomatic um so uh we're trying to keep those in reserve you know the best that we can for those that need it but yeah Steve you're right like I you know I I keep trying to in my mind I mean and I hope everyone understands like I'm not making these decisions in a vacuum I mean I'm I look at this data non-stop throughout the day on the hour to try to understand where this is all going and what's happening um but I I'm like you I I am 100% committed to keeping our schools open that's what we started with that was the board's direction from the beginning U we know what that benefit means but at the same time you know this environment changes so often I totally recognize you know our teachers and staff's
139fears in trepidation uh it's real it's a real thing and um you know so we're addressing it the best that we can with the information and tools we have I think more than even keeping the schools open we have 100 % we want our kids to be safe so not only open but safe and we know how how we do that combination I mean it got last week where we had what 35 bus drivers off one day we have over 90 people in our our cafeterias out we can't serve food we couldn't get the kids to school we didn't have enough substitutes we have staff going in from the district office to replace people we really need the support of the public right now to try to help us support us in doing this and
140and uh without that help we G even makes our job even harder so again I don't want to encourage anybody anything or take anybody's rights away from but we really do need to work as a team to try to figure out how we're going to keep kids safe and keep our teachers safe and our staff safe um otherwise we won't be able to accomplish our goals we have to do as a team that's that's more than enough tonight thank you thank you um Mrs folks and then Mrs shill and I just want to take a minute and recognize our representative Suzanne Harrison is here with us and we appreciate you being here and especially on first day it's nice of you to be here with us um Mrs Oaks and then Mrs shill so I
141want to Echo a lot of Steve sentiments first of all I want to just give a shout out to the teachers um I can't even imagine um the stress and pressure that you have been under in the midst of um going on the second year of this sort of thing and just when you think it's certain and you know how to figure out lesson plans then everything is thrown up and Scattered and you have to figure out how to land on your feet all over again a lot of that that's happening in the midst of them being sick or having half their classroom sick I I I just want to commend all of you and thank you for the hard work that you're doing it is incredible difficult and I Echo Steve sentiments about the
142importance of us working together as a community um superintendant I I appreciate you keeping in close contact with Dr Webb and to me his reasoning behind keeping the 4day um school week makes sense especially and with the reduction in Risk um by 60% and doing that and also trying to make sure our kids have points of contact regularly with their teachers I do have questions with regard to the tier three status um I've been contacted by some individuals who are concerned about the fact that um the exceptions that we make with tier three Gatherings are us ushaa activities only which leaves out other groups that have been anxiously working to be able to to do certain things whether it's robotics competitions or PTSA sponsored activities or field trips that have already been previously paid for
143um I personally would like to be able to see that expanded a bit so that it's it feels a little discriminatory to me I'll be honest um that it's so focused on athletes rather than incorporating a lot of different groups that you know they might not be athletes per se but they I think the same principles May apply so I let me be inclusive in that too uhsa you're to include drama speech and debate choir music um so not just not just athletes and the I know we had a few middle school plays that were scheduled in the current County Health uh order those were allowed to go forward so I don't see any reason to change that I think some of them were actually this week um and it essentially just said if you're
144a performer don't wear a mask or you don't have to wear a mask if you're in the stands uh you or you're observing that you should wear a mask so um those things that are during the day yeah I I'm open to that feedback I mean I think you know this is an age-old question right the very first night that we uh presented um way back when when we first started this very topic came up and um you know I don't I I don't pretend to try to have the answers uhsaa has essentially been silent on the issue from the start and really left it to districts um and it's really for me it's been about just that balance of trying to balance Wellness with with safety and I get there's going to be probably
145some lines drawn that cause casualties both ways um and you know I don't think we completely eliminate the threat of the virus at the same time um I'm open to that direction if you if the board would like to expand it I'm I'm good with that I'm just curious as to whether or not it's logistically possible to allow for you know a caseby case like evaluation for some of those schools to be able to come to you and say you know we have this event coming up they've had this these types of preparations I mean I I would think actually in many cases some of those events would have fewer people at them yeah then like a high school basketball game so remember I'm only recommending through F or this weekend so it's you know
146my thought especially how this thing is changing by the minute to go beyond that wouldn't you know would not be wise on our part to um you know go go past that but yeah I think in the short term um you know if that's the direction that you want me to take I'm I'm okay with evaluating those because I mean we're just going to go through the weekend and then let's see where we land you know on Monday thank you Mrs shill so um Steve actually asked a lot of the questions that I was going to ask um so I do have one though I have gotten some emails from teachers asking us why don't we do what those other three districts did like why don't we decide tonight to have the rest of the
147week off so I'm just wondering if you would address and you may have to just repeat what you already said but so I I really struggled with that Amber I um you know when other districts in the county made that decision uh I to be quite honest was a little bit taken back by it um when I look at our data and I see how it's distributed over the entire District especially with our employees I mean at this point with our students as mentioned it's very hard I think you know in our mind we're kind of locked into the threshold system that we were under but we just can't view it that same way as as we have before it's different and so um I think when I look at that in totality the balance
148and the weight of and this was the conversation with with Dr Webb is you know obviously if we have a run where we have it gets to critical mass in a school like we had at Jordan Valley we just don't have a choice there's not enough staff to serve and Steve you know made that point well that's one that's one issue outside of that in his mind in his uh counsel is that if we can thread the needle if we can ramp up tier three to a place that can slow it down and we run that along with shorter intervals that give us that extra layer of protection that we might just be able to pull this off and keep school open um but you know I'm I'm hedging my bet I I could be
149wrong if it continues to spiral and you know increases the way it does I I'm you know may be back asking to do just that and it sounds like you know if this bill passes that there'd be a process to that but I fully recognize what our teachers are facing and I just hope they'll you know trust in the process we we've been doing this now for two years and I think one difference I mean I don't know I don't follow the other districts that close but I do know that I mean we've been very methodical in how we've utilized each tier in response and when and up to this point you know again it's a different situation but getting to tier three if you go back you know a few months when we had
150some of our Elementary start to really close in on those numbers and we instituted tier three mitigation strategies it came down you know so we were able to you know really hold it off so for me you know moving to remote uh definitely all things are on the table but at this point when I look at all of the data in front of us I I would recommend that we stay the of course with tier three let's try it let's see what you know what if we can slow it down and then if need be if we have to come back and it's not and we have a staffing situation or the numbers continue to spiral out of control then uh let let's see what this five-day break you know brings us hopefully it it
151will disrupt it enough to slow it down we'll you know tomorrow will be a good indicator we'll see we'll see what what it looks like in the morning okay so you will just be monit monitoring the cases every day and just see how several times a day um okay I mean I know all along our board has wanted um the kids to be in person we know it's way better just like mt was saying I mean the remote days are not we know they're not as effective nearly as effective as being in person so okay I have two two other questions um number one is do do you think and maybe this is for the board too like should we still do the dashboard I don't I mean I don't know just a question and
152then my second one is if that bill passes there's synchronous learning required in there so what's the plan for that well so those are my two questions take that step at a time I the I do have my own concerns about the dashboard I I just after my meeting this morning um and Nancy was on the call I I'm feeling less confident in how accurate the dashboard actually is I had some serious concerns coming into the weekend and and now kind of understanding where this is all going uh I I just I I worry that people see it in their mindset instantly you know even though we're we're fully disclosing that it may not be an accurate reflection of how many cases are actually in the school that day it's just not because we're allowing
153students back at 5 days so there's no way way for us to really you know pinpoint that accuracy so well because even now with the county resetting everything to zero today does that mean our dashboard is going to go to zero Z it already has because we follow them all all of them have gone to zero okay so now we're starting over in the next three days on the dashboard on the dash that does not mean I mean as of this morning we had 1,22 cases in the positive cases in the district over the last 14 days so you know if you follow if you follow the 14-day incubation period um there are cases many many cases in the district yeah okay okay and then what about the synchronous the synchronous learning I I I
154think we just need to be patient there I mean I think you know it right now everybody's kind of rushing to what they see and I I think you know we just let that play out in the legislature and then then we'll we'll be prepared to respond to it but I as you know likely there will be multiple substitutes and who knows you know if it gets circled or I mean a million things can happen and it can change and I I just I hate to make any comment that sets off a wave of you know like this is now what's going to happen when it's really premature yeah and that's I mean and and it is for the remote learning days so and yeah okay that's fine just just we should just we'll watch
155it yeah absolutely and we'll be ready I mean whatever comes from it um and when it's signed into to law we'll we'll address it okay thank you thank you any other questions or comments yeah I have just one question to add to it I mean the 14 day was B based on Delta and all the other variants the current variant talking about five days I'm wondering because I've had parents say I look at your dashboard to determine if I'm going to keep my kid at home because I'm concerned if especially if there is no mask mandate I want to know where that is and maybe we just need to put down a five day thing so it doesn't doesn't have to correlate with the counties let the county do 14 we may put down the
156counties but this is our five-day count so parents can have know what the numbers are within the school as far as the current requirements on five days and they can make that decision because I've had several parents say well especially if there's no Mass mandate I want to know how many of those kids are are out and if that's too high I'm GNA keep my child home even though they don't have covid and that does empower those parents to do something yeah protect their child no I recognize that Steve I just I I think a couple of things you know with that comment um is uh we rely on the county to report to us right so it's it's really them telling us these are the verified positive counts we get many many people parents
157and you know grandparents family will call in and say hey I'm I'm pretty sure now with home test kits um people not feeling well you know it it's kind of the Wild West when it comes to uh actually you know reporting and contact tracing and so um it's just it's getting more and more and more difficult but I to the parent that called in like I I recognize that we get hundreds if not thousands of hits daily you know on our website I just I I just worry that if the information isn't accurate you know how how good is it if we we're not even certain based on the information we're getting that it's that it's on on the money so theoretically that may be impossible especially the new home kits yeah and everything else
158that they're doing but I just know I'm just trying to figure out a way for those parents are watch watching some of those numbers and making a decision whether or not they send their child I'll take it back to cabinet and we can we'll we'll try to put our brains to it they don't I don't think they care about the the district they just want don't know this school my kid s how many cases yeah thank you Mr millerberg could you maybe go through the rules for me again because I've heard so many things about five days and what I it's it's all just muddled up in my mind because I've heard that you have to have five days plus a negative test no and they request that you wear a mask for five days
159yes so tell me what the rules really are okay so um it's been what a few weeks now uh the county changed guidance on this so again so originally if you tested positive you were isolated for 10 days um and at day seven um well yeah you if you if you tested positive you're out 10 days if you were exposed you were out 10 days but you could test uh you could do a rapid antigen test test at seven and come back okay so that was the that was the original guidance then that's used to be stuff that used to be stuffed then the CDC uh changed uh guidance and there was a lot of discussion and dispute about what that meant many people were saying you know this was purely economic at the time
160if you remember a few weeks back the airline industry was massive numbers of people missing work um medical uh health education so so I don't know for sure where that lies M on exactly why that came about to Steve's point there was some discussion about Omicron um and its incubation period being Le less I I'm not trying to say that's was the case I that's just some things that I read um but um but it did change guidance to us from the county that at five days if you tested positive you were to isolate for five days but then at five days you could return to work or come back to school and with the recommendation to wear a mask for five more days to complete that that 10day uh isolation period but you could
161come back to school but the mask is just a recommendation a recommendation correct yeah so and that's where we just have not been able to track that we we in the beginning we thought about so there there is no test required after five days uhuh no wow yeah so that's that's currently where it's at and it just it really makes the dashboard problematic that way because it we know there's kids in our schools and employees that come back um sooner that you know still may be um sh getting virus so and even today uh late this afternoon I texted Mary Hill at count at County Health and I just said k for clarification um are is resetting the dashboard a signal that you are going to start dropping cases and change that cycle to five
162days to reflect that going forward and she said no we're staying with for the 14-day cycle so so that's what I [Music] know okay any other questions or comments I I Just Want to Thank You superintendent and thank you board for for all your questions I um I'd like to go back just a little bit on the remote days and thank you for being willing to come back to the board with more information about those days um and I I just while I don't think any of us think they're perfect or as well utilized as as we'd hope I would like say I think it's a whole lot better than it was in March of 2020 yeah for what's happening with with the connections at school and between school and students and homes and and
163and I think part of the answer to making those days more effective because I mean they're a tool in my mind a last resort tool well next to the last resort tool I guess um as opposed to going completely online for an extended period of time but um as as we uh look forward I think you know we just need to keep improving and getting better because because it is a tool that we have obviously had to implement and and hopefully I mean even for what do we call them not the days that used to be called known as snow days right I mean it's something that down the road but but but I feel like um part of it too is helping parents understand how to use those days best agree and so we
164can do better um and hopefully as was said if we all work together we we can get through this we can we will and we must so um thank you and please tell your staff I know many of them aren't here because we tried to keep numbers in the room yeah a little bit um smaller for in because of what we're trying to do with our schools but um please let them know how much we appreciate their work I will very very much tireless effort that they give so one point of clarification so would you like me to uh evaluate so we put this in place for the rest of the week if we have any of those filtr trips or anything that's between now and Friday uh if obviously if it goes forward if
165we still are in this situation on Monday then we would go forward with that but would the board would you be supportive of me evaluating each of those as they as they come yeah yes I am supportive of that yeah and and I think one question to ask is how difficult would it be to postpone and reschedule right some thing that's easy but others if it's an easy reschedule then please but if it's something they've had planned and it can't be rescheduled and it the risk is low you know I'm I'm fine with that I don't I don't ever want to try to draw a line in the sand that you know is taking away but it's we're just in this unfortunate space again I think I saw head's nod yep okay all right thank
166you okay um next is item 7B consideration for adoption of a res resolution for the Board of Education of Canyon School District Utah authorizing the issuance and sale of not more than 70 million principal amount of its refunding bonds series 2022 and related matters this is a second reading with action requested and with all of that LE Mr Leon Wilcox had time to get to the podium so I'll turn time over to him thank you president tingi uh Dr Robins mentioned the wild west well that's what it is when he talk Bond refunding just just the same uh last meeting on a couple weeks ago we talked about refunding bonds that we just a quick update that we issued way back 10 years ago in August 2012 from that 2010 election would' refund 60 nearly
16765 Million by issuing about 50 a little over 56 million there the big thing would' like to do is reduce the time repayment from 10 years down to about down to seven years we don't know the exact savings until we go out to the bid the sale date but we're looking at around 9.2 to 9.4 million and by not doing this on Bardo is the the parameters resolution and also uh we as with last meeting there's a memo from stifel detailing the resolution and then also we also put out there our preliminary official statement on boards this is what the biders see when they bid on our bonds that' be Morgan Stanley JP Morgan Wells fog are the big investment Banks who bid on these bonds that's the statement they see I also ma want
168to say I believe Matt Doug they may be on the line uh he's our financial adviser from stifle are you there Matt by chance yes I'm here Leon good evening he is there voice from voice from above Welcome Matt I'll turn some time over here just in a brief minute at the end here there's our summary of our bonds we have about $458 million now we issue some but refund de feed some or take them Mara bucks and the principal payment at the end of in June of that amount lots of numbers there I don't want to spend a lot of time there but that uh orange color is the one that we'll look to refund I like to always look at it in the graphic C the red on this year is the Jordan
169debt that will be going off of books like we cannot say that enough and we'll continue to say that uh the blue is from the 2 and you can see the the Orange is the the 2017 again trying to push as much as we can forward to save on interest what costs there similar from going from say a 30-year uh home mortgage down to a 20 year or 15y year that type of analogy there here's the schedule of events with again request that you approve that resolution that's on board dos tonight uh we'll finalize That official statement that's also on board do so maybe a couple more edits there but we think we're nearly complete with that we will be meeting with the bond ra aing ra rating agencies later this week we intend to
170sell those Bonds in I think February 9th but then we can't close until about March 17th so a little bit of a window there uh then as we said last time we'll look to refund bonds issued in 2013 a year from now so there's always a we have a 10-year call period where we can't refund those and that then that opens up that time period after 10 years so we can do some a year from now then in two years from now we can do another Bunch that we issued in 2015 uh there is a possible board motion with that Matt is there anything you'd like to say Leon I think you hit on all all the the main information I just want to commend you and the board for taking advantage of these refunding
171opportunities these are real savings that acre to taxpayers and uh just congratulate again the board for uh saving millions of dollars U it it's not the first time this is has happened so thank you Matt interest rates still really low down down that alltime low but we do know they're going to likely increase here later this year as we'd like to get on the market but we still can so with that I'll answer any questions or uh motion whatever you'd like to do questions board no um I just had one question so is the savings anticipated savings because we're reducing from um the 10 years to the seven years and not necessarily banking on um a significantly lower interest rate or both it's both both the interest rate we have right now is roughly on
172these Bonds in that 3% range Matt could correct me if I'm wrong we hope to refund these get about a one and a quarter issue okay right that's that's significant then also as I said we'll taking 64 off we're putting 56 on the books but taking 64 off and so that's the big savings there as well yeah yeah that's great U Mr millerberg then the reduction is 100% interest because the printable amount of the note does not decrease so the only place it comes from is yeah interest interest accelerated payments yeah okay well board this is listed as action requested so a motion would be in order okay I can make a motion so I move that we approve the bond resolution on bardocks authorizing the issuance and sale of not more than 70 million
173aggregate principal amount of refunding bonds series 2022 and related matters thank you is there a second to the motion I'll give a second thank you any discussion to this motion seeing none I will call for a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed okay that motion passes thank you and and um I I will I guess I should have said this in discussion to the motion Mrs nbow did indicate to me that she was in favor of this refunding so okay and thank you Matt for joining us and for your assistance and advice in these matters thank you next on the agenda item 7c proposal for adoption of new districtwide instructional materials this is the third reading with action requested I will turn the time over to Dr Amber Rodrick landward ISD
174director thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight for our third reading for the annual curriculum adoption proposal and I don't want to jinx this but I want to commend you all because it is only 8:30 and I'm standing at the podium so I think that we're winning tonight we have an hour and a half to grill you that's what I should I don't want to jinx this but I do want to um there was a lot of heavy things to talk about and I'm um just appreciative that it's still at a great hour for us to talk about some more things so tonight we are here for the third reading for the annual curriculum adoption proposal just a reminder that we have three proposals before you one for high school chemistry one for
175high school physics and then another for elementary English language arts so for tonight's reading I have brought back some requested data that um was asked for during the second reading and we'll go through that and then I will also share the feedback that has been submitted to this point and address any additional questions that you may have so with that let's jump in to the data and uh what you are looking at here is a comparison not really even a comparison I should say but a number of districts who have been implementing wonders for uh a couple of years so while they're are more than these districts these districts are larger and closer to uh Canyon size one of the things to keep in mind and looking at this data is we each of the
176districts is not implementing with the same addition of Wonders that we will be um that we are proposing to adopt so there's a 2013 a 2017 and a 2020 and then what we are um proposing is a 2023 addition so keeping that in mind um in terms of comparing what we're moving forward with and what the other districts have been doing we also don't know when these districts began implementation nor what their expectations around implementation has been over the years that they've been implementing so what you see here are their Trends in Rise data in the aggregate for third fourth and fifth grade in English language arts since 2017 and also um a reminder that our implementation plan includes supplanting a big portion of Wonders curriculum with the 95 core phonics which again um to
177our knowledge none of these districts are doing that so it's it's interesting to look at um how they've been fairing but also not necessarily the best comparison to what our plan are are there any questions about this data before um Mrs o sorry I can't I just I'm looking at this and I I'm just wondering where would Canyons come in on this graph I know you knew that was gonna be ask very good question and so again because we're not comparing achievement necessarily from District to District but there Trends over time with what we are perceiving their implementation to be currently though I I did anticipate that this would come up and I was telling um uh president tingy that I debated back and forth about whether or not to include our our line in
178this data so since you asked I will share um in 2017 our aggregate data was 58% of our students I'm meeting proficiency benchmarks On The Rise data 2018 was 57% 2019 was 59% and then in 2021 it was 51% so we saw similar trend in terms of a little bit of stagnation and then a dip but overall our performance has maintained um higher levels than some of our neighboring districts just a quick question I look at your graph up there and every line started down before the covid-19 box is that box in the wrong place or what was happening so we did not assess our students with rise during 2020 so we do have that gap of not having data for one full year of instruction does that help answer that so when it was
179evaluated was before Co the next one was in the middle of Co and so you just connected the dots correct and so the scores did not necessarily start going down before Co hit but that's what you're graph looks like depending on the district right and I think again you know the important data to keep in mind would be the data that I shared during the first and second reading which was the State of Affairs in canyons and how we are fairing right now with regards to reading and those long-term impacts that we're seeing all the way through secondary um when we don't have the tools that we need to really support our students at the elementary level so I think those are the biggest uh indicators of identifying the needs as we look at programs
180moving forward other questions about these data questions nope go ahead and continue okay so the exciting part of course is let's talk about the feedback that we have been receiving since our first reading which if you'll recall was way back in December December 14th or somewhere around there and so from that time to now our stakeholders both our families and our employees have had the opportunity to access the materials either digitally through our access codes that have been shared with them or they could access the print materials at the school level or here at the district office parents and stakeholders um families and and teachers received notification about this in various ways of course through board meetings and board docs the information is always a available but there have been many blasts with through the
181general news through our web page and social media both at the school and District levels additional and specific Flyers with information about how to access those materials newsletters as well as I know it has been brought up in a number of SEC and PTA meetings that have been held since that time so there have been a number of ways that folks have been able to be um informed that this is going on um always something that we strive to uh work on in terms of getting the word out there through the feedback process um we have said from the get-go that stakeholders can submit feedback formally through our digital form or any any channel and we would be um taking all that information in so the formally submitted feedback through our Google form there were
182six stakeholders that submitted feedback they were all related to Elementary English language arts so there were not any stakeholders ERS who submitted feedback about physics or chemistry through this channel in that formally submitted feedback nearly all of the comments about wonders and 95 cor phonics were positive and you have um a handout that has those exact comments from those particular stakeholders it's also on board docs so you can also see from those particular questions that there was one stakeholder who had specific questions about professional learning for teachers and so I thought I would take a minute to just address those right now if that's okay so with regards um to the professional learning I'll start with Ela since this particular Patron had reviews reviewed that curriculum um in depth I mentioned in the first reading
183that one of the things that when we met with our curriculum adoption committee for elementary Ela and started to solicit their ideas about what professional learning needed to look like in order to support them with this big implementation one of the the most uh common things that we heard was we really need a lot of choice we've had so many things um going on this year particularly at the elementary level we want some choice in how we learn about this uh new program how we engage with it and how we come to develop the competencies that we know are necessary so that is something that we are working on designing right now um both with our principles coaches and we'll continue to do so with our teachers so our teachers will have the opportunity to
184um review all of the competencies that they'll need to be able to be successful over the next couple of years with these programs and then we will give them a menu of options of how they can gain those competencies so those options will be available in person they'll be available virtually they'll be available independently they'll be available collaboratively and all of the nuances of those will be worked out uh with the curriculum adoption committee and principal since they'll give us the most insight into whether or not what we're designing ing will actually be um will actually work and meet their needs but we really wanted to take to heart what they were requesting by organizing that choice so that would be the initial training we then would support our teachers ongoing with opportunities to engage
185with our curriculum Specialists on a regular basis we've done this in the past with kind of office hours and consultation that are really LED uh by the teachers needs so that would be one opportunity we'll also have opportunities for them to attend regular what we call bite-sized PD where they can engage um virtually but it is live or they can watch those sessions at a later date and those are more Snippets of just um quick components that will um give them some information and they can have that to access in the future and then of course through our school-based coaches they'll have the opportunity to engage with support regularly and then of course the responsive uh professional learning that any of our principles can request for their schools and teams will be available as well
186so that's the the model that we're looking at for um Elementary English language arts for chemistry and physics it's a much smaller group of teachers remember and they've been involved for the last year in looking through all of these curricula and have since been able to spend a pretty significant amount of time looking at the proposed curricula so they have requested um one collaborative day to be able to um work together and gain some more knowledge about the specific components of the curriculum and then to work through their Curriculum maps with our curriculum Specialists and their coaches um because again this is a high school implementation I'll just throw out there that uh they they do not at this time have a late start similar to our middle schools or an early out like our
187um elementaries who have that collaborative opportunity already built in so we are looking at how we can provide ongoing supports for them to collaborate um particularly since there are only a few of these teachers at each school so having a bigger Network to be able to collaborate and learn as they Implement will be critical for them any other questions about professional learning okay the same parent also had a few questions about parent training which I thought was a really great um question and something thing that we really want to make sure that we um do what's what's the right word do better when we know better we do better but it's something that um I think has come up particularly over the years but the excitement around parents around wanting to be involved in the
188materials that their students are using and how they can best support their students at home and so we've been brainstorming a lot of ideas about how we can engage with our parent community and support them with understanding the nuances that they would need to know to be able to support their students with these curriculum components as their students move towards Mastery of the standards so that's something that I would say is still in development and I'd love to bring back to y'all when we have some of those ideas further fleshed out but right now we are looking uh primarily at that teacher learning and then finally um you saw in the comments that there was an initiation made by a parent of a student um in our community who is blind and so wanting to
189again connect us uh with the right resources to be able to plan and anticipate the needs of um that particular child and how we can support them with this curricula so very exciting collaboration already happening in that regard so that was the formal feedback that was submitted and then as I mentioned we we try to look at all channels and where folks may have submitted or even just informally shared ideas so we reached out to all of our principles as well as the ca leadership to check in to see what they've been hearing um any feedback that they have for us and very few principles reported that parents were seeking information and that they were sharing feedback directly with the principles um in fact most reported that they didn't have any parents come and ask
190to see any of the materials and we only had two requests here at the district office for uh the materials and then both CA and the princi principl reported that the the feedback from teachers was positive in um all three of the proposals of course um reiterated some of the concerns of teachers not so much about the proposals but just what is the training going to look like are we going to have choice is this going to be one more thing that we're going to have to try to fit in with letters so all of those things that again we're trying to keep in mind as we build that implementation plan but overall the feedback has been very positive in ter terms of these particular curricula meeting their students needs and um excitement around excitement
191around new materials not necessarily excitement about the magnitude and the timing of course with which is like anything right now so we'll we'll take it though any other questions I can address either about the feedback that I just shared with you or otherwise questions board Mr millerberg as I look at uh your final bullet point there it reads most reported positive feedback from teachers to me most means greater than 50% yes that's how I'm interpreting it but again um I mean that I mean most could be 95% too I don't know uh could you tell me with most of it being positive what negative comments did you receive um you I mean you saw the one comment that was submitted formally where there was a question around implementation of the 95 cor phonics and and
192to be honest I think that that was um perhaps a miscommunication on our end or how it trickled down into that particular stakeholders um information and so that I would even say is maybe neutral because we weren't talking about the same program other feedback I haven't heard from any principal or teacher that has outright said there is no way we should adopt this program it is not good for kids it is not going to help me teach any um what you could call less than positive feedback would just be the trepidation of implementing anything dis size right it's not it's not easy and they know it's not going to be easy and they're in the middle of a pandemic the pandemic has not stopped life from happening so in addition to covid we have family
193or we have teachers who are dealing with additional family trauma death other things that have nothing to do with the pandemic and um showing up every day to a lot of students who are gone and teachers and colleagues who are gone from the building so they've got a lot going on so so what what you're telling me Amber is that it is not negative towards the uh no program at all it's more negative that that's a an additional burden you're placing on us at this time absolutely and and I think that we can all understand why they might be feeling that way and again they're they're working really hard to maintain and and again that data even though we weren't comparing achievement um I think we do owe our teachers a big shout out because
194despite having remote Friday remote learning Fridays um last year we still maintained higher than the state average in most of our neighboring districts in the majority of our testing so our teachers are doing incredible things and I know that they will continue to do incredible things with the even better materials to be able to support our students Mrs Shi and then Mr Wrigley um so how does this training or how does this curriculum line up with letters really good question so one of the main reasons we chose to supplant um the Wonders foundational skills was because of the training that our teachers are getting in letters so they've got so much more extensive training in those foundational components of reading related to phonic awareness um phonics and spelling that the Wonders phonic program uh didn't
195follow the scope and sequence in the depth of science the science of reading the way 95 uh core phonics does so that particular program um is pretty much lock step with what they've been learning in letters which is also why they won't need as much professional development in that particular program because they've been getting it all year and we'll continue to get that next year okay okay so it lines up with the 95 phonics not necessarily wonders correct okay okay great thank you okay I guess Mr Wrigley didn't have question but I do have a question or comment from um Mrs nbow that um she wanted to know um because there's an online component to these curricula that um what type of a practice is there in place or could we put one in place
196so that when changes when you know because it's an onlineer Dynamic type of a curriculum that when changes are made by the publisher are is your department made aware of it and what type of vetting do those changes receive and then maybe talk about some plans to update the board upon receipt of some of those changes really good question and in in most of our experience with large Publishers they do um make us aware when there are changes and I I may have mentioned this I can't remember I mentioned it to the whole board or if in just individual questions over the last couple of months when those updates occur they're typically um really mind similar to when you get an update on your phone or your iPad or your computer they're working out some
197of the bugs that the users have identified so whether that's a typo whether that's um a system that's not working as quickly within the digital platform but it's very rarely content so they're not going to change a text set within the curriculum and have that be just a routine update because again they've got copyright they've got a publication addition and if they were making many changes then that would warrant a new addition and potentially more money from us as customers right so we can certainly make you aware when we get those uh updates notifications and what those updates will be so that again we can just be in the habit of being transparent so that everybody knows when those occur we're a little less familiar because we're entering a new relationship on the ELA side
198um with this publisher even though we've adopted with McGrath Hill in the past every program and a group of authors and their teams working on the programs are are different from program to program so I'll find out the specific schedule and what those notifications look like and make sure that we are informed is it usually an annual thing or just kind of as they happen and we've we've experienced um annual we've experienced uh regularly scheduled that their team already has has it planned out for the year and then we've also um experienced some spontaneous updates again I think it is dependent upon the users and and what feedback they're getting and What needs to um change most most rapidly great thank you other questions or comments Mrs Oaks I just want to give you a
199shout out for trying to navigate this in a very difficult time and environment and I've actually really been pleasantly surprised by what I've read in these books I think it's great I'm really excited for our kids to have access to this content and I think that the stories are fantastic like one I was reading today in the first grade curriculum it included stories about Thomas Edison the wri brothers focus on curiosity problem solving there's so many positive things in here there are and um anyway I just really look forward to seeing what my elementary age child comes home with next year I think it's be great both yeah I I'm excited as well um Amanda and I appreciate those those statements one of the things um that I just will throw out there because I'm
200sure that this is a question that might come up next is is what are the next steps uh should the board take action and approve this program tonight and the first would be that we'll be presenting you in two weeks with a requisition to actually purchase this this large um purchase for all of these would will be um listed in your requisition uh for consent agenda and then we will immediately get working on the instructional guides and that is something that I think is also important to point out especially when you're looking at other districts data we do accompany every uh curriculum that we adopt and to support all of our particularly core courses with instructional guides that highlight specifically um how to utilize these material materials to be able to teach those standards which
201allows us the opportunity to go even deeper with those materials I know that that's been a concern of um a group of parents in terms of really looking in depth at at what this program has to offer we get to read and reread and really think about what that looks like in the classroom make sure it's mapped appropriately and what components we're really prioritizing for our implementation expectations and then that becomes the basis of our professional learning over the next six months before the new school year starts thank you Mrs Oaks so I just have one more question well it's kind of icated but the first is I know that this program comes in a lot of languages and I'm curious with the Dai program whether or not you're going to be purchasing accompanying um
202workbooks in the the target language whether it's French Spanish or Chinese and to be able to work with those teachers together to be able to reinforce the learning that's that's one thing because I do think it's a phenomenal opportunity to expand a child's language ability and the second is can we please please please make sure that these teachers have permission to do arts integration with this curriculum because it is set up perfectly for it it really is um yes that they don't need permission that is something that um we we encourage them to and we hope that we can even provide some more explicit supports because again their time is limited and so it's something that we've been talking a lot about as an elementary team where all those integration components really uh tie so
203nicely and again um hopefully help our elementary teachers with doing a very difficult job with all the subjects that they're required to teach with regard to dual immersion so the the program wonders itself doesn't come in a lot of language the communications home are in a lot of languages to be able to support our families and dual immersion um being a a state program that curriculum is directed by the state and so we will not be adopting wonders for DLI however the state because so many districts have been using wonders have already organized um what they call a crosswalk to be able to support that reinforcement of language in all of the target languages and so they're already looking at what that looks like for the 2023 Edition should that be what we decide to
204move forward with and um hopefully again won't require a whole lot of tweaking on their end to be able to then support our teachers with this program as well that's actually incredibly exciting I I I'm totally nerdy but I think it's awesome um just out of curiosity is and I guess I haven't paid close enough attention is this something that may be used at the sixth grade level or is it exclusively K through five so right now the proposal is K5 and as we continue to examine U some of the changes that will be made to the ELA standards for secondary we will of course uh look at what materials they have access to and what materials they might need so uh I I wouldn't rule anything out but at this time we do not
205have plans to bring a comprehensive adoption for sixth grade because I do think and my mind and this has come up in our former D committee um once you get to the middle school particularly sixth grade seventh grade I mean like that's where DLI really struggles more I think that we have the model down beautifully K through you know one through five but talking about for dual immersion for dual immersion sorry you're were talking about for ELA sorry no no and let me clarify that I mean and and part of it is because of the way that the schedule is and it changes from it being truly a dual day right um and so there's a number of factors but I'm just curious if if we see that really benefiting really good things and the
206first or fifth grade level whether or not it would be worth considering how to be able to have those complimentary pieces maybe in middle school as well I I think it's always worth exploring I think it's a really good point to keep on our radar okay any other questions or comments Mr brigley just really quickly uh there may be some people asking why are we spending this money I think one of our first meetings months ago on this uh the current version that we're having uh we're holding together with masking tape and duum tape uh and we can no longer do that as far as losing the license so we're at a point we have to move forward with this that's why we're putting all this on our teachers during a crazy time it's not
207let's add on top of on on Co it's it's time is up we can no long do it the other thing I understood is it got to a point where we were almost copying everything off and having all these papers and all the extra help we've been supplementing a lot the last yeah so I mean it was just a whole bunch of extra work and and so when you send it home it may look like it was busy work and sort of outdated and I'm hoping with the new version that we're going into um first off we won't have to probably save millions of dollars on paper and copy things off but more than that is is we do to a lot more virtual time if we have to this may be a good good
208thing that they could actually learn at home using the software and some of the kids if we can get computers to kids in elementary but uh that would then give them something really solid to work on that's a good solid program uh even uh that the teacher get supplement but then for the rest of the they do so I'm I'm hoping it's going to move us in that direction we need to as we do more you know we talk about virtual making virtual a very beneficial day this may add to that absolutely and I'm really glad that you brought that up this one of the uh bonuses of this program was its total integration into canvas that is very easy for our teachers to be able to do because again that is something that um
209is still used less frequently in the elementary than at the middle and high schools so that that is a a huge to make it easier for an elementary teacher who again is is teaching all of the content areas not just Ela becomes a a big win anything that can save them time the components of the digital platform outside of canvas are also very user friendly to the students and the parents who would be supporting them and also support teacher planning in a way that is um like nothing honestly that we've seen before in a digital platform so we've been very impressed with how easily a teacher can organize his or her week send uh full transparent communication to families about what he or she has planned for the week and how they can access those
210particular stories lessons and uh student tools that they may be using during class time so they can reinforce that at home if they need to yeah hopefully this will offset some of the time it takes to learn by using the time that they wasted in the previous program doing paper and copying and all the other stuff that they had to do so I'm glad to see us moving forward thank you thank you okay thank you board any other comments or questions um yes I I just want to just take a minute though and also express my appreciation to you and the team I know I mean this isn't just something that you got an idea a few months ago when you brought it to us it represents a tremendous amount of work over many many
211months over a year I'm sure at this point so so appreciate all of your efforts and and your willingness to to be um transparent and provide us all the information that we've asked for and um with the help of communications to seek the feedback from the public and um I just I I just really feel like this process for regular curriculum adoption is it's a really good process and but it's not an easy or a quick process either so thank you for all I will pass that along to the committees as well because the teachers gave a lot of time to ensuring that we were supporting them and their students simultaneously with this process yes please do thank you okay yes a motion would be in order okay I'll make a motion I'd like to
212make a motion that we approve the item 7 uh C the proposal for adoption of new districtwide instructure curricular material as listed in the agenda for elementary Ela chemistry and what was the other one physics and Civics thank you for the motion does that cover everything okay and um is there a second to that motion I'll second thank you any discussion to the motion um I I I will also just um mention that Mrs nabar wanted it known that she is supportive of these adoptions so um so with that I will call for a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed okay thank you that motion passes Cindy and and just for clarification I I mentioned that she was in favor but that's not casting a vote okay thank you all right
213board that concludes our business for this evening uh we'll now take a minute and hear some comments from superintendent Robbins and then business administrator Leon Wilcox uh thank you President also just want to express my appreciation to Amber and her team um Susan Henry Ken Jesse her entire team just the work and effort all the teachers and staff that served on the committee um just a job well done and I want to publicly express my confidence in wonders and the just the tremendous commitment to literacy in the district um you know as I've been here and talked to Amber and just kind of observed and reflected uh on the the literacy Wars that have taken place place in our state in our country uh over the years um Canyons has a lot to be proud
214of and it's not by chance that uh Canyons continues to be a leader in literacy yes we have our gaps and our issues to address but um to continue to see that commitment level and dedication and growth is a real tribute to our teachers and our staff and and our leadership team so I just want Amber to know how much I appreciate her and secondly just to wrap up the covid comments I to just want to express uh my my humble gratitude to all of our employees our staff our parents our students um I I've said this before uh you know neither are the enemy we're the union we're together on this as you mentioned president I appreciate the board's confidence in going forward and continue to do the best that we can in the
215middle of a crisis and recognizing that everyone is carrying a lot on their plate and uh it's not easy uh but as I've said before I hope our students will someday look back on this time uh with a lot of gratitude for all the sacrifices that have been made for them and if that's what we get accomplished then then we've really you know fulfilled our purpose in being here so I appreciate all of you as well so thank you thank you Mr will Cox yes thank you president tingy uh last week at I guess it's been a little over a week ago at the usba Saturday session we had the iron Cowboy you know James Lawrence who had done so many trof along 50 and 50 days uh and then you saw how his feet
216looked and how his body looked at the end of doing that it's a little bit how we felt at the end of last week uh I just appreciate all our bus drivers who had to do extra routes or our teachers who had to do extra subbing all our substitutes who did come in our parent volunteers our students who were who working with us and our everybody who made us through that last week it was quite a challenge and uh as we get going tomorrow and a new week ahead we just hope everybody is Dr Robin says has patience with us we all are together with this we're excited to be to be back in person tomorrow my wife texted me today and she says you're not going to change your mind our boys are going
217to school tomorrow because you know kind of maybe a little rough day of homeschooling I go absolutely so uh with that we're excited to we we just hope everybody will support us over the next two weeks as we're going up this Omron Spike and uh finally just as mentioned usba I just want to congratulate Amber tremendous conference last week great job as the outgoing president of usba this in 2021 so she'll be the past president this 2022 but a great job last week and a very successful conference so thank you that's all I have thank you um okay for board member comments we'll start at this end and and I will read a comment from Mrs nbow I want to extend a big thank you to our teachers thank you for working diligently throughout the
218shortages of Staff out sick thank you for the extra efforts to help students who are out sick thank you for taking extra classrooms thank you for all the staff here at the central office for subbing in for bus drivers and nutritional services and classrooms and lastly thank you parents and students again we find oursel in a frustrating situation thank you to the students for still showing up online or at school I know canceled activities is extremely disappointed at the same time I'm grateful for our superintendent studying the numbers and Consulting with Dr web and the health department I'm grateful he's willing to take this one week at a time so that students lives will not be more disrupted than necessary the Associated Press reports there are more worrisome variants on the horizon I hope we
219can continue to strive for Creative Solutions promoting handwashing staying at home if you're sick and find an exit strategy to covid dashboards and cancelling school I know this is a part of our future I look forward with positivity as we harness the resilience of the students we serve I had the opportunity to meet briefly with our student advisory Council this past week what a pleasure you are remarkable thank you that's from Holly nbow okay um Mr Wrigley okay yeah I had the opportunity to attend our student council uh meeting in what great kids we have such great conversations I mean really adult conversations when we asked them about what was troubling them and it really is beneficial um I also had most of the time in my time on the board I I do my
220drop-ins to the school and say hi and wave and you know sort of whatever got the wave done uh this last week uh because we were so short staff had the opportunity to go in and teach for two days at Indian Hills and also at Union it was a what a wonderful experience that was uh in many ways uh first off in many of the schools as I went in I found that when I went in in the morning they were down two or three staff that called in late sick that day um teachers immediately uh picked up that that slot and gave up their their time their prep periods to go and fill that uh we had lunch AIDS we had Hall monitors it was and and despite all of that everybody was in
221good spirits everybody was there and and um they all just pitched in like a family it was really interesting of all the different classes I got to teach last week it's now I substitute teach at a couple of the districts it's always interesting you'll have six or seven classes there's always one or two where you thought you died and went to heaven you're going these kids are so quiet and they're on TK and there's always one during the day that they're crazy and I don't know what it is the same thing but it was really sort of interesting but all of the classes I went the kids were in Spirits the kids wanted to be there and it was almost like despite wearing masks and everything and most the kids were wearing masks last week
222but despite that it was like Co wasn't they just went on with life and it was just sort of interesting and exciting to see that and as I had an opportunity to talk to teachers teachers are so positive and so supportive of one another uh so with both both times it was a good opportunity just to see uh what is going on in the district uh to have an opportunity to rub shoulders with our great and fantastic staff um at all all throughout the schools and um so I just want to say thank you for what you're doing um parents often say well you know we we appreciate our doctors and nurses and that you ought to have 25 30 kids in a classroom talk about it's more hate danger doing that than it is
223in one person in a clinic coming in and seeing you so they they are um there on the on the lines uh I also want to thank our parents it's just been a very trying time I know it's been very difficult on our parents um I just want to say thank you for your patience and and remember you know this is a we moving together uh it's a tribe and all of us need to work together in this process parents often say to us we want to have control of our children education and I'm thinking saying to them please we need your help we need your help right now desperately uh we need you to be that partner uh so we can overcome and and and move through this process that we've done so if
224any way we can work with parents better let us know and know that we make some crazy decisions but they're all datadriven they're all based upon a whole bunch of things that we don't have time A lot of times in our meeting to do and tell you but this is not made not a whim or it's not made politically it's based upon the children and what we feel is best for the children and their safety uh that's that's the basic Foundation of everything we do in this District thank you Mrs Oaks okay since our last regular board meeting I've had the opportunity to be able to attend some awesome events put on by ptsas um namely Corner Canyon does an annual um elected officials breakfast and and they also put on the Battle of the
225Bands just a few days before that that was a riot it was so much fun I couldn't stop smiling the whole time in those kids um what I found was amazing they did they did um kind of an open mic where kids could get up in Solo and they were so supportive of each other and it was so reaffirming for the kids that were performing I I don't know I I found it to be really joyful experience and I was so grateful for those parents that put so much time and effort into organizing those events it's it's not a small effort it's a lot of work um I also got to attend the usba conference which you guys did a bang up job especially in light of everything going on I learned a lot and
226it was wonderful to be able to see fellow board members from other districts and have a sense of solidarity because all of us are going through a lot together um I also got to attend the Arts consortion meeting um along with Nancy and that was awesome um you may remember that we recently put out a survey um to all the secondary high high school and middle school students and about their Arts experience what motivates them to take certain classes you know if they're obstacles what those are how they feel about their arts classes and they're still in the middle of aggregating and and solidifying and clarifying some of that data but what we saw initially was awesome and it was really exciting and more than anything I was not surprised by this but it was
227so fun to see the student specific comments about what a positive impact their arts classes have on their social and emotional wellbeing um that it's the highlight of their day that it's a place where they can go and quiet their mind or they can express their creativity or they can express their emotions and that was it was really fun so I'm excited to to dig in a little deeper and to kind of consider that survey as we go into strategic planning as a group um and lastly I just want to Echo similar to what Steve was sharing I've been reflecting a bit about moments of quiet heroism um sometimes the biggest heroes in this world are ones you never hear about you never know what they're doing behind the scenes to benefit the lives of
228a lot of other people I feel like our teachers definitely fit in that category I feel like our lunch workers our bus drivers our esps like there are so many people that behind the scenes in the face of really difficult circumstances or not feeling well are are really trying to make a difference for kids and I recognize my kids are the beneficiaries of that effort a lot of them are parents too you know when I think about the PTSA or any parent that has been willing to step into the classroom and substitute I know there are many um there's a friend from one of my former neighborhoods that my kids say that they see her on a regular basis in the middle school she doesn't have to do that but she does it because she
229knows there's a need I am so grateful for all of the people in the face of this pandemic I know we can get really loud and and really complaining about certain things but I often think that if we saw what everyone is dealing with behind the scenes and the efforts that they're making that we would treat each other with more kindness and patience and so I just want to reemphasize that that as we move forward through whatever this current surge has to offer that we'll remember that that there are things that people are doing quietly behind the scenes that are heroic in nature and we just don't see them so that's all I have to say thank you Mrs shill thank you um so I was able to attend the student advisory Council as as
230well and it was my first meeting and I was really impressed with these kids um we we asked them a lot of questions and I loved how really each each one of them wanted to answer the question even if they were we did on zoom and even if they were in a room with like four people each one of them wanted to say something and I just thought it was really great they were really engaged and they were really smart and just awesome so I love that um I just want to thank all of you guys for attending the usba confence and supporting me I really enjoyed it it was really great and I just appreciate all of you and your support um we also had no one's mentioned it yet the pre-legislative luncheon with
231our legislators there I think all of us were there pretty much um and that was really great we you know I just want to thank our legislators that today was the first day and it's it's a lot it's very intense and a lot of work and I just appreciate them and their willingness to serve um I ALS also just want to add my thanks like everyone else to teachers and the esps I mean every single person in this District um is doing their best for kids and I know I mean we're just in a really hard time and I I just hope people know that we're just making trying to make the best decisions we can and we really are thinking about everyone not just students we're thinking about the teachers and just trying to
232do our best but I really do appreciate them and I know it's it's hard I mean we understand that we know it's hard but we do appreciate and I know they're they're not doing it for us they're doing it for kids and I recognize that and I want to thank them thank you Mr millerberg you know I could probably just say what they said and be done um but I've got just a couple of other things that I will add to that um Amber you've already been complimented a couple of times about the usba convention and I would say that is welld deserved that was an excellent program um I sat in there Friday night uh during the entertainment and I looked around the room that was full of board members from Statewide and some
233spouses and I just had a thought that these are just absolutely good people um I don't know that I've ever been associated with a group of people before that I just felt like were good people um also as part of that the directors and uh the officers of the usba were able to sit down with the uh State School Board and have dinner and that was a uh I felt like a remarkable experience to be able to sit down with with and build a relationship there um one thing that to me stood out is every meeting we have here Jeff you get up and tell everybody what a great job they're doing and how wonderful everything is I think I would be you know it would be a sad day if we didn't recognize Jeff
234and he was a presenter at the conference and presented Saturday morning and afterwards I said to Jeff and I meant this as a compliment and I believe he took it as such he does not just go in and present he performs it was an excellent excellent uh presentation and great information and I believe that people from other uh school districts in the state were able to uh benefit from knowing what you've been able to do to make us look good uh not the others but I know sometimes I make that a hard job for you um another thing that maybe culminated as part of the usba convention but it's been a a bunch of hard work uh throughout the year to get us there according to my understanding and correct me if I am wrong
235Canyon School District Board of Education re received the master board award and all seven board members and both of our administ administrators earned the individual portion of that I think that's the first time we've had 100% in Canyon school district the thing that is really cool about this master board award is it shows that we take our job seriously that we are willing to put forth the effort and receive the training to be competent at what we're doing and so I would like to extend congratulations to the entire board and to uh Rick and Leon for everybody earning that that is a that is a big deal um last thing that I want to uh mention and Jeff you mentioned this tonight in your presentation is Mindy Robinson principal at Midville Middle School I think
236part of what makes a leader great is their ability to assemble a group of people with a common vision and I found uh that morning that uh I went down to midell middle school for that presentation and would chat with with a few of the uh faculty members that is a group of people that are willing to do the heavy lifting because they know that they can make a difference in a child's life in a student's life and I compliment Mindy for being the leader with that Vision to make a difference and I can't think of anybody more deserving than she was to receive principal of the year thanks thank you and um I just want to take a minute and also express my appreciation um like Mont said I could just say ditto to
237what everyone has said and um in regards to all the different activities that have gone on but I'll I'll just mention one thing um I was able to attend the econ Utah economic Outlook Summit um from Salt Lake chamber of commerce um last week and it wasi very interesting lots and lots of experts talking about and touting how wonderful Utah is what a great job we've done through all of this pandemic and just continuing on the great work in managing the state and and in the business community of Utah and it was it was um it was nice to be able to celebrate or and rece receive information that's so positive about Utah and um they did talk about education a little bit but one of the pieces that in my mind seemed a little
238bit of a disconnect is they were talking about now as the time to invest in in the infrastructure and you may have seen this in news articles and and it was part of the opening day of the legislative session remarks by by the president of of the Senate and the the speaker of the house about investing using some of some of our um the state's tax revenues to invest in like water infrastructure and efforts to be more efficient with that and and I guess the piece in my mind that was a little bit of a disconnect and maybe it's just me it only made sense to connect it for me but I truly believe that public education is part of the infrastructure of the state of Utah and the quality of Education that is provided
239to students throughout the state is such high caliber that it really is a big contributor to The Rosy economic Outlook that Utah has and I just truly believe that it's it is part of our future and I think it is worthy of of investment similar to infrastructure investment so anyway anyway that's just kind of some thoughts that I had and and I just appreciate um my fellow board members as well as all the Educators throughout the district because I feel like they also see how valuable and how critically important it is that we have high quality education in every classroom throughout the district and um so with those thoughts if there's nothing else I will adjourn the meeting and it looks like we're about 30 seconds shy of 9:30 so oh thank you all