Canyons Board Meeting

001I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the Canyons Board of Education today is November 9th 2021. and we are meeting at the district offices located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy Utah I'd like to welcome you to our study session and the first item on this agenda is an update on strategic planning I will turn time over to superintendent Rick Robbins thank present team we have drew shauncey on the phone from Ed elements to give us this update welcome Drew hey good evening everybody can you hear me all right yes okay great well good evening good to good to chat with you all just wanted to provide a brief update on where we are in the strategic planning process and we're really getting into an exciting time right now because um next

002Monday is the beginning of our planning team's work and that is going to involve bringing in um just to have about 100 people from across the Canyon school district Community um to work on building out the the actionable pieces of the Strategic plan um if you remember when we last left off we were determining and finalizing what those focused areas were going to be and we presented to you 10 different focused areas those each of those focused areas going to have a planning team associated with it that will then carry out um kind of building out the plan in each of those respective areas over the course of about a month we begin on November 15th next week again on November 16th and then we'll have some time in between about two weeks to come

003back on um December 6th and December 7th to finish that out each of those sessions is going to be three hours long um located at the district office and each of you um each of the board members should have been invited to uh to at least one planning team to sit on as as a representative of the board we have probably about Outreach has been going out to these individuals and we've got probably about 80 percent confirmed attendance so far which is great it's definitely going to be a packed house and uh we have a lot to accomplish with these with these teams um I just wanted to also go over what we what the outcomes for each of the four sessions that we're going to be meeting with them are going to be um

004I sent over a slide um to Cindy earlier and Rick and Nancy I copied you so um your board members have access to that slide um we are looking at it on the screen here in the room got it okay what you'll notice is um if folks are familiar with Simon cynics work on the Golden Circle and the importance of starting with y that's really how we're framing um the the work that we're going to do in planning teams you'll see on the 15th we're going to get really clear with the group on what the what roles norms and expectations are going to be for each of the planning teams as the work um kind of unfold and we're going to get uh we're going to spend most of our time clarifying that purpose so

005why why is each of these Focus areas important to the successful successful completion of the Strategic plan we'll do some empathy building work where we're going to ask members of each of the planning team to think about the the constituencies and the the communities that they represent and how the work is going to impact each of them and then we're going to finish off that day by drafting impact statements which are really those those why statements that will guide the work for each of the planning team you'll see on the 16th we move we're starting to move out from the center of the circle and getting into the how so once we have those clearly defined impact statements ready well then begin drafting the Strategic Initiative for the how of making that why happen um

006so examples of a strategic initiative might be um for example for creating multiple Pathways with success for students uh strategic initiative might be something like increasing opportunities for participation in existing Pathways or utilizing Partnerships to establish additional Pathways from there will get on the 6th um if I can get ahead of myself so those objectives will be in draft form on the 16th and then in the two weeks between um two or three weeks I'm not great at math uh between the 16th and the sixth is when um planning team members will be soliciting feedback about those strategic initiatives and impact statements from the broader Community they'll bring that feedback back to our session on the sixth when we will finalize the Strategic initiative and then start to draft the what or the outer ring

007of the circle these specific objectives that are going to allow the plans to be carried out successfully and we'll also talk about um what are the metrics for Success that we're going to have to keep in mind as we as we move into the progress monitoring phase of the Strategic plan which will happen when this process is all wrapped up you'll see on the seventh uh we will have finalized objective finalize the test criteria as well as final as strategic initiative and impact statements at that point so hopefully that visual on the right hand side kind of shows shows you how the the essential questions that we're going to be asking with each of those planning teams hopefully that chart on the left hand side is a clear-cut list of objectives and takeaways from each

008of those sessions we want to make sure that everyone involved knows why they're there and what they're going to be doing during that time so I'll pause there I talked a lot and would love to open it up to any questions that folks might have about the planning teams process thank you drew I think there probably are some questions uh Mrs Oaks hi Drew thanks so much for the update and it's really helpful to understand how things are going to run those four days I I do have a question so I've received some um emails and correspondence with constituents that previously when the survey was limited in some of the way that the questions were asked and we did have opportunity for open-ended things but people said there are certain things I'd like to have

009been asked about but I wasn't and we've encouraged them to write into Communications and into the district and with those concerns to make sure that those are considered as part of strategic planning um how would you respond to this constituents about how this is going to be their feedback is going to be pulled in considering it wasn't necessarily part of the survey okay so if I'm hearing you correctly there were some other um other mediums through which constituents were providing feedback to the district and you're curious to know how that will be relayed to planning teams yeah yes yeah specifically I mean like for instance I have a group a large group of parents a trip or Park Middle who are very concerned about start times and and we've told them quite often like we're

010going to address some of those questions and whatnot in our strategic planning when they receive the survey and it didn't necessarily mention start times in particular they were very concerned about making sure that you know we're true to a word about making sure that those concerns are are enveloped into this process so I'm just curious you know with these planning teams in the process and how that would fit in yeah so for for that specific example I'm thinking about uh that probably falls into the planning of the uh the cool start time that probably falls into the planning team around high quality learning experiences so specific feedback like that is will be can be relayed to that specific team um we have documents that are going to be going out to um this is a

011planning team tomorrow that kind of provides a download of focus group data survey data and resources that have been curated by the district um to sort of prime their thinking before the planning actually gets underway if there are other sources of data that need to be incorporated so um if there is something like um feedback around start times we would just have to make sure that we have access to that so we can share it with the appropriate team and just out of curiosity has have you and Shelby received some of those emails or different information from constituents that have emailed in about those kinds of specific concerns I have not personally received any emails have been forwarded emails that pertain to that specific constituent concern okay so if we can make sure that that

012gets passed on that would be awesome okay thank you so much I appreciate it yeah happy to receive it um whenever you're you're ready to send that thank you Mrs Neibauer thank you drew actually I I have that that email as well and was planning on bringing it to that access to high quality since I'm the board member that's assigned to that team um a couple questions I had the November 15th 16th December 6th and 7th is uh are each of these Focus areas and planning teams meeting all four of those evenings because okay okay and then um when I was looking at at specifically that later start time I also was planning on passing that along to the Social and emotional supports team as well because I kind of feel it fits into that

013quarter category as well as the access so bring that to both as as I've been getting emails about things like this I've just been trying to categorize where that would fit in and then trying to funnel that to the appropriate place is that also if we come with those things as board members would that also work yeah and that's part of the reason why we wanted to make sure board members were represented on these teams so that there can be a line of communication directly into the planning team process so if there are additional materials that you'd like to share um with specific teams please still feel free to do that great um can I maybe just insert a suggestion here board members as as you have this type of feedback that you think is

014relevant to one of the planning teams will you please um I'm just going to at this point ask Jeff Haney and Communications if they could be if they could receive those from board members and then make sure that the planning team leads have copies of those those Communications and the feedbacks that are specifically pertaining to strategic planning and then then we'll have kind of some consistency on that everyone okay with that board other questions I'm Mr Rigley hi there uh just a question for you I've read and memorized your book so I think I know somewhere you're coming from but what other things do I need to prepare for before these meetings so I could be prepared for this are you sending out information beforehand or is there anything else I need to do to

015be prepared for these meetings yep that's actually going uh those reminder emails are going out tomorrow um so that'll have uh that'll have all of the all the information that you need to be successful uh for our time together on the 15th and 16th and included in that will be sort of a as I mentioned a data download from survey data focus group data and other District artifacts that we've been collecting that we'll we'll kind of prime uh focus group members thinking before we actually get together so that email will be in your inbox tomorrow okay so just reading the information be prepared with that it probably should be as sufficient to start then okay thank you yep okay any other questions or comments Mrs Neibauer the the parents that have been asked to be

016in those meetings will they also be getting those emails from you yep okay they're actually going to be the the emails are actually going to be coming from the district project team leads we're sending them a template and they have the direct um contact to each of their planning team members but every member everyone who is participating in a planning team will be getting an email with with resources that are customized to their group okay I have some parents that have gotten the emails that have reached out to me and some that have not yet and so since it's next week you're saying all of them will be out by tomorrow all of the invitation emails were sent by the planning team leads last week um this is just a reminder and a follow-up to

017make sure everyone who has confirmed their attendance for their participation in the planning team has the information that they need to hit the ground running okay so if we submitted a parent name and she has not yet received it then we need to follow up with who can you give me the the name of the individual and I can just see right now on the spreadsheet yes okay oh um our president is saying to talk to you offline about that okay in regards to a specific name yes yep I mean some word I received by mistake an invitation to a planning meeting that I'm not part of or all the board members receiving because I haven't gotten one for my real I I'm high access to high quality has any other board member gotten because

018I I got one for governance but I'm not in governance okay so board members are not getting an email yes so that that initial um invitation language that went up to parents and other individuals who will be in those planning teams was sent out before we determined which board members were going to sit on which team so that's why you didn't receive an invitation email but you will be receiving that email tomorrow with the resources okay and and if you do not board if you do not receive that information tomorrow please contact me and I'll follow through to make sure that that happens and um and then also just drew um the board submitted parent names and those parents were and and suggestions for which planning team however some planning teams were you know maybe

019the size became a little large but those parents would they have been given opportunity to participate on a different team they were for the names that were given where they should all be in the in the spreadsheet if there is um I mean we could do some rearranging because some of the groups are a bit large um but at this point there there is such there's there's a pretty significant difference in in terms of size of the number of people in each team so that's not really a concern for me um it really matters that we have the right people on the right team okay all right thank you um Mrs Oaks just one more follow-up question I don't think I have seen the spreadsheet can you resend that to us through so that we

020can see which oh you haven't okay got it sorry I apologize you all have access to that um I I I did send it out but I'll remind them where where it is so thank you okay [Music] okay any other questions all right well Drew we look forward to to this next phase of this work that we're doing and we thank you for joining us at our meeting this evening absolutely we're really excited too we'll see we'll see you all next week all right thank you okay take care thanks you too superintendent do you have anything to add not just appreciation to everybody and um looking forward to Monday so it's exciting to see this work go forward great thank you okay next next on the agenda is um the foundation board annual report this

021is something we look forward to every year and I will turn time over to Denise haycock Foundation development officer thank you it's a pleasure to be here tonight I thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update on the Canyons Education Foundation the last update I gave to you was before the pandemic hit so we've got a little bit to talk about um back in March 2020 our Focus shifted from doing large events and fundraising to helping students and families in need so we went from doing Galas and the big events to delivering food toilet paper school supplies whatever was needed to the families so we were happy to do that and make that switch as was needed for where we were at we also created the connect Canyons campaign which was part

022of the campaign that raised funds to bring internet access to our students and devices to our students so we were happy to be part of that initiative as well and help bridge that Gap our mission has always remained the same and our mission is written on the slide up there and that's enhancing the education experience for students of Canyon school district through Community Partnerships and fundraising so whether it be through big events or just helping an individual student or family the mission is the same it just depends on how we need to adapt and adjust to what's happening in the world is this my clicker here there we go the foundation currently has 20 amazing board members and they truly are what make up the foundation the names that are in bold are my executive

023board members and everyone else is a board member we are expecting to get two additional board members in January of 2022. so you will get their names for approval at that time we also have ex-official members which would be our superintendent and board member Mont muellerberg whom we love and the mayors of all of our cities myself Susan Marilee we all attend all of the midi the meetings but we do not have any voice in the voting um the board that we have they give up their time their talent Financial Resources they give me connections to help bring donors in and I am truly thrilled with the board that I have right now I also want to do a quick um thank you to the external relations department and the Communications Department because we really

024are a team and when we have an event or I have something going on they jump in and they help out and I do appreciate them and everything that they do for the foundation foreign thing is how are we getting money in and how are we spending the money that's basically what the foundation is all about so I'm going to talk to you about the funds received and I'm talking about fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 21. so cash donations in you can see that we didn't really slow down much even with the pandemic we were able to bring in over six um 642 000 um in fiscal year 20 and 686 in fiscal year 21. so um that's pretty good considering where we were at in the world so we were happy with that

025we also get in-kind donations and in-kind donations are anything from food clothing items shoes school supplies um gifts for us to use at an auction and you can see that number there over 322 000 in in-kind donations we have Partnerships and advertising that we run through our office we average around 23 000 a year in funds that we bring in that way um I do have to do a shout out and I know Mom has talked about this in the past our golf tournaments were extremely successful over the last two years we had to change our format um to accommodate covid restrictions but that allowed us to have more golfers and raise more money so you can bring in almost a hundred thousand dollars on a golf tournament we felt like it was a good

026fundraiser um our Gala is coming back in 2022 we'll be doing a western theme Gala at Brighton High School on April 14th so get that on your calendars and we're excited to have the gala coming back so just a quick note on the initiatives I did talk about the connect Canyons campaign that we did we always do a gathering for good holiday donation drive and auction and that's for the employees within Canyon school district to give back to our families we do a tools for school back to school donation Drive where we get school supplies backpacks things that this children might need to head back we do have an endowment fund that we add to each year from the profits that we raise our endowment fund right now is at 358 000. we continue to

027grow that every year and our total assets as of September 30th are 1 million one hundred and twenty two eight thirty nine so that's some numbers of what we have gotten in but here's the fun part how we give so we get money in we try and turn it around as quickly as possible and give it back out to the teachers and students so the foundation Innovation grants we typically give out around 100 000 a year in Innovation grants we did Skip um last year because of covid but otherwise we've given out close to a hundred thousand every year I want to thank you board members that were able to join us on the we used to call it the fun bus but it's the fund fund us because we don't go to Wendover so

028we give we load everyone up and we get our big checks and we go out and surprise teachers at schools and so you can see the pictures on the slide I think every picture of me over the last three years I have a big check in my hands so it's it's kind of fun um so we're happy to give that back to teachers and we try and go across the board with high school middle school elementary and special programs and we did a really good job with that this year hitting all of those different groups another project that we have that I'm very proud of that we've been involved in is the donors choose projects donors choose is a way for teachers to enter projects in and then anybody can go in and fund them

029so they might have a project where they want some new books for their classrooms some headphones and so I go in and I'm watching every day I go in to see which teachers in Canyon school district have listed projects on donors choose I'm also watching to see who's matching those funds so the other companies other foundations will go in and put in matching so they might say we're doing a double match so I can put in money and get that extended so that's why I wanted to put that number in there is that we've spent 319 944 dollars since 2019 but the impact has been 525 000. so that's using other people's money to fund our teachers and I think that's very important and I encourage all of our teachers um to put in donors

030choose projects all the way from high school special schools preschools again that's just a quick easy way for us to get you funded in what you want in your classroom we also provide the funding for the teacher of the year we do a fun gift basket for the teachers and we also do a monetary donation to the top winners and the past few years Jordan Credit Union has been our sponsor for that and we appreciate that we do Utah college application week where every year we give them up to ten thousand dollars to make sure students have the funds to apply for college we run we provide money for mental health supports through the responsive services for students who may need counseling we support students and Families in Need and we spend over 500 550

031000 a year either in holiday assistance or just getting them food and clothing that they might need so another fun way that we give out money is scholarships and we facilitate over 47 000 in college scholarships and those aren't all coming through the foundation but we have a lot of private donors who we handle all of the paperwork make sure the students get it and the donor just has to give us the money tell us how they want it handled and then we make sure it gets to the students so that is something that we have increased over the last few years um Canyon's Education Foundation always does a bright star scholarship for each one of our high schools which is a thousand dollar scholarship and then we do a rising star scholarship for the

032district which is 2500. for the last few years we've been doing the my 529 College savings account scholarships for first generation seventh graders who would be going to college their parents are more excited about this scholarship than they are but it's a 500 that we put in a college savings account for them so when they're ready to go for college it's there and it's growing funds from seventh grade on um we do have an endowment fund for a scholarship that is the Fairborn scholarship endowment and she keeps asking is that ever going to go down but we haven't invested very well and we spend it every year she does very nice scholarships and it just continues to grow so she'll be giving scholarships for quite a while we also receive donations specific to schools and

033programs from donors that request when a donor asks us they give us a donation and they say I want it to go here we make sure that that's where it goes so 100 of the funds that we get in go directly back to teachers or students in Canyon school district so we're very proud of that foreign so I do want to do um a big thank you to the private donors Our Community Partners our business partners for providing these donations and giving back to Canyon school district um so this is just money that the district doesn't have to spend and again everything from as little as some food and snacks so the kids don't go hungry during the day to shoes and boots and coats when it's cold Walmart gave us eight pallets of school

034supplies to make sure that the kids had what they need at Costco gives us backpacks so we have a lot of Partnerships out there that I'm very proud of and I want to thank them and let them know how much we appreciate what they do for Canyon school district so in closing I just want to say that the Canyons Education Foundation is proud to support the mission of the Board of Education and our goal is to have a positive impact on the students and teachers in Canyon school district and I hope you can see that that is what we're doing so I'd be happy to take any questions thank you Denise's this really is great work that you and and the foundation board are doing and those that assist you on board comments we approve

035the board members at the October 5th meeting I believe correct and so this is just the annual report exactly yeah update on what we've been up to yes thank you Mr millerberg and then Mrs Oaks Denise you asked for questions it's more of a comment than a question going back to the very beginning of the school district I don't know Susan you were a volunteer at the time or if you'd been hired at that point in time Susan was uh should we say a volunteer extraordinaire and we had our first Foundation golf tournament and we shared that with the Jordan School District and I think Susan and I walked away from that one said that was an experience we don't want to have again and a lot of work was put in by a lot

036of people to get the foundation organized uh certified as a charitable organization and we've been through a few directors since then and I absolutely loved being in on the ground floor when the foundation was first brought into existence and when I lost an election and left the board that was one of the uh saddest experiences I had as part of the board of education is leaving the foundation and when I came back and they offered me uh the ability to go back to the foundation I was just elated in all those years since the very beginning I don't know that we've had better leadership in the foundation I don't know that we've ever had more success than we've had and the people that have been selected to serve on the foundation board are just extraordinary

037people and it is a privilege for me to be able to associate with them and I don't know Denise that I've ever seen anybody have so much fun raising money as you do and I thought and I think the only thing that appeared to be more fun for you than raising it is to give it away that's true and um the Canyons education Education Foundation truly supplements and enhances the learning of our students so I'm just grateful too be a part of that and grateful for the leadership you've provided thank you thank you I just want to thank you again I love the well the fun bus I'm going to read tournament right so that was a really wonderful day and and so um rewarding to be able to see the excitement of the teachers

038and their students and thank you for everything all of you do behind the scenes I know there's a million different decisions and efforts that none of us will ever see but we do see the results and they're fantastic so thank you Mr schill I just want to thank you and your board for all you guys have done because it really is amazing I remember when I was first on the board I think I think the golf tournament raised like 40 or 50 and we thought that was so great and now you've like doubled that so anyway just thank you for all your work remember when I was hired they said do you think you can raise 25 000 at the golf tournament I'm like I don't know maybe so I'm happy I call it the

039blessing of coven yes that's true and we've been lucky with weather every year great see I I too was able to join this year um in delivering some of those big checks and that was so wonderful and it was great to see how excited the kids are when their teacher is recognized see how excited the teacher is to explain what that resource will bring to their classroom and so it it really is an amazing thing so thank you thank you and please extend our appreciation to your board and I know you've got couple of board members here he's on my executive board and first merely and Susan it's a big part of the team for the foundation so yes it takes a village it does and we appreciate all of you and all the work

040that you do thank you okay next is the annual school fees policy review I will turn the time over to Mr Leon Wilcox business administrator you are now muted [Music] yeah school fees uh so again and hey thank you for the team member of the board uh just to give you why we're doing this is uh the usbe board rule requires obviously requires that we have a policy which we do and then it requires that we annually review that policy in an open meeting and so that's that's the uh this uh presentation tonight so this policy has our policy has to and we have to update you on school fees themselves and then any fundraising fee waivers and donations so we'll just hit each one of those really briefly again our policy 500.22 is a

041school fees titled is attached on board docs we've had this policy for about two and a half years when the State Board revamped their did a major overhaul of school fees and I think our policies worked out well as served us well but uh this is bringing this to you tonight is for any feedback as we look to start next year's fee schedule and if you want to make any policy chain changes to the policy it would need to go to the policy committee then back to the board so that's part of the the again bringing this up to you tonight uh we're just going to hit the highlights of the policy quite long we won't go over everything there but uh when you adopt your fee skills you have to have a to opportunities

042for public comment we've usually had three uh we have to adopt the next year's fee schedule by April 1st of every year we have to have a maximum amount per student for each activity we have to have an aggregate fee amount per student for each school year uh any Revenue raised by and then a student through an individual fundraiser shall be included as part of the maximum fee for the activity for for the academic tip for the ad activity and the aggregate amount we have to have a spend plan for each fee and then we have to have our fee policy that one that's on board docks and the fee schedule posted on uh our website the district's website which we do and each school has to have a post on their website as well

043uh then we move over to fee waiver so you can see the sections there and again in our same policy that we've kept the fees and the fee waivers together so I think a couple districts have parse them out into different policies but most like us have kept them the same same policy uh we have to have a policy for to waive fees for any activity class or program intended to serve students or is required or is required and that is subject to waiver uh we have to provide for adequate waivers to ensure no student is denied the opportunity to participate in a class or activity I always commend our principals because they always look out for our students and so this is uh you know they're worth them their everyday making sure they have

044that opportunity uh schools have to designate at least one person that can be multiple at each administrative level to in each school to review and Grant waivers again most of our schools has one person designated but a others on backup as needed schools cannot treat a student on waiver differently than other students or identify students on waivers of course it has to be confidential and we have to distribute the impact of any fee waivers across the district so that normal school carries a disproportionate share of the wave fees so we've always done that in our 12 years even before the state over state had this updated policy we've always made sure fee waivers were equally distributed amongst all the schools uh moving on to donations so a donation is a fee if a student or

045parent is required to make the donation as a condition of the student's participation in the class or activity so if it's a it's a it's a fee if it's a fee it's a fee and we can't call it anything we can't call that a donation uh schools May solicit and accept donations by a student or parent but must clearly state that donations are voluntary uh any we tried to obviously Denise was here doing a great job direct all the donations through the foundation and District may not accept a donation that would create significant inequity among schools in the district uh each year we have to and this happens in October we have to do an annual school fees uh certification and compliance survey so president tingy got a survey that she completed Dr Robbins got

046a survey that he completed then each one of our principals got a survey that they completed so in total we had 52 surveys district one that had to be completed and I'm proud to say we got them all done a couple days in front of the deadline so again that happened last month so Nick thank you to all principals for doing that ah just to re again I'm a numbers guy so I want to go over the numbers on fees charged and then collected and waived so we have to report this to the state uh dark Dr Robbins and I have to do a report back every June on this so this is last year's data but last year we charged General fees were just under 1.5 million the curricular fee so those are the

047classroom fees about 1.8 co-curricular fees quite a bit less but they're would vary between during the school day and after the school day and of course extracurricular after the school day and you can see they were two point almost 2.2 so those are those first four lines are the fees that we charged then we as we went over the fee waivers we've had to waive about 435 thousand dollars of that and again we distributed that equally amongst all the schools that impact so then we come back with the total fees that we collected of you know 5.167 million there so that is the impact of the fee schedule when we do all this information that's the dollar amounts there okay uh I wish to know that the usba the GLC if you will and also

048the uspe and their legislative priorities both are advocating for 50 million to reduce eliminate the curricular fees so that would be the second and third lines uh moving forward so we'll have to look and see what happens there uh usba of course they their top priority I would is the wpu increase but then they had this and capital and a couple other ones so that would be their priorities I'm I don't want to speak out of line there for usba but then usbe I they had 10 priorities I think this was number four on their list so first one again was a wpu increase and there's where the next couple were smaller amounts and then this was the next big one here was eliminating the fees so we'll see how this goes as uh they'll

049have to do it ongoing you just can't wave them fund it one year you really gotta have a funny plan in place to go as this continue on so will be interesting we'll certainly be watching this is legislation advances ah then the last slide I have is just the next steps that we'll have so we'll be bringing you the proposed fee schedule for next school year uh beginning of February if we follow our past practice which I think we'll try to do we bring it the first reading to you the last meeting in February then the second reading in the first marks meeting and then ask for your approval at this second March meeting again we have to have public comment in all three of those we're currently meeting with the principals and their financial

050secretaries on any changes to the fee schedules we'll have those for you if we do make any changes one thing we may have to look look at just started looking at this but uh just due to the one to one and the you know 15 plus thousand Chromebooks we have at our secondary schools we may have to look at an insurance pool for repairs we don't we cannot charge for the hardware device but you can do an insurance type pool so we may look at that and but we'll have more information coming so with that uh that's all I have is there any questions or comments be happy to answer this questions anyone Mr Wrigley thank you so when we started we had some concern we started changing all the fee schedules around that we

051may not have a sufficient Revenue to cover it I don't understand on this one is this are we covering the cost or are we and then if we do cover the cost way we do the excess so part of the State Board rule is you have to cover the cost but you can't have an excess so you so therein lies the balance of making sure the fee covers the cost but not in excess so that's always the challenging thing there so uh right now and this is one of the things I think we'd like to have our internal auditor look at we wanted them you know we didn't really want it to do it last year because of covid because we didn't have a really complete picture of the fees but for next for this

052year maybe next year we may have our internal auditor review go back and do an annual review on this but that is part of the requirement to make sure right now I don't think there's an access you know they have the fees and they also have fundraisers that are not tied to anything on the fees and so between all those you know they're they're breaking out fine in that yeah you're saying we're probably breaking even and we're not into the hole as we yeah we thought we might be initially when this feed thing started coming up yeah but we feel like we're great thank you pretty good shape that way um I I just wanted to comment that um what the usbe requires is even though it's I guess it's like a survey it's really

053an assurance of compliance and and where we every year go through and there's a checklist of things are you doing this are you doing that and and the um one of the things is that we have this annual policy review discussion and um I I just wanted to bring up that and I can't believe we're already knocking on the door of the 22-23 school year which is um when when the provision prohibiting um charging fees for textbooks it goes into effect so um do you want to remind us where we are on that I believe we took steps forward already on that one yeah so starting next year you can't charge for textbooks and the you also can't charge for a computer hardware by the Chromebooks so what we decided to do this year again

054going back last year but for this year we removed the textbook fee and we also even though we went one to one we did not in clude a Chromebook fee so we are in compliance with that and also to Mr Wrigley's point next school year is when you have to be able to match your revenues and expenses on the fee that you charge needs to be equal to the fee that you charge needs to cover the expenses and so we've been trying to do that the last two years when we feel like we're there but that's also goes into effect next year so yeah thank you for the any any suggestions or things regarding this policy that we'd want to take a look at before beginning the process um at the beginning of the year

055Mrs nybar just one question you have on your presentation of the idea of an insurance pool together for Chromebook probably issues where are we at as far as that goes I know the Chromebook is considered like um textbook so is there a gray area any outline there as far as what we can or can't do with them they can they do allow an insurance pool they do okay yeah okay that's for you if you want to some districts do it as my understanding where see how they do it and look at that yeah okay just for so many Chromebooks they just you know my boy walks in and the probably uh anybody who has a student walks in and they dropped the backpack with the Chromebook right on the phone right so yeah so so

056then we have issues if they're trying to get them fixed well yeah just give me a little better explanation as to how that insurance pool would work would that be a self-funded we would I'm not I'm not quite understanding what that would be well in the past haven't we fixed that internally taking care of broken Chromebooks yeah but we just never had this many out there you know we don't always have the labs and we didn't allow students to take them so you're just talking a budget a budget item to say this is what we're anticipating repaired but we would still take care of that in-house yeah exactly okay okay looks like another question uh Mrs nybar so obviously there's a lot more are we anticipating than that we would be hiring more people in

057the I.T repair department or I think we're hired we're using our Esters money to add a couple more what we call field texts so those are the people out in the schools fixing the Chromebooks uh this would be more for parts and Replacements of those thanks but we also have to look at funding these people after you know we've always talked about Esther running out in three years but we have to talk about funding these people after that if we want to keep this initiative going so um and that may be that just gives me an idea too as the internal auditor start looking at things maybe they could identify the cost that type of cost that we would need to consider as we move forward yeah we're actually going to have them do a

058little different project this year but you know starting next year maybe it could be something yeah okay so great anything else bored all right thank you very much okay next is um discussion and proposal for emergency School closure days this is a first reading and I will turn time over to it looks like um Alice Peck from the school performance Department president tingy board members uh the seasoning I'm going to bring you I'm bringing you a proposal for emergency closure day options and last November 10th which was a year ago almost to the day I presented an option to you for how to address instructional days in the event of possible school closures due to inclement weather or other emergencies and if you recall the decision to hold a remote learning day was approved for

059last school year and that was for last school year only um as luck would have it we did have to hold a remote learning day on February 17th last year we did have to close schools due to heavy snow that made travel dangerous to our buildings so I am back to look again at possible options uh for uh this coming school or this current school year excuse me should we have the need for an emergency closure so um let's just take a look at the options should the district need to close schools due to an emergency or inclement weather the following options are currently available to you as a board according to the district calendar you could use President's Day we could use another remote learning day on the day of the actual closure or

060an extended school year could be in play by one day to make up that seat time so those are the options so prior to last year President's Day was really the only option that we used for making up seat time um this particular option requires teachers and students to attend school on a previously scheduled holiday and we found that previous attendance data showed that our makeup days in terms of attendance was typically really low the average range was anywhere from 30 to 50 percent and that was across all schools so um in the event that a school closure needs to occur another option would be for the remote learning day which was the one that we used last year we would then pivot to remote learning the current academic calendar would still be maintained and

061without having to make up any alternate day on a holiday or end of year this would be good for consistency in the academic week as the instruction would be maintained and not disrupted um teaching would occur on that day using one or more of the following um lessons it could be on canvas we could have hard copy lessons reading assignments projects possible synchronous and asynchronous opportunities that would again align with that week's learning objectives and attendance would be taken using the learner validated attendance criteria as per District policy and practice and just as a reminder our district policy and practices aligned with usbes r277-419 which is their people accounting code and so if we were to use this it would be the same as our six remote Fridays that were just approved and the method

062for taking attendance would be along the lines of different types of Engagement so it could possibly include a minimum student login it could include the actual teacher contact with the students there could be hourly requirements not just per day but per that week and so students could provide or demonstrate completed assignments in a certain amount of time that was deemed appropriate by the school okay so just as you recall in the previous slide we talked about the attendance that we typically had on a makeup day uh in previous years so we're going to look now at the learner validated attendance that we had this last year on February 17th versus the attendance that we had typically had on makeup days in previous years and so in looking at all of our schools schools that had

063an increase in learner validated attendance on the school closure day which would be the remote learning day we had four of our five Traditional High Schools say that there was an increase in attendance middle schools and elementary schools roughly 50 percent now the schools that had a decrease in learner validated attendance note that these were not our Traditional High Schools but we had three schools CTA diamond ridge and Jordan Valley that actually had a decrease in attendance on those days one of our middle schools and three of our elementaries had a decrease but in terms of School attendance staying the same regardless of whether it was a remote or in-person day we had one high school three middle schools and six elementary schools say it was about sixes so it was it was a wash

064um it is important to note that three of our elementary schools stated that it was kind of a combination of one in three they said it definitely wasn't a decrease in in attendance um but it certainly was either an increase or attendance stayed the same and so our our proposal would be that we continue a remote learning day uh this school year in the event that we had another emergency closure for for whatever the reason might be so with that I'm happy to take any questions you might have hey board um any questions this is kind of our time to discuss as you recall and as Mrs Peck said last year we designated the remote virtual learning with the idea that we'd come back and visit it again this year to find out how it

065went so they've provided us that information um and it's we call it emergency School closure day even though the nickname is snow day but we are aware that there are other situations that do and may arise that that would require or make it not safe to go to school so with that I'm just going to open it up board do you have any thoughts any additional information this is a first reading and so um this would be the time to ask questions or ask for any additional information to to be brought forward okay um I think everyone maybe we'll just go down the line and we'll Mr millerberg and we'll just kind of go down the line thanks it seems somewhat contradictory to say to have a discussion on something I don't think we need

066to have a discussion on because if we increase attendance over what we've traditionally done it's easier for the parent it's easier for the students um probably the biggest question I have is why we didn't put an up for Action tonight because to me it just seems like one of the biggest no-brainers uh since the invention of time um thank you for putting it together in such a succinct way so that we can see how the figures and the numbers crunch out but I just look at it and say oh yeah we've got a winner here okay thank you okay so I excuse me I just have a question so you know we don't call us nowaday our virtual day until like five in the morning so what will teachers be expected to do right because

067they won't have known they won't be prepared so I'm just wondering how how what is that gonna look like so just like we did last year we sort of prepped teachers and our students for an in case right so um and on the in case that we did have to have a school closure here's what our learning is going to look like uh last year we were fortunate enough to have a little bit of a heads up of course you never know for sure until the morning of um but it was just enough for teachers and students to prepare themselves uh to check in whether it was on their canvas uh coursework I think a lot of our teachers went ahead particularly at the elementary school level and sent work home on the in case

068and certainly if we were able to hold school then they would come to school and go back to what we had planned originally so it can be a little tricky but I think if you make sure that teachers and students know what will happen if we have to have a school closure that they just like they did last year I think they were really prepared more than we thought they would be and so we felt pretty confident that with that experience that we wouldn't have too much difficulty pivoting this year if we had to okay so our elementary schools using canvas because yeah it's one option yes um our elementary schools do have cannabis um as an option um part of the problem that we run into is connectivity for students so we just give

069a variety of different options to teachers and the teachers know their students and what they'll have access to so they will plan accordingly to make sure that they get the instruction they need okay so they could send an email to parents they could yes yeah so it wouldn't have to be on campus and the idea in knowing ahead of time is that parents and teachers can communicate again on the on the in case so if this happens then here's the next step check your email or check your Skyward phone calls whatever they have decided to put in okay thank you yes thank you so I think this is one of the few perks that's come out of povid actually I think last year was the smoothest snow day my kids have ever had and are

070I know that's not what we're calling it but that was what um instigated the need for it and um I really am grateful for everything that the teachers have done in preparation on those in those moments I mean I think that the virtual Fridays last year taught us a lot how to prepare for it and we would be unwise in my opinion to not take advantage of the very thing so I'm in great favor of this so thank you Mrs Oaks um now Mr Wrigley yeah I think most of our students above third grade have their own one-on-one computers now is that it or where we are yeah that that is true not necessarily one-on-one meaning they have them at home um but in the school yes okay so they could reassign them the day

071before if they needed to it's quality and and you'd have to look at in way um whether or not you knew for sure that the students wouldn't be coming the next day and the work it would take to to check those out it's certainly a possibility absolutely okay I just yeah the nice thing is is you're able to do quite a bit of actual learning if you were able to do that uh I like this virtual this emergency day because there's a couple reasons to use it one on a typical snow day if the kid can't get in the parents typically can't get in either so we're not taking the other holiday or any other work day away from the parent because they're usually trapped in the home so it's probably the best way to

072do it um so that works out really well and also I that having this policy in place and I think at some point we may want to make it permanent when we have a school burned down or anything else like that this allows us to Pivot really quickly to that where we don't lose all the days as we've had in the past unless our Chromebooks burn up but anyway uh but a lot especially for the middle schools in high school would be really easy to Pivot if we had some kind of a school emergency where they could not attend school or whatever it might be can we use this school emergency in case we have some closures we're getting a number of threats on our schools and stuff like that or that are not founded

073the kids are being gone is this a way to maybe use on that time too I'm not certain about that I'm assuming that if the if the calendar allows you as a board to determine what those days look like I mean you still have to um approve that I'm assuming yeah I'm just wondering if we're calling emergency school days and we'll have a threat social media threat come in on a high school and nobody will attend it would be nice if we could actually have you pivot to here because we know that nobody's going to be attending because of the threat of the school or whatever uh it makes it where probably people want to call those in as much because they still have homework but it also makes where they don't lose any day

074thank you this is nightbar okay just a few thoughts I would love to see what the plan is and have a specific plan for those students who are special education that's a comment I've heard a lot from parents is children that are special education virtual days are very difficult for them and making sure we have those supports in place just recently with our last virtual day I had a parent contact me and her daughter has dyslexia and it took them from nine in the morning until six at night to finish the school workload she did contact the teachers normally she has those supports where if there's a passage it's read to her from the computer those supports weren't in place and she did contact the teacher about having her daughter come in and she was

075told that the district had said that students can't come in on Virtual days which we need to maybe clarify that but just when we're thinking of putting these continuing at these days in place for a snow day I would just love to have kind of a more specific plan I've just heard from parents that this has become a a large difficulty for them you know with special ed and obviously that dyslexia has a very mild case I have other parents who have children that have severe disabilities that are maybe maybe thinking of what more we can do for them with supports in place and more specific okay and then the other thought I had was you know when you said there were three elementary schools that kind of went down in attendance and thinking about

076that connectivity issue I know last year when my elementary kids did the snow day they just were logging into our desktop because yes they didn't take the Chromebook home and so I'm just wondering if we could also have a plan in place for elementary school kids that there's packets because I think that connectivity in those homes is what's probably the major factor why they're not attending absolutely and that would be the case if if we're planning ahead and teachers know that students don't have connectivity and they've had those conversations with families than having those packets is certainly the option there awesome thank you Mrs Arnold foreign so then the packets are like an after thing though because the day of the snow day there's no way for them to come pick up the packets right

077they'd have to plan ahead and there's no way to come and get the Chromebooks either because our kids have their Chromebooks in school but they are not checked out they don't take them home every day so really that day they do nothing but then they have to make up that day and still go back to their regular school day and do that work too in reality that's where we are yeah we would really hope that our teachers again would plan and and have those thoughtful conversations with students and to the best of their ability send things home if they think that that could be a possibility so that they would have the work so watching the weather is that what we're talking about so that they may be yeah send it home or I guess

078they could be really proactive and just send it home in a folder and say when we have our snow day in a month pull this out well and I don't I don't know what every school did on February 17th but I do know that several teachers arranged with parents hey check your email I've got some things that I know your students can or your child can do at home that will be an extension of what we're doing here so I think our teachers get pretty creative and they'll be able to come up with some things I think so too thank you you know what I'm sorry I had one more oh thank you Mrs Neibauer I apologize I had one more note on here could we be um is there a way that we could

079communicate the two other concerns I've heard a lot from parents is in the last virtual day it was in the high school it was a b day I think was this last time was a b day and some teachers of the opposing day still assigned extra work even though it wouldn't have been their class day so it was it extra in coursework so I don't if if that's something that that could be communicated absolutely we can follow up on that awesome and then the other complaints I've gotten is a workload expectations where some again um like some high school kids had so much this last Friday that there was no way they could get it done within the school hour range and then some it was easy and they were done in two hours so

080just making sure that that's something that we'll follow up and we'll have some conversation thank you so much okay thank you board so just just to summarize um I think when we bring this back it's um we'll probably bring it back second reading possible action but um and I think there were requests for information about special ed students yes and the um the idea of school specific days right um I think Mr Wrigley mentioned that you know if if a particular specific school had an emergency what what would that look like how would that be handled okay I believe what we're talking about here are district-wide closures and so um but it might be helpful for the administration to have to kind of think through on if there is a school specific emergency hey we'll

081check on that and bring that back for this second meeting let's see did I catch it all it sounded like you know the the concerns or the questions about you know preparing ahead I mean as much as you can for an emergency right that's kind of the definition of emergency so oh and then the other question this is something for the board is when we bring this back for Action would we want to consider it being the default decision from year to year or do we want to revisit it every year so that would that would be it I'm seeing heads not that they would like get to be brought back as a as a default no I think I mean this is first reading so so we're just kind of giving some direction and

082asking for information so okay so we'll bring that back with that idea in mind then sounds good oh another comment yes Mrs shell well I just want to add that I remember last year it was like a story on the news like Canyons gets rid of snow days like I would like us to maybe name it like snow slash virtual day because it's still snow day it's still an emergency snow day anyway I don't so we're gonna refer to it as a we can just call it a school closure but I'm happy to revisit the name uh or inclement weather other board members too but but I do like the idea that it's still a snow day like it's not like we're some evil people getting rid of snow days anyway [Laughter] okay um yeah

083we can maybe talk that through okay so next we can do that okay any other thoughts yes thank you so much um for bringing this to us and thank you board for your suggestions and we'll look forward to having it back at our next meeting thank you okay board um that concludes our items that were designated on the study session agenda so with that we have a little bit of time for a break and we will reconvene for the business meeting beginning at seven o'clock P.M thank you you know somebody you stood me up last time why you should have said hey I'm gonna hold up um thanks foreign thank you we're ready to begin [Music] good evening I'd like to welcome you all to the meeting of the Canyons Board of Education we appreciate

084your attendance here tonight either in person or or viewing the meeting through the live stream and I want to express our our gratitude for your patients as we are a few minutes late getting started um so um the first item on the business meeting agenda is to approve the agenda for tonight November 9th 2021 I will ask for a motion I'll make that motion it's okay I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of November 9th no the agenda agenda for the agenda of November 9 2020 with a modification on new business we will be changing what we currently have approval of social emotional to a we'll be moving to approval of 2020-2023 school calendar to be and we'll be moving the redistricting proposal to see which will allow less time for people

085having to sit here but you're welcome to stay the whole night if you'd like yeah I would like thank you um let's see we have a motion is there a second I'll second it okay we have a motion and a second and now is there discussion to this motion yes I would like to make a change to the motion asking if we could have a quick discussion on item on the consent agenda on item I had it written down here one about the memorandum to Alpine J okay all right um Mrs Neibauer do you mind I'm bringing that up when we have the motion to approve the consent agenda oh yes I do okay all right if you're okay you can end up then this is just the agenda agenda yep yes okay thank you

086any further discussion to this motion okay see none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay that motion passes the agenda is approved as as amended thank you okay um next we will have our Pledge of Allegiance um from Bellevue Elementary principal Tamara Baker will lead us in that and then principal Baker will also give us some school highlights from Bellevue Elementary please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance please rise ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands foreign thank you please please seated [Music] thank you for having us tonight we appreciate being invited to talk about Bellevue often when invited to share the great things about a school the principal chooses to talk about

087the instructional initiatives and the implementation and Innovation programs at the school as a Bellevue staff we are proud of the investment we're making in time and effort in both of these and we believe you'll see the positive results in our plans and ongoing data but tonight as the very last principle of Bellevue I've chosen a little different perspective for this important presentation I'd like to share what it's like to be a child at Bellevue this year so for the past few months we've been dropping into classrooms and hanging out on the playground in the cafeteria before and after school and listening to the students as they have pondered several questions that somewhat get to the heart of what it's like to be a child right now and here are some of the words and the

088three questions we've asked the first question what's the best thing that has happened to you so far this year the best thing about this year is that all of us can be ourselves we are accepted for who we are wherever we come from it feels like a safe place to learn best thing the friends I'm making here I was new this year because I did online last year I was worried about that but I didn't need to worry the best thing was when I met my awesome teacher she's great the best thing that happened to me this year is when the class reached goals and then we get a mystery surprise like we get to wear pajamas to school or we get popcorn and GoNoodle if you don't know what GoNoodle is I'll explain that

089later the best thing I love the brain booster golden awards the brain booster teachers really plan cool stuff for us to learn best thing I like it when one person in my class gets a cop being good ticket and gets announced on Friday best thing math is a little easier for me this year I've been giving it more effort Best Thing I Got a new writing assignment best thing my birthday was so fun and if you remember childhood birthdays and losing teeth are the most exciting thing that can ever happen to you at school best thing when I came to this school I did not think I would make friends but then the school helped me make friends I liked how we had groups at the beginning of the year that changed so I got

090to know everyone in my class at recess at my other school there were groups of kids where you couldn't play with them that doesn't happen here everybody can play second question the hardest thing about this school year and how I've made it better hardest thing I've been working on my times tables big sigh they're hard EST thing I got two competitive playing Foursquare I had to take a break from it but now I can go back and play it without losing my temper now I can remember they're my friends and that it's more important than being in the top square hardest thing reading I'm getting better at it but I've had to work hard EST thing when my dad told me a big math problem and he knew the answer in his head when he

091could do that I knew I needed to learn more about multiplying the hardest thing we've learned a lot of new games I didn't know that there were other things you could play at recess until this year his friend jumped in that has been really fun I bet most adults don't know the real rules to tetherball a time this year when I was a good friend a good friend I kept my eyes on the speaker that helps them know I'm listening good friend I helped a friend who fell down today I think that helped them that I was there good friend I helped a friend feel included who was sad today good friend from a fifth grader I read with my kindergarten buddy oh maybe that is the kindergarten being a good friend of me because

092it was really fun welcome to Childhood is it perfect no was it ever not likely but childhood today is full of golden moments to be a child continues to be magical at Bellevue because children are amazing and resilient and inspirational they teach us every day about kindness and Hope we feel gratitude to their families that share them with us for 180 days a year it is a sacred Trust it takes the support of everyone to create a safe happy purposeful place of learning these moments happen because of a caring dedicated staff greeting them in the office feeding them with smiles in the cafeteria supporting engaging brain boosters a team that encouraged Social Development where it is happening on the playground in the classroom in the hall most of all in the classroom teachers who plan

093and teach and are taking the time to listen we recognize we make a difference every day by modeling what we want to see kindness physical and emotional safety and being responsible for those in our trust by learning to be better listeners with eyes on the speaker and hearts in the moment the students at Bellevue are learning and thriving this year in everything we do our goal is for these Mustangs to walk into the Glacier Hills halls and as Yeti's next fall with confidence academically and socially and in the words of these children they are growing and learning every day with a world still unsettled we want to give them more children get one childhood and this is theirs and in more ways than you would think it's pretty great and if you need to know

094the rules the real rules to tetherball come on over our kids can teach you that too thank you very much for celebrating Bellevue here tonight thank you so much principal Baker we appreciate you and your staff and and all of the folks in the Bellevue Community and those wonderful students will you please express our appreciation for all that they're doing to make Bellevue such a great place and as you prepare for moving into next year we appreciate all that you're doing for them and recognizing that Monumental step that's happening in that community so thank you Nancy yes take just a second yes Mr millerberg Tamara it was so good to see you again Tamara was a principal in my neighborhood school for about three years four years four uh she's a parental that uh was

095in charge of getting a new Elementary School built and I will tell you that the community where I live absolutely loved you as a principal and the kids will still mention your name and so you are loved and appreciated and you are a principal extraordinaire thank you for for sharing tonight [Applause] thank you it is now um time that will turn well part of the meeting that will turn the time over to Jeff Haney and Kirsten Stewart from the Communications Department for some recognitions I always hate going after Mrs Baker you're right she is a principal extraordinaire she is one of the founding administrators of the Canyon school district and you can see her Legacy lives on at the schools that she leads now including Bellevue which next year will become part of the new

096Glacier Hills School Community today they formed their PTA has a very exciting part of the history of Glacier Hills and the yetis one of the most unique mascots I think I've ever heard so president tingi thank you for this time that you give us to recognize the achievements of students faculty and staff of Canyon school district tonight for recognitions we are honoring Rockstar science teacher scholar athletes student musicians and the men and the women whose support means that our schools run smoothly those who are mentioned tonight will receive a letter of recommend recommendation and Commendation from the board and the superintendent now the first folks who are honorees tonight are our science teacher extraordinaires now Canyons District literally cleaned up at the recent Utah science Teachers Association awards ceremony multiple science teachers from around the

097district received top annual honors from that associate Association in five categories biology physics Earth Science High School Department and the eighth grade so congratulations to the following teachers who were named the teacher of the year for what they teach that's Vanessa Fravel from Corner Canyon High School the biology teacher of the year Janice Spencer Weiss from Brighton the physics teacher of the year Aleister ripe diamond ridge the earth science teacher of the year and Mindy Timothy 8th grade science teacher of the year now we already have recognized Corner Canyon High School science department as the science department of the year that was a heck of a lot of teachers that we had from Canyon's District receiving the teacher of the year award in their respective content areas so congratulations to all of these teachers and

098as a reminder two Canyons District science teachers who were select selected by a NASA Affiliated Institute to attend a prestigious astrophysics teacher training program that includes a flight to the stratosphere are scheduled to make their Journey on their flight on the Sofia which is the world's largest flying Observatory from December 5th to December 10th so the calendar is slowly rolling toward Milo Mon and please Cliff castleton's Journey to the stratosphere and they have told us that they will keep us updated on their Adventures as NASA Airborne astronomy ambassadors the next honorees are the recipients of the academic Allstate award for fall Sports a whopping 35 students from Canyon schools are training smart not only have they excelled in their respective athletic contests but they have proven their educational metal and the classroom so much so

099that they were named to the list of academic All-State Award winners for the 2021 fall Sports now the Utah High School Activities Association presents the these Awards and they've done so for about 25 years and they give these Awards to the students who earn at least a 4.0 grade point average score among the top in the nation on college entrance exams or have a combination of the high scores on their test scores and Stellar grades so the following students have earned academic Allstate honors in girls tennis Elizabeth Bingham from Alta Elizabeth Johnson from Brighton Nicole de vacavi from Brighton Aaron Zhang from Hillcrest in girls cross country Alison Oller from Corner Canyon Brennan Pettit from Corner Canyon Natalie hunt from Corner Canyon Rachel Oldham from Corner Canyon Abby Hansen from Alta Carolyn rupper from Brighton

100Emily Swain from Hillcrest and Hannah demke from Jordan in volleyball Isabel cross from Corner Canyon lakecrofts from Corner Canyon Ella Biggs from Alta Grayson truck from Brighton Savannah caught him from Brighton Camille Johnson from Jordan Hannah Dudley from Jordan in girls soccer Elizabeth Johnson from Corner Canyon Sydney Christensen from Corner Canyon Hannah Schumann from Alta Annie Alder from Brighton Alyssa hobby from Brighton Annika bellerishkinen from Hillcrest Grace Pruden Hillcrest and Jameson Boyd Hillcrest in boys cross country Dallin Gibbs Corner Canyon Jackson henstren Cora Canyon Tyler Randall Corner Canyon Ian Ackerman from Alta Gage Wright from Hillcrest Lucas Pierce from Jordan and in football Cody Christensen from Corner Canyon and Cody Hagan from Corner Canyon we also would like to wish much luck to the Chargers on Friday in the semi-final game of the 6A football

101championships Corner Canyon will play Weber at the Rice Eccles Stadium certainly will be live streamed if you can't make it to the game at Rice decals so good luck to the Chargers the next honoree we have tonight is another football player in the Canyon school district it's Lander Brighton from Lander Barton from Brighton High who received a semi-finalist award for the Butkus Award that is really hard to say so Brighton High linebacker Lander Barton has been named a semi-finalists for this award this is an annual award that honors the best high school Collegiate and NFL linebackers a panel of 51 coaches recruiters Scouts and journalists select the 15 high school and college semi-finalists for the honor which is named after the fame NFL player Dick Butkus finalists will be announced later this month and the

102winner will be announced in December so we are cheering for Lander who is a four-star recruit to make it through to the next round of consideration so much luck to Lander we also want to note the Excellence of Canyon's District marching bands at last weekend's Red Rocks State marching band Championship you can see photographs here of the owl to high Hawks and the Brighton Bengals they have the two marching bands in Canyon school district Dr Robbins joined the Legion of ban dads and banned moms at Brighton and Alta High School who were cheering for their teams the competition held Dixie State University we congratulate Brighton and Alta for winning fourth and fifth place overall in the 5A competition the hawk and the Bengal bands have been working since the start of the summer on their

103field shows I think anybody who saw them women know that they were Innovative and creative and precise and they are quite the musicians so congratulations to the bands at those two schools and we want to give a big shout out to Caleb chavisteri and Michaela Mortensen that's Alta and Brighton's band advisors respect respectively they have worked so hard all year to give this opportunity to their students so thank you to uh all of the moms and the dads as well who have helped the marching bands get to that state championship we also didn't want the week to pass without noting National School psychology week our school psychologists work with students but they also consult with teachers and parents they evaluate students for special education services but also give Health supports and make referrals and then

104they help build positive School climates so that students feel safe and welcome and this is national school psychologist week and we want to thank them for all of their work in our schools we also want to recognize the men and the women who have given so much to protect our freedoms and those are the employees at the Canyon school district who are current or former members of the U.S armed forces we will have Veterans Day Celebrations all across the district on Thursday those who are working for us who are veterans or serve currently receive that letter of appreciation from the board and the administration and we will Mark that day with honor and respect for all that they have done for us including defending the right of every child to have a free appropriate education

105we also want to recognize our education support professionals now we truly could not do it with all of these men and women we believe the public schools are the backbone of our democracy they provide young people with the tools that they need to maintain the nation's precious values of Freedom Civility and Ingenuity now whether you drive a bus prepare nutritious meals serve as a secretary take pride in providing a sparkly and clean School for students and teachers or keep our commute computer systems running We Salute all of our education support Professionals for their hard work and their dedication and the work of our ESP is integral to the mission of Canyon school district and president tingey I believe that you have a resolution that you would like to present to the employees and the patrons

106of Canyon school district and we thank you for this time to express appreciation to all of those folks our students our teachers our employees who help us build a world-class School District president thank you Mr Haney and thank you for sharing those wonderful achievements with us and we love celebrating all the good things that are happening in the district um I would like to read into the record a resolution but also in doing so express our heartfelt appreciation that um is more than just a recognition for a day we recognize what these people do all year so whereas in 19 this is a resolution to recognize November 17 2021 as education support Professionals Day whereas in 1987 a National Education support Personnel day was founded and celebrated as part of American Education week and whereas

107education support professionals are often the first people our community's children encounter on a daily basis and whereas education support professionals play Vital roles in the College and Career Readiness of every Canyons District student and whereas education support professionals work tirelessly to ensure our students are ready to be productive citizens and serve our students and communities with care and professionalism and whereas Canyon's District joins in celebrating National Education support Professional Day on November 17 2021 and honors and recognizes the contributions that the district's Information Technology professionals custodians administrative assistants office staff business managers instructional aides bus drivers nutrition service workers maintenance workers and more to make public education now therefore let it be resolved that the Canyons Board of Education hereby recognizes and celebrates November 17 2021 as education support professional state and be it further

108resolved that the Canyons Board of Education recognizes and logs the many contributions of Canyon's District education support Professionals for the positive impact they have on the lives of our students now I therefore Nancy tingey speaking on behalf of the Canyons Board of Education recognized November 17 2021 as National ESP day and acknowledge the importance of the work done by the education support Professionals in the canyons District community thank you to all of our ESP employees in the district okay we have now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting and 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

109of the district when several people share the same opinion the board may ask individuals to select a representative spokesperson patrons May provide board members with written documents these documents must be submitted to the board secretary at the meeting over here Cindy or email to the office of public Communications at communications Canyons district.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 individuals will be given 90 seconds and those representing groups will be given two minutes comments made during Patron comment 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

110agenda nor engage in public comment on individual students students to protect their privacy or employees 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 to the board in writing however if the patron determines to verbally comment on those Personnel issues the comments need to be civil and refrain from personal attacks insults defamatory or slanderous comments about an individual the Board of Education would like to make it clear that critical race theory is not part of the curriculum being used in Canyon school district there are no plans to incorporate it into the curriculum or instruction in Canyon schools the Board of Education values input on all sides of issues to maintain decorum and respect we ask that

111those in attendance refrain from Applause or other types of demonstrations following or during a patrons comments and now tonight we we really want to be able to use our time effectively and to allow as many people as possible that have signed up to speak to speak so I will read out three names in a row in order of when it will be their turn to speak and if you're one of the on Beck People we do have seats reserved right up here in the front row so if you'll make your way forward then that will help us save some save some of the time so um with that we will begin we do have a few patrons that have wanted to call in to provide their comments okay so um I think our will need

112to um reset the telephone so we'll begin with um Let's see we have Karen Park operations center and then Blake Miller who is representing a group and then um Christy Waddell is representing a group so we'll start with those three okay I'm sorry um let's see is is our phone set I'm sorry okay so Karen you are now unmuted okay Karen Karen Pock and and just um I guess because the phone dropped I'll reiterate that that um that you'll have 90 seconds yes thank you can you hear me yes thank you can you hear us I can hear you should I turn the turn the meeting down for me okay yes okay go ahead you have 90 seconds okay okay I have bred the both emotional intelligence by Daniel Goldman which is one place fbl

113teaching stems from I am a proponent of teaching Goldman's outline principles to Children however I'm opposed to the Second Step curriculum for emotional education or any other program that is promoted for the cause of equity education um emotion I I could not find in the canyon District onboard copy of Social and emotional learning options dated November 2021 any information feedback or parental support regarding Equity learning I believe the board must have feedback from The District's parents on whether to include Equity teaching and learning before adopting second step or a similar program Second Step along with many other SEL programs are piggybacking Equity learning with emotional learning Equity teaching is now the root motivate motivation for organizations to promote and sell SEL programs the meaning of the word Equity as used here insists on including forced

114equal outcomes for all Equity is now a palatable keyword with Spike proponents of socialism and Marxism ideology Miss Park your time is up but second step is promoting Equity learning and teaching second step learning model thank you your title advancing Equity okay thank you your time is up we appreciate your your calling in okay um and then we have um Blake Miller and following Blake Miller is um Christy Waddell and following um Christy Waddell would be um Kristen Romero alrighty good evening so I'm against uh Second Step In SEL uh from the from the committee for children Equity statement can you hear me okay I'll get closer so from the committee for children Equity statement it states to achieve our vision our mission of fostering the safety and well-being of children through social emotional Learning

115and Development must be rooted in equity we believe that social emotional learning is fundamental to achieving social justice we also Advocate to connect those youth who are systematically marginalized because of their race ethnicity language socioeconomic status gender identity and sexual orientation or other identity features why are we not teaching our children to chase the American dream let's teach them to anyone regardless of where they were born the color of their skin or what class they're born into can attain their own version of success in a society in which upward Mobility is possible for everyone the American dream can be achieved through sacrifice risk-taking and hard work let's teach them the all men are created equal that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights among these are life liberty and their pursuit of happiness let's teach

116our children that they are not limited or handcuffed based on their language culture skin color or sexual orientation let's teach them that they have freedom and equality to make both large and small decisions the freedom to Aspire to bigger and better things and the possibility of achieving those the freedom to accumulate wealth the opportunity to lead a dignified life let's teach our children they can design their own life however they see fit to match their own values not your values and not according to social emotional learning and misguided belief of equity let's let us teach our children to turn to family first and if needed teachers school counselors and other trusted adults research studies have consistently shown that when parents offer repeated predictable experiences in which they see and sensitively respond to their children's emotions

117and needs their children will Thrive socially emotionally physically and even academically that's from the whole brainchild Equity inequality are not the same thing I want my children to mature knowing there are no limits to what they can achieve they can be kind they can chase their passions they need to have grit and they can be better every day it has nothing to do with their skin color or sexual orientation they can choose their definition of success starting in a different place under different circumstances doesn't make them a failure it helps them grow progress and become successful thank you in the words of poor Detroit if I believe that my destiny was based on my race I would not be where I am today we cannot allow SEL to Rob American children of that same hope

118thank our request is to remove STL and second step or criteria thank you a lot of your parents have the first look right thank you okay please we asked for no applause next is Christy Waddell and then Kristen Romero is on the phone and Chris you Waddell is representing a group Kristen Romero is an individual who will join us on the phone and then um Reagan Guth is also on the telephone Miss Waddell thank you for allowing me to speak this evening I'm Christy Waddell I'm the principal at Draper elementary school and I am here representing the Elementary School principles in the last board meeting second-hand information was shared and attributed to some of our elementary colleagues regarding the SEL curriculum second step we appreciate your desire to bring our voice to the table to

119support you in your decision-making process we created an elementary administrator survey to provide stakeholders the full context of our thinking we had 27 responses out of 35 administrators Elementary administrators and that includes assistant principals at the title 1 schools our key finding is 100 of the 24 Elementary administrators who have already been using Second Step responded they would like to continue using it for the remainder of the school year we received three responses from administrators who've not yet used it and even out of those three two would like to use it for the rest of the school year we also asked them to tell us how it has impacted their schools the ones that have used it and I am giving them a letter because you'll be able to see all of the responses but

120I'll just highlight a couple Second Step has provided our students with a foundation of behavior tools and strategies to cope with and manage their behavior it's given teachers tools to manage and support Behavior at the tier one and two level we've Incorporated Second Step as part of our morning meetings for the past two years as a result students shared a Common Language built relationships and were better able to support each other this year's Behavior data shows that our office referrals are numbered where we ended the school last year so I just want to reiterate what that means that for the first two and a half months this principle is stating they already have as many office referrals as they received all of last year there are many factors as to why the behaviors may have

121changed however as we are not teaching these skills we believe it could have something to do with second steps thank you very much thank you okay um Kristen Romero is on the telephone an individual and then um also on the telephone uh Reagan Guth and representing individual and then Jessica Smith an individual hi this is Kristen Romero I would like to be a resource to you in solving issues with second step first parents need Clarity on social emotional learning and second steps there are so many misnomers with those two things most parents don't even know the difference second there needs to be transparency with the curriculum in general parents need easy access to the Second Step material that will be taught in the classroom this includes all social emotional learning material third SEL material needs

122to be highly reviewed before buying it and presenting it to the children thing that is copyrighted is a cop-out and is unacceptable fourth I want to know if the link love is respect.org is still in the Second Step lesson plan if so this is unacceptable and it needs to go um the whole website is just riddled with things that are not age appropriate I have an 11 year old and it is just unacceptable and definitely not age appropriate when students came back from covet leave in 2020 the teachers needed something to help the kids with enhanced aggression and going and depression and anxiety Behavior second step is not it I know it's easy because it's easy to just show me slime and that it's easy for teachers but let's not take the easy route let's

123take a better route Sandra Brown is actually written a new curriculum that is very very positive upbeat and and very beautiful she is a lean on and I suggest her thank you thank you okay um next we have um Reagan goose the Jessica Smith and then Shannon Feltz and Shannon is representing a group okay then we will move on to Jessica Smith Shannon Feltz and then TJ McClure also representing a group I would like to start by giving my thanks to the board I know that this whole process has been hard and so very time consuming for all of us so thank you so much committee for children the company that creates Second Step claims on their website among other things to disrupt societal systems to have advocated at the state and federal levels and

124partnered with castle castle as we know lists parents and families among the last Circles of influence in society marginalizing family in this way is immoral and indestructive it is a fundamental goal of all socialists committee for children again the company that writes second step is essentially a politically motivated activist group pushing for legislation and political indoctrinization within Public Schools our district works hard and is proud of the fact that we are politically neutral District partnering with committee for children curriculum is the startling departure from that time-honored goal of neutrality we must not have as a goal that students become social activists in the curriculum if the curriculum is urging such activism is so nakedly bent in ideology such instruction instruction has no part in the true mission of taxpayer funded legally required public education teach

125Civics teach the Constitution do not indoctrinate children with a form of morality not agreed upon by those who love the most their families parents should have the first look in the last say thank you thank you all right please we ask for no applause Shannon Feltz and then T.J McClure do we have reaganon no okay and then Brenda Slaughter okay good evening school board members as so many before us we too will add our voices to those who have expressed concerns regarding social emotional learning in our schools and specifically concerns regarding the second step program I speak on behalf of several parents whose children currently attend various schools in the Canyon school district we firmly believe that it that social emotional learning should have its focus within the walls of our homes and not within

126our schools except we're necessary to main excuse me to maintain order within our classrooms as a pediatric occupational therapist I see and treat children from preschool to high school ages who experience real struggles with their emotional regulation in our treatment we choose to focus on Solutions rather than on problems we choose to focus on what they can do and not what others around them choose to do we focus on tools that enable children to find strategies that work for them as an individual recognizing that not all solutions are going to work for every child the Second Step curriculum focuses and chooses to focus on the problems in the lives of our children leaves little room for discussion of solutions it encourages group mentalities and discussions that are inappropriate and often unhelpful ways of publicly sharing

127personal problems any program hoping hoping to strengthen our children's social emotional learning should refrain from focusing on bullying harassment roadblocks sexual harassment or social justice we need a program that chooses to focus on kindness responsibility empathy gratitude service compassion respect and making good decisions these topics should be the focus and not the afterthought all content should be focused on our children's academic education and not what happens without the school walls lastly and most importantly any social emotional program should promote family relationships especially among our preteens and our teenagers families are the foundation of our society and should be recognized as such parents are and should be recognized as resources and not roadblocks please vote no to continuing Second Step thank you and please I please I ask you to not demonstrate we respect all opinions

128thank you um okay TJ McClure Brenda Slaughter Ryan Brinton and these are all representing groups okay once again I'd like to express appreciation for listening to uh to me and the other parents uh first off I and the parents I associate with also I have deep concerns with the new Second Step social emotional learning the previous year curriculum from what I had heard appeared to be good and seemed to be giving kids good skills that they needed to deal with their life however this year it seems the curriculum had changed whatever the circumstances were that emboldened the Second Step curriculum we strongly disagree with the direction taken by second step having said that I think all in this room agree with inclusivity anti-bullying and treating others kindly Etc I do not agree how they are

129represented in the new curriculum the majority of the curriculum puts emphasis on topics from a very polarized contemporary political viewpoint saying that you are limited or enabled by your race or socioeconomic status is so egregiously wrong children should not be taught through a deeply political politically charged lens they should be taught they can succeed no matter what and be taught the skills needed to thrive in society Public Schools should not push these political agendas schools should stick with Reading Writing arithmetic however it is also important to teach them how to integrate into society respect everyone kindness and proper manners however none of these virtues need to be taught by telling the children the color of their skin the privilege or oppression due to their color of that skin or how gender or sexual orientation needs

130to be explicitly presented in any of these lessons these cells should not be problems discussed in public schools we should remove it from our public schools and look for other alternative to teach these virtues thank you thank you Brenda Slaughter Brian Brinton and then Lynette hunt thank you so much I really appreciate all of you on the board um and I do love seeing everyone out tonight on both sides of the issue I believe that everyone here tonight has a genuine concern for our kids and their future and I really think there's a few good things that came out of 2020 and quarantining and one of those is that us parents got more involved with our students education we put a lot of faith in our teachers and administrators to choose curriculum that will help

131our kids succeed not just in K-12 and college Years but help them be successful for life the adoption of SEL curriculums was something I think many of us believed would benefit our kids schools communities and society as a whole um sorry I lost my question um a lot of research went into picking the original social emotional learning curriculum however with one word added to the beginning of scl which is transformative Second Step changed from research backed curriculum to a curriculum based around ideology that is divisive controversial and unbetted their own website States This research This research work is in its initial stages and is ongoing practical insights from expert voices will be shared as the work evolves some core features of transformative SEL include academic content that integrates issues of race class and culture enhancing

132and foregrounding social and emotional competencies needed for civic engagement and social change such as reflecting on personal and social identities examining prejudices and biases interrogating social norms disrupting and resisting inequities and co-constructing Equitable and just Solutions prioritizing students individual and Collective agency to take action for social justice um I'm here tonight because I was totally oblivious of the updated step Second Step curriculum until recently I had no idea what was being taught until other parents started raising red flags um and it isn't just about one poorly suggested website or one questionable video it is overall message being portrayed to our kids and being slowly and methodically indoctrinated I don't want my kids to be told what to think I wanted them to be taught how to think um I applaud this superintendent for listening and

133taking this program out of the schools thank you and I would like them to remove it second step for good thanks thank you okay um Ryan Brinton Lynette hunt and then Ashley Mesa you are now muted um excuse me I'm just going to take a second Cindy if if Reagan joins on the line will you please let me know thank you yes go ahead you are now unmuted all right where I am I I um good evening I'm grateful to be here I'm here as a parent as a mom of four kids three who are in the Canon School District in the elementary program and I have found out a little more and more about second step and I'm here to say I don't want that in the schools and if I can add my

134voice I'm not a public speaker this makes me so nervous but I want you to know that I don't want it in the schools um I've already found it difficult as a parent to know what's going on in schools I feel like the more media the more ability to be on the internet but the schools in there I don't know what's going on I know my child is being shown videos without my permission um and that was one flag that I saw um a couple years ago and then last year I found curriculum I came home that basically told the kids not to listen to the parents and that they are wrong and I thought that that was crazy and I couldn't believe that that was actually coming home and I was watching it reading

135it through with my child as a reading it was an Ela worksheet so when I found about second step and I started learning and looking into it I knew what I was seeing was real and I didn't want this in my in my my kids education at all I just want to know and as I know SEO is important I've had my kids before I sent them to school they were with me for five years I was their social emotional teacher and I want that to continue for them and I know that's why they're at school but we should see what's being taught I just want to know I want to know what's going on I want to know what's being taught and then I want to say yeah I like it and no I

136don't feel comfortable with this and so I stand against second step and I feel that together we can find something better something greater for our kids and I asked for my voice to be heard and I thank you thank you okay um Lynette hunt Ashley Mesa and Brooklyn and please correct me if I've said your name incorrect thank you and I'm with I'm and Lynette is representing a group and as is Ashley Mesa thank you my name is Lynette hunt I received a letter from another mother Jessica Vander hoof a parent of a first grader at Sunrise Elementary she states I wanted to share my thoughts on Second Step through the district survey but was unable to because it was designed so poorly it asked if I thought Second Step should continue but the multiple

137choice design didn't include my feelings as options for response nor did it provide an open field for my comments the survey didn't explain the concerns with second step nor did it inform me about the issues or even learn my feelings about it it simply continued to hide what was actually going on there have been no communication from the district about Second Step besides this survey any scl program should have full curriculum transparency to parents in advance and available for review at home even if only to reinforce what is taught any copyright restriction preventing convenient and transparent access for parents is a deal breaker must not be approved by the district parents should be involved in the SEL program approval process my part of this is I saw the survey and I noticed that only 15.3

138percent of parents responded to the survey 30 to 35 percent of those that responded said that they didn't have enough information to decide if it had made a difference with their student in the school or if it should continue to be taught could part of the reason for the low response to the survey be due to the fact that not enough parents are informed about SEL to have an opinion clearly there are not enough parents who want this program and so we should not approve it for all if the survey in the survey one caveat to have it continue in our schools would be that there would be a careful review of content by whom teachers are already burdened the curriculum committee they already passed it along with the along the first time with all

139of its problems please do not approve Second Step based on the perceived results of this flawed survey thank you thank you okay Ashley Mesa Brooklyn and then an Ashley's representing a group Brooklyn's represented individual and Lucy below also an individual okay president board members and superintendent Robbins it came to our attention early last week that a class we were planning on taking next semester was canceled we are here today as students of that class to speak on the matter and urge you to reconsider the cancellation of ethnic studies through concurrent enrollment that was to be offered to join high school we feel that if all the voices that you have heard of this matter the voices you have yet to hear are ours firstly there is no doubt the students of Jordan high were excited

140to take this course I and other people of color here at Jordan appreciate the effort to educate about diversity and culture this course is the perfect opportunity to have an open and inclusive conversation about such a topic we believe that this course should at the very least be offered to those who want to take it seeing as one of the core values here at Jordan is tolerance we hope that there would be an active effort to support this for many of us this was our only chance to satisfy the diversity requirement needed for the general education certificate having students travel to the Slick campus makes the course an inequitable due to higher expenses and accessibility removing this class so late in the year disrupts many students requirements to go onto higher education and lives and

141leaves little to no option especially for the majority of seniors that are taking this course in addition taking faking ethnic studies would prepare us for college in more ways than just the credit in fact being exposed to new information and touching on subjects that some may find controversial is a crucial aspect of higher education we will not benefit if we are restricted by the preconceived notions and biases of others who will not be affected whether this class is offered or not we are disappointed in that we have to ask to reinstate this course when many other schools and school districts offer similar classes without a problem this class is especially relevant to a high school Asda versus Jordan remember this course is an elective if parents object their student should simply not take the course

142it's that simple other parents should not have a veto over what we learn ourselves and our parents should get to decide what we are exposed to we live in an era of important conversation on diversity the 2020 census show that Utah is rapidly becoming more diverse and all signs are that our community will continue to become more diverse this course is an opportunity to learn about topics that are prevalent in our society but often overlooked in our education we urge you to reconsider this matter and take an in-depth look at the curriculum rather than making this decision on an initial reaction we deserve to learn thank you thank you and just for the record for the record um I didn't we had Ashley Mesa and are you okay can can we have your name for

143the record Elsie girl okay thank you Elsie okay um Brooklyn and then Lucy and then Molly Scott and Brooklyn will you please state your name I think I mispronounced it earlier it's okay my name is Brooklyn Bagley b-a-g-l-e-y dear president and board members as I've stated my name is Brooklyn Bagley and I'm vice president of the Nationals Honor Society at Jordan High School as a representative of the community at Jordan high that values enriched learning environments and has a deep commitment to service for our student body I am obligated to speak on behalf of myself as well as the 30 plus kids enrolled in ethnic studies in my personal experience not only is it relevant to the heritage of myself and my peers but to my life goals and aspirations to work in human rights

144law as a human rights lawyer it is nothing but the standard to be educated in topics regarding diverse demographics within our country and it is in the best interest of my career and future constituents that I request a re-evaluation to have ethnic studies continued I am in need of that diversity requirement and removing that course makes the general education certificate inequitable due to having to go to the Slick campus which not all of us can afford to do I as well as my fellow speakers say this out of love and respect for our diverse Community from the desire to be as educated and as representative of it as possible as beat diggers as utahns and most of all as fellow Americans thank you thank you Brooklyn um Lucy then Molly Scott and then rayetta Croft

145all right good evening board members I'm here to Echo my friends Ashley Elsie in Brooklyn my name is Lucy Ballou and I am the student body president of Jordan High School I was elected to this position because the students and faculty at Jordan knew I could effectively represent every student there in the short time I have served as president I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the students in ways I couldn't before and their stories never fail to fascinate me I have heard experiences of all kinds but the experiences that stand out to me the most are the ones about amazing cultures and immigration Journeys but also injustices that only exists because of inward racial bias of an uneducated Society these stories often make me feel frustrated that I have made it 18 years without

146hearing them I know that through taking the ethnic studies course I would be able to learn about these issues build connections with these cultures and therefore improve my ability to understand connect with and represent the student body not only me but every other student taking this class would better would be better equipped to live a life in a naturally and beautifully diverse Society once again I stand here as a representative of my student body and I know that providing the ethnic studies course is the best choice for the Jordan high students thank you thank you Molly Scott rayetta Croft and then Branson Britain excuse me have you signed up to address the board [Music] this is the patron comments time and people that have signed up they addressed the board on on any topic thank

147you all right Molly Scott okay so my name is Molly Scott I'm a senior at Jordan high school and I'm also the president of my school's debate team it's very important to me to show my teammates and peers that we need to act up or not act up but to defend our to our rights and our decisions and what we want for ourselves and our community therefore I'm going to speak like my peers have before me about this ethnic studies class that was previously offered at Jordan High School as a biracial American I think it's immensely important for not myself but my peers to learn more about my culture and other cultures in this country we're such a diverse country school and state that we need to learn more about each other this class not

148only offered me an opportunity to learn more but offered my peers the opportunity to learn more in an academic climate instead of looking to social media or the internet or other ways it gave them a way to learn this in a civil and classroom and just to be able to learn more in an academic environment I think that this class should be re put in the school because I needed this class for diversity credit for my gen Ed and not only that but I wanted to take this class and the class was ripped from my hands and my friend's hands at the hands of other people and that's just unfair foreign thank you okay um rayetta Croft Branson Britton and then has Reagan joined us thank you so much for this opportunity um much of

149what I was going to say was said so much better by so many others I also am against the SEL program um I guess I'll just talk about my personal experience with it I started wondering what was going on at school last year when one of my kids started telling me about things that were being talked about in English and history in English some of the assignments addressed toxic masculinity and in history there was a strange emphasis on systemic racism White Privilege attacking the nuclear family and bashing free trade capitalism I didn't make the connection with the social emotional learning program until I began researching SEL the vocabulary that I found on Pro scl website sounded similar to the things that my son was picking up in these two classes here are some of the

150words and phrases that I found on websites like castle that helped describe their mission I realize these words are not synonymous with SEO but they are related and interconnected um critical race Theory diversity equity and inclusion unconscious bias social racial and gender identity power constructs social awareness implicit bias why anti-racism racist ideologies white privileged sexual identity heteronormativity comprehensive sex health education systemic racism toxic masculinity white supremacy racial and social constructs social justice intersectionality 1619 project diversity Collective healing and Equity just to name a few much of this was new to me is that my time yes okay basically I just agree with what others have said before me thank you thank you so um Branson Brinton and then did I say your name correctly yeah okay Twister okay and then um Aaron Longacre thank you

151president tinging and board members yes Branson Brenton I I'm a Brighton bangle so um it got difficult and I used to have blonde hair and I have blue eyes so it was a bunch of bees but um I appreciate the opportunity to be here to speak with you briefly um similar to to many of the parents who have spoken before me tonight I have concerns about the second step program but just wanted to kind of I guess back up to a higher level for a second and and um and just remind everyone what we heard earlier from from the principal who came and spoke at the very beginning she said a couple of things that that really stood out to me she said that um she considers um it a privilege or she's grateful she

152said for the families that share their children with us for the 180 days a year and that she considers it a sacred trust um to take care of of those children sorry just want to make sure um and uh and so you know in the on the Canyons website Kansas district website says every student who attends Canyon school district will graduate college and career ready which I know present tiny I've heard you mentioned tonight as well and I really appreciate that um and I I just feel that it's so important that um the parents have the opportunity to to understand the curriculum that's being taught before it's being taught and to be able to approve it and I know that there is um schools are in kind of a pickle because they have this curriculum

153that's been taught this thus far this year and so to abandon it and leave the teachers without anything would be difficult but I would volunteer and I would imagine there'd be other parents who would volunteer to find a solution to replace it thank you okay Aaron Aaron Longacre yes and then um Paul McCarty and then Jessica Anderson in last month's District newsletter Amanda you liking the things going on in the district as a relay race how Runners pass a baton to their teammates after finishing their leg as a concerned parent I am as though as I am running a race too I'm running sprinting out of breath and tired my leg of the race is over I vetted Second Step I've spent hours researching watching lessons and reading material I've come to the conclusion that

154this curriculum in any grade is Unworthy of being taught our great superintendent took the Baton for a bit and now I'm handing it off to you Amanda I need you to finish this race I need you to have the courage the Integrity strength and the fortitude to take this baton to the finish line and vote tonight to stand with me and tell your other board members that having a curriculum that in the kindergarten lessons fails to even mention a father and other Elementary lessons it gives examples of the home not being a safe place it encourages children to go to social media and the internet to alleviate some of their problems there has been several studies proving that there is a correlation between depression and suicide and social media this is not okay and if

155you spent half as much time as me finding out for yourself what this really is you would Sprint you would give it your all you would take my baton with great anticipation to the Finish Line Amanda please take the first step tonight in getting rid of Second Step throughout our district vote to get rid of it thank you Paul McCarty Jessica Anderson Emily Ord it's good to be before you and I appreciate our association in the past and and our association right now I I'm like to uh Charlie Evans has presented to you his draft of the um of the board members District realignments and I really encourage you to reach out and get the parent and Patron input on this it's very very important I know many of you do reach out and I

156encourage you to do continue to do so um at the beginning I was on the first in the at the split and at the first board and with under the under uh Cheryl Taylor and I would continually to have monthly meetings this is so important it's so important not only for the the uh being transparent but it's extremely important to get all of those informations from right from the mouth of the of the public not only here in a board meeting but also throughout let me uh may I uh just uh just say this in conclu in conclusion that the Utah law clearly established its parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children and you as as elected representatives um this the state board has passed or the legislators passed the law

157it's Essie 53e-2-201 and its state shall respect protect for the interests of parents and their children public education promote encourage full and active participation and involvement of parents and all thank you Public Schools thank you thank you uh Jessica Anderson Emily Ord and then um we are really coming up close on our time here so we'll go to that point [Music] um it sounds me to be addressing this tonight but it's highly necessary um the parents of this nation have been awakened to what is going on in the public school system and we're not backing down parents need the first look and last day on everything happening in our schools the current policies and practices are clearly not working this book was available to students at Alta High School library and tell parents not the

158administration have it removed for the highly inappropriate content this book should have never been available to any student from the library at the time it was exposed let me repeat it was the parents who raised concern over this book not a teacher librarian or principal as a matter of fact on Amazon this book is labeled as teachers pick and is recommended for children as young as 14 years old I'm going to read excerpts from this book that was available to our precious children it is explicit in nature so I would like to request that the time be paused while we give anyone who is a minor or who wishes to excuse me no okay I will go forward this was in this High School library but please please I would ask anyone to leave who

159is a minor uh it was in the high school library let me repeat that okay first of all on page 182 the author says um this is likely the hardest chapter I'll Ever Write as it frankly I'm not even sure it fits with the themes of Blackness or queerness or critical race theory in this book I thought critical race Theory wasn't being taught in our district at Alta High School it was found on page it reads you then asked me do you feel that yeah but I left and said get your hand off my butt you giggled that is not my hand you're lying I said you then placed both hands on my hips As We Lay side by side there was something poking me you were fully erect at this point I was nervous

160we gonna get in trouble you can't tell anybody okay you promise that you're not gonna tell anyone I promised you then grabbed my hand and made me touch it this was the first time I'd ever touched a penis that wasn't wasn't my own I knew what was happening wasn't supposed to happen cousins weren't supposed to be doing these things with cousins but my body didn't react that way my body on the inside is doing something you're trying this up there's more and more in this book they should not leave please we ask we ask for respect and decorum so all right Emily Ord and then I believe our time has included a comment made by a board member at the last board meeting was quote when Second Step was adopted we followed the process that

161was current at the time here lies the problem we need to restructure the process for acquiring new curriculum we as parents are here to help we are offering our time and efforts in correcting this this process as parents we are requesting to be largely involved in the curriculum adoption process we are requesting that an elected parent-led Review Committee be created to vet any new materials brought into our children's classrooms parents would like any new curriculum to meet their educational standards and be age appropriate this includes software programs on the Chromebooks including updates library books surveys given to students in any curriculum not just SEL before any any money is spent parents should have the first say first look and last say Utah state code 53 States parents have the primary responsibility for the education of

162their children and elect representatives in the legislature and on State and local school boards to administer it continues in the implementation of all policies and programs local school boards shall respect protect and further the interests of parents in their children's public education and promote and encourage full participation of parents as you can see the selection implementation and continuation of education programs in the state of Utah was never intended to be done without the informed consent of parents when discussing how to restructure a new curriculum adoption process a comment by a board member was we need to include a lot of stakeholders parents of canyons would like the board to acknowledge parents are the primary stakeholders in their children's education does a Canyon School Board deem parents as important stakeholders or primary stakeholders we request that

163the board make a public statement acknowledging this distinction we look forward to following up on this request at the next board meeting parents should have the first look and last say thank you thank you Marilyn Larson okay we're going to go ahead and just finish with everyone that has signed up so please we ask your respect Marilyn Larson Alicia Cottle lynnae Larson and then Lamar Christensen oh this is hard night guys I'm here to thank you I graduated from Jordan High School I'm here to share with everyone some critical information and we do have volumes of data to back this information up and it is called what we know all of the things that you have heard about Sal Cassel Second Step CRT emotional college readiness educational programs has been funded by big Tech and

164federal money for years without the parents approval or their Implement our governor and other Governors received millions of dollars from Obama administration to be again the implementation through the national school board to our Utah State School Board then to our local school boards and then into our daily curriculum via lesson plans Chromebooks digital digital audio and visual things this process every good product ever through this process every good productive reasonable honest words and meanings have been hijacked into Marxist ideologies without our parents approval we know these programs were introduced and put into place into our colleges 10 to 15 years ago I happened to be at the Capitol when this was voted on all of the students who have attended College during the past 10 to 15 years have been indoctrinated with this information they

165were taught and exposed to these uh and second step is just one of many we know that the Canyon's distinct received huge 21 million dollars from coveted relief we know they can help you we're asking you to let us help you we recruit thank you your time is obstruct and revamp and bring to us our Canyon school district uh lessons that we can all love with thank you lynnae Larson Levar Christensen oh I'm sorry I I'm sorry I mixed it up Alicia all right thank you okay thank you I just want to say thank you for your time I know this has been a lot and I appreciate and know that you guys have put hours and hours into this um I just wanted to share uh just an experience I had um with a

166dear friend um her son is at uh Corner Canyon with my son and um by her permission I asked her to share this story she called me and said she knows I've been digging into this curriculum and she said okay what's up with this curriculum and I said well her son just barely came out as gay he's he's he's just come out and I said okay your son is gay my son is straight and they're in the same classroom we're going to talk about emotions we're going to talk about gender we're going to talk about all these very sensitive sensitive subjects the outcome of this lesson is dependent upon the teacher it's dependent upon the teacher there's open dialogue there's children talking we're all talking about your son coming out or my son not coming

167out whatever I said that's that's what's happening and I said please tell me how would your son feel in a classroom setting when he is brand new come out as gay she said it would be awful I said well your your child might come home feeling like crap your child might come home and there's a suicide watch my child might come home and say gosh I think I might be gay and we might have a suicide watch here this is open dialogue open dialogue for these These are going on in our world this stuff is happening these children are going through a lot and I agree but I also know some children can come out gay and talk about it some cannot some kids don't want to talk about it at all and it needs

168to stay at home let's talk about empowering let's talk about goals let's talk about being kind let's talk about being positive we don't need to bring these issues into the classroom please remove it thank you thank you so much I'm glad I can speak I'm just sorry for the record lynnae Larson yes um anyway I left my notes at home I had some visuals long story short my son came home a couple weeks ago and he has a Chromebook and I know that's the new thing as parents I know with covid you know that was the thank you um I'm a little skeptical just because with a lot of things as a lot of parents we watch everything now we're very alert we watch um I was lucky enough a few years ago my son

169at the time was 13 and N um he begged and begged and pleaded for a smartphone and I caved and then um almost immediately I went to a Colin Karchner seminar and it changed my life because his whole push was saved the kids and if you ever followed Colin Karchner and you saw the comments and these kids that were on the verge of taking their lives thousands and thousands I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of kids he touched but it changed my life and then he turned it to save the parents and the whole the whole purpose of this was these things things technology Chromebooks technology is is basically taking our kids away this pandemic that we're in right now started in 2010 and I'm not talking about covid I'm talking about common

170core I'm talking about in Silicon Valley the day when all the Techno gods of the world got together and they said we're going to create platforms that are going to steal the minds of these kids I know it's going to hurt them but guess what we don't care it'll produce billions of dollars these people do not care about your kids our kids it's in our schools Common Core guess who built it Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he also built a lot of things that you should look into his background if you're going to into business with someone you want to know who they are research Bill and Melinda Gates we need to come together as parents I will work with anyone and I have ideas I would love to sit down with any of you

171I have thank you Lavar Christensen and that is our final speaker for tonight thank you to all of you appreciate it sincere Forever Friends and um I had apparently an unacceptable two and a half minute talk which isn't going to be allowed so I'm going to give you a copy rather than wait till tomorrow hand it to the secretary there otherwise walking over there will come out of my ticking clock um this is the education Bible over 800 Pages we would not be here tonight if it were not for article 10 of our Utah Constitution the Utah public education system the opening policy of that education Bible I was humbled and honored to write and there it is in our code but the opening preamble to the Utah State Constitution states grateful to almighty God

172for all for life and Liberty we the people of Utah do ordain and establish this constitution or a motto in God we trust Veterans Day two days from now our Pledge of Allegiance one nation under God please we ask you to not to please let God Prevail in Utah in Utah we do not back down we do not hide our light under a bushel let us not trade time-honored self-evident truths from for the divisive nature of today's secularism and moral relativism more than 600 parents have come before you and have pleaded with you we've cited four specific Express statutes that this action violates any student any parent has standing to bring an action for an injunction they can opt out they can this is this is very very serious and you cannot skip over the

173four explicit statutes that we have mentioned with the fundamental Liberty and interests of parents their primary responsibility it doesn't pass that requisite test the state if I might just since 2004 the Utah legislature has given you Civic and character education those virtues are there they've been there all along you do not need new innovations that hijack the vocabulary and change everything and think they're set up for and they're being good thank you thank you thank you there's so much more that could be said I hope that you'll look at what actually we will we will read that thank you for providing the materials it warrants at least a two and a half minute talk it's a very serious matter thank you thank you okay that concludes our Patron comments um we will now um consider

174the consent agenda which is next on our agenda I will ask for a motion on that okay I would like to make a motion on the consent agenda but pull out okay um do you mind reading to the items thank you yes approval of minutes for October 19 2021 approval of hiring termination reports approval of purchasing bids approval of student overnight travel approval of October Financial reports approval of memorandum of understanding between Canyon school district and Alpine School District regarding Suncrest busing approval to relocate Diamond Ridge High School and Entrada adult high school to the Bellevue building starting the 2022-2023 school year approval of the land trust and tssp Amendment for San Diego Elementary affirmation of five ritual Friday dates for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year approval of memorandum of understanding with the

175SB Association regarding personal leave days on Virtual Fridays and approval of Lea specific license is again I'm asking that item I and item F be pulled out for quick discussion with this consent agent F and I okay so if I understand correctly the motion is to approve consent agenda item 6A b c d e g h and J and K that's correct okay all right that is the motion is there a second to the motion okay there is a second to the motion now any discussion to this motion yes um there Mr millerberg was the second thank you all right we'll take a vote on this motion all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed that motion passes thank you and now you have asked for some discussion on item 6f and 6 I

176yes on success I just wanted to bring up we had a few uh months ago um uh a mother from the Suncrest area talking about busing and we had discussed with our business administrator Leon Wilcox that we would ask for a a report uh Transportation safety report to see if we could reevaluate if we want to do busing from Suncrest to to our schools and this memorandum is just continuing you know that we will pay Alpine School District for the those kids that they're being bused over to Alpine in open enrollment so I just would like to make note that we did the board did ask for a safety and transportation report and see where the standing is on that and possibly put that on an agenda item because we haven't heard back yet okay

177um do you have some information for us on that yes thank you president yes we have been meeting with both state risk management Andrea city that is a Draper City Road it's not a state road uh Traverse Ridge uh the tentative recommendation is to proceed with caution if we do bus up there they do have both of them have concerns with that that being said I think it should come back as an agenda item as as Miss Snyder Mrs nybar said and we can do that in a future meeting okay thank you is that I I think I think that would be great to bring it back as an agenda item especially given the fact that Oak Hollow is down in population and those students that would like to come to our district or look

178or wanting to go to okalo okay thank you other discussion on this item Mrs Oaks so when this was previously brought up one of the difficulties that we came across was that um State Transportation had taken a look at this grade on the road going up to Suncrest specifically and said that it was not safe for them to do that and so and correct me if I'm wrong um Leon if if that's what you recall and that's kind of where the discussion more or less ended well the I think the when we've talked about this it was last July some some one of those summer meetings we discussed that we would do us go out and when uh great is over six percent you're supposed to go do more in-depth studies on the safety the

179conditions of the road we've done that we've got some more information we can bring that back and then share with you at a at a future meeting so again I want to emphasize the the mou with alpine schools district that's just an annual thing we knew this year we'd have to do it so that's what's before you on the agenda yeah when we discussed it before one of the things that Leon brought up is that the difference now was the concrete uh guard rail and so he had said the last time the safety transportation did it was many years ago and so the suggestion was and the board agreed together that we would have another one conducted and so and we also talked about what action would that take would that we need to do

180a new memorandum to Alpine School District saying we're going to bust these kits ourselves so that was the discussion and I think the the what went forward was the assignment to get a new study and so okay it sounds like all of this can be appropriately discussed as a future agenda item yes perfect thank you all right any is there any timeline on this this amendment we have to have so we can know no but but keep in mind there's really no way we could do that this school year and that's when this school year is for the is for that mou okay any other bus you would have to be in a future school year so there's no timeline I would say but to say that it I want to emphasize it's for just

181this school year so does this need to be held then to have that discussion or could we approve this and still have the discussion again to me it's two completely separate items yeah that's right uh the mou is one item that's what we're bringing for you tonight future considerations of us and we could bring back at another meeting yes okay okay thank you and did you have want to discuss the item 6i yes with the item six I I just wanted to discuss the problems that I've heard from parents regarding the last virtual Friday dates and I discussed those briefly with the you know when we have emergency closures and and weather so it just um again looking for supports for students and these would wouldn't necessarily be students with special um you know students

182with special needs but it could be students that have IEPs or 504s that just need extra supports in place and just I don't know if we need some sort of follow-up but I have received a lot of concerns with parents that way and then also what we're doing to support our students who who are special needs with those virtual days and then the last was um you know students I know students at Corner Canyon where teachers that were of the alternate day still assigned work even though it was say it was a day or b day I can't remember which when it was but just making sure that those things are consistent that the kids for these next five virtual days will only be getting homework for the classes they would have attended not all

183their classes and then looking for those supports for students who need them okay any other discussion to this item okay see none it would be appropriate to have a motion regarding those two items I'll go ahead and make that motion to approve those items after this discussion and for the record do you mind um naming those items which are the approval of the memorandum of understanding between Canyon school district and Alpine School District regarding the Suncrest busing and the affirmation of the five virtual Friday dates for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second it thank you any discussion to this motion see none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed all right that motion passes okay next

184on the agenda is approval of social emotional learning curriculum for a remainder of 2021-2022 school year this is a third reading an action is requested I will turn time over to school performance directors Alice Peck and Dr McKay Robinson thank you president Tangy board members as a reminder the four options that were presented to you in our last meeting were second step for elementary only near pod social and emotional learning lessons which would be selected and Modified by the district positive action and Leader in Me [Music] in the last presentation it was mentioned that there would be no additional cost associated with the continuation of second step and uh well there may be and it may not be excuse me an additional Capital cost because of the curriculum and it's already been purchased it is

185acknowledged to the board that additional costs in this form of time has been spent on such things as program review and potential time commitments to professional development could still occur among other things so we just wanted to acknowledge that today um and just to also acknowledge that any other programs um that would come into play had to be looked at as well we also wanted to remind you that any of the options approved this evening will have a parent opt-out option and that the cabinet will that all materials and or lessons before they are rolled out to our schools in addition we wanted to remind you that parents will have access to any SEL programs that are approved by our board most second step in positive action can be made available to review upon request

186family access to Cabinet reviewed near pod lessons can be made available online to parents Leader in Me family access to lessons can be available online through a school username and password [Music] and so before I turn this over to you for further discussion I'm going to share with you the results of the survey that you requested in our last board meeting survey results are final participation results uh for elementary parents 1190 responses and for our elementary employees there were 398 responses so we'll look first of all at parent results and this first question said what grade is your child currently in and so all the grade levels that you see here there was a fairly equal mix across the board ranging from roughly 18 to 14 per grade uh represented by the respondents these next

187three slides um not going to read every single number for these three slides but I will give you a moment to look after reading question number two uh these three slides just ask which Elementary School does your child currently attend and again this was only for participating schools so on this slide some of our highest respondent groups uh we're in the 78 70 81 number of respondents so just give you a moment to look at those foreign does the same I'm going to look at the number of respondents and the percentage of respondents [Music] and then lastly list of respondents and that percentage of the respondents okay question number three based on your experiences choose one of the following options roughly 41 percent of respondents said I believe the social emotional learning program has contributed

188to positive outcomes in my child's School roughly 14 said I do not believe this social emotional learning program has contributed to positive outcomes and my student and or other students behavior at my child's School roughly 10 percent I do not think this social emotional learning program has either positively or negatively contributed to my student and or other students behavior at my child's school and then roughly 35 said I do not have enough information to provide an opinion and then this next slide just breaks us into a pie chart for you okay question number four what is your preference regarding temporary continuation of the Second Step social emotional learning curriculum at your child's school for the remainder of the school year provided that careful review of the content is conducted and of the respondents you can

189see the percentage of respondents from this list here we had roughly 45 000 or 45 percent excuse me prefer Second Step be used for the remainder of the school year roughly 24 percent prefer Second Step not be reinstated for the remainder of the school year and 32 percent uh don't have an opinion about whether it should or should not be continued for the remainder of the year and again the pie chart for this question [Music] number five at the Second Step social emotional learning curriculum is used at your child's school for the remainder of the school year do you plan to have your child participate 54 said yes I would like my child to participate roughly 16 percent no I would opt my child out of participation and 29 said I don't know I haven't

190decided at this time [Music] and then question number five's pie chart so those were the results from parents the next results are from our employees [Music] um at which Elementary School do you work these are the number of respondents and the percentage of total respondents from this particular group of schools next participating School responses Alice can you please go back to the first one I looked down and then it was gone oh sure I just wanted to know how many was the total of teachers and how many responded I think was 389 for responding it was 382 I believe let me go back and see if I can find that first slide um 398 thank you 398 and how many how many teachers one thousand actually the elementary parents 1100 those teachers teachers so we

191had 1 527 teachers that were asked of those teachers we had 398 respond okay I just needed that sure get my data in place sure okay so this was the second slide on participating School responses and the third slide give you a minute to look at those okay question number two based on your experiences choose one of the following options 82 percent I believe this social emotional learning program has contributed to positive outcome in my student and or students behavior at school [Music] three percent said I do not believe this social emotional learning program has contributed to positive outcomes in my students and or other students Behavior at my school [Music] seven percent I do not think this social emotional learning program has either positively or negatively contributed to students and or students behaviors at

192my school and eight percent said I do not have enough information to provide an opinion and this is the breakdown in that pie chart for question two question three what is your preference regarding temporary continuation of the Second Step social emotional learning curriculum at your child's school for the remainder of this school year provided that careful review of content is conducted roughly 76 I prefer that second step be used for the remainder of this school year roughly 12 I prefer that second step not be reinstated for the remainder of the school year and 12 I do not have an opinion about whether Second Step should be used for the remainder of this year and then there is the pie chart so that concludes the survey results and so at this time turn the time back

193to you and be prepared to answer any questions you might have of our team thank you Alice um so board let's start are there any clarifying questions that that you have for Alice or McKay before we begin our discussion I have a question um Yes actually sorry Mrs Arnold it's a reminder um can you and I forgot anyway um I can you go through the programs that we already have in place that you would say qualifies for part any part or any portion of the Second Step curriculum or SEO for act for example restorative practices would fit one of those slots as part of it can I can you remind me of the others that we have in place I know there's pbsi so yeah we we don't have another adopted um curriculum and what

194are we already using well um that's going to be difficult to list all the different things I'll let McKay try to help me um our we do the restorative practices we've been doing that um circles are taking place in our elementary schools our tier one PBIS supports which had been in place um for almost as long as our District's been and yeah and I think it would each School looks at school rules under PBIS and we look at you know good character um traits in terms of following those rules be safe be kind those those types of things are still in place do we still have leader in me in some of the schools no okay all right I just was trying to get my okay I think any any other clarifying questions Mr Wrigley

195so uh the numbers we have are somewhat down on this however they're as compared to the last mayor's race and stuff are almost deep will but how long did it did we have for this to be out as far as teachers and parents to respond to um I'm gonna have to defer I'm not sure when the actual survey it's about a week went out it was about a week um it was one one week and we sent this to teachers and parents inboxes or what did we do and what's the what's the average reply when we do any survey in this in this area because we do quite a bit of services so um Alice can you repeat that in them in the microphone the answer okay so the question again was how often do

196or how much time do we typically give for survey results um and I'm sorry Jeff I didn't about two weeks two weeks two weeks or one week depending on how the other question I have would be about what is our average return rate on on surveys in general so my understanding after talking to how Sanderson is the return rate the percentage rate on this particular survey uh was very close to the return rate we have gotten another surveys correct okay thank you okay any other clarifying questions um she just read through the survey questions they're on board docs yes they are on board Docs Mr millerberg I am concerned about the number of people that the surveys were sent to I inform my own daughter the survey will be coming watch for it I've talked

197to her and she has been watching for it and she's still watching for it and so you know that's just one example that I'm familiar with that says I'm not sure the survey went out as we were told it went out and I will also say that as I look at I I didn't write down the exact number but roughly 1200 teachers and 300 responded that only 25 percent of them really care enough to even respond and I've got to believe that that 25 percent that really cared would skew the results of the survey okay other right now we're just kind of talking about clarifying questions for the presentation I have no more questions just need to I have no more questions I just need to go to this location so um Mr snybauer you

198said you had a clarifying question no no I I'm ready to go to discussion I have questions in my discussion okay all right we'll now move to board member discussion and um let's uh I think everyone has comments this is an item that has been discussed at Great length in board meetings and I want to just publicly acknowledge the amount of work that each and every board member has put in on this topic I feel like I I need to thank each of them we've taken this seriously much time and effort has been spent to review and I also to review and study and listen to the public to parents I also want to thank the administration for the time and effort that they've put in on this matter over the last few months and

199um and it it's been a tremendous amount of work and so I just want to express that appreciation and recognize that there are lots of different opinions and call for understanding and respect of for the board and the work that that we have done and now we'll turn it over for board discussion and um Mrs Arnold you said you're ready would you like to go first I'm actually going to let Holly go first and then I can follow after her all right I will have to snipe hour and then Mrs Arnold thank you so much I want to begin my comments talking about who I am I'm a parent currently trying to raise seven boys this the oldest is 20 and and still asks for my opinion on a lot of things and my youngest

200is three years old and I know that I'm temporarily wearing this school board hat as really all of seven of us are we're all parents and that's why we're involved uh trying to do the best we can with this work of the Canyons Board of Education I I I see the parents in this room and listening to their comments and I am your peer I don't feel that my opinion is more significant or more important than any of yours as I'm sure none of our fellow board members do um if that were the case it would probably be time to step aside and let someone else lead um we know the best educational outcomes exist when parents are involved evidence dictates the progress of a student a classroom and a school are correlated to the

201amount of parent involvement and I just want to publicly thank the parents for giving your time to advocate for your children I have never at any time felt disrespected by any parents and I'm grateful and recognized that also I just wanted to thank the parents for the time they've spent researching this this topic and I know it's a sacrifice for them to come to these meetings and I do believe we have a golden opportunity here in Canyon school district because coupled with our amazing talented faculty and staff and our our wonderful superintendent and such parent engagement this is how we can come up with the best outcome I have found in my personal life that when I'm presented with a problem it is also the greatest opportunity for growth and progress yeah tonight before I

202came I spent several hours with a friend whose son was a victim of cyber bullying it was a few hours and I've spent many hours with her in the past week I'm not convinced when we're trying to create socially and emotionally strong children that we're actually asking the right questions I've come up with a list of questions I don't have all the answers and I don't know that these are the best questions but I'd like to read to you the questions I've thought about to ask all the parents what is your primary concern regarding the social and emotional needs and health of your student do you feel your students emotional and social needs are currently being addressed at your school do you feel your student is currently learning valuable social and emotional schools skills at

203school do you feel second steps teaches valuable social emotional skills to improve your child's social and emotional health what skills do you feel are the most important to be taught in social emotional learning do you feel Canyon schools provides enough instruction regarding emotional harm caused by cyber bullying improper use of social media and phones do you feel Canyon's current social emotional learning programs promote inclusion of peers regardless of race color or sexual identity I've gone around to many schools and I've talked to counselors and I've asked them questions and one of the questions I asked was in the past when we had kids that would come in with anxiety and social and a suicide ideation and these things a lot of times and research proves this it was linked to two different demographics and you

204know what were the experiences in their neighborhood in their home and and now I've asked a lot of counselors are there any boundaries with these statistics no all boundaries have been crossed because now in every child's pocket is access to all sorts of parts of the world that weren't there before and so when I've looked at all of these programs I I don't see these programs addressing the kids real world problems which are what is cyber bullying what is a class misdemeanor if you post pornography on a friend's social media account if you set up a fake account at what point does the daughter need to turn off the phone because she has a negative body image at what point do we need to teach these kids how to monitor their cell phone use when

205I looked at the school climate surveys of last year every teacher and every parent put the primary concern was cell phone usage when I've asked counselors at schools what is the most pressing matter at your school every single one of them said it starts and ends with cell phones I have brought with me tonight and I'm not going to take the time to list all the resources but every single negative teenage addiction Mission habit anxiety everything is is linked to cell phone usage so I want to ask the question I know we're worried about the social and emotional health of our students and our children but is our Target sure are we on the mark I lived in Cleveland Ohio several years ago for four years and 150 year old house we came back from

206a vacation and there were mouse droppings all over my kitchen we set up traps and I just I actually it was the most difficult thing in the world I'd wake up and every trap was full with mice when we called the exterminator for every Mouse I saw there were a hundred others waiting we lived by train tracks and there were 28 restaurants in Little Italy surrounding our 150 year old home and the Exterminator came in and said your house is like swiss cheese a mouse can get in because there's holes everywhere I believe right now we have holes in the house and we're trying to plug it with Swiss cheese and I don't think that our Target is sugar when I have been researching the board rule this is the board rule that talks about

207social emotional learning I'm going to read it it says this it says right here it says as part of a violence prevention and intervention strategy a school shall provide age-appropriate instruction on firearms safety including appropriate steps to take if a student sees a firearm or a facsimile in school and then it has a list of things and Lea also developer incorporate to the extent resources permit tiered student assistant programs social emotional learning when I looked it up on drafts in 2019 they did say curriculum and they crossed it out and instead have social emotional learning we've talked we've noted many times in this meeting we wish that the usbe had standards in place for social emotional learning they don't have standards because social emotional curriculum is not required in our state otherwise they would have

208to have standards and I've asked myself why why why is the state quiet on this and I listened to the commission just barely with Sid Dixon where it was talked about and she said there's no plans to make social emotional learning curriculum standards and I believe this is why in the Utah code of Education it reads Civic and character education in public schools are not intended to be separate programs in need of special funding or added Specialists to accomplish and core principles which reflect the shared values of the citizens of Utah and the founding principles on upon which representative democracy in the United States in the state of Utah based and then it talks about the different characteristics civil all the great things that we know about portrait of The Graduate honesty work ethic so

209my question is why was this curriculum put in place to begin with I know we were trying to address social emotional learning but on purpose in their draft in 2019 they got rid of the word curriculum and and did social emotional learning what I just read was reviewed in 2021 in the general legislative session they have not changed that and so I know our kids are facing problems and I know we need to help them but again I go back to those questions I don't see in any of these programs any way that what our kids are actually facing is going to be addressed or that they'll get help with it so I think that when we when we're looking at what to do in the future I think that we need to not make

210a decision in interim if we found mice in the house and we're saying second steps isn't good for next year what makes it good for this year and for the remainder of the year I'm also hearing from um I'm also hearing from a lot of teachers about the stress of letters and that's our K through three and we're making decisions for K through five so why would we for a temporary interim decision Implement any of these other curriculums that will require further training I don't think that's fair right to the teachers and I don't think it's fair to these kids to make this decision quickly and in a temporary somewhat crisis mode I think we need to make sure our Target is is secure and that we're hitting the mark and so for this reason

211I believe we need to take further discussion and questions and go through strategic planning before we Implement anything thank you Mrs Arnold and then Mr Wrigley so the reason I did let Holly go ahead because then I made her and wanted her to read the rule and the law and so she's explained to you the rule and that was that we could have social emotional education or curriculum that it was the could and that the law says that that's not what we're supposed to necessarily be doing so with that said I want to also say that I don't believe in SEL in second steps as a check all for social emotional and academic education I believe that there are other things in place that we already have within the district which we already talked a

212little bit about restorative practices pbsi circles tier one school rules character ad and also we also have and can fall back on to the 2004 Civic and caricature character education um one of the questions that was brought to me was um why am I following the loud group and I just want to make it clear I'm not following the loud group I do have a mind of my own I'm 70 years old I've seen a lot I've been around the corner two or three times and um the parents are our primary Educators and if you look at SEL and if you look at Castle you'll see that that is not the primary Educators the primary Educators in their model is Educators and then the school and then the family and then the community in its

213back ask word it should be sorry I came from a farm um and I do use that word s-h-i-t but not in my classroom um anyway um it should be it should be the family and then the Educators and then the community and and maybe that school and Community kind of blend together so um we give the parents a voice we give you one tonight we give them employees a voice we gave them one tonight we gave the students a voice tonight but when it comes down to the bottom line I represent my constituents and there's a mix of those but the constituents are bringing being the ones who are the primary stakeholders who voted me and told me and have emailed me and talked to me and said this is what we feel need

214to be represented um hopefully eventually we'll get maybe more direction from the the state but if we don't then it falls upon the board to make the decision and that I'm not having taken away from me that was given to me by all of my constituents if you think that being on the board is simple and easy and I should like just step down because um I don't want difficult times and difficult things then you're wrong I didn't come here to back down I came here to help children and when I look at everything that castle and SEO says the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes well it makes them think they get to apply my attitude or another child's attitude I want you to

215know my grandson came home and in his school they're teaching SEL second steps anyway and he said Grandma am I supposed to be sad and I said what do you mean and he goes well we were in class today and he's in seventh grade and he said we had a discussion about being sad and everybody went around and told something that they were sad about and I said well what happened to you and he goes well I couldn't think of one sad thing and I said well Dan you get a lie and say you're happy or you get to make up something that was sad and he goes no they kept saying that everyone had to have been sad at some time and so it goes back to that same thing about even though we

216have these lessons and we're monitoring them when we're trying to stay on top of them there is teacher input and um and I he has something to be said about he's the happiest child in the whole world anyway so going through the things of scl and Cal so let's talk about castle a second so they're the main corporation that goes out and does all the teaching and all the helping with developing curriculum and as I tried in search to find anything out there that we might could Implement that I could you know come to you parents and say hey here here's something maybe we can use it every time I turned around at the bottom down there somewhere it said Castle or in the middle it said Castle or the top it said castle and

217so I don't believe in Castle and there and their implementation of what they want to do and so somebody already read most of the things I wrote on here but it says the research of Castle the benefits are well researched so here are their benefits improves academic outcomes well maybe when kids are a little happier maybe they are but who's to say those kids are happier or sadder when they get done with the lesson and maybe he's thinking all day I'm sad um I should be sad and so then he doesn't do his math all day benefits are long-term and Global really what we're going to do to these kids are making it long term and Global a wise Financial investment how do we how how are those kids going to be a wise Financial

218investment by teaching this curriculum social and emotional skills help you improve lifetime outcomes well I kind of agree with that but I don't believe that all kids should talk the same talk have the same rhetoric act the same way I came from a farm my dad said there are 20 acres out there and those sheep got out kind of like your mouse story and he said go find out where the Sheep got out and so I said to him well where do you think he goes well that's up to you you think about that and I'd say well what do I do to fix it and he goes you go figure out where to fix the fence and so I would spend my time walking the fence trying to figure it out I could choose

219to choose who should usually choose two places then I had to go back to the farm and this is all by walking and you have a lot of time to reflect by the way and then gather the materials that I thought and then go fix the fence and then go get the sheep and then bring them through the gate and within a half an hour those Dangs things would be out again I I don't know what to tell you but you know you learn a lot of social emotional skills when else you do that there are words for them all right so then somebody's already read about the upper grades and that the things that they are teaching like under under current of social deaths as a CRT gender and power sexualization lessons steering away

220from the family um lessons encourage lessons encouraging stand up speak out and start a movement I really do believe we have a right to stand up speak out that's what freedom of speech is start a movement I asked my granddaughter about that and she said well it was a zombie apocalypse she goes I'd start a movement she goes I'd go steal all the art supplies I could before we had to go hide in the cave that you had planned for us I don't know that that's the right movement okay learn and do and prepare for the world tomorrow um I do believe that's our parents job to learn and do and prepare for the world tomorrow under their circumstances and their homes I pretty well have lived every life I've lived a homeless life I've

221lived a divorce life I've lived the remarried life I've lived I have five children you have four children life I've lived at 22 grandchildren life I've lived to have a job don't have a job I lived at my sister's son actually murdered them there's not much in this lifetime I have not lived and it doesn't help me and never did help me to go to a classroom and have people tell me like this happened just a couple days ago about visualizing and helping myself see a place a safe place a good place a matter of fact I had to walk out the room because it wasn't as good and wasn't safe and I didn't like it at all we don't give the kids that opportunity I am an adult I can stand up and walk

222out those kids are not they cannot stand up and walk out so I I know this is kind of corny but it's called it's called humor relief so everyone goes back to Nemo and Marlin he's um on top of crush and squirts sitting there if you remember this story and all of a sudden the squirt goes flying off into the yes into the sea into the wave right and Marlene says oh my goodness and Krush goes whoa kill the motor dude let us see what squirt does flying solo and skirt goes squirt comes back and goes hey Dad did you see that did you see me dad did you see me do what I did and then Crush says you so totally Rock squirt so why do we see in this story Crush knew the

223score had gotten in into trouble but instead of rushing over and saving him from failure he gave the little turtle a chance to solve this problem of his own and squirt was super psyched because he achieved it sometimes I really feel that we help children way too much they need to have that argument they need to have that fight they need to be able to figure out what the consequences of Wi-Fi and I don't think we're giving them the opportunities to figure out the consequences and then when the consequences become huge they don't even know what to do with them because they make this stupid little mistake of I don't know drinking when they're 18 and then they're all sudden locked up and in jail and they didn't have an opportunity to do dumb little

224things and by the way the new brain research says the more mistakes you make the more brain cells you build so let's let these kids make some mistakes anyway then it goes on and of course Merlin he's trying to figure it out because he's silver protective and Crush says oh it's awesome jelly man little dudes just um are just eggs we leave them on the back bench and they hatch then they find their way back to the the old blue and Marlin says all by themselves and he goes yeah and he goes but dude how do they know when they're ready and Chris says well you'll never really know but when they're but when they all know you'll know they know and so sometimes I just feel like that's that's part of the the lessons

225if you want to talk about social emotional lessons let's talk about Nemo they just learned to keep swimming they made friends along the way they know how to treat each other there were differences and they figured out that they both had their own special talents it's a big world out there and you never give up on people you care and I want you to know in my classroom I had one rule it would be nice and if we only have one will in this whole District it should be nice because everything falls under that you still well be nice and why weren't you nice and what can you do to be nice and what should happen if you're not nice and it goes back to owning it and having consequences so um just in conclusion

226I won't be I won't be voting for SEL and I also won't be voting for replacing it with anything because I don't think that trying to fix that fence and fix that fence and fix that fence until so the Sheep don't get out that it's going to help us we need to really actually build a new fence that's more um what's the word I want that's more capable of keeping the sheep in than letting them out thank you thank you Miss please please we ask you to hold your applause and maintain decorum uh Mr Wrigley thank you um I have had and I think a lot of the board members have had an opportunity to listen from a lot of people a lot of teachers are therapists or social workers our principals every a lot

227of different people this year over this topic and we've heard a lot of things over the last two years on the different topics um I think everybody I've talked with has the same no matter what the topic has been Master no master in school or not out of school or scl or not out of school we've all shared about our kids we've all wanted the best for our children sometimes we saw different things on different ways um it has been an interesting it's been a really interesting year in that a lot of parents have always asked we want to be heard we want to be we want our voice to be heard last year we were sort of I'm gonna I'm gonna try to bring this back a little bit back to what the topic

228is tonight at the top because we get rid of second step or do we keep it in the elementaries or what do we do so I'm going to address that in general that for me was sort of easily answered when our parent group came to us and said that the second step program that we got into several years ago had morphed they decided to go on a national level in a different direction than the values that we had in our district and their parents did I am not talked with any parent nor have I got any letter in from any parent at this point I guess maybe after today they will saying that I want to keep social emotional transformative social emotional learning in the district and I really want to teach critical race I

229have not at this point got that I think we all are concerned about that all parents no matter if it's keep this or don't keep it we're all concerned about that at this time so as we look at that I'm finding that keeping Second Step but I think was pretty much answered because we keep on saying as a district we don't support critical race Theory the legislature says we don't support critical race Theory and the vendor we're currently using has decided to go sort of in that direction so for me that's not a question as to whether or not we we end second step and I suggest that in in the in the Middle School that we go ahead and end second step at this time and request that the the administration go ahead and

230put out a request for proposal and get public input as to what we need to do to move towards something else for next year the principles at the middle schools or this time saying they would probably like to keep it but at this point they think they could put something together to just sort of wing it for the rest of the year um with some support now as far as the elementary schools we've had a lot of input from elementary schools we've had input from most of the counselors have come up and talked with us and said that sir we've had all the principles come up and say hey we really needed this we've had a lot of positive this is this is just a minor number of people that have sent emails to us

231and things I didn't really need to know this I don't know what people are thinking before we ever did because there's a lot of people that are coming in so we have a lot of our teachers they're saying we just really need something in their classroom we are more than willing at this point to get us through the year by by at the end of the year leaving second step and get us through the remaining part of the year and allowing us to do this because we'd have to change so much in the system to make this work our mental health people are telling me that a lot of their the whole restorative process is based upon this the basic Foundation there's a lot of stuff it's like taking apart or turning a battleship you

232know you have to be very careful and taking a part of the thing that we have to do it strategically so the teachers and stuff are saying can we because we get a lot of these they're parents I mean I went to one school and they said well I've got five teachers that are ready to leave because of all the stresses they're going on behavioral issues we've heard everything else going on so a lot of the teachers are that way we also have a lot of parents that have sent stuff to us as I was saying in the surveys the surveys amount these are not perfect surveys we're not going to get a perfect survey I was amazed at how few people voted in our last monorail race within Sandy with all the people running

233less than 20 percent voted it is that so we just throw that out because only 20 voted we that will be a valid election but this is when we look at this last year this is what we were running into we had Parents last year let's take one of the many issues we had should we keep the schools open or should we keep the schools closed I believe you were in my here testifying before so we should keep the schools open well we also had people saying we should keep the schools closed right and we got really contentious those people because both people were right they both cared about their kids the parents wanted it closed I had one individual that came to me and multiple times I kept on getting emails and emails and

234emails and if anybody died then that the sin would be upon my head and and I asked her I said well where's your child because we really tried last year to give here all parents voices we said we're going to honor the parents that want their kids in school we're going to honor their parents that don't want their kids in school and we're even going to give you a homeschooling option if you want to do that and this particular parent said to me she says my child or my grandchild is is in homeschool he's in online but I don't want anybody to go to school because that's how I feel nobody should go to school and I said well that's really good for you and I understand that but I'm taking care of your grandchild

235to give him a a an opportunity and I'm listening to all parents and giving all parents a voice so if I do that I take the voice away from one parent group and I give it to the other parent group and I just cause more contention so after the board came up with options the whole level of that whole thing just sort of dropped down again and people we had another issue right after that unmasked but anyway but it'd be the whole level just sort of dropped down and we've felt less contention and we were able to do our jobs and we actually made it through on that so I've got parents on both sides of the issue so what I'm what I'm stating is what I'd like to see in this and listening to

236all the constituents and listening to our faculty and listening to our I mean if we say to our our teachers and our in our in our mental health therapists well thank you thank you you're 100 you're 81 you're 85 but we don't care it sends a big slap in the face uh to them we're killing the Golden Goose that laid the egg you know we're saying that doesn't matter we know what I've been proposing I did the last meeting I propose it again is that we give the option to stay in for those parents that want to stay in and we got a pretty large number I know there's a lot of numbers that I don't care this survey the biggest thing I was looking for the survey I was looking at the people that

237said I don't want it and the reason is is any survey we've ever done those people that don't want things are pretty vocal about it and they send that in the people that are usually satisfied with something which is the majority of people vote nowadays the United States if they're satisfied they don't go to the polls that's pretty common and so when I looked at the numbers I'm going the numbers here obviously there's a percentage of people 16 that said they wanted to opt out other and other people that are concerned but what I'm proposing is that we go ahead and finishing it off for the rest of the year which allows parents to go ahead and uh and and let me finish my thought Lamar it allows parents to go ahead and have that

238right and be able to hear their voice we also give the opportunity to go ahead and opt out so for those parents that want to opt out we hear their voice we give enough time for the district to take a look at this rather than all this argument tonight the argument tonight is not do we have SEL or not have SEO or what SEL we have we're just a pretty simple question as far as I I'm concerned it's do we continue what we have or and and listen to everybody on both sides or not typically Lamont I will not take answers but I like questions but I will ask you to let you take a question what is your question of me [Music] okay so let me let me answer that okay so let me

239let me answer that okay Lamar okay so most of the parents are status of something don't sign petitions but we've had a lot of people send emails we've had a lot of emails come in we've had a lot of comment from our teachers we've had a lot of comment for our professionals and I'm trying to come up with some kind of compromise here that I let all my parents speak rather than a minority or whatever weight I have of the parents speak because when that happens all we're going to have is more contention I'm trying to come up a way to not have that I suggest that we then go ahead and allow uh this this second step for the remaining part of the year as we look at another Pro other options I would

240like to have at least two options to give Parents Choice as we go into our thing so as we move to whatever we come out with and then stcs may have some choice for that so anyway that is what I'm proposing tonight okay thank you for your comments um Mrs Oaks I'd like to pass for now Mrs schill I'm going to pass Mr millerberg start out with chlorine math backwards is a great word no everybody knows what you mean but you don't offend people as much and the other great word I have is one that I coined myself is called stuff okay everybody knows what it is but you can get away with it um I have enjoyed the conversation tonight and that may sound strange but I have and I want to just stay

241right up front let's not make any mistake about who the school district belongs to okay this is a public school system it does not belong to the superintendent it does not belong to the Board of Education it does not belong to the other education professionals we have the school district belongs to the patrons of the district the people that pay the taxes the people that pay for all the rest of us to be here this is your school system and I don't mean to be offensive to our educational professional because I absolutely love them I think we've got the best we can absolutely come up with and they are great people but if any of you play cards you know what a trump card is and I hate to say it but parents you hold

242the Trump cards you know you've got all Trump cards and maybe Trump has a bad word to use now I don't know um I was elected not by the education professionals but I was elected by people that live in my prefinct precinct one I'm supposed to represent what they want and it's kind of a hard balance because I I have my feelings on topics and I know that the people out there don't always agree with me and they're probably split but I feel like other than the fact that nobody ran against me I got elected by people that think I think like they do I'm really good at winning unopposed elections okay and when push comes to shove and I feel that there is a there's opposition you know people speaking from both sides and

243I like that because I feel like if we argue both sides of an issue we come up with a much better solution in the long run but in that case I am then left to vote my own conscience and I guarantee you that when I walk out of here tonight I will have made somebody mad at me promise of so there's no clear direction that I'm I'm getting uh I think I said this earlier but I think the survey I appreciate the effort that went into it and you know the good old College try um but I think the survey results are kind of worthless when you have teachers that are really vested in it you get about 25 percent when people in my own family I asked them about how they felt about the

244survey and they say they don't get it it really puts things uh In a Different Light to me the graph that we look at we see you know 40 42 43 percent of the people saying we feel like it's made a difference but the other side is we have the people that don't know enough to vote to express an opinion people that feel like it did not make an improvement or people that feel like it was neither positive nor negative and those kind of sound like the two of the same question to me um and so I add those up and that's you know close to 60 of the people that are not in favor of it and so I have a hard time coming up with a whole lot of uh value from the

245survey one of the one of the strong points of uh social emotional learning is that we put a common language in our schools um my wife taught in a title one school and they had a leader in me in there and it was interesting especially because you know if any of you have read the seven habits the same language starts flowing through the school and that's a very valuable tool in my opinion and so regardless of which of the options you were to choose to put into a school there's a Common Language of the thread that goes through the school now if we opt out I have a couple of questions what happens to those kids that often out while they are teaching social and emotional learning also what happens to that common language in

246the school when a substantial number of the kids opt out and they aren't getting in immersed in that common language and so I think the opt-out option even though it's valuable and it should be there I would much rather have a program in place or no program in place to where kids are involved at this ground level in the school to where they learn their own or the common language of the school we talk about a minority interest or the vocal minority tonight we had one parent one parent Jessica stand up and hold a book right thank you we had one parent talk about the books in our library thank you for doing that thank you for caring enough to be involved in the school I received an email during the week that talked about

247books that they are placing on hold in the library my question was not if we should take those out or not that's intuitive those things shouldn't be there my question was how the hell did they get in there in the first place [Applause] I got to come up with a better word for hell I guess you know I don't know um I have spent the last 46 years practicing Accounting in the state of Utah of those 46 years I've been licensed for 44 of those as a certified public accountant and I'm going to share with you a couple of maybe not quite accounting principle that you would get a fasbian but lessons I've learned from the accounting industry one of which is not really an accounting but my grandfather was a Rancher and I learned

248a few lessons uh working the ranch as well I'm going to start out with one when I certified you had to have audit experience in order to get certified of the certified public accountant so I got my two years worth of audit uh in and then I went to the tax discipline but the first one was what I call the fruit of the poison tree and that is that the tree is poisoned if it teaches that the parents are on the third rung of where the students should go I consider that tree poison and I don't care if the fruit is in the secondary level or if it's in the primary level the fruit is poison coming from that tray the one that comes from the ranch and I'm going to cross this word out

249I'm going to call it the horse manure principle on the ranch we had a different word we used for horse manure use your imagination okay if my grandmother were to bake a cake and Fry do you want me to spell that for you and my grandmother would bake a cake and frost it and my grandfather would go out in the horse corral and get some of the dried up horse manure and put in a flour sifter and come in and just sift just a little bit over the top of it I would not take the lower portion of the cake and eat it I would throw the whole cake out okay you can make your own link to what I'm saying there with whether we teach it in the in the uh Elementary grade and

250secondary or just in one of them or in none of them the next principle during my career as a certified public accountant I had the opportunity not that I relished it by any stretch of the imagination of uncovering fraud four times and I will tell you with every time I discovered fraud in an accounting system there is no such thing as one cockroach every time I found when one cockroach would stick his nose out and say somebody stole money from me I would dig deeper into the books and without fail I would always find an ongoing history there is no such thing as one cockroach and there is no such thing as one love is respect.org foreign principle and this one is a real accounting principle and it's called sunk cost sunk cost and Leon

251this is probably one that you know the others I may have made up okay is when I purchase an asset maybe it's a piece of equipment maybe it's a an accounting program pick your asset I don't care and after I've bought and paid for that and I do a little more research and I find that there is the product that will do the job I need done faster more efficiently and in the long run we'll create greater profitability for the business I look at what I've already paid for and I don't say but it's paid for it won't cost us anymore to keep using it baloney bovine stool I cannot afford to keep using that asset when I could purchase a new one that would be more efficient and produce better results for the business

252foreign I grew up in Midvale when Midvale was the cool place to be okay I grew up in a world where the value that I was taught at home were reinforced in the school system I love the teachers that I had especially in the elementary level because they not they didn't teach me things I didn't know so much as they reinforced what I learned at home I don't know if we still live in that world I grew up a long time ago but I find it very very difficult to support the poison tree at any level in our district and as such that's how I'll be voting thank you Mrs Oaks okay Mrs show foreign okay um so I just want to thank all of my fellow board members who all had some really good

253comments I don't have as good of stories as they do I'll just submit that um so I'm getting my masters right now and I have a stats class so I have looked at the numbers and looked at the survey and I have come up with some averages some means of the people that I represent and I feel like I have to represent the people in my area just like my fellow board members do so for the elementary schools in my area 59 of parents want to keep second step for next year for the rest of this year no not for next year and 14 said that 14 said they would opt out so that's a four to one ratio that my parents want to keep second step so and it's not just that that I'm

254going to be voting that way um we've received tons of emails I've talked to principals I've talked to teachers I've talked to lots of parents um there's just a lot it's not an easy issue there's a lot of different things we have to take into consideration um teachers as you've heard we've had to have the six virtual days because they're overwhelmed we can't like add anything new to them we can't expect them to learn a new curriculum it's just going to be too hard for them you've also heard how lots of students are having discipline problems and so teachers are asking for help they need help and the social emotional programs do help with that um I'll also I um well I am and I am in favor of these lessons being vetted I'm in

255favor of us sending out information before the lesson is taught for parents to see I'm in favor of transparency and I also do not want to at the middle school level and I don't want an extra like I'm in favor just like Holly said of going through our strategic planning process and going out for an RFP I'm looking at different programs um and that's all I'm not as long-winded as the rest but we want to get out of here before midnight at least I do thank you Mrs Oaks anyone and thank all of my fellow board members for all the time and effort you guys have put into this there are really dedicated people and it's been a very long couple of months dealing with this issue um and I want to make something extraordinarily

256clear I think it would be easy to characterize that those who and though in favor of Second Step are our anti-family those who are opposed it are pro-family I want to make it really clear that's not true these board members every single one of them up here I know them pretty well by now they all care about kids they all care about families they care about parents and they're very dedicated to to that principle um they're looking at this issue and are making efforts towards the same goal they just see it differently and I think we need to as as a society be better about hearing other people's perspectives without condemning them and categorizing them any way that we don't want our kids to do with each other um next I I'd like to comment

257on the fact that I really feel that so much of the distress of what we're seeing in the schools is a function of the dismantling of family structures within society and everything that comes out of that and the schools are consistently being asked to pick up the slack and all that comes along with it I think it's important to recognize that these teachers and principals as a result they are fighting a good fight they are trying to help kids many of whom are not as lucky as the children of parents in this room and every single teacher every single principal needs your love or appreciation or support even when you may not always understand what they are doing or um why they make certain decisions go and talk to them have conversations let's talk to

258each other like human beings again um next I with respect to some of what Miss neighbor said earlier about the fact that um social and emotional learning is not required I don't necessarily agree with that I think that there are parts of this of what comes down from uspe though it doesn't say it has to be a standalone curriculum we are supposed to teach it it's addressed in portrait of The Graduate and in other places with that said um superintendent Dixon has said that we as a district have chosen to follow a bit of a unique path in choosing to do a standalone curriculum and I would anticipate that um the legislature this next session is going to really address a lot of this um and it will be interesting to see what comes out

259of that as far as I understand there are already some bills that are in play and we're going to watch some of how that evolves as I looked at the data and I asked to be able to disaggregate the data out between elementary schools I was um it was interesting for me to see how that all played out there are certainly large chunks in each of those schools that are definitely not in favor I was equally surprised by those who don't have an opinion and are uncertain of whether or not it has or has helped their kids or hasn't helped their kids interestingly enough my kids go to an elementary school where they have had second step lessons and when I was filling out our own survey I turned to my two children that have

260had it and I said what do you think do you like it and they were like yeah it was actually kind of surprising and I kept saying really I liked some of the stuff that came home and you know we had some good conversations and they were like I said would you be sad if it was pulled out and it was completely flat it was that surprised me a little bit um foreign it seems as though if this is a program that's really helping as much as we say it is I think we would be seeing more parents who are seeing that difference and that they would be more in favor of it than what seems to be indicated within the survey um I also have a real problem with castle and with transformative SEL

261the more I research it the more concerned I am about it and where that's going and I do feel that in light of some of these issues that are at play and with the feedback that I've gotten from my own constituency that it would be wise for it to go to strategic planning first um and to have more discussion and more feedback from some of those parent groups and and some of the data that we've received through strategic planning to better understand how we can do this does it really have to be a standalone curriculum does it not I am a huge proponent of the idea of whole Child Learning I think children need more movement they need more time outside they need access to the Arts they need a holistic education a lot of

262things which have have been stripped out over time and I feel very strongly that that needs to be looked at more deeply um I would agree with Ms Neibauer with regard to devices and how digital literacy is very very important to our children and I really feel that there's a lot of blame that's being thrown around this is something I've noticed with some of the rhetoric I am a parent I have children I have children ages 17 down to age eight and I too am alarmed by a lot of what we're seeing in popular culture and how much it infiltrates our children's world and I also would caution us to be considerate of the fact that the schools are not necessarily to blame for where that has all started to come from it comes from

263a lot of different places and it's taken place over a long period of time and it's everywhere throughout our lives and I would say that huffen I mean Colin Karchner was brought up tonight he's somebody that whose content I there's a lot of pieces of that that I've paid close attention to and I appreciate one of the things that Colin often said is you cannot blame the schools for this issue with the phones it comes down to you parents and it's interesting because some of the parents who have approached me about some of these issues that they're very concerned about a curriculum that takes place 20 to 30 minutes a week often I wonder are they just as Vigilant and making sure that their kids devices are on lockdown or that they're watching what's happening

264are they having those conversations it's really easy to point fingers at blame at an institution that's being asked to pick up the slack for a lot of kids that are struggling but we all own a piece of this um which brings me to my next piece and um also I do want to mention and similar to what other board members have said that I feel very strongly in the importance of transparency and that whatever goes forward with regard to a curriculum with this District that it needs to have a lot of transparency a lot of parent input a lot of time for people to take a close look at it if you want to know the truth I've been surprised over the last few years to see how little parents actually pay attention to curriculum

265decisions curriculums will come and go we wait we leave it open for people to look we and and when they come back and say three people looked I mean it was like seriously okay we could put it out there for another month and come back still nobody else is licked so it's really great actually to see parents or waking up to those curriculum changes and shifts I would encourage you to look at it at the state level it's really important for you to also have input and and keep an eye on some of that as well with regard to the aftermath on this um in case you haven't guessed I'm not going to vote in favor of continuing second step to the end of the year but I have a very very very deep concern

266and about what this does with regard to um our teachers and our principals I see kind of like what um Mr Wrigley talked about divisions happening within our community and I'm very deeply concerned about that we need teachers we need principles we need all of us in order for this to work we need community and we need every single parent to offer support and help to these people come in volunteer in the schools common and substitute and express your com your confidence and your belief and your support of these people their morale is really low right now it's really low and I don't want people Feeling emboldened by this and thinking that somehow like if they have a disagreement if they have something that they're concerned or upset about that Lock Stock and Barrel that

267means they can just go and try and run over a principal or run over a teacher and just we have to be sensitive and we have to be human and kind something that has been brought up by a lot of teachers and principals through this whole thing is that they find it incredibly ironic that sometimes and the controversy and in the concern and the upset there are times that as human beings we don't treat each other in a way that we are trying to teach our kids whether it's through SEL curriculums or whether it's how we teach them in the home sometimes we're not very good examples I would implore the parents here and parents throughout the district and any other adult that is has contact with these issues to consider that and to make

268sure that we are setting a great example for the Youth in this District they're watching us they watch us very closely that's all I have to say thank you um I um have also done a lot of thought and study and research on this and um I as I've thought it through this discussion has um taken on many different forms and I feel like there has been some some of the problems are in that we're talking almost like apples and oranges in some regards that um the discussion is on what a couple other board members have brought up about a set curriculum that was approved by the board two and a half or more years ago and has been implemented in our schools with much success and um and then now all of a sudden

269that is under attack as well as the whole idea of social emotional learning and social emotional supports and has just become very convoluted and I in many regards um I grieve the pain that has been caused by this discussion and how it's taken on many different aspects and in doing so I feel like hurt and pain has been caused not only from at home and parents with their concern and their worries but also with our educators and I just I feel like I need to say that and recognize How Deeply invested so many people have been in this in this whole discussion I'm not um I'm not um I I apologize um this curriculum was adopted to solve a real problem and there was research done there were situations happening in classrooms that not only

270were teachers and principals asking for help and what can we do but parents were asking for help and what can we do to support children with their social and emotional and behavioral issues and challenges those were very real so someone asked earlier tonight kind of why did this even come to pass well it's because it was a solution to a very real problem and I don't think that problem has gone away just because the solution now has morphed into something different um and so when I talk about pain I want to recognize that people are still going to have a problem and want help and want support from the school system and um I as I've done my consideration listen to people discussed and met with people and read emails read articles looked into things

271I feel like yeah there's great opportunity moving forward after this school year through our strategic planning process to take a look at really how we can best support students parents teachers and develop schools and classrooms that are supportive of each other and build healthy and good um opportunities for growth and um I feel like there is opportunity moving forward I but I just keep coming back to the well what right now and um I am supportive of keeping second steps in our elementary schools right now this school year I understand and appreciate you know the comments that have been said um and respect everyone's opinion to feel differently but I that is my opinion and and I feel like it is representative of the schools and the community which I was elected to represent um

272I uh I too want to clarify and again it goes back to kind of this Con confusion of this whole discussion that we are required to provide social and emotional learning we are not required necessarily to provide it through set-aside instructional time and an adopted curriculum however that is what the district and the board decided to do two and a half years ago and um and so I just I just hope that whatever happens um through board action tonight that it's not interpreted kind of what Mrs Oaks was referring to it's not interpreted as not supportive of Educators and teachers and parents and support not supportive of social emotional supports and learning because um I feel like there are and it was talked about earlier there are many things that we are doing to help

273with that um and that that needs to continue and and I I I'll I'll be honest I'm I am concerned that if we if we don't have something in place this year other issues are going to arise and I am concerned about that so let's see if I had anything else that um yeah this this whole discussion has not it's not about whether or not we care about children or whether or not we care about families because I think it's obvious that we do and I hope everyone in this room and everyone listening understands that every board member is passionate about children about the role of public education in our community and I mean that's why we're here that's why we're sitting in these seats it's because we care so I um I I will

274and my comments there would you entertain a motion I have I have another comment before an emotion emotion emotion emotion anyway um um I think we're yeah we're I guess it sounds like we're still in discussion time thank you um just a couple other things we're talking about um as Steve was saying like okay so we vote to not use second steps but then we vote to we vote to let me just go to Second steps if you vote to have second steps Stanley Elementary's and when you really look the way I look at the data is different than what you guys are looking at the data I'm looking at the data as those who do not um believe that this is working and those who do not um want it and then those who

275do not know enough if you combine those people those people are equal to or more than the people who said they wanted it and so then we put it back in the classroom in elementary and then that's half or more than half of the parents who are saying they're not quite sure or that they don't want it and they're going to take it they're going to take their kids out or maybe not ticket them out because I don't know that at this point because there's just too many I don't know enough I don't believe and I don't I don't want it that then we're going to have this problem in classrooms because then there's going to be let's just say if it's a fourth I mean if we want to even talk a fourth of

276the kids in a classroom of 20 there will be help me with my math no I'm just teasing I know I know I'm just teasing um I teach math anyway five kids that you're gonna have to put somewhere and when you're talking seven classes of first graders times that by seven that's a whole class of kids that you're going to take out and put someplace else and then try to figure out what to do with them and and in my brain it's easier to leave them in the classroom and develop and I'm not giving this to teachers to have to do but we all do know how to teach some art lessons lessons and we do know how to do activities with students that would fit within that realm of being able to learn to

277be good friends being able to say nice things being able to know what the class rules are doing um being able to know what the school rules are and um and that we also have brain boosters and it wouldn't hurt to add five minutes to our brain boosters and I'm sure that gives the teachers more time to do plc's and um I just think I think we're creating a creative enough and we have enough education that we should be able to do that without um too much difficulty because I too am in the trenches and I too do not want anything added to my plate right now I go to school at six I get home about eight and I work all day Saturday and Sunday Dunes I won't call it stupid um I better

278call it another word doing um letters I'm spelled wrong I don't know why you have a program spelled wrong with your learning letters but okay um hours on end and so um I don't want to get the teachers anything more so with that said I think that we can add minutes to bring boosters I'm in it to Fine Arts or activities where they're out there doing physically things if you've read The Words the book Spark spark says the more activities you do before you learn an academic lesson that your brain starts sparking and building and building brain cells so even if we do something that even is like jog I mean I'm sorry you don't have to make them they can walk jog around the field every day for 10 minutes and then come back

279they will learn more in the next two hours than they have learned in the whole time you have them there so I just think we can manage it okay thank you um Mrs Neibauer has another brief yeah I'll be very quick I think there was some confusion over what I was saying earlier Miss Oaks was saying uh there it does talk about social emotional learning I was saying that too yes the usbe rule says social emotional learning I was making the distinction it does not say social emotional curriculum which is a separate program so you and I are saying the same thing the other thing I wanted to say is I was looking um when Ms chill was talking about the statistics uh and I was looking just kind of it goes along with What

280chlorine said but when we look at the full parent survey there was 54.2 percent that said yes I would have my child participate there was uh 29 that said they don't know yet and 17 that said they would not so we can't count on the ones that haven't decided yet so if you do that math that's 45.48 that may opt their children out and 54 that do and so when Miss teeny was talking about supporting teachers because I am a former teacher I don't want to do anything like that in my class where I think um nearly half the class could possibly opt out of this and and you know these parents that just got this survey lots of times what happens is these parents to say I don't have enough information guess what they

281do when they close out that survey they start researching and so and so there's going to have the other parents they've made up their mind so as far as supporting our teachers I really Echo what Miss tingey says our president I do support teachers I am grateful that our teachers make that decision every day to make a difference in the life of a child and because I support our teachers I am not interested in implementing any other program that they would have to have new training on for this year I agree with Miss Arnold our teachers can do a lot of other things in that 20-minute time span and so I don't know if anyone has any other discussion if not I'll make a motion Mr Wrigley does I'm Mr Wrigley just really quickly um

282I don't think doing nothing is an answer um so we have to do something but I'm sort of discouraged tonight because I thought we'd be able to come to some kind of a compromise truly I've listened to a lot of parents on all sides and I then and as you're here tonight there are other parents probably 55 maybe 60 percent that are on the other side they want the same thing that you do but anyway don't think so huh I I know so and there's a lot of teachers and a lot of I mean and I'm not just representing the teachers I've got a lot of constituents in my area that really want to keep the program and don't want to even get rid of such a step so it was sort of a compromise

283to say I feel that I need to get rid of the Second Step because I that's what we need to do and I think we need to move forward on this I mean as far as motions wise I'd like to make a motion to to address to get uh to end the second step in the middle in the middle schools because I think we all agree on that one I think we could probably get 100 vote on that I believe Mr millerberg reserved the right to make a motion first um so I think we'll End discussion and now turn it to the board for Action Mr Wrigley I agree with you on that part and that's why I'm planning on separating the issues and I would like to start in as much as second step

284is currently suspended for the elementary schools I would like to make a motion that that suspension be made permanent elementary school I'll second that um okay so will you state the motion again please okay the motion is I would like to have the suspension of second steps made permanent in the Elementary grades okay there's a motion is there a second I'll second it and Miss Arnold seconded it um I think only one word one second is all we need okay all right so there's a motion in a second you can do this Holly any discussion to this motion Mr Wrigley so the question on the elementary is we get rid of Second Step but we do not replace anything in its place I said I'm separating the Motions I'm separating motions because I'm sure that

285there will be different both on different issues issue number one is I would like to make the suspension of second steps at the elementary grade permanent and with no recommendations what to do not at this time let's take a vote on this one and then we'll see what recommendations we have any other discussion to this motion no okay so um we have a motion in a second and we'll vote on it and just for clarity will you restate the motion before I ask for the vote the motion is that second steps the suspension of second steps in the Elementary grades being made permanent okay thank you board so a yes vote means terminated terminate second steps for Elementary in elementary all right I will call for a vote um all in favor say aye aye

286those opposed say no no no [Music] and the well the Nays please raise their hands so that our secretary can get that okay the motion passes four to three thank you so um any board um any further action okay I'd like to make a motion that we suspend I guess we terminate second step in the middle schools but that we instruct the administration to put out requests for proposals to look for options in the coming school year to replace it and that the middle schools could be given the upright or the opportunity to go ahead and put together the programs that they didn't appropriate in the interim period of time let's do that like two steps at a time because that creates everybody doing their own thing clear across the district so let's do two

287steps the the middle schools are going to have to do something clear in this year they've already have sort of a program they would like to be able to do some kind of a social emotional program rather than totally them and not allow them to do you know I agree with Mrs Arnold that I would like to separate the issues on that one as well okay emotion has been made and I have not yet heard a second to the motion but is there a second to the motions in that case I would like to make that motion did not receive a second I'll make a motion so I would like to make one okay I believe Mr Miller I'm on a roll tonight on that so go ahead I hate making motions but I'll do

288it I would make a motion at second steps at the secondary level but uh be terminated as well I'll second that okay there's a motion and a second any discussion to this motion I guess same question your motion you're not replacing it with anything we're just terminating it and leaving it let's vote on this one Mr Wrigley then you can make your emotion well I mean it's that makes a big difference in my my vote if I if I'm just terminated with nothing to replace it I may vote no if I'm terminated with some some options at Westwood replace it in the future or giving the authority to the administration to do something I'm going to vote Yes saying you can't I don't think we're really saying you can't do something we're just saying we're

289not doing the second steps then we can come back to same what we're going to do call for the question um okay the question has been called and so we will need to vote on that calling the question or we can just go back to the primary motion is what call the question means and discussion so all in favor of calling the question say aye aye any opposed okay the question has been called uh the maker of the motion will you please restate your motion the motion is that second steps be terminated at the secondary level as well and I second it again yes so the emotion has been restated I will call for a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion passes thank you okay now could I make a

290motion yes Mr Rigley you may make a motion I was not happy with that last motion because it left us out there I make a motion that two things within my motion as I said before first off that I make a motion that they we instruct the administration to work with parents and work with others to put together a pro uh RFP out to replace the Second Step starting next school year and the other one is as we allow these principles and the sccs in their respective schools to take what they currently are using and many times it's using Avid and it's using second step and replace second step with other social emotional principles or what we'd say just they're already doing something in that respect already because we calm them down but it actually

291allowed and to allow them to do that until we replace it with an alternative program okay um and and can I ask a question to the moment yeah so yes go ahead Mrs Arnold so if we already have in place restorative practices in Avid and pbsi and circles those are already there they've already been there I don't think there has to be a motion on that they're already there they're unemplace they're already doing them so I don't see how this gets us anywhere because they are also right now trying to replace what we took away from them when we stopped second step I don't know if anybody from Administration could speak to what they're currently doing that might help a little bit um so at this point we have a motion and really to have

292any further discussion on it we need to have a second okay so we have a motion and a second and now we can discuss I'd like to have discussion to the motion So currently I know the schools I've gone to the counselors go in uh into the classrooms and teach lessons on kindness respect friendshiping the last Middle School I was just at they had just done a friendship lesson um Indian Hills I think I forwarded to everyone you know the lessons they have um my the one thing I do know is because the Middle School curriculum has been on hold since essentially almost the very beginning of the school year everything I've heard from administrators is they have already adjusted their schedules so they aren't we're not in a hole here where they don't know

293what to do with the time they've already they've made those changes in their schedules already and so what is currently in place is what's always been before we had curriculum which is those counselors and social workers going and rotating to the classes and teaching those lessons on kindness friendship character stuff that's my understanding too but as soon as we put things on hold they went ahead the principles and put things in place taking up and using that time can you come over there what's going on in the middle further discussion to the motion Mrs Shield yeah I was just wondering if the administration could come and tell us what is going on [Music] um thank you Mr Robinson um so as the Director of middle schools I I work closely with all of the principals

294and you're right they've they've had you know most of the year that they've been flexible coming up with different plans um each school has a little bit different take it's based on their their needs and their data and kind of their focus areas so um I met with them again just last Thursday we kind of reviewed all of the different things that they have in place right now so Albion they do they're doing literacy Focus lessons and academic remediation times so it's all more academically based is what they're using for that time some of the schools had built schedules that rotated around lunch so they couldn't just reabsorb time um you know in the same way because it would then completely change their whole Master scheduling board so Albion was one of those so they're

295doing more academic kinds of focus things Butler they've done a lot with digital citizenship there are a lot of digital citizenship lessons and different things like that can we go back to I'll be in one second do they not do mindfulness also they did mindfulness a few years ago I think they still have some lessons on that that they embed um okay and just that Dr Hart said primarily this is their focused time because they were one of the schools who had not implemented Second Step yet so this was kind of a new structure of time and this is how they're using it right now um Butler is doing primarily digital citizenship lessons they also have silent sustained reading they're using it for grade reviews have conversations with students to basically you know do grade

296checks kind of see how they can help them and they're doing as Mr Wrigley mentioned some kindness character type skills within that framework Draper Park they were also one of the schools who had not adopted so at this point they've moved back to their regular schedule they took that block of time and reabsorbed it into their day so they don't have a pull out or advisory piece so they are working um with counselors in the past they've had counselors go and they had a kindness campaign and different things that they've done so they're looking at that and also I'm working just with their SCC making sure that they're they're finding out some things that they could do this year um Eastmont on Eastmont has monthly PBIS goals and then they've worked with themes that are

297based on their disciplined data so really finding the areas where the kids are most struggling in their in their classroom behavior and things like that and then trying to come up with some lessons or some things that will be reflected in their PBIS plans um Indian Hills you had mentioned um they have kind of two times a month that are more focused in check-ins academic pieces and then they have the circles that you were referencing or the the topics that they do monthly um all the middle schools have things around gratitude you know this month for Thanksgiving Midvale they have a unique position because they have the myp program which is part of the IB theater so they have a lot of their lessons even when they did Second Step there's a lot of mip

298built into that so they're continuing with that a lot of it is um focused on understanding the brain and things like that as well as building relationships they're working with trauma-informed practices they have a lot of things at their school that are specific needs that they're trying to make sure are happening for their students Mount Jordan is focusing as well on the digital citizenship extending the lessons doing more of those lessons because we've seen a real uptick well I didn't mean a pun with tick but the the whole Tick-Tock debacle um you know with the bathrooms and and all of the different things that have happened with social media and all of the the issues that are just really coming to a head here in our middle schools so they wanted to do more with

299the digital citizenship components helping their kids understand how how to use their their technology responsibly and they also do a lot of the grade checks um and part of that that's always been part of their piece um Union is the other Middle School who has moved at the time back into their regular day so they don't have that scheduled set time anymore um principal tatayoli said their science teachers are kind of the lead they're doing Circle topics weekly that are focused on community building so how are they going to build their Union Community how are they they're treating each other there and the topics are um created by the administrative team and approved by them before any of the teachers are having those discussions so that's the overview of of where they are now they

300really do want um for this interim part because so much time has gone by and they've they've done this this piece of kind of putting things together in this new year they really are are hoping they're allowed in the interim to continue with with what they're doing and then they really want to see that long-term you know whatever that goes whatever's the long-term plan so so that's where the middle schools are so any any questions for the about them questions about that information Mr millerberg one question I have and one major concern is when you turn eight middle schools loose to do their own thing [Music] control is a good thing and it's a bad thing all at the same time I worry about what somebody may come up with to teach in one school

301what kind of over uh site do you have on that to make sure that the things we say are not taught in our school district right are not taught in our school district when they're you know the benefit of a fixed curriculum is that we know what's being taught right and I would agree that's their preference I'm going back to where I trust the education professionals I trust the building administrators to be the ones that are overseeing that but it's still I guess it's one of those trust but verify type things yeah and and they will like their preference certainly is to have that consistency because for them it's also a safeguard you know to make sure that they're following something that the board has approved that it's it's all that that process that they

302feel like is important um I think right now they're I mean my personal responsibility as their supervisor is to make sure I know what they're doing that I'm going over and being part of that process that I'm attending their SEC meetings you know that I'm making sure that what they say is actually happening um and then I do know and I have complete confidence my my team of principals are very connected to their school community councils and have great uh relationships with them and and really respect those parents who serve and and help them and so I know that they've been already talking with their parents and like this is part of their conversations with their school community councils and I would that would need to continue like that transparency needs to be there and

303for any parent who wanted to come in and talk to them they just have that already that relationship with the SCC I don't have any answers I just have questions well I'm glad you have answers I'm trying yeah um Mrs Oaks and then Mrs Neibauer um thank you Cindy one of the things I really appreciated when we went to visit Indian Hills was how they went about um incorporating certain lessons for kids that the kids were able to opt in and sign up for different classes and so you know similar to what we were talking about in on the October 19th meeting and I've had concerns about making sure that SEL approaches don't necessarily um replicate therapy right or get to a place that we're really focusing on psychoeducation rather than Psychotherapy and I I

304did think that their um the chance for parents to sign up and say I need a little extra help in in this area of education for my child and and there were certain slots and so it was very organized about how they went about it and I was very impressed I'm curious how much the middle schools have had the opportunity to to learn from each other that way to compare notes I know sometimes the schedules don't always allow for that but you know and having teachers in my family one of the things they've often said is that the great some of the best learning they've had is when they get to go visit other schools or other classrooms and learn for how they're doing it um I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that

305well my my fellow people can attest we we have more meetings than anyone we they level level meeting and our level meetings are like four hours five hours longer they they are very cohesive and very much sharing many of them worked with each other in different capacities over the years they've been administrators at the middle school level many of them for a long time so we talk about this stuff a lot and they share and somebody will have an idea and they'll say oh what's that like what are what are you doing for this or this is what we're thinking and they'll immediately be sending out sharing their their Google Docs sharing their canvas courses sharing whatever they're finding that's successful for their kids and so when we bring up these great ideas yes they're

306very much part of the conversation with each other and and always looking for ways to work together to find good Solutions yeah this is Neibauer thank you so much Cindy I as you were describing that I was like it's like a family reunion when they get together oh yeah uh I appreciate your preparation and how connected you are to our middle schools and Mr Wrigley to address your concern there's a few things that I was thinking about we have this strategic planning coming up social emotional supports of which are moderating and I would hope that one thing that might be helpful is for uh Miss Hanson to go and and gather those things like you know I know I sent to the board what Indian Hills was doing with the opt-in right and this opportunity

307that parents have to sign up okay my child is having a hard time adjusting to middle school and they opt into those things recognizing may not be a one-size-fits all right um and then also I just was so excited to hear how many schools are working more on digital citizenship and so I would love if it's possible with our social emotional supports committee if you could bring back because if as I've gone into the middle schools they're all saying this the phone is such a big part of this so I would love for you to bring that back are you are you going to be in that committee meeting um I'm I'm the facilitator for the high quality teaching oh with me yay no no I'm oh I'm access to high quality education different than

308high level teaching yeah oh you're doing the post-secondary is that what you're doing no it's just the teaching staff oh oh high quality teaching staff okay is there a posse give you and from get whatever information you'd like I'm happy to share it that might be nice because I agree with what Mr Wrigley's saying and Mr millerberg about making sure that we're there's a sense of cohesiveness and we aren't teaching anything that we've said we're not teaching as well as that there's a good plan moving forward and I'd love to hear Direct from the middle schools about what they feel is the greatest need yeah absolutely I can do that I'm going to send to everybody or just wait yeah mystery so we have a motion and a second any further discussion to the motion

309I don't know do we have a second because the question was we already have things in place um yes there because that then we could discuss the motion okay so what we've been doing is discussing it happened is it called clarify um so I will ask Mr Wrigley to restate the motion so what I am stating in my motion is that we allow the middle schools to proceed as they currently are right now in conjunction with their sccs to determine how they're going to fill this void until the district comes up with something alternative I'd also like to clarify that I would like to see the administration give the authority to move forward to find an alternative so that we have something can can I have a little question on that with the discussion okay

310my question is I like your idea but I don't want that to come before we go through the process of strategic planning to identify in that social emotional supports meetings that you do I I'd like that to be established that those priorities to be established before are you wanting to do it are you wanting to do that before all our meetings because I'm thinking this should play into our strategic planning are you wanting to do it after I am fine with it coming after I just think we need to move forward and give them some hope that something will happen the next school year I'm Mrs Oaks to the motion I I think an answer to both of your questions I think it both are good approaches in the sense that and strategic planning is

311literally starting on Monday and then beginning of December I think my guest says and maybe and super Tim Robbins can address this I think it will take a while for us to be able to even put together the Committees and put you know options forward and so if we allow the administration to move forward and mobilize on that my guess is it will happen naturally after a strategic planning is is more or less wrapping up for further discussion to the motion I think it needs to be separated because we are and we do have the Strategic plan coming up and that's just part of the plan and that's part of it so I think we just need to go ahead and do the motion that we let them do what they need to do and

312then we let that go and then we go to the Strategic plan and then we come back to this are you making a substitute motion um I guess I am so I make you state your substitute motion please my substantive motion is that we continue to let the middle schools do as they have already planned and been doing I will second that and make a quick discussion I I want I like what Mr Wrigley's suggesting but I don't want it to be put out to RFP and still we until we've established the priorities which will happen through strategic planning so I don't want it to go to RFP before those priorities are established so that's why I'm seconding Miss Arnold's motion thank you okay we have a substitute motion and a second discussion to the

313substitute motion foreign [Music] just amend your motion to say that because otherwise we're just gonna have to have another emotionally I will amend much and then to to just give the middle schools the authority to proceed until the end of the year okay and maybe can I request an emotion that we bring this back for further discussion so um okay let me just think here procedurally we have a substitute motion that has been seconded so the procedure is to vote on that one and then um and then depending on that outcome we would go back to the primary motion yes so please will the maker of the substitute motion restate the motion okay I make a motion to allow the LM I mean the Middle School principles and secs to continue doing what they have

314been doing in the syndrome and for the rest of the year and I second that okay so the motion substitute motion has been restated any further discussion to this substitute motion okay um I will call for a vote on that motion all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion passes okay board any further action [Music] I mean this would be the time if you wanted to do your second part [Music] no all right board any further action on this matter this is my Bowery I don't have further action but I'm wondering if it would be uh and if Mr Wrigley would would like this as well if it would be all right to go ahead and state that assignment that Miss Hanson come to the social emotional supports with recommendations from principals and

315counselors to the middle schools as part of the discussion and strategic planning cannot be established as something the board would like to do would you like that Mr Ricky um Mrs Stokes I actually would prefer that the strategic planning process on this start fresh and and out of the box and come forward with Solutions I mean if that comes up and and they request some of that information that's one thing that I think that we're we need to kind of open it up a little bit and see what the community as a whole is like looking for rather than coming and saying these are preconceived Solutions we found I would like there to be more brainstorming and opportunity for that yeah and I don't want any less brainstorming I'm just saying like for example she

316had a lot of middle schools that are doing more with digital citizenship that would be nice to be part of the discussion because that's the thing we're hearing but people are really concerned about so not that we're coming up with these are possible solutions still have brainstorming but just that that's part of the discussion that that a lot of middle schools have are interested and concerned about that just as part of the discussion the only thing is Cindy has to be leading another group I'm saying just give the information to Mr Wrigley because he was concerned about hearing feedback from the middle schools so well he's been here and been listening yeah he's been listening to our discussion at this point it's getting pretty late I think we just need to move on we can

317bring this before the board at a future time okay thank you that concludes that item we will now move to um approval of 2022-2023 school calendar and tentative approval for 2023 2024 and 2024 2025 school calendars and um I understand that Mr Leon Wilcox will be addressing this one [Music] thank you president Tangy and board members uh just want to excuse Floyd standrud he's had surgery recently but his recurring well should be back with us hopefully next week but I'll fill in here again a big thank you for the calendar Community I know Steve Wrigley and Amber shiel serve as the board of Representative representative Representatives on that committee always very difficult to squeeze 180 days in from August 15th to the end of May with two weeks for Christmas and a week for spring

318break and Thanksgiving and all the other holidays so again a big thank you uh to the committee before you on board docs we have the calendars they have not changed from the first greeting to the second reading and then to the third reading here uh just to review as President tingey says in our study session you know hard to believe the 22 23 years almost honest well it does become upon us with the calendar here uh again the proposed calendar for next school year we will start on August 15th and on May 26th we'd have of course the two full weeks out for the holiday break as well as a week for for uh for spring break uh we'll move on bright in the same time of course the difference only difference would be the

319the uh trimester end dates there okay so now that's the calendar we'd like you to approve uh for next year again we always like to put out two years of tentative calendars for our employees our parents our students so if they're planning trips or whatnot they know when school will be in session when we plan to start so so for the 2023-24 year you know on our guidelines we have always said we wouldn't start before the before August 15th so actually this year we this year it does get bumped back because of the the day of the week so this one is proposed that we start on August 21st 2023 and on May 30th 2024. uh the only do well one key difference of this one is instead of two 10 days of holiday break

320there would be nine to squeeze that in again try to end before the end of May and you can also see the the Brighton calendar their same dates again a little different on the trimester dates then finally moving again to the new tentative calendar uh for 24.25 we would start on August 19th we would be able to get the 10 full days of the holiday break and end on the May 30th same date as the previous year so those are again the tentative ones you know we are subject to change we know we have been pretty proud of ourselves that we really haven't changed these over the last several years once we made them tenant have been able to make them permanent moving forward so so before you are the calendars again big things to

321the committee but any questions or a motion okay board any discussion or questions um Mr millerberg is that a question question okay um I'm flip-flopping on this one okay and I'm not proposing we make anything many changes to the ones that we're going to approve but maybe on the tentative last board meeting I called in because I was out with my grandkids they live in the Jordan School District in the Jordan District has for fall break a full week which I know that means you get out later in the spring but gosh that was nice to have a week that you could uh actually plan as a family and go somewhere my PR my only proposal is that we survey maybe some of you know the parents and find out what our parents want to

322have happen in that area I know I'm the one that pushed really hard to have it out before the end of May and so I'm kind of flip-flopping on that but I'm just saying what is it that our constituents that our patrons want so I think it's two years ago the calendar committee surveyed parents and secs and all teachers and faculty and what we're doing is trying to we were the district that got out the latest in the whole state so we were trying to condense the calendar and this is only like the second or third year of it and if we did that it would mess the whole thing up again I'm just saying we've we've already gone through a process to get where we are but we can bring it up yeah I

323just throw that out as a thought I I believe that would be something for the calendar committee to to discuss but it would also um there are guidelines in policy that the board has established regarding how many days each of those major holidays and breaks and recesses have so yeah there's nothing in my comment that would cause me to vote no tonight okay so I think um we'll ask our Representatives on the calendar committee to bring that feedback to their next committee meeting all right maybe meeting until next summer so Mom you're gonna have to remind me I don't know if I'm gonna remember that um okay any other questions or okay no emotion is in order go ahead and promotion oh okay I'll I'll do it okay I move that we approve the 2022-2023

324school calendar and tentative approval of the 2023-24 and 2425 school calendars I'll second it thank you we have a motion and a second any discussion to this motion see none I'll ask for a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed Leon you promised a joke that motion passes Leon you promised a joke he's walking away okay um so sorry that that motion passes I guess yeah we got that okay um next is um redistricting proposal this is the second reading possible action I will turn time over to Charlie Evans um director of external relations thank you um I don't see the good news is I don't see any reason why we can't knock this out before one o'clock in the morning if we get started right now um I don't really have anything

325to say uh the map has not changed very much from what it was what it currently is I just want to remind the board that we're not approving this map we are recommending it to the county whose responsibility it is to approve the map I think everybody's intimately familiar with at this point so I'll be happy to take any questions thank you um and thank you for making that clarification that that what um possible action would be here is just that the board would then send this map as a recommendation to the county for their consideration in the final decision yes and um they have they've in the past we've gone and presented the map to the county and answered their questions but they've asked us this year just to transmit it with a send

326it to him with a transmittal letter which I'll address something for uh superintendent Robinson or you present whichever one you guys prefer okay president um yes um questions yeah Mr Miller that said no real apparent discussion coming first I'd like to say Charlie thank you so much for your ability to work with this group of people and make it happen and with that I'd like to make a motion that we recommend this to the county for approval I'll second that motion and second the thank you to Charlie Evans as well thank you okay so we have a motion and a second any discussion to this motion I have a discussion so some of the lines of the old lines not the total new lines are we leaving the old lines on there to show them

327the bright lines I probably should have explained that thank you Ms Arnold bright lines are the current uh the current boundaries the darker lines the maroon or brown or what are what is proposed and don't understand that by your letter that you're sending to them or you're going to take away the red lines when you send them I'm going to send it to them however they want me to send it to them but basically what they're going to want is just the gis information okay just wondering thank you and now I have a question what's GIS information I don't know and I didn't make Rick she's come tonight so is it is it the uh probably the how they have it designated as different little pockets of population those little pockets are called census blocks

328and but the gis is the format of the map oh the I.T technical format okay got it okay thank you any other questions or actually have a motion and a second any discussion to the motion GIS stands for geographic information systems okay thank you when you say Google right but it says the research surrounding area using natural hazards points of interest tax attributes blah blah blah okay thank you and and I guess um motion and second so if there's no further discussion to the motion I'll call for a vote all and oh I'm going to ask the maker of the motion to restate the motion you know why it usually don't make motions like to make a motion that as a board we approve sending this in for the county to approve it all we're

329doing is approving him sending it in as a recommendation recommend okay call it what you want to recommendation is great and I seconded that okay all right thank you now I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed that motion passes thank you thank you Mr Evans and thank you for your work I I know it's something we're all glad only happens every 10 years thank you all right more that concludes our business on the agenda for tonight's meeting I will now turn time over to superintendent for the staff comment superintendent Robbins and then business administrator Leon Wilcox thank you president team first just like to say thank you to the board for your deliberations and hard work uh on a really tough uh issue I think it it

330Bears noting that our students are still going to show up each day and they're still going to come to school with uh you know the issues and things that they that they face and um I'm very proud of the fact that our teachers and staff and our parents are still committed to keeping School open for our kids we'll work through this it's not it's not easy I think you know we still minimize the impact of a pandemic that's now gone on almost two years you know and people are in different places with all the issues that they that they face and so you know I'll reiterate I hope we'll continue to show kindness and respect um to each other I think unfortunately these lines continue to divide us and as I've said before you know

331we're not the enemy and parents aren't the enemy uh we're a union and I hope and pray that you know somehow we'll find common ground to go forward even though sometimes uh you know these issues seem to divide us more than unite us and um I just ask that people recommit themselves the decisions been made you know now we we've got to find a way forward and you know be there for each other and not not divide any further so I just appreciate everybody's efforts on this and we'll go forward also I just I want to um say thank you and congratulate our esps for the great work that they do I think a lot of times they really go underappreciated and this year especially with the labor shortage you know bus drivers lunch workers

332custodians um we we're very understaffed and they're picking up the pieces to make work you know on a daily basis our AIDS our substitute teachers people are you know filling in where they can and I think it's you know should go noted that you know they're they're going to extraordinary efforts to keep our schools open and serve our kids and I don't think we should lose sight of that so thank you thank you Mr Wilcox thank you president Amy just a couple things one of the big shout out to our insurance department we've completed our open enrollment last couple weeks you know uh trying to open enroll for an insurance 2800 employees a lot of work so thank you to them uh a couple other things just to highlight on our high schools the Alta

333gym open this week I hope you can make it over to see that it's beautiful uh the Brighton parking lot got paved it got striped and painted yesterday before the rain uh they're doing some minor concrete work on the entrances there but the intention is to open that next Monday or Tuesday to the public and the kids and they also I mean the Hillcrest Auditorium they yeah we got the chairs uh they're all in they passed the fire inspection did training last week and the students have started to take over that today and tomorrows yeah so they'll have dates coming for their fall place we're excited for that and again just Erica what uh Dr Robin says big thank you to our esps uh Brandon wolf our ESP president was here for most of the

334meeting but a big shout out they've just gone above and beyond just with their labor shortage our bus drivers our lunch workers our custodians pulling all kinds of hours so big big thank you for what they've done that's all I have thank you all right uh board member comments uh we'll start down here Mr millerberg the last meeting I had the advantage of having a four-hour time zone benefit and I still left early and I think you've heard all from me tonight that you need to hear so I'm done thank you Mrs chill no comments Mrs Oaks just a quick comment I've had the opportunity to attend some music um concerts in the high schools and also I'm really excited for the upcoming musicals I've heard from a lot of parents whose children are involved

335in those activities and I just want to give a massive shout out to those those teachers that put in unbelievable amounts of hours above and beyond and I'm feeling it right now because my son my 16 year old is playing in the pit Orchestra for Kearney Canyon's production of Newsies and like we never see him they and I I sit there and I think it's one thing we have the students there but these teachers are there so many hours so I've just had some parents come to me and just say I hope you know that much we love and appreciate these teachers that are doing this it's making such a difference to our kids they're having an incredible time they're learning so much they're gaining friendships and confidence in ways that they went any other

336way so I just um want to reiterate how much I appreciate the Arts and also a request that we prioritize the art survey that we discussed previously as part of the Arts Consortium especially to better inform the strategic planning process so and the oh one more thing that we can also include that is part of the discussion in the SEL strategic planning team thank you Mr Wrigley I yield my time to my wife who wants me home thank you Mrs Neibauer I've got my tickets for Newsies in two nights and I'm excited thanks for bringing that up Miss Oaks uh yeah Thursday um I'm grateful to hear we got the parking lot done at Brighton I've heard about that with the kids that have to park across the street I'm sure miss chill has as

337well so that'll be nice with the snow upcoming and I just wanted to in the end just briefly thank my fellow board members for the amount of time and energy they've spent on this difficult and complex issue tonight and I respect everything that was shared and thank you for it and I also just wanted to thank our I I thanked the parents before but I'd like to thank the teachers for their great work and I still would like to have on an agenda item how we can better support our teachers with the letters um task in front of them and that's all I have to say thank you thank you Mrs Arnold I wish I was really good at singing Because I want to do a commercial and the commercial is if you ever wanted

338to try out the job of custodian now is the time you can actually go and be a sub for a custodian and it's not really hard they leave lesson plans and you can go and you can be a sub for the lunch lady and you don't have to have a lesson plan because the kids all know and they can tell you what to do and teachers there are some lessons for all those ones who want to be in a teacher or even want to think about being with students and those students love you when they say the funniest things and they do the funniest things and they make your day and then maybe I wouldn't have to set up so much but you know it gets me back in the classroom and I love it

339but that is my advertisement get out there people help us people don't stay home don't watch TV get some exercise go be a custodian go be a lunch lady go be a bus driver but you have to learn that one all right bye thank you and and I will just um conclude again with an expression of appreciation this this month is the month where we do focus a little bit more on Thanksgiving and I I um appreciate each of the board members the superintendent Mr Wilcox and all of the District administration the school administration all of the teachers I appreciate our community I appreciate our parents I appreciate the many wonderful things that we have in this community and I hope that we will all be able to focus on like superintendent said the things

340that unite us and the things that bring us together and and do so with kindness and respect to all and so with that I unless there's anything else I declare the meeting adjourned thank you