Canyons Board Meeting

001now so that we can begin i'd like to welcome all of you to the study session portion of the meeting of the canyons board of education today is november 30th 2021 and we are meeting at the district office located at 9361 south 300 east in sandy utah the first item on our study session agenda is an update on strategic planning and um and um we have um superintendent robbins will join us he had to step out of the room for a moment and so i will just go ahead and turn time over to you um drew schantz who is with ed education elements and um if you would like to give us an update and then we'll let superintendent robbins give his thoughts following yours drew before you start let me just ask if there

002are going to be slides that are being put up is there any way we can get those uh remotely um i don't i don't think there are any slides that's correct there are no plans for today okay no no slides okay okay drew go ahead all right good good evening everybody um bunches take some time today to do a quick recap kind of where we've been and what we're looking forward to accomplishing when we i'm head out to see you all again next week i'm gonna apologize if there's any background noise i'm walking around downtown cincinnati right now um so uh our first two final team meetings are really an opportunity for uh planning team members to get to know one another um understand their role in the strategic planning process and really start to

003dig into their respective focus areas on the first day we really focus on building up psychological safety and making sure that team members were able to be fully present and and contribute fully to the process and then we moved into kind of defining what were the specific challenges that we wanted to solve within each of the focus areas and then from there on day two we started to expand on those challenge statements um turn them into impact statements and started to paint a more vivid picture of what we wanted the future of the district to look like sound like feel like for all stakeholders i mean from there uh planning team members really got in the weeds of the uh the strategic initiatives that would support those respective visions within each of the focused areas

004um and they were tasked um when uh at the conclusion of day two they were tasked with uh kind of sharing socializing and sharing some of those ideas that they generated with other members of the community to continue to gather their input in a very casual and informal manner so that we can make sure that more voices continue to be heard throughout the process um and what we are kind of taking words for taking the work that has been done um last month when we met and really diving back into exactly where we started next monday rather we recognize that a lot of the planning well each of the planning teams is at a very different spot that's very much okay and there's different number of people on each of the planning team there's different

005challenges that um each of those teams are grappling with um and it's a it's a really complex process and it's it's um certainly not easy so with that recognition in mind we're really kind of switching our approach um for days and forth to be much more differentiated and targeted towards the specific needs of each of the um base of the planning team so what you'll notice as you participate um next monday and tuesday is that we're going to set um kind of the the expectation for the and be very clear on setting the expectation for what the end of this phase of the process looks like and really telling planning team members um the negotiables and the non-negotiables for what we're looking for we also and in doing so allowing planning teams to kind of

006navigate that process as they best see fit and with the guidance that we're able to provide them there are going to be some planning teams that are are really rocking and rolling they have very solid strategic initiatives in mind they're already getting into the success criteria and they um they really don't need a lot of hand-holding along the way while there are some other teams that are a little bit um just slower to progress through the process so far so we want to make sure that we as facilitators shelby megan myself are able to provide some more targeted supports for them in order to get them to where they need to be something else that we also want to remind on planning teams is that their work while integral and essential to the planning uh

007the strategic planning process um they are part of their role is to provide recommendations suggestions and uh essentially submit a draft what the strategic plan will look like to the steering team uh the steering team will meet the week following next really do some more of that finalization work and uh and align on what the final plan or close to final plan is going to look like uh we just we think that it's important to find planning team members of that um they are not the the final deciders they are not um writing anything um in ink so to speak they're they're purely operating pencils in hand things will be erased things will be changed and that's okay um so we just want to make sure that that um while planning team members recognize the

008importance and frankly the gravity of the tasks that they are being asked to do um this is not the the end-all be-all and there are other layers of the process for the strategic plan have sort of a feel of approval so to speak so the the next two days or monday and tuesday of next week are really going to be focused on a differentiated approach to make sure each group is getting the point that they need questions are being answered as they come up and we're able to let groups kind of progress um the best way that they see fit but keeping in mind the the non-negotiable the the end goal that we want all groups to be able to arrive at by the time we are done on tuesday which is going to be

009a completed set of impact statements strategic initiatives that will support those impact statements as well as draft success criteria for how we will know that we're successful in completing those strategic initiatives as the plan um as the plan unfolds and gets carried out so that's the uh kind of recap of the last time we met our hopes for the next time that we meet um and i'm i'm open to any questions that you all may have for me okay um thank you let me just check with superintendent rick do you have anything to add at this point or should we take some questions okay all right questions board uh mrs nybauer hi drew thank you for being with us a few questions i have i i have received a lot of feedback probably the biggest

010amount of feedback was regarding into what happens after this and what is the timeline and the process for the rest of this strategic planning where i have tried to explain that there is another committee after this one and then at the end of the day these recommendations go to the board um i was thinking it would be helpful and i i don't know if you mind doing this but it might be nice for all of these folks that are giving their time to understand completely what the process is so that they don't operate under you know maybe be an assumption that what is determined at the end of tuesday is how it's going to stay i think after that amount of time people felt you know some ownership that way which is great because that

011means they've been invested in the process and just to be clear of kind of what the what the steps and process are at the beginning of the meeting with a timeline so that they they know what steps are happening after tuesday would that be something we could do uh you read you read my mind polly that's that's exactly how you wanted to start out the session um on monday and really make sure that there is a a consistent level of clarity um across the board so that everyone understands the specific role that planning team members are playing and then what the steps are going to be afterwards so that was that was part of the feedback that we got last time and definitely want to make sure that we start off with that establishing that

012level of clarity before we even dive into uh continuing the planning work great and then you mentioned that there will be non-negotiables could you clarify that what are the non-negotiables i understand what the end goal is but you mentioned quite a few times there's non-negotiables what is that so that's that i'm referring to what we want to make sure every planning team is able to accomplish we don't and that is um the uh the impact statement strategic initiatives and that's criteria um we need a complete set for um at least a a safe enough to share set of of those things from each of the planning teams so that we can share that with um the steering team uh the following week the the the negotiables are kind of how planning teams arrive at that

013um at that final deliverable we know and as i mentioned we know that things are kind of progressing at different paces so we just want to allow for an environment that ensures that each team is able to do their best work and kind of progress at their own pace so the the negotiable is the how or the process by which they get to that non-negotiable this is that final delivery is the final okay great and then you talked about it but in that same vein so some of these me some of these uh committees that are have already drafted their impact statements and already kind of looking at steps if they're if they're that far ahead and then there's some that are behind how are you planning on on navigating that through the two meetings

014if there's a committee that finishes early is it just the monday or how are you you talked about a differentiating approach what's the plan that way i know some of the feedback i've gotten is those that that have already drafted their impact statements and have started thinking about steps and success criteria i know they were to take it out to the community and neighbors and get feedback um but one of the some of the feedback i got from the participants was that some of the exercises if they're already kind of ready to go and close to the end deliverable that you want um you know if some of those exercises they can move past if they're already through would that be one of those negotiables you're saying if if they're getting closer to that end

015product exactly exactly yeah so um what we're we're working on putting together um digital workbooks for each of the groups to kind of put all of their final products in and in those workbooks are going to be kind of like a pacing guide for how they should progress towards on that final deliverable um if there are groups that are kind of zooming along and and really far ahead um there there could be a world where if that group reaches the consensus that they have um they have a final deliverable that everybody is happy with um they might not necessarily need to meet um for as long as a group that takes a little bit longer to tackle that process um and and we we don't know yet um which which groups fall into which of

016those kind of pacing categories uh we kind of have to make that determination on monday when we take stock of of what work has been done um between the last time and this time for each of the groups and get updated impact statements and strategic initiatives from each one okay great i have another question but i'll let someone else go and take a break from it thanks okay uh mr millerberg yeah thank you uh i just have one question and maybe one comment um the first is i know that clarina and maybe somebody else and i are assigned to two different uh kings and maybe it's also because uh i missed the uh what i what i call there's no notice like no notice meeting before we started on the monday the meeting called at

017the last minute to tell people that our chairing committees what to do i was uh involved with the community council meeting that i prioritized in front of strategic planning but i find it really difficult to try to move from one committee to another uh and make it work and feel like i'm not missing something at the table where i'm not so let's go to that one then i'll just come up with my comment at the end of that response hey mike your question was specifically what do you expect those of us to do that are assigned to two different teams so it's tricky right because we have exactly we have we have ten planning teams and board members so um what what i would probably suggest is since you've had the opportunity now to interact

018with both those groups you might you you might get a sense that that one of those groups might need a little bit more of your attention than another one does um so i would leave that up for you to make make that call and see which one you might want to lean more into and that's also why we have um we have representatives from the district on each of those each of those teams so so you can exercise some shared leadership for that particular individual um and kind of norm on on what role you want to play because you are juggling those those two groups um it's not an ideal situation but it was very important to us this board is represented on to the planning teams so we're just trying to trying to make

019that work as best as we can and i do recognize that that can be a challenge okay i feel like what you told me is exactly what i was thinking and i don't know a whole lot more now than i did before i asked the question uh second comment the second comment um where these meetings go from four to seven uh i i appreciate very much that at the last meeting people brought snack but if i'm going to maintain my girlish figure uh i don't want to sit around and eat candy and popcorn and all that stuff for three hours uh when four o'clock is too early to have dinner and seven o'clock is way too late to have it we need to have something that's more meal-like than uh than candy and chips and

020popcorn and all those things that i love to eat but i try not to okay i can take that to um to the folks who are who are working on the food and and provide that feedback to them okay um i'll just interject here for a minute mont do you have a menu suggestion i know the first meeting there were some like wrap tortilla wraps in the second meeting we had some sandwiches um yes it's not a full meal but do you have a suggestion for menu i i did not see sandwiches the uh with the team i was at so maybe that was something that uh different teams did different stuff okay we we will make sure that that's something's available it would be nice but i think uh it's not fair to expect

021people either a not eat or be junk okay yep thank you yeah thank thank you okay um any anyone else have questions or comments uh mrs nybauer i've had feedback from from one of the groups talking about how it seemed the group was going very specific in one direction that would wouldn't be so much of an impact statement are you as as the moderator are you going to be working with groups to make sure that the impact statement is what it's intended to be i know these parents are feeling kind of limited and restricted from from the direction that was headed and maybe felt like at one point they didn't feel that they could contribute as much because the group was going in a direction that they didn't they didn't agree with and it was

022pretty specific it seemed more like steps to steps to get to the goal rather than an impact statement so could you describe to me a little bit about how how ed elements is going to help that those impact statements if they are too specific and narrow in scope yeah that's something that we notice as well so appreciate you following that out um in those digital workbooks that i have referenced we are we're gonna there's gonna be a dedicated page that that kind of provides some examples as well as some criteria for what makes a good impact statement what makes a good um strategic initiative and what makes a good success criteria a piece of success criteria um we and and we we're concerned about about the grain size and kind of making sure that it

023fits into that kind of hierarchy of of sections there but um we're we're certainly not we're certainly more concerned about the process by which folks go through and make and ensuring that what they are uh creating kind of adheres to um best practices of a strategic plan but the actual content of what is in that um that particular impact statement or um for strategic initiative that's that's something that we're leaving up to each of the teams so we'll provide the guidance the actual sub um as long as it fits within kind of the the parameters or the guidelines for what makes a good uh strategic initiative for example um we uh we will leave that piece up to you and then i have i know some parents that were invited not by myself but maybe

024their administrator or something that could go to some of the meetings but not maybe these ones next week to be sure that we have enough parent representation can we invite others if we've gotten emails that they won't be there next week or i i hesitate to do that at this point because they're i mean we've been together with these groups for for six hours already and and there's been there's been some momentum built up um perhaps are you getting the centali that there is a group that's going to be significantly kind of understaffed uh i just think the ratio of of parents that are there is probably not what we intended we say to district staff yeah okay okay so uh so not enough parents too many districts members and maybe one or two situations

025district members are very valuable i hate to i don't want to eliminate the balance it's also important yes yes just some parents that are unable to attend this next week and just wondering if we could if they could find a parent in their place or something like that i know i know that was one of the things we were so excited about with with ed elements is how how great you guys are at gathering community support and input and so just trying to maintain the integrity of that yeah the only reason i have is just because i wouldn't want that person to to come in and have a lot of the have a lot of the leg work done already and not feel like can contribute fully to the process because a lot you know

026a lot has been accomplished but i think we could consider that on a case by case basis and maybe there's there's an opportunity for us to catch that person not beforehand um but i i just i hesitate just because i i'm putting myself on the shoes of someone who is coming in kind of halfway through the process and i can i can see how that could be potentially uncomfortable or confusing for that individual um so i i think we but we can certainly consider it um i'm just kind of turn away the cost with the with the benefits of of doing that and letting all groups kind of take that approach and we're not um we don't have a a relatively high degree of consistency in terms of group membership um but it's like i

027think it's something that we can consider if there's a group that that balance is really thrown off okay thanks okay uh mr wrigley yeah just a quick question for drew maybe uh continuing this would be possible you to send an email out to the parents and ask who plans on attending and if they plan on attending the whole time because i know last time we had parents we were able to make it but only for the last hour to it might be interesting to find out if there's an issue or if there's not an issue by just asking what days they will be able to attend yes i can do that um uh because that's a good idea because the calendar invites is not necessarily an accurate representation of who will attend so why don't

028i send out another email um this week to just in uh to just let us know if they do not plan on attending so then we can make that calculation um on potentially adding some additional folks in uh as necessary yeah maybe just ask game theory content not at all or part of the meeting because you know you had parents that came in halfway and they were able to you know up the speed for the first part of the meeting um but it may not come if we have a significant number not there we'll know before the meeting if we get some idea thank you okay thank you uh mrs oakes hi drew thanks so much for all of your help i've really actually enjoyed the committee that i've been a part of i feel

029like it's it's exciting and to see some of the momentum and things that will come out of this whole process and i am loving like having a chance to read what some of the other committees are coming up with i think it's going to be such a great um an effective thing for the district one of the questions i have comes out of um reading the new school rules book and um i thought to myself you know so many of the the principles in this book are helpful in understanding how we should be approaching this strategic planning um particularly you know some of the things about safe enough you know are ideas safe enough to try is there you know a way to defend no question for data um i i wonder whether or not

030there's some of these principles that we could have kind of a quick rap sheet as you know committee members to kind of look over and just discuss briefly to consider i i mean i i doubt that most of them can finish you know a 200 page book before monday and tuesday's meeting but i do feel like so many of these principles are extraordinarily sound and particularly for the process we're involved in i think it's a great idea um and we could we could pull out a couple of those rules that are specifically applicable at this stage in the process and we've got some one pagers on each of them that that i can kind of that i can lay out for some pre-reading and we can do a quick overview of how to apply some

031of those principles but yeah absolutely i love that idea okay thank you so much okay thank you superintendent do you have anything to add i just uh also drew want to thank you and your team for all of your assistance and uh share my appreciation to all of our staff and parents that participated it was exciting i got to just kind of weep through all 10 planning teams and listen in and just the level of investment and dedication by every team was excellent and i think it's continuing this process forward um you know considering the all of the the issues and the pandemic and everything that's still occurring it's just great to see people dedicated to you know the future and helping us build this out so appreciate all your work drew and everybody that's

032contributed thank you appreciate it yeah thank you thank you drew and we look forward to seeing you next week as we continue this work alrighty thank you all we'll see on monday thank you all right take care you too okay next item is um the 20 20 21 annual comprehensive financial report and i will turn time over to leon wilcox business administrator thank you president tingey i'm sure you've all read 100 and all 130 pages of the report i'll just take any questions you may have uh that's why i thought for your report right true yeah exactly uh just so you know we had our audit committee meeting yesterday uh martin is our audit chair with also clarion and amber in attendance it was we had a virtual meeting i'll turn some time over them

033at the end if they would like any we had our external auditors on the zoom they went over their our annual audit report there were really no issues that they found but again you can look at we can defer to them as well uh the audit reports there are four of them they are found on board docs and we ask as we do every year we ask you to approve them as part of the consent agenda also on board boarddocks is our annual comprehensive financial report i'm going to call it the aquifer if you don't mind uh giving you each a copy again it's on board docs it's also uh on our website today i apologize for a little printing issue we put three whole punch in the book but that being said we didn't

034want to reprint them so there's a couple pages can you throw up those slides julie uh there's oh didn't i give them to cindy yeah i mean i've been to you you didn't get they're on board docks okay yeah oh no just not not four pages there's four pages out there isn't there yeah yeah so i apologize for that anyway there are we'll get going don't want to just join the shortage of time well cindy and julie try to pull that up yes be those four slides it says act first slides there are the annual reports about 130 pages long obviously we don't want to go through it but there are four pages that i feel like are important that i'd like to just run over go over with you as the board uh on

035your book here there's an introductory with a letter from dr robbins and myself and then our oral chart uh listing of all you as the board members the report the awards that we've got in the last few years and then when it says financial that's our auditor's report again they keep us an unmodified or a clean opinion on our financial statements meaning you can rely on these numbers as being uh as being correct there's again four pages i'd like to just go over with you they are starting i'm going to start on page 73. excuse me 72. again let me get that pulled up we'll also have it short up there but uh this is what i call again it you can look under the slides under board docs or just on the book itself

036again i'm going to start on page 72. you look at the basic accounting equation is take your assets unless you're all liabilities and that gives you your fund balance right and so we just want to go over what our fund balance is right now at the end of june 30th 2021 our fund balance was just under 76.9 million dollars that's about a 530 000 increase from the previous year now we categorize that fund balance in a couple different areas one area is again if you look at the slides that i've had written notes there we put aside five percent of our budgeted expenditures for this year as a stabilization fund okay that's about 16.1 million dollars and then we have our gatsby which is in our vacation payouts for those eligible employees that is another

037and we add five percent on to that what we what our actuary tells us the cost is and that's another 116.1 million we set that aside for those employees oh thank you julie for pulling that up you can see the blue and i apologize for the the chicken scratch there uh finally and then a couple items down you'll see our open purchase orders those are we had pos again supply chain issues we had a lot of pos that we had closed out there at 1.7 million so we got to carry that money over and then we allow our schools to carry over their supplies their textbook money their uh technology money and that's about five million dollars that they carry over and then find the last two lines there is eight million dollars again we've

038talked about our construction how construction prices have escalated so we're going to have to set aside some of our balance to complete these projects we're under and that's eight million dollars we've talked about that quite a bit in the past there so we set that aside and then finally the the last one is what we call our unassigned balance and that's 28 million dollars now that seems like a lot of money and it certainly is but that is basically one month's worth of expenses for us uh so that is money we really have to that's really our balance right there is that that amount right there but i always like to say we're one month ahead of the game i think i say that every year so that's but that is how much we spend

039on a on a on a monthly basis uh i also want to know i didn't highlight it but if you look on up well it's on next page there but again you can see our phone balance the increase from one year to the next going to the next page which is on page 73 there which is over you can see that there so again a couple things i just want to point out there if you look down under i didn't circle it but if you look under the so what we have is our budget of money our actual and then the difference between the budget and the actual and what happened last year one thing i just want to point out is our federal money again we got quite a bit of escrow money so

040last year we got about 12.2 million of federal dollars but this year was up to 21.3 again that's all that stimulus or funds that we received and we still got a lot for the next three years this year and the next two again our revenues are up on top so you see our taxes our state funds and our federal money then you look down under expenses we always say we always like to say as the board would talk about our budget a lot but we also need to see what actually happened and this is what this schedule tells us here so our total expenses for last year were 313.1 million dollars we budgeted or you approved a budget of 316.6 that's what you allowed us to spend so we were about three and a half

041million under which is about 1.1 percent which is typically where we'd be sometimes we've been closer to two but that's about uh again where we always like to be between one and two percent under our budget there i can see there that uh i circled the top there people is our biggest expense that's nearly 88 between salaries and benefits there and then if you look down again our increase our we had more money in than we had out about 533 000 gives us our ending fund balance of 76.9 so any questions there uh just for comparison purposes this is our this was our 12th year our first year of operating back in 0.9010 we spent 190 million so you can see how much our budget has grown in 12 years so that is what we

042call our income statement there uh the third schedule i want to show you is just is our insurance fund now we've had we're self-insured meaning our employees as they go to the doctors we pla we pay their claims here okay so that's insurance fund we accumulate resources and then pay out those claims as they come due from doctor's offices and hospitals we've had two very very good years with our insurance you can see how in 2020 our balance went up five and a half million and last year it went up three and a half million to give us an ending balance of just under 17 million that's 16.8 million there is our insurance balance typically we spend about 2.8 million a month on insurance so that's we like to have at least a four month

043reserve so that's you know 11 to 12 million dollars there uh one of the things that you know in our negotiations you know starting in january our the district will actually pay more of the premiums and the employees will pay less so that's starting in january that you think employees saw that when they completed their open enrollment there uh but we do want to say that our insurance claims this year have increased quite a bit uh just we've had more hospitalizations we've had a couple big uh cancer type issues out there so they've gone up quite a bit but this we're fortunate we do have this nice buffer there in our insurance fund to fund help us through that with that so there's our insurance fund there the last schedule i want to show you

044is just our our and sorry this is tilde landscape but it's a uh this this is our what we call our taxable valuations so everybody knows you know your house is going up this is from this year to 10 years back and you can see our our assessed valuation has increased from basically 15.8 billion again that's what to be up to about 27.7 billion over that 10-year period a 76 increase now we're somewhat built out right so there has been some new homes and new businesses built in the district but not you know for the most part we've been built out since our existence but everybody knows what has happened to their price the home value the value of the home over the last 10 years it's gone up dramatically you can see that difference

045here where it says primary homes from 9.3 billion up to 16.3 billion a few more homes no doubt but not a whole you know not a whole lot there and the same with the commercial property basically doubling which we love to see the commercial property going up from four billion up to eight billion so that's very good as we issue bonds is and in january we're going to bring you back a resolution to adopt a resolution to refund some more bonds this helps as we can drop the number of years that we pay out on these bonds so we'll be bringing that back to you in january resolution for that but this is really good news here as well so with that again i'm sure everybody's read all 130 pages i'll ask if there's any

046questions and also before i just want to thank gary warwood for helping put this together gary's out unable to be here today's had some minor surgery yesterday and we'll be out this week but big thank you to him thank you leon any questions or comments board oh mr wrigley and then mrs neibauer first off i want to thank you about two years ago when kova started coming and i started seeing all the expenses i really was worried as to what's going to happen to our budget and if we'd stay afloat you've done an exceptional job of keeping the boat afloat through all this it's just been amazing with all the extra costs that we've had all the extra i mean there's been [Music] just a lot of money coming in and coming out just so

047to see this budget uh reflect that and to show us that we're still in a pretty good position despite everything that's going on around us i mean that's that's good to understand especially since when we bond it helps us keep our aaa bonding one question i do have is since we are self-insured and as we've been going into this coveted this month and then not next month and this month again what do we do as far as as far as self-insurance if something does happen in regards to a pandemic that's really causing our insurance to go up what what's our plan b in this and how do we self-fund ourselves do we have a backup or something a catastrophic fund or something yeah yeah we do have catastrophic insurance for so if someone we do

048have a claim someone has a catastrophic event and we do have those on an annual basis over 225 000 we are self we do recoup that amount so our cap is at 225 okay yeah because i mean the expenses for some of the co covet care is quite expensive and cancer if that happens at some point then that would be a great hit to this budget but we do have catastrophic we do have care that should be able to deal with that so well thank you i just again thank you for so we do feel amazing happy about this we don't i do think that 16 may come down a little bit this year we'll have to see as we play out the last seven months of this year but uh but yeah we have

049had some big claims from since from july up till now on on we've also moved to more of a self-insured or um hsa type of thing is that helping as far as costs and stuff yeah our hsa we have about 55 percent of our employees on that that's helped us a lot thank you just under control mrs nybar thank you leon for this report and your proficiency and talent with this the larger the numbers the more difficult it is i know to keep everything balanced and i have a couple questions so you you showed us that chart over the 10 years and how our increase was 76 percent and our three ways of funding or the wpu and second would be the property taxes and third is like title one and the extra funds we

050get right so yes so my question is uh obviously we have had some new builds right which which really um increased the revenue from property tax has the percentage of the property tax that is afforded to canyon's district also gone up in the last 10 years or it's always made maintained the same well percentage again there's under utah law there's what they call the certified tax rate yes which means you can only bring in the same amount of money you did the previous year with the exception of growth so new houses new businesses come on then you can bring that revenue in so we but other than that you have to stay the same we have only done a tax increase one time that was two years ago when we did a big teacher raise

051so that percentage is still you know else you know this percentage would be the same as it was a year ago that way if that makes sense but that's not the any new growth there so yeah and so as of two years ago then it stayed the same and what's the percentage what is it like 30 something of the property tax our budget is roughly uh 40 property tax 50 percent state and 10 percent oh i'm i don't mean of our budget i mean of the patrons and the community so of their property tax there's there's tax statement and it will vary between cities because each city has a different rate a little different grade okay but it's roughly it's in that 52 to 55 range depending on the city that uh you reside in

052comes the canyon school district yes so a little over half then commercial yeah commercial under again under state law people can remove the 45 percent of their home value and then only pay on the 55 percent uh except for commercial you do have to pay 100 on that but does that answer your question basically so if i got my tax notice i'd have to look at the percentage but i think in draper it's around 55. 50. well we're just taking your total property your total property tax that's the middle property tax statement how much comes to a school district it's around that 52 to 55 so in the 76 increase we've had in the last decade we would attribute some of that to new growth right commercial and residential i think most of that 76

053percent is just your house going up in value my house going up in value that's right i mean there is some new growth no doubt but that's most of it is just people's homes you know 2011 you remember we were still in recession right home boundaries down right you can see what's happened in the last 10 years and we do expect that to go up another four or five percent this calendar year 2021 so yeah okay thank you oh okay thank you mrs arnold so i wanted to um pass on what the auditors said about leon and um just specifically about leon that his jokes really aren't that funny no not really that um leon and gary have been great um working with them that they have been responsive they've been attentive they answered all

054their questions and they provided work in a timely fashion and i just wanted to pass it on to you that i felt like when the auditors give us that kind of feedback that we should be appreciative or more appreciative of what they do and how they do it because it reflects on everybody but mostly on them about how they look at their job and how they really want to um put forth a good impression for all of us and so thank you leon and thank you gary for that and for always um taking good care of us financially thank you yes thank you we appreciate it thank you mrs arnold for sharing that it's always nice to know that other people see how wonderful you all are our team is here okay any other comments

055or questions on this one right while mr wilcox is there we'll move on to small capital projects for 2022-23 year and um turn the time back to mr wilcox thank you we'll uh proceed with our small capital projects we always come about this time of year as we need to really plan ahead for what we're going to do in this summer you know when we look at our school calendar we're really only off about 10 weeks in the summer so come the last day of july any i mean last day of school which is usually first of june we have to have everybody ready to go moving forward on any project that's really going to impact a school operating at school so we have to start planning right now and then get contractors on board

056and move forward with that so uh coming to you with our list today and then we will have engineers and car techs work with us designing these we'll be soliciting bids as soon as we can hopefully maybe even in january february and march but we need to really get going on some of these these costs that are over 80 000 will of course come right back to you for your approval then we'll begin construction when the school year ends and if it doesn't impact the schools there's some work we can do outside the building you know we'll try to start that before again with the goal to have everything done by mid-august when schools kicks back off again uh that being said i'll show you our list but we always have far more needs than

057we have dollars and so uh you know we talked about our bond projects how how much they've cost again they've turned out great but they've cost us quite a bit but and also this upcoming summer we're gonna it's gonna take a lot of our facility services resources to move glacier peruvian move into the new glacier hills you know combining the two schools and also in the peruvian park and also i should also mention what you approved last week moving uh diamond ridge over to bellevue so that's going to take a lot of our resources there so that will limit the things we can do but that being said here are our proposed projects that we do intend to complete this summer just quickly go through these there are three there we have six playgrounds we

058really need to upgrade for ada purposes and the three most important ones we want to do this summer that's willow canyon sunrise and granite we've had some issues at a couple of those schools we really need to get those addressed there the next one would be car uh carpet replacement carpet view and lone peak if you've been into some of the schools where we've torn out the old carpet put the new carpet in it really adds a whole lot adds a whole lot of environment you know this really improves environment at the school so we're excited about those you know any time you replace the carpet in your house my wife and i did that a few years ago it really adds to it and it's just like the same with a school building there

059i should know most of these are elementary schools right uh we feel like our secondary schools are in a pretty good shape being new or renovated a couple secondary schools there but our main focus is going to be on these elementaries that are not rebuilt uh but then the fourth one down lighting upgrades we're going to focus on several schools over the next several years but we're going to start with canyon view and brookwood we're going to replace it's these schools where we put in these the solar tubes a few years ago we want to capture and harvest more natural light so we're going to take out the old fixtures and put in new led fixtures with sensors so that should reduce our electric bill and make us more conservative that way but also add

060more light better light into these classrooms one of the secondary schools that we need to do is uh resurface the track at corner canyon we want to bring that up to the standard uh alta hillcrest and brighton have a different surface and so we want to do hilt uh corner canyon this summer hillcrest next summer to bring those up to that same standard that should last us a good 10 years or so on the track and then another thing that we've done the last several years is irrigation replacements at altera a couple years ago we did a whole the whole new parking lot if you remember that but there's and we did most of the irrigation system then but there was a partial a piece that we did not get done that was about a

061quarter of it so we want to complete that and then do a new replacement at lone peak again we have a few schools left with that the old steel piping we put in new pvc piping and the new controls there makes us more efficient then we have some parking lot repairs not whole replacements but some resurfacing and adding a few spots at eastmont that would be another secondary school of course and then spruce wood these are estimates we do have enough to cover if these estimates are below but we we're trying to be as conservative as possible and think these you know this will come to about two and a half million dollars on those projects this year uh that means that with that is the backdrop we do intend to complete all these uh

062there are some other ones that we are still evaluating right now just want to go over those with you one of those is we talked about in our financial report we need to move eight million dollars to complete these projects one some of that money is going to go to complete diamond ridge as we move into the new bellevue building we really like that building because it's broken up in pods and it's actually going to be very ideal for diamond ridge and entrada and the youth academy there because they can we can lock off these pods so it's very nice but we do need to go in and fix the restrooms you know they're for children right now we gotta we also need to put in we want to put in some laundry facilities and

063shower facilities for these students and another entrance there uh we think that's going to cost us we're looking at two phases of phase in 2022 and a phase in 23 we think this first phase is going to be in that 1.8 million dollar range second phase will probably be the same but that will be next year that will be looking at uh facts classes and science labs converting a couple classrooms there also one thing we're looking at is alta's baseball and softball fields we had to go back and do some work on those to make sure they're safe and compliant but they still need to look at some resurfacing there but we know that's going to be very expensive they'll have to play this season on them but we'll look and see do we look

064at doing that this summer or maybe holding off another summer we're looking at doing hill we are doing hillcrest fields this upcoming summer and there's some things we're going to try there that we may want to bring over when we do altus we may wait till the summer of 23 before we look at altusville we we want to bring that with you know with the to put that in the back of your mind that we are looking at something there on those those ball fields also another thing at alta and that we've had uh you know the great students come that's the band room one of the things we're looking at is we're still looking at a couple options the one thing we will probably be an option and we hope to tie this over

065for another two to three four years it may be a short-term option that's renovating what they call the driver's ed room and making that into an instrument storage and a percussion room there's a little bit of difference there's about a 30-foot walk from the existing bound room down to the driver's ed room not too far so they're not but they are fairly close to each other but we'd like to do we know we have to do something there and we think this will be a fix for a few years we are looking at some longer term options either in the new pack building or even adding on to the building but that does get quite expensive so we're trying to do something that will do our best to accommodate that growing program which we love

066for the next few years that way again we may bring you back more information on that also at sea tech they'll be starting our pharmacy tech program very we're very excited about that uh well since diamond ridge is in that classroom now they won't be exiting until really august so sometime in the next spring a year you know a little over a year from now we'll be looking at remodeling a space over there for the pharmacy tech program that won't happen this summer but we'll be part of the 23 budget and then also one thing we're looking at is try to get improve our elementary camera systems for all the schools that haven't been rebuilt we know that that there's been some issues there that we really need to improve that that takes us into

067this next slide here uh that's the upcoming legislative session hard to believe that's going to be upon us here in a couple months but on the jlc priorities there's a 250 million dollar one-time request for for funds uh dr robins and i we got a request yesterday on how we'd spend this and so we responded back but and it also should be said that the usbe on their request has also that same 250 million dollars it's not one of their top 10 but the top 10 are mostly ongoing items this would be a one-time but we're always concerned about how this allocation will occur obviously we feel it needs to be on a per student basis if it does come you know other districts may look at you know high growth areas with building new

068buildings but would want this on a percent on a per student basis our preliminary use would be to look at these camera systems we do more playground upgrades and use some of this funds for the diamond ridge renovation but we'll stay tuned on that as the legislature plays this out with us okay if they did it on a per student basis our allocation would be roughly a little over 11 million dollars is what we calculate so that's a big big big allocation there and we always are looking ahead because you know we just have to with contractors and and whatnot so summer of 22 will soon be upon us but the summer of 23 will also be upon us we think before we know it these are some of the projects we're looking at moving

069forward that would be the other three playgrounds that would be at bella vista canyon view and lone peak we're do we're doing corner canyons track this summer next summer we plan to do hillcrest same thing we're also looking at east the elevator at eastmont we also know we're going to have to move the storage underground fuel tanks by 2024 at transportation they're going to have to come out of the ground under yeah that would be a fun one that's for epa standards there so then we'll have other things we'll bring to you on carpeting and irrigation and lighting so with that i don't want to take any more time but i have to answer any any questions board superintendent yeah just one comment leon thank you uh for putting this together i one thing that

070we talked about is the soccer fields at corner canyon i was just wondering if we're evaluating yeah we'll evaluate those there's a little water part of it yeah okay okay mr wrigley so just to clarify on the diamond rich one is the intent that they move into the new facility this august and that we have these things done during the summer preparing for them and then what are we going to do with all of our fantastic bungalows over cte are we going to move those out of there so there's some explorables portables yeah yeah we will be taking a couple portables over to the bellevue building then we'll move the others out most likely down to the crescent view property where they were in the past okay well that sounds i'm sure they'll be glad

071to yeah that was our goal to move those over i think we said it's always peruvian park in that glacier hills are scheduled to be completed but we really can't move bellevue out until we get those down so it's gonna be possible to get everything ready well we do anticipate diamond ridge enrollment could grow up to 300 students but next year we're going to keep it around 100 ish that they are right now just because the constraints we're going to have on the facility next year okay great thank you see that growing a little bit over the next few years thank you okay mrs nybar thank you looks like a good list i appreciate dr robbins bringing up the water uh the standing water on the soccer fields at corner canyon and i believe that

072that water issue is also affects lacrosse and um i also in my high school visits i know that another concern is football fields and making sure we're maintaining those for the safety and as i have gone and talked to other high schools it sounds like that may be something we need to review with our other high schools too that corner canyon may not be the only one that's having issues with with just the safety for the athletes on those fields on turf on football turf uh-huh yeah you figure about a 10 a 12-year life i know that corner canyon already had someone come out and evaluate and said that they needed to replace and and i think there was another high school that had the same evaluation so yeah yeah he'll chris would go before

073corner yeah a little older the other three are newer quite a bit newer than god put in a couple years ago so we do obviously we always do have a contract or someone on contract to evaluate those or of course monitoring those yeah and some of them probably get a little more foot traffic than others too and wear and tear so that can be something we can look into or consider possible okay thank you okay thank you very much mr wilcox lots of good work going and we appreciate people every all that they do to pay attention to those kind of needs across the district um next is policy update uh policy several i'll read the policy numbers while mr christensen is coming up policy 500 point 40 student health service re health service and

074requirements policy 600.02 curriculum adoption and policy 600.06 school library media selection and review mr christensen assistant legal counsel thank you president i was telling mr wilcox earlier today that there isn't anything better and more breathtaking following an annual comprehensive financial report than an update for the policy committee and the policy update so um it's a pleasure to be with you i hope you all had wonderful thanksgiving holiday and those patrons that are here with us um what i'd like to do is is walk you through the policy update and i'm going to separate them quickly and then ask for questions recognizing that each of the policy items for tonight are for a first reading and the policy committee welcomes feedback through email and other forms of communication regarding these issues so the first one that's

075on our agenda is as you know we've been working through the student and instruction section for a number of years is kind of the capstone of working through the entire policy manual this policy student health service requirements just needed some organizational updates particularly in the appeal process so when a student has an individual health care plan for attending school this policy addresses those issues how a patron or a parent or legal guardian can make a request to the district how that health plan is set up and then how if there are concerns where they would address those with the district and it outlines some additional definitions and as i said the appeal process was updated to work through our student responsive services department as far as that we did update if you see onboard some

076forms and exhibits that will go along with the new policy and again this one is for first reading as far as really substantive updates they're included on board docs and can be reviewed i don't have any other updates for this policy i can respond to questions i think when we're all concluded um well how about any questions on this particular policy no okay thank you so the curriculum adoption policy uh so um again as we're looking at the instruction section this is one of the policies that was in the last section that we were working through systematically to update and this was a specific directive of the board recently to look at the curriculum adoption processes as we have progressed in our time in the district over time our instructional supports department periodically brings curriculum

077adoptions to the board and has had an internal process where they review materials and bring those forward to the board what this policy revision does and brings a lot of that internal work into some new exhibits so to just outline the structure of the new policy we've added a broader board policy statement that outlines the development and adoption of instructional materials and then the exhibits really outline and the policy the criteria that will be looked at in in the adoption of the policy of the instructional materials where you see on the slide where it has definitions all of these topics are identified in the policy in terms of utah core standards district-wide primary curriculum materials digital and print resources course level supplemental intervention and teacher selected materials kind of a hierarchy moving from adoption at

078the district level clear down into the individual classroom i'm going to have amber broderick lander which was their director of instructional supports take a few minutes and talk about each of the specific exhibits where there is a criteria that will be used throughout the adoption at each level and how that has been refined to be included in this policy thank you jeff good evening board so as jeff mentioned previously in the revisions to the board philosophical portion of this particular policy in that particular portion we identified 12 specific criteria that really have become the foundation of this policy and are then embedded in all of the exhibits in all of the different levels of curriculum materials that are adopted whether it's a teacher looking at them in his or her classroom at the school level

079for supplemental and intervention materials all the way up through district-wide primary curriculum materials adoption so julie if you don't mind clicking on exhibit one when jeff mentioned that part of our efforts in revising this policy were to really make sure that what we were practicing was embedded in policy uh this specifically is what he was talking about so a handful of years ago those of you that were on the board may recall we brought forth this long step what is it 24 steps steve something like that uh process to be able to be transparent predictable and consistent in how we were proposing district-wide curriculum adoptions so that you could annually expect to see whatever curriculum were up based on standards or based on need that we'd be looking at the same process we'd be really

080taking our time and doing our due diligence to examine all of the curricula that might meet our needs evaluating that involving the teachers who it impacts the most in terms of how they're teaching it and then moving forward through gathering patron feedback so this process has only been revised minimally by the policy we've added a couple of things based on our experience over the last four years and implementing this particular practice so we clarified a couple of areas and just again uh tightened some of the language up to make it aligned to the rest of the new revisions within the policy nancy do you want me to go through all of the exhibits and then ask questions or do we want to address questions at each point um i i think you can go through

081all of them and we'll have questions on this perfect so let's move on to exhibit two and this is uh where you'll really start to again see that criteria in the philosophy with those 12 components of what we should be looking at when we evaluate any kind of instructional materials start to come into play here as well so this is the next exhibit that starts to then further define at what level we're adopting and approving different types of materials so this particular exhibit focuses on course level primary instructional materials these are different than district-wide adopted materials because they are for a specific course that may or may not be taught at every school so this particularly applies to a lot of our advanced placement courses are concurrent courses excuse me current enrollment courses are ib

082our cte and other electives that again are not necessarily the same at every single high school and so this allows the schools the opportunity to based on the standards for that particular course look at what materials are needed work with their department their principal make a recommendation and then that final recommendation comes to the instructional supports department but you'll see embedded in those action steps again that 12 criteria all the way throughout so the next exhibit is the instructional material selection criteria and this criteria is again what is used in the supplemental and intervention material selection and approval process as well as the criteria that we will be working with teachers to develop their fluency and automaticity and understanding this criteria because this is the criteria that we would hope that they'll continue to use

083as they're selecting materials for their classroom that is beyond what is listed in the instructional guides so this would be again that that routine that we want to see them getting into and many of them i i would say are already doing this anyway but it formalizes that process and makes clear again those criteria that we expect all of our instructional materials to meet so those are the three new exhibits um really quickly though let's actually pull up exhibit four as well this one is the fiction and non-fiction book approval process formerly known as the novel approval process um we've clarified that this process includes fiction and non-fiction and we've included it in this policy whereas before it was just a stand-alone practice in our schools so those are the main exhibits that have been

084added the other two were part of the original policy well referenced in the original policy in terms of the standards for video guidelines as well as the waiver of participation for any of the materials and and that is in connection to the last section of the policy that states that parents have the right to request a waiver for their students participation and then all of the criteria around that are there any questions um questions i think yeah mrs arnold i don't have this my board packet and i just asked you if they're in the board docs and they're not so i didn't get to see these in the supplemental side they're linked in the pdf of the presentation as well as in the uh actual policy they're linked in there yes i'm happy to you

085know those links get you in lots of trouble i'm just saying [Music] we've been here board meeting after board meeting about links okay to send those to you will you please make it yeah will you please send those to me in an email thank you any would that help anybody else if i sent the links individually anything else mrs arnold no i'll reread it for a second reading so then i can go through it okay thank you thank you mr wrigley yeah i would suggest maybe you want to post this on or docs i know we've been separately yeah those supplementals just for they could see them pretty easy uh we have gone through two or three meetings in the last two weeks we're giving best friends on the police committee on these things i

086know we have spent um i think that 24 criteria be very helpful for parents and stuff to take a look at the the steps and how long it takes and how you know the whole process that we go through so that was posted those two and the other one also that we've we've put out is that one as far as extra curricular activities or whatever for teachers in the classroom when they're trying to you know the teacher the teacher selected yeah teacher selected you know there's a name for everything here teacher selected the criteria i think would be very important because i know there's been some concerns expressed as to how teachers decide stuff in the classroom so there's very specific instructions that we've been put out to this and that's already been out there

087for a while but they've been improved and updated i guess you would say um and as far as those structural materials i have it was interesting about 12 criteria i think we've always sort of had something as you said about that but but as we put it down very appropriate we talk about representative diverse cultures free of bias or stereotypes related to sex race religion sexual orientation gender identity and contributes to a balanced perspective so i think we sort of talk about some of the things that people might asking for um in our criteria so i think that's nice that's embedded within policy and sort of the foundations of what we're taking a look at and it does correlate to the documents you suggested so thank you for now any other questions or comments on

088this policy [Music] any feedback for us to consider or as mr christensen said if there is feedback um please reach out to the policy committee but yes yeah before we bring it back for a second reading okay okay thank you all right the third policy for the season this evening is the school library media selection and review policy and so this one uh is on our agenda to take a look at some of the provisions that are within the policy as you may recall in 2020 this policy was brought before the board as we were working through the instructional section and at that time we added some definitions to the policy and um looked at particularly the challenge process as well as added some criteria for acquisition at that time when the policy was adopted

089we included a a discussion of weeding but some of that criteria did not make it into the full policy as it was adopted in in reviewing this policy the policy committee saw some limitations and weaknesses in our existing policy and this new draft incorporates some of that feedback from the policy committee let me just again give you an overview of the elements of the new policy that is listed on board docs for review the first is there's a broad policy statement to differentiate between what we just were talking about in terms of instructional materials that will be adopted and library materials which though approved through a separate process isn't an instructional material which goes out to all students in terms of the library selection media review policy those materials are defined in the new policy

090as one of the new definitions that it means books pamphlets magazines audio visual materials software electronic materials subscriptions or other information that is accessible to students but it's on a self selection involuntary basis so these aren't required materials for students but are both through selection and on a voluntary basis so that's part of the philosophical statement in the board policy um then the next discussion in the new policy addresses acquisitions and this criteria for acquisitions coming into the school library has been revised to include some broad um some new criteria and then also that all material that is adopted through for the school library begins with um being based on age-appropriateness for the emotional development ability level and learning styles for the students and then some additional criteria the next element in the policy that

091was absent from our previous is a review process and our discussions in the adoption of the previous policy is much of the internal review would occur within district staff and working with patrons and our previous policy had a challenge process what we're doing in the new policy is making that school level review and district review of materials more explicit where both a patron in terms of a parent and legal guardian can initiate a school review or district staffs a member of the board or the superintendent could initiate an internal review which is separate and distinct from a challenge process this is a review of the acquisition which allows our librarians to review and take a look at a title selection and um through that process review the criteria for which which books were selected um

092just i'm sorry just for a moment so we're talking before the purchase is or we're talking about books that are already on the wall which one are we talking about so as i was speaking i was talking about acquisition would be um the criteria prior to purchase okay i'm just wanting to clarify that right because somebody might not know what acquisition means so that's getting right tonight and then the review process would be after purchase that's on the shelf someone sees it and then they can initiate a review yeah i just wanted to clarify those two terms thank you board member arnold uh then after the district and level review processes which could ultimately if it's reviewed and for for a review of that criteria if it did not meet criteria then it could be

093moved to our deselection and weeding process which uh our librarians will then work through that process is outlined based on formal criteria to determine whether or not a book should be deselected and weeded and then finally in the process there is what we had previously which is our our challenge process the attached red line is on board docs with the intent of including some forms that will facilitate both the review process as well as the appeal process i can respond to questions regarding uh this policy um it again is for first reading and we are as as members of the policy committee willing to consider feedback regarding these issues okay um board questions and feedback um i asked how one um if we have a challenge to a book on the shelf does the book

094stay on the shelf until the challenge goes through and how long does it take the challenge to go through to decide if the book stays on the shelf or goes off the shelf currently is the as the policy is drafted as as was maintained in our previous version during a challenge uh the material in question remains in use during the challenge process at the school level however at the district level that school committee engaging in the challenge process could make a determination to remove it during that time period at a district level challenge the time frame would be a matter of allowing the committee to come together do the appropriate review and then make a determination we did not specify a time period in the policy but as a lot of our other policies indicate

095would be within a reasonable time frame that could be added if if we felt it needed to have a time frame built into the repair process process additional thoughts mr wrigley yeah um i appreciate that we've done quite a bit of work on this over the last couple weeks so one of the questions i had a patron ask me is if they're not if they're a patron of the district but don't have a student and they want to review uh the books in our libraries for i understand right now you can go into each library website and each website for each school and check that but is there a process that we'll be developing through communications or someplace that will allow patrons to to find out i mean for example what the last four books

096you four years worth of books you've bought or whatever what's the process for that i know we've had that sort of mention in here but it's not too clear so so i guess mr really one of the remember really the first element in the new policy would be um i'll answer it this way there will be a list of new acquisitions so each year um library media specialists or teacher librarians will be in the process of acquiring new acquisitions that the intent is for that list of new acquisitions to be available upon request for a patron in terms of reviewing other elements as far as what's within the library the the policy is designed to allow that kind of to work through the individual student and parent if they have an issue with the title

097selection they could come in as a parent and review the online catalog from a website and i and we had discussions on where the status of that was i can't recall if you is that available now i believe that it's available now where you can check the online at least the the library in the secondary so that'll be available and we're working towards that but if i have a patreon just wants to know all the books that came in the last four years what's that process a grandma request a guess which anybody could make yeah i know as far as the acquisitions we have about 440 000 books in our library so i understand we get in about 7 000 almost 8 000 books per year and talking with librarians i guess when we talk

098about acquisition i think they're trying to monitor books coming in we now have new criteria to raise that against but i suspect no matter how good you have with seven to eight thousand books coming in per year there may be one that sneak through um that we will have rely upon our staff and and our parents and other people to to inform us to use this particular process yeah thank you mr wrigley we've had in in reviewing this policy we've had support from our district library media specialist who provided me some of the some of those same figures where um the number of print books in our 13 sec in our secondary schools is over 168 000 titles and in our 29 elementaries 302 000 so in their review and we work with outside vendors

099that provide uh those titles there are occasions where you may have a review that may not be complete and so as the librarians work through the acquisitions that they're letting us know that the best way to become informed about a book is to read it and we think we have developed through our discussions a policy process that allows us to winnow down in terms of criteria and then a robust review process to address issues so do we have a process in this that allows parents if they don't want their child to read a book that's approved for everybody but they don't want to read it is there a way we could tag their library card or their parent can tag their library card to make sure that that child doesn't check out that book so

100there'd be i guess two answers to that question one if there is an issue that um a child and that would be through our curriculum adoption policy where we talked about there's the waiver if they don't participate in a particular activity or curriculum they cannot this should use it this would be just a library book that the parent doesn't want the child to read is there a process we may have on that yeah i think we get that is built into them to inform the librarian and do the card the the current books that we pulled i understand there's only about six of them six copies of them and they put them into review and don't you have to read them to review them that's why i mean that's one of the reasons they're off

101the shelf right now because they're being reviewed to read i thought i know there were some guys pulled off the shelves yet that they were still on the shelves as we reviewed are they i don't i don't know and i can only speak to the the policy review process um in terms of what the policy committee has has done uh if dr robbins if you can comment clarion so there were nine initial titles that the physical copy was pulled i i don't know on the county side as far as access to the digital uh version but they were put on hold until we reviewed this policy so uh my and you know to that point one recommendation as we know there's been a lot of conversation and and input on this very issue um i

102feel confident after looking at the policy this was a real concern that i had i mean when you look at the initial policy around acquisition weeding and review from the beginning and really at the heart of this issue my recommendation would be is that once this is complete that those titles would then fall uh under this process so okay for what i understand that the school libraries fall under different criteria than the public libraries as far as what we have in them is that correct so i can only speak to federal level as far as well their their school library which bears the perimeter of the school so it we operate separately and distinct from a public library but i mean what i'm trying to say is and we've embedded it within our policy that

103we actually have tougher criteria or more stringent criteria in a school library than we do in a public library in that we cannot discriminate against content i think there was a federal supreme court ruling on content but it gets into the other sexually explicit and stuff like that that mitchell may not be appropriate from k-12 that would be because i've had parents concerned that we'll pull things just because of content and under our policy we can't pull a content but it would be other things within this policy that we can pull that on so we write them out i guess you should support case island tree v pico discusses that you can't remove books from the library based on content and they discuss that pervasive vulgarity is the standard and so as we move forward

104we've added that criteria into our policy that we have an acquisition criteria as well as a de-selection and criteria yeah so i think that's that i'm what i'm concerned about and i think we've addressed in this policy is for parents that want us to keep books in and parents that are concerned about books that they wanted weeded out there's a policy to sort of guard against both sides in the current policy as we move forward is that correct i think yeah that would be um thank you the feedback from the committee okay uh mrs schill so i just want to um first of all thank all the parents and also media specialists that have emailed us we have received a lot of emails on this topic and we do read them all and i just

105want to say thank you for those um also i want to thank the policy committee because they have spent a lot of time on this policy and i think i mean there may be some tweaks to it but i think overall it's really good so just want to thank them for all their work thank you mrs oakes hi so i again also want to reiterate um what amber had to say i appreciate so many of the perspectives that have come in on this this has been a really difficult issue and this is absolutely a heavy lift for the policy committee and i can't imagine how long and how um difficult some of your meetings have been i have a constituent who has a sibling who is a media specialist for a large school district in

106southern california and several well it's been a number of years now they've had to develop policies like this in order to address a lot of the things that were coming into the school um she actually called her sister up in a mad panic once because they had received a large shipment of pokemon books from japan only to find out that a parent had opened one of these graphic novels and that there were really inappropriate pictures in there and so they had to go through that process at that time call the books go through things i think so much of what we've dealt with and why this has been frustrating for people that it hasn't been until now that we've really had to evolve into a process where we've really needed something like this where there's

107more of a formal screening opportunity for parents who have concerns or or content and books particularly and graphic novels which are becoming increasingly popular with youth that can become really problematic so i want to thank the policy committee i think that this is on on the right path i think this is definitely the direction we need to go and i appreciate everyone who has written into us thank you other comments or questions or bored any any feedback president i would just like to um thank um gretchen i'm going to try your last name zaitsev um from our district library library media specialist as well as dr landward they were both instrumental in making some proposed revisions and i appreciate their work and also the time of the policy committee um thank you and and i

108just as one that serves on the policy committee i too want to reiterate the appreciation for all of the staff in the district that have been working very hard on this i feel like like what we've what we've come up with it it honors and preserves the role of the librarian in our schools but it also has a way to engage parents or district personnel in in this process so that that combined it can be something that as a community we work together on these kind of things and so i i appreciate the time and the effort that's gone into this and again just remind the board this is for a first reading and we will bring it back in two weeks for a second reading so thank you presenting thank you okay um that

109concludes the items on our study session agenda i would um i i hope that those that have joined us in person or i'm here at the meeting will will allow me to i'd like to give the board just a few minute break we've been we've been working for for a while and it will just take a short maybe five five-minute break and then we'll reconvene thank you you are now muted like to welcome you all to the meeting of the canyons board of education today is november 30th 2021 and we are meeting at the district office located at 9361 south 300 east in sandy utah and i would like to excuse mrs holly nybauer for this business meeting portion and they also recognize that mont millerberg and amanda oaks are joining us by telephone and

110um so with that the first item um on the agenda and is um to approve the agenda for this evening november 30th 2021. i will actually first of all i'm just going to confirm that we have mr millerberg and mrs oakes on the line i'll confirm i'm here we're glad to hear you thank you mrs oakes maybe she's muted and doesn't realize it amanda can you hear us okay okay hey she i'm sure she'll be with us shortly but um but we will go ahead and proceed and i will ask for a motion to approve the agenda for tonight november 30th 2021 i'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda for the november 20th november 30th uh 2021. thank you is there a second to the motion i'll second that thank you any

111discussion to the motion see men i'll call for a vote all in favor say i i i i thank you any opposed all right that motion passes thank you next we will be led in the pledge of allegiance um by east sandy elementary principal brian reds you guys are quick i was already had please stand but everyone's already doing this so please begin 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 you may now be seated thank you and and we'll look forward to hearing some school highlights thank you well thank you first off for giving me the opportunity to be here tonight to talk about east sandy elementary home of the mustangs

112east sandy community including the faculty staff students and families makes this one of the most welcoming and inviting places i have ever been each day the students arrive elated to be at school with smiles on their faces the teachers greet the students with overwhelming enthusiasm and start their day off right you can tell that each teacher truly wants to be here and is ready to make a difference in every child's life east sandy has a population of about 380 students and is proud to house two of our district's aabs classes just the other day i watched as one of our students entered their mainstream class and was greeted by an uproar of excitement from teachers and students the acceptance and kindness of these students shows us shows us overwhelming heartwarming feelings for for every student

113the community is also always willing to pitch in and help out when needed each sandy pta and scc are involved in contributing members to the school and put forth an effort just like their students to make sure that east sandy is the place to be for example just this year our pta pivoted to an outdoor book fair showcase so that families could check out what was going to be offered at our parent teacher conferences and to sell a few books and of course they did it was unbelievable we also focus on literacy through our close reading professional development and letters training to make sure that our shoot our students show growth in their reading group goals throughout the year although letters has been a tough addition during this year all my teachers have liked the

114training and very much appreciated the support of the board and the school district it is amazing that i have the opportunity to work with people who are so resilient and push through hard times to make sure that they have a positive attitude every day when they come to work once again thank you for the opportunity and remember go mustangs thank you thank you and principal will you please extend our appreciation and gratitude to your staff and to the students there for all the wonderful work that they're doing this year thank you okay next we will turn time over to jeff haney and kirsten stewart from the communications department for some recognitions president thank you for this time to recognize the achievements of students faculty and staff in canyon school district tonight for our recognitions we

115are honoring stars on the football field and the classroom those who are honored tonight will receive a letter of commendation from the board and the superintendent we appreciate all that they have done to work with us to build a district of distinction now our first honoree tonight is corner canyon high football player devon brown now devin continues to impressively follow in his predecessor's footsteps like jackson dart who is now playing for usc devon who is committed to usc made a huge impact on the football field for the chargers in his senior season which ended at the championship game at the university of utah's rice eckles stadium thanks to his big plays throughout the entire season he was named as the 2021 max prep utah high school football player of the year now he's now qualified

116to be considered for the max preps all-american team which will be announced in early january so congratulations to devon and we wish him much luck as he can is considered for further honors for his football season our next honoree is somebody who has been to board meetings several times and is helping us in our strategic planning process and that is eastmont middle school teacher emma moss now it's no secret that we think that miss moss is a rock star teacher she was our teacher of the year in 2020 and she was a runner-up to the utah teacher of the year in that same year and now she has been selected to represent canyon school district and her school eastmont middle as a utah teacher fellow now the fellows receive training on developing and leading professional

117learning engaging their peers professional uses of social media and how to look at challenges with a solution oriented mindset now throughout the year mrs moss will engage with many education stakeholders meet with lawmakers and participate on state education committees so congratulations emma for bringing even more distinction to eastmont and canyon school district and our next honorary is an mve or the most valuable educator as chosen by the utah jazz and instructure now this is her first time first year of being a full-time teacher and that's ara nielsen she from midvale elementary school and she's truly impacting the lives of her third grade dual language immersion students now thanks to her efforts the utah jazz and instructure they created canvas they honored senora nilsson as the mve the mve award is being given as part of

118a program that celebrates teachers who make a difference in their students lives the recognition came with a thousand dollar classroom grant six tickets to instructure suite at the jazz game on november 7 27th recognition during that game in a personalized jazz jersey and much to the delight of the students at midvale you can see here that they had a visit from the jazz bear that's when they announced our nelson's selection as the most valuable educator and the receipt of all of those prizes now as a reminder we have a very special event coming up pretty soon educators from canyon school district cleve castleton and milomon will take their trip to infinity and beyond next week they are part of the nasa affiliated institute to attend a prestigious astrophysics teacher training program and that includes a

119flight on sofia which is the world's largest flying observatory they're scheduled to take this trip to california december 5th to the december 10th we're excited for them and are interested in how they spend their time in the adventures that they have as nasa airborne astronomy ambassadors so congratulations to cliff and milo we wish them much luck and can't wait to hear about their journey now one more thing that i would like to mention in 2017 our community rallied to support a bond proposal to improve schools all across canyons district now as part of those projects excuse me new theaters and auditoriums were built at hillcrest and brighton high schools and those schools will be producing musicals in their new theaters this week the grand opening of hillcrest performing arts center will feature a new broadway

120musical adaptation of holiday inn that's the classic 1942 film that features the song white christmas especially for the holidays now it's the first time that this show has been produced by a utah high school and if you don't have your tickets we encourage you to snap those up quick because he'll crash productions tend to sell out and in a hurry then of course we have brighton's talented students and staff they are putting on a classic hit disney's beauty and the beast and that is sure to be entertaining and especially in the new auditorium that we've built for the performing arts and if you haven't gone to a canyons district high school music musical production we encourage you to do so this year i was able to take in newsies at corner canyon and spongebob at

121alta high school and i have tickets to holiday inn on thursday the shows are great fun and the talent on the stages is just impressive now arts education is incredibly valued in canyon school district and for proof of that you just need to look at the hundreds of students who are on the stage and in the orchestra pits to entertain the audiences that come to see them our high schools play to pack houses so like i said get your tickets soon so president tini thank you for this time did you give us to honor those in canyon school district who helped us make a world-class district thank you so much thank you mr haney we really enjoy and appreciate hearing about all these remarkable achievements and celebrating with the individuals and the schools so thank

122you for doing that for us okay we have now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting while not required by law the board often designates time and meetings to listen to the patrons of the district 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 submitted to the board secretary over here cindy raise your hand at the meeting or email 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 tonight the board has allotted 45 minutes for public comment based on the number of

123individuals that have signed up individuals will be given three minutes and those representing groups will be given four minutes comments made during patron comment time are part of the public record it is 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 employee's character professional competence or mental or physical health the board requests that those comments be submitted in writing however if the patron determines to verbally comment on those personnel issues the comments need to be simple and refrain from personal attacks insults defamatory or slanderous comments about an individual the board of education would like

124to make it clear that critical race theory is not part of the curriculum being used in canyon school district there are no plans to incorporate it into the curriculum or instruction in canyon 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 with that i will call out the names of those that have signed up and i will start out by apologizing if i mispronounce a name and ask you that if if i do mispronounce if you'll please correct it when you get up to the microphone and um so we'll begin um with steve deam and then sydney schaaf and then katie

125wilkinson hi my name is steve dean i'd like to first thank everybody here for your service um as well as the teachers especially the educators at east sandy elementary i've got two two mustangs and very very happy with that school i'm here today to talk about remote school i can't tell you how extraordinarily unhappy i am that we're taking fridays off at this point once a month um i don't think that and obviously it's a difficult time for for everybody but the the families that are at risk it is extraordinarily difficult to educate their kids at home almost all studies indicate the remote learning is a massive failure at-risk kids are four times as likely to suffer than prior grades even even students that are not at risk also suffer the first friday that we

126had my junior high or you guys see middle school here came home with eight hours of homework to do over that weekend that is completely unacceptable i'm both my wife and i we both work jobs 60 plus hours we cannot be educators we're not educators we're not trained as educators this is not something that we can pick up in our spare time so i can implore you this is this is something that it's a slippery slope right now we're going to do what is it seven fridays now march of this next year it'll be hey let's just do every other friday and it's just this it just can't happen so i implore this uh this district to put an end to remote learning and fridays off thank you for your time thank you sidney schaaf

127you're so close will you please say it correctly for me of the seven letters three of them are silent it makes for fun members of the board i'm sorry can you hear me i'm really short i feel like i have to jump to the mic okay my name is sydney schoff i have a phd in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in literacy education and leadership and i teach within canyon's district the notion of amending the book review policy seems innocuous it appeases the mass of emails from a loud minority of parents who quote out of context from the books that they're demanding be pulled from libraries without simply giving in to their demands harmless right changing the policy to make it easier to reevaluate if a book should be on a school shelf seems

128like nothing but it's actually a rather dangerous slippery slope to the banning of books that historically disenfranchise minorities and railroad over everything that doesn't fall in line with the homogenous culture of the societal majority it has happened throughout history over and over again students of color and lgbtque start struggling to find themselves within the pages of the books that they read in the last 15 years the majority of the books challenged or banned were done so for exploring the issues that teens want and need to feel like they are not alone in tackling race religion gender identity sexual orientation mental illness disability these critical conversations around current social issues and identity make for a more inclusive and understanding community especially when it supports an individual in getting through their own personal challenges we cannot allow

129anyone to subvert the interests and needs of our communities children for the sake of the children we cannot allow policies that will marginalize the lives and experiences of the children we're fighting to protect finally the book review policy and any amendments made to it are unlawful in and of itself because as dictated by the us supreme court in examining a case from 1982 the supreme court stated that the banning of books based on content violates the first amendment's freedom of speech protections quote although school boards have a vested interest in promoting respect for social moral and political community values their discretionary power is secondary to the transcendent imperatives of the first amendment the supreme court in a 5-4 decision held that as centers for a voluntary inquiry and a dissemination of information and ideas school

130libraries enjoy a special affinity with the rights of free speech and press therefore no person may restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because they disagree with what is within its pages the examination into whether this policy should be amended is wholly irrelevant as no group or individual can ban a book from a school library based on content rendering the amendment to the current policy and the policy as it stands a violation of the first amendment thank you for your time thank you katie wilkinson and then laurel harris and then connie slaughter my name is katie wilkinson and i'm a mother of a freshman attending high school in canyon school district i'm also a 9th grade english teacher within the district unit 1 of the 9th grade language arts curriculum is entitled the

131human experience through this unit and school year we as a district explore what it means to be human and what unites us universally in this unit we help our students see literature as both a window and a mirror not just into their lives but the lives of others through literature we are able to view others cultures and people we may not know we have a window into their lives we also use literature as a mirror we can read and learn about ourselves who we are and who we want to become i urge my students and my own son to read widely get a sense of the world and what ties us all together as humans there is not just one story of humanity but a rich mosaic of culture gender sorry gender race and education

132this is the one one of the most valuable lessons we teach our children we may be different but we're all the same we have more in common than we think literature helps us see this during our summer professional development we as language arts teachers were encouraged by the district to be more inclusive with our literature choices and recommendations to our library i'm going to repeat that we were encouraged by the district to be more inclusive with our literature and choices in the library the library in its vast array of books provide a window and a mirror to our students i have many struggling readers in my classes mostly they struggle with motivation they don't want to read because they don't or can't see the characters or can't see themselves sorry within the characters or plot

133one of the things i love most about our school library and our librarian is we have so much diversity students can find themselves or representations of themselves in our school in our library this helps create a school culture of acceptance and inclusion everyone is welcome everyone is accepted everyone is important by allowing allowing anyone anywhere to challenge restrict or ban literature for any reason could be a disaster for our community in the end this is telling our more marginalized and ignored groups of students they don't matter and in some cases as in the lgbtq population this can lead to increased feelings of depression and suicide when students cannot see themselves in their literature they will not read they will not connect with the world outside they will struggle having empathy for others as a teacher

134and a parent i want children and young adults to see themselves in their world in our public school library thank you for your time and attention thank you laurel harris connie slaughter alex brown i'm here to speak as a retired librarian as how we go about selecting books when building a book order a professional teacher librarian will read hundreds of reviews and use the following criteria we look at national and state awards student and teacher requests steering series completions word of mouth best seller lists school interests etc that tabs are made to meet the needs and the diverse interests of all of the students since schools are not required to read a book for the library and can read it if they don't like it they can put it back different books that um that

135are different books than are found in the classroom we can get very diverse books on a rare occasion i would get a book that i felt did not fit with our community or our high school population and i would not place it on the shelf this would be after i got the book usually for reasons that it was too adult or that the quality was not appropriate occasionally a teacher would bring a book to my attention and i that i had missed and i would consider maybe removing it for those reasons we do not know this until we get the book we do not read every book that goes on on our shelf when i was at jordan high school i had 26 000 books on my shelf very rarely did i get a chance

136to read the maturity of them during the 25 years as a librarian there were two titles that parents brought to me to complain about after uh that they were uncomfortable with after going through the policy we had at the time they eventually became comfortable with leaving the books on the shelf as retiring i was retiring when they began putting together a policy to look at for parents to deal with books when they objected to them i don't think that there is a librarian working in this district that feels that every book on the shelf right now would be appropriate they feel that we need to be able to deal with um the books if that there is a problem and i had parents that would call me at times and say they are uncomfortable with

137the book and we could talk about it and we would occasionally deal with their individual student they never felt like they needed to have the book removed for everyone but they wanted it removed for their child and we were able to work through it i can't tell you how sad and how heartbreak would be when i had a student who was lgbt who came up and apologized for me buying a book that he was unable to finish reading because he felt like i had wasted funds buying a book for him because he didn't think he was worth having a book purchased for him it is very important that we buy books for every student in our library and that the student feels like those books are books that they are available for them and they

138can find books there for them thank you connie slaughter alex brown alicia ruiz i'm grateful that i have a little more time than i thought because i was really going to have to burn through this and i did want to thank the board for all the time and effort and our superintendent um for the care you take with um listening and hearing us um first of all i wasn't going to say this is something i just feel like i should say i think we've come to a very um milestone in our country and with individuals we definitely have very different camps and where way we think um some people feel that our libraries should choose what our children should learn as parents that i'm involved with and as a grandparent i want my kids to

139have great literature and i um i'm going to go ahead and go on with what i have planned for tonight in may i became aware of critical race theory a group of concerned friends of mine gathered and we discussed crt we began attending school board meetings in august we became aware of social emotional learning second step we honored moms as they spent hours vetting second step in august i attended a focus group with education elements who canyons hired to help vision the next 10 years i spoke at the board meeting about the character and ideals of education elements a few months ago not good at the end of september a group of parents and grandparents well i began a reading um club approved kenya's novel list um we in other parent groups nationwide have discovered

140books in our schools and libraries that are sexually explicit filthy language violence etc etc i have personally read 20 of the canyons approved novel list and i've reviewed at least 60 books in our local school libraries most of these cannot be challenged but honestly where is good wholesome literature i think i found three that i really loved and laughed at it's no wonder our kids are struggling they're all so dark and deep depressing and i think adding more to the problems that our kids are having um i started wondering when our school and libraries allowed these books in and here's what i found and i quote future ready schools began in the white house in 2014 with a room full of national leaders to take a future ready pledge a commitment to lead innovations in

141their educational system is this the current situation of our schools the product of future ready schools the following quote is from the american library association future ready librarians framework began in 2016 2016 and has thrived in both librarian communities and beyond for many libraries it has offered an um an opportunity to reimagine and rebrand their practice in new ways or the current book selection in our libraries the reflection of this centralized rebranding and reimagining critical race theory theory second step education elements future ready schools library and librarians and some teachers that continue to push divisive and destructive ideologies and personal agendas what else are we not aware of as patrons we are late to the game i guess some patrons we seem to be divided but we are here now many parents and grandparents all

142taxpayers want our kids to get an education not indoctrination um you know if my kids were in school at this time i i i'm nervous about what's going on i want my kids to have my grandkids live right next door to me i see them every day i see ask them about school i want them to have a great education i want them to go to school and and not be wondering if they're learning something that i don't want them to learn and i know my daughter-in-law feels the same so um i i really am nervous and i feel like as parents we should have a say of what's in our libraries and maybe if our libraries don't change we just go elsewhere to find the books we're looking for thank you thank you alex

143brown alicia ruiz and marin thank you board members for letting me speak today i'd like to first start off with something that my father has said to me many years uh everything in life is an example whether that be of something you should be following or something you shouldn't do these books that are being promoted or even being banned in these libraries are things that should all stay on the shelves for now the ones that have been mentioned before in the list all talk about different uh areas of our society that may not be applicable to everyone or may not be liked by everyone this can be anything from pedophilia discrimination and racism and rape all of these things are things that regardless of how much it makes us feel bad in the stomach we

144should still learn about people are doing these things today and the only way to stop it is to talk about it if we ignore every case of any of this that happens if we ignore every part of this every person influenced by this and every victim of these crimes these are areas in which will continue to thrive in our society and nothing will change these books portray these in a negative light something that allows the people to see and allows our students people like me to understand that this is something that impacts people in tremendously different ways and horrible ways if we don't have diverse stories at and characters we're doing young people a tremendous disservice we're not preparing them for the real world the real world isn't a perfect utopia and this is something

145that we have to learn growing up before we're sent off to college and being independent before we're worried about these things that could happen to us we need to make sure that we feel like we're not alone in this society these books achieve it for the us whether it be lgbtq plus people whether it be people of the minority it allows us to connect with others to feel their stories and to know that we can speak out for this we're not alone one of these stories that has recently been talked about in the banned books is simply a biography of six children's experiences as being trans or gender-neutral these is not something that is promoting it anywhere it is telling their story and saying if you are like us we are here and we can

146talk about it most important part of these books is to prepare us for the future and our educational experience is to prepare us to live in a society as a global citizen the more diversity understanding and topics that we talk about in a library and in the classroom the better we're going to have the better we can create empathy and foster sympathy for other people of our society thank you thank you alicia ruiz maren mon and then marianne bates hi oh can you hear me okay i'm actually on the canyons student council and i know all of you and i wanted to speak on the book band too if you could um speak into mike thank you representation can be life-changing i was born and raised in texas i didn't know i was a minority

147i didn't truly understand what it meant to be brown in the u.s but that shifted when i moved to utah i thought to myself you are the different one but you told me i was wrong you told me i was a different one and i read sorry and one of the few comforts that i found were reading stories that had mexican-american women and girls who struggled the same struggles as me and i would read these stories and i would think this this is something that is important to me it brought out emotions and healing and and feelings in me that i wasn't even capable of having at some place like texas in a small town where i wasn't even sure about myself diverse literature is not only important to give comfort to those who relate

148to it but it is also educational to those who need to view a different perspective as linda sugu park says if we don't have diverse stories and characters we are doing young people a tremendous disservice and we aren't preparing them for the real world so when i saw stories like lawn boy and out of darkness and even mondays not coming on the ban list i felt as though my life experience didn't matter i felt as though your true goal as to remove these stories of real lives is bad just because you it makes you uncomfortable and to be honest if you are uncomfortable with anti-racism in the lives of minorities then you are the problem these books are made for people who are late for them and for those who learn if you remove these

149books you not only limit the growth of young minds but you take away from students who could heal and grow from these stories you strip away a possibility of connection inspiration and comfort these books address a specific audience so if your student is not interested in them then you mustn't worry about them reading them these books are not required to be read but they can be life changing to those who do read them and one of the things i did want to bring up is some of the stories that are required to be read in in our english classes like romeo and juliet in animal farm what am i really supposed to connect to that i feel like that we should bring out more books of diversity so that other students can can can make

150that connection and have the inspiration to read more like i did thank you thank you maron mon marianne bates and ireland over my gosh sorry from when we walked into kindergarten at age five to filling out weekly trackers and sitting on the reading rug we've been instilled with a deep understanding of the importance of reading reading was always supposed to be for everyone i remember going to the school library as a kid picking out my favorites and feeling at home among their pages but we aren't here today because we think reading matters more than the joy it bestows among students we're here to talk about the hypocrisy of the conflict at hand those who see more value in the pages of authors that look like them more value in the education the cultural and the

151social enrichment for the children that look like them according to the american library association in 2019 eight of the eight out of the ten most banned books uh contains story lines centered among uh lgbtq plus issues books on the ala's list in 2020 such as the hate u give speak and of mice and men were found to contain biases against men and anti-police sentiments when you look at what they're trying to pull from library shelves the truth becomes glaringly obvious they're trying to eradicate what they don't want to read and thus what they don't want other people reading if this policy amendment is passed by a board then how are we to turn a blind lie to every form of sexual content in literature what about biblical depictions of date rape adultery and genital mutilation

152who are we to con to turn literature to a two-dimensional black and white out-of-context portrayal that diminishes and destroys its themes i invite you to ask yourselves as the perpetrators of a book man discredit discredit of ideas and extensions of identity what constitutes wholesome literature as you swear on disgraceful pages in support of this hypocrisy by upholding their agenda you discredit and invalidate the stories the plot lines the characters and the meaning behind all of the identities that are empowered in this representation my friends see themselves in these books our national heroes are in these books they're an explanation of the human experience itself the holistic view of it and not just the cherry-picked parts from these parents favorite aisles for the sake of a protecting student's love of reading their ability to find a

153home within these books just like we all have before the policy amendment should be regarded as more dangerous than anything within these books thank you thank you marianne bates ireland oviatt and then jackson baker i'm marianne bates a retired school librarian and i want to just give you a librarian's point of view school librarians are certified teachers with an endorsement or master's degree in school library administration part of their training is book selection which includes learning about selection tools critical sources so that they can provide books that are inclusive diverse and support differing perspectives in addition they learn to provide resources for students who have diverse intellectual abilities learning styles and physical limitations part of the library core curriculum is reading engagement which emphasizes providing a diverse collection that serves all the students librarians and

154others talk about books providing mirrors and windows fiction and non-fiction books that treat difficult topics can help students develop empathy and understanding of those who have different cultural religious ethnic or gender identities than they have for students who may feel marginalized or in tough situations of a character who has similar issues can help them find strategies to use in their own lives or give them insurance that they are not alone teacher librarians have many tasks they don't have time to read every book and like everyone else librarians sometimes makes mistakes when they're selecting material districts have reconsideration policies as guidelines for potential issues in a library sometimes librarians are accused of being liberal by selecting a wide range of diverse groups librarians are not against deselection mistakes are sometimes made but librarians do believe that

155leaving the books on the shelves until a determination is made is an important part of the process the first amendment of the constitution guarantees freedom of speech and this amendment protects everyone looks as diverse as the bible sylvester and the magic pebble good night moon and charlotte's web as well as the books currently being reviewed by their district have been banned in schools across the us reconsideration policies help school districts have guidelines that protect the differing perspectives found in libraries and in literature i applaud the district for strengthening the selection and reconsideration policy and hope that in the future books can remain on the shelves if review is needed i know many of the secondary librarians in canada's district and i am amazed by their dedication to the students and teachers in their schools i

156know they try to meet the needs of all of the students by providing a diverse and inclusive collection in the school library hoping to change students lives and help them achieve academic success that's why they do what they do thank you arlen oviatt and then jackson baker you were super close it's ireland oviatt thank you for sure um so i am a senior at um one of your schools at kanye school district i have been a student here since elementary school during my time at these schools i have never felt that any of the lgbtq books or the sexual um in nature books have been pushed down my throat it actually wasn't until the pandemic hit when i was when i realized that our media center actually included a wide variety of these books um

157that included voices from lgbtq writers people person of color writers um even then i never expected i was never explicitly asked to read any of the said books nor was i recommended them by any admin or teachers at my high school these books nine times out of ten are not even advertised when they um sorry why then should we take away the students opportunity to on their own val volation volition find a book that suits them best i personally have ran across one of the books that um is on the banned list i have checked it out and i've read it myself i can see why these parents are upset about the content of these books but it's not something that we should take away from the students these books hold stories about victims these

158books hold stories about people that they don't get to see every single day by taking away those stories you take away the idea that they can be that victim and that they have the right to be that victim and to reach out and to seek out the help and the advice and the guidance that they need by taking away stories from lgbtq writers you then increase the the idea that they don't deserve to have that that story told about them by taking away books and and stories written about and by people of color you were therefore taking away the stories of those people of color thank you jackson baker is our concluding comment uh thank you board members again for your time i truly appreciate the opportunity being able to speak in front of all

159of you uh with that i'm a student currently at alta high school um and i just once again uh like many here today really wanted to speak on the book ban and the importance to me in my everyday life autonomy the right or condition of self-government i bring up this definition uh because i believe it summarizes the main points of really what i would like to make clear today by passing this proposed policy amendment on streamlining the banning of valuable literature i fear that the autonomy of the student body and their personal academic endeavors is in jeopardy let's take an introspection into personal choice when perusing through the shelves of any library no student is inherently going out of their way to search for sexually explicit content other than in the case of where that

160content has been explicitly pointed out students are looking for narratives and stories that they feel they can relate or escape to already our curriculum rotates and revolves around those experiences of the white cis variety which leads me to the point that none of the books in question currently are books students are forced to read at the end of the day the decision comes down to whether or not the student themselves wants to engage with a form of writing or not while others may wish to pick and choose what books students are able to read other students like myself and many of my peers want to pick and choose from a wide spectrum of books to read that encapsulate many experiences and validate many identities that are very present in our real world our students deserve

161the opportunity to have their autonomy when they make a selection in our libraries parents across the nation should want their children to be able to learn grow and experience the wonderful aspects of literature and not just those that hide the true diversity in books i thank you for your time thank you i want to thank all of you that have taken the time to address the board and and to be here with us and thank you for your respectful and and um and civil remarks we appreciate the thoughtfulness that you've shared with which you've shared your ideas and thoughts with us so again we thank you that concludes our patron comments board next on the agenda are the consent items i will ask for a motion and please in making that motion will you please

162read each of the items on the consent agenda okay i will make that motion i move to approve the consent agenda item a approval of minutes for november 9th 2021 item b approval of higher and termination reports item c approval of purchasing bids item d approval of student overnight travel item e approval of 20 20 21 annual comprehensive financial report and related audit reports item f approval of administrative appointments item g approval of lea specific licenses item h approval of land trust and tssp amendment for ridgecrest elementary thank you is there a second to that motion i'll say look at that thank you any discussion to the motion scene none i will ask for a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed thank you that motion passes next item is item 8a new

163business discussion and proposal for emergency school closure days this is a second reading with possible action i will turn the time over to alice peck from school performance department thank you president hanging board members i am back this evening for the second reading of the emergency school closure day options just as a real quick reminder currently if the district needed to close schools due to emergency or inclement weather the following options are currently available to the board of education according to our district calendar for alternate learning and that would be president's day a remote learning day or the option to extend school year by one day and as the board asked in our last meeting for an additional option to be added to the timeline here the first option would be for the remote learning

164day option to be approved by the board for the 2021 20 to 2022 excuse me school year only and the second option that you asked for was for that remote learning for all future school years so with that i will turn it over for any other questions you have thank you board any questions on this item mr wrigley so if i understand this that we will continue the option of present day or just remote learning it would just if you choose remote learning uh that would be your if that's your choice you could choose for it to be for this school year only or for all future school years and so the president's day and the extended school year would be deleted from correct okay just want to make that clear for the option obviously

165was to add that but i didn't know it wasn't clear as the option to add it in addition so yes is there other than the three options that you gave us originally there and i've been on these different committees there's really not many other options is there there have not been in the past so if we do it for one year we can do it one year to be able to have you come before us next year and see your smiling face or we could just do it for future years and change it if we need to is that what you're asking that would be your your option yes thank you and along those lines um i would just like to remind the board that if we do take action in that direction for all

166future school years we would also need to give direction that the calendar the approved calendars have the language changed on them as well as language in the guidelines for count for creating the calendars that exist in our policy and i believe all of that could be accomplished with with this action but it would need to be specified on that so any further questions or comments yes mr victoria my fellow board members is there any reasons against that you can see not just making it ongoing i'm trying to figure out what the reasons would be to do not i just have it ongoing versus just for one year maybe have some discussion on that mrs arnold i can't really think of one reason and you can always go back and change it so i don't see

167that it matters one way or the other way because we can either vote on it every year or go back and re visit it every year so any other thoughts miss thingy yes mrs oaks i i actually agree with miss arnold on that i i feel the same way i think it makes more sense for us just to streamline it and make that de facto approach and then if we feel like in the future we need to change something then we can do that okay thank you any other comments or questions on that okay if there are no questions i would like to make a motion that we adopt option two remote learning for all future school years and that would also include changing the language on the calendars and changing the instructions to the

168calendar committee yeah the guidelines in the policy that yes is that what you're referring to of course it is okay okay thank you so um yeah emotion is in order because this has been listed as possible action so um is there a second to the motion that has been made okay that motion has been the motion was made by mr millerberg and the second is by mrs arnold okay any discussion to this motion okay um not seeing any discussion i will just um reiterate that mr millerberg you're not going to like me for this but will you restate your motion oh he was hard enough to do it one and you may have to help me on this one make a motion to we adopt option two remote learning for all future school years which

169would include changing the language on this already approved and future calendars to so reflect and to change the instructions to the calendar committee for future years as well okay yeah and thank you and those those instructions are included in the calendar development policy so just for reference on that okay we have a motion and a second and no further discussion i'll call for a vote on this motion all in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed okay that motion passes so at least for the foreseeable future um the the go-to plan for emergency school closures will be the remote learning day okay thank you thank you okay board that um concludes our business on the agenda for this meeting um we'll now turn time over to first staff comments uh we'll start with the

170superintendent report superintendent robbins and then business administrator report uh mr leon wilcox thank you president uh i'd like to invite jeff haney up to announce our administrative appointments [Music] in just a few there we go and i'm usually good at that i'm person who monitors it too it may have been my laptop it was conspiring against me so uh congratulations to those who were appointed today the board of education decided during consent that there will be several administrative appointments uh there's a new principal at alta high school his name is ken rowley he was announced today as the alta high school principal this information will be on our website in a few minutes ken is currently the assistant principal at corner canyon high he succeeds dr brian mcgill who will leave his post at alta

171high school to become the csd director of student services now many of you may or may not know ken because he is new to canyon school district this is his first year at canyon school district he's been working at corner canyon high school but he has been an educator for 26 years 15 of which were spent as the principal of joab junior high now dr mcgill was selected as the new director of student services after a competitive selection process and he'll begin his new role in mid-january which gives him time to coordinate a seamless mid-year transition with ken now in his new role dr mcgill lead the canyons district department that was created to provide a system of supports for students including counseling health and nursing services school psychology and behavior interventions among other supports

172now the current responsive services department administrator bj willer will work with dr mcgill in planning and executing the department's mission in addition the board has approved the appointment of matthew wolford as the new facilities services director he succeeds mr rick conger who has been canyons districts facilities and services director since the founding of the district in 2009. mr wolford is the director of facilities and operations for the university of utah's huntsman center institute and that's a position that he has held since 2015. he has a bachelor's degree from indiana university and a master's degree from indiana wesleyan now he started his career as an hvac technician in the u.s air force and he will begin his stint here in the canyon school district after mr conger retires in on december 31st i've told leon repeatedly

173that we should tell rick that he is prohibited from ever retiring but rick says now it's time for he and his wife to enjoy a well-deserved retirement so welcome to the canyon school district uh the and welcome to uh their new posts the folks that you have appointed today as administrators in the canyons district thank you thank you thank you jeff congratulations to those who are appointed and also i just want to thank all those that applied and went through the process we had some tremendous candidates for all those positions um just in closing uh if i might uh i would like to just once again um i made some comments earlier after our policy meeting but for the record the titles in question uh that were spoken about tonight with these books unfortunately the

174word ban has come up over and over um none of these books have been banned uh that's that's an inaccurate statement that uh was made um this was these books were simply put on hold while the policy was addressed and while the policy uh originally is sound it was incomplete in my opinion it needed to be reviewed for this very reason and for the record i want to make it clear and this is superintendent robin speaking that i support 100 our students first amendment rights to press and to books into the library and i think about my own experience as a child um checking out a book and experiencing uh the wonder and and the excitement when when you're able to kind of immerse yourself in in literature i also think it's very important to

175understand that first amendment rights of students are not unlimited when they come through the schoolhouse store and this is demonstrated in many different ways as educators there are restrictions because they're minors and so when you think about all the different ways that we act in local parents in place of parent i think the balance to this conversation is is that we also have a sworn duty to keep our students safe and for me as superintendent this is a very challenging difficult issue balancing those first amendment rights to press and to books and at the same time protecting our students against material that may be inappropriate for their age and i think that's an expectation that that goes both ways that our community should have of all of us as educators so i say that in

176respect to everyone that's been in attendance tonight i i fully understand the ramifications you know of those of those decisions i feel like the policy committee has spent a tremendous time in looking at this issue from both ways i actually think that the time that we've spent will become a model policy for other districts in the state that or around the country for that matter that are facing this very challenging issue and i i appreciate all of the perspectives i appreciate gretchen and our librarians for coming to the table and working with us on this i appreciate our teachers perspectives and i appreciate our parents and grandparents perspectives um i think you know as i've said before uh we're we're not the enemy to each other we are the union uh together we can you

177know get through this just like we have any other issue that we have faced uh during the during the pandemic so i look forward to this conversation as it it continues to unfold as tonight we took up for a first reading i just want to express my appreciation to jeff and to dan as well um i talked a little bit with jeff this morning about this policy and just i really appreciate his expertise in in really guiding us through the framework and the process of all of this and i look forward to that continuing and lastly i just want to say thank you to the board for your your dedication and thoughtfulness um as you continue to look at these issues to try to balance uh the the necessity and the needs of all those

178involved so i'll close with that tonight thank you mr wilcox yes thank you president tingey i just as jeff announced i just want to welcome matthew wolford as our new facilities director we're excited to have him on board i appreciate everybody in our facilities department we had a few apply for this position and they're just wonderful people and i just grateful for all of them i'm grateful for their service and so look forward to moving on life will be different without rick but we're looking forward to having that join our family just speaking of facilities the hillcrest parking lot we will open that tomorrow so we're excited to open that new parking lot we also jeff mentioned the the uh holiday inn the musical being this weekend hope everybody can get out and see that

179i was in the auditorium today complete it's just a beautiful facility so please get out and see that it'll be wonderful the last thing i just want to mention is our hearts are still broken uh for jeremy wardle and his wife it's uh rebecca they're excuse me i'm still emotional about this they're a 14 year old son james was tragically uh died in an accident about two weeks ago a go-cart accident uh thoughts and prayers are with them jeremy's back to work this week we just appreciate all that he's done he's helped carry us through this so just thank you for him and our thoughts and prayers i'll continue to be with the he and his family thank you okay now we have um we'll have board member comments um let's start with uh mrs

180oakes hi thank you so much i wanted to echo a lot of what has been said by both brick and and by leon um my heart definitely goes out to jeremy wardle and his family and there are so many wonderful people that work here at canyon and i appreciate their hard effort and to hear of it such a terribly unfortunate accident to happen in anyone's life is is devastating and then to consider the people that serve so many kids here and to understand but it's just it's just tough so i'm thinking a lot about he and his family i also want to um give a shout out to all of the high school drama departments for their uh incredible musical productions i got to attend newsies and and also spongebob the musical which my eight-year-old

181loved and um and i'm hoping to be able to see how they end this week so i but so much work hundreds and hundreds of hours of work but to see how many kids are involved in those productions and what a large part of the school community they are it's really incredibly rewarding i also am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that we have to do strategic planning as i mentioned before i've really enjoyed being able to participate in that and really i'm excited about what kind of possibilities that we'll bring from the district moving forward in the future especially as we talk about innovation and how to be able to really prepare the students of canyon school district for what's coming and rather than what's been done in the past it really is a look

182forward it's a great opportunity to bring in community perspectives and ideas and and to look at what lies ahead so um i want to thank everyone who's been involved in that i know it's a lot of extra work for the administration but i do think it will be richly rewarded thank you mr shiel so i just want to start by congratulating all those new appointments that we just made today and i'm really excited about them i think the people are going to be great and our district will just continue to serve our students really well i also want to thank leon and his team i'm on the audit committee and the auditors did give him a clean report and he said they said it's a good thing if it's boring so it was boring so

183it was good then also i'm just excited to um go see beauty and the beast this weekend and hopefully i'm not sure i can make it to the other one but i'm for sure going to go to be beauty and the beast so i also want to just congratulate our high schools on all their plays and they do an incredible job so thank you to those students and teachers thank you mr wrigley thank you for this opportunity uh just a couple things [Music] i've had the opportunity to sit on the strategic policy committee for several years now um there's not to teach you planning wrong notes policy committee yeah i've got the other strategic plan here policy committee for the last several years and and it's been interesting to be on this committee um i

184think sometimes people like today are saying well if you have a policy it restricts i think frequently our policy outlines and gives us more freedom and gives us that opportunity it's just like having a loss if you have laws then you have boundaries um so i'm hoping as we move forward with this policy that is going to meet as i try to state my comments try to meet both sides in regards to what their concerns are those concerns are those people who are worried about banning of books and those people that that are concerned about what's in the content um strategic planning policy committee i've been excited about to sit on that and move forward with that our group people have been very active in the thing and i'm looking forward to see what what

185happens from there um i did have an opportunity to attend newsy with the district's most adamant critic which is my wife they tell me i'm getting a new mic in december anyway so um and she was really elated at that and we're looking forward to holiday inn she's i don't think we've attended anything that she's actually felt that was not fantastic um often over this last year we get into this reactive mode and all we're doing is jumping from one crisis to our next crisis we had an opportunity to be proactive a couple weeks ago nobody's brought that up we went to gu innovation center and we also got to go to farmington high school to sort of see some exemplary programs of what's going on in education and give us some kind of ideas

186and and we're starting to do that a little bit to get out outside our district and look at what's best across the state or whatever um it brings a lot of uh it's fun it's fun to do something proactive to see something other than just dealing with one thing after next which has been the last couple of years so i'm thankful for that opportunity and i think that's just not much else going on other than just regular meetings we do a lot of that thank you thank you mrs arnold so i lost a contact earlier and i can't decide whether to wear the glasses so i can see you or take the glasses off so i can see the paper because i've never wore glasses forever but i likely had a pair in my car

187so when a policeman pulls me over i can say i have my glasses um if i lose a contact right because you know anyway just letting you know i lost the contact but now i have the glasses all right um one thing i want to say is um i'm back to the advertising we still need aids we still need people to cook in the lunchrooms we still need custodians we still need teachers we still need administrators we still need what else do we need bus drivers we need you we're pleading for you we will do anything for you please everybody in the neighborhoods of canyons come and help us out with these positions especially you know if you're retired in those positions and you're bored being home although i keep being told that once you

188retire you're never bored because there's more to do than when you had before but please come and then i just wanted to say that um also it is the season of great stress let us all have mercy and grace during this next month to the people we work with to the people who are our neighbors to the strangers on the street we need it more now than ever before so my goal is try to be more merciful more and share more grace and i hope that sorry i hope that we all try really hard because i think it's needed more than ever i have a son who just started for salt lake police department and he shares a few stories with me and um i'm thankful i'm in the classroom wrestling kids i just have

189to tell you that and not on the streets right now and so um as we go forward and we keep looking at these hard hard things um i'm making decisions i agree with steve um policy comes down from federal laws state laws and then just straight making policies and i don't really think they restrict i do think that they give us a lot more opportunities to be flexible and to be fair to all because it could be that we would be fair to none or to only some um the other thing i wanted to congratulate the new appointments also and tell all of the high schools who are doing plays right now that i know that was a great sacrifice on their part and that they put in massive hours and thank you for doing

190that um i know that the elementary teachers are also still putting in massive hours for letters and i heard a few from a few teachers and canyons about their thanksgiving was spent almost all four days working on letters to get ready for i guess another all-day meeting that we're having so thank you for all that sacrifice too um i want to thank the board for all their perspectives and ideas and thoughts it's so much nicer to have seven of us sitting here visiting and talking and discussing and making decisions so that falls on all sevens of us when we make the decision so just thank you thank you mr millerberg thank you uh i just want to start with uh amber's comment about the boring audit report the thing you have to understand with cpas

191is that they are boring people and that is just an occupational hazard that goes with it um dr robbins thank you so much for addressing the issue regarding the library books that are currently being reviewed it is a fine balance between our constitutionally guaranteed first amendment rights and safeguarding the students that we have in our district and i feel like you are in the process of striking that balance so thank you it seems like since october 14 i've been a what i would refer to as a road warrior it will be it's now time to settle down and i should be a more regular attender in person in the future for school board meetings i was able to attend newsies at quarter canyon and i really enjoyed production uh corner canyon does an excellent job

192in the performing arts i am looking forward to later this week going to hillcrest high school and especially to see the production of holiday inn but i am really excited to be there also to see what can be done in the new facility at hillcrest very exciting um it's been mentioned before i believe leon mentioned it over the years you know the school board member and you attend a couple of meetings uh a month you don't really get to know a lot of people and i would like to express my appreciation for rick conger and how much he has done and also his ability to have become a a good friend i consider rick a friend he was one when they divided the district and i first came on the board that learned my name

193called me by name and included me in what was going on and so you know rick will be will be missed also jeremy wardell um he is another person that i would consider on my list of friends at the district and the tragedy that happened with his son is just absolutely heartbreaking um great people and i have nothing but love and sympathy for jeremy and his family and i believe that's all i have for this evening thank you um okay um on my list of things to mention you all have mentioned them multiple times so just add my name to the comments that everyone else has has made but i i want to reiterate something i said a little bit earlier about how much we appreciate the patrons that come and address the board it

194is very um for me it's inspiring to hear their thoughtfulness and their articulateness and if that's a word and especially the students i'm just so encouraged when the students are engaged enough that they come and address us and um and i just it gives me hope for the future that they will continue to engage in in public matters of of importance to them and that they will do so in a very thoughtful manner so i appreciate everyone's work and and efforts um to help keep this district moving forward even in challenging and difficult times and so with that unless there's anything else we i will call the meeting adjourned and wish you all a great rest of the evening it's