Board Meeting

001to um excuse board member clarine Arnold and board member Mont millerberg from this portion of the meeting our first item for study session is an item 1A update on strategic planning I will turn time over to superintendent Rick Robbins thank you president tingy and we've invited Shelby Macintosh from Ed elements to give us this report so I'll invite her up [Music] now welcome Shelby it's great to see you thank you for being with us um it's beautiful so thank you for the opportunity um I have some updates for you if it's okay with you I'd like to just I think three four maybe four or five slides hopefully you've had a chance to look through them I'd like to talk through them and then we can open it up for question or discussion whatever is

002most valuable to you um this is the most recent update you know we've we've uh tried to give you guys updates along the way especially as we've gone through significant milestones in the project um but this gives you an overview of where we are so in terms of how we label our phases here we are nearing the end of the foundational phase which is mostly characterized by Community engagement stakeholder feedback the the big goal of this phase is to align around the key pillar of the plan which should be driven by what is most important to the community here in Canyons so most of what we're talking about today is around um there through that lens of aligning around those those key priorities so that we can then start the design phase uh I'm going

003to preview an updated timeline for you here in a second but um this I think this graphic's a little misleading because that planning team workshops looks like one of the smaller uh squares but it's actually quite a bit of work in fact it's I would say um fortunately some of the biggest work that we will do and that's what happens next um and so related to that we are uh sharing um an updated timeline for you and then also talking about what we think those proposed Focus areas and planning teams should be specifically uh the key areas the key priorities for the plan and also talk about how we can recruit uh quite a bit more stakeholders to participate in those planning teams so with that this is the updated timeline that we're prep posing

004um I would believe it or not it is not driven by our desire to be here during ski season although it works out nicely for us um but we're actually building in a little bit of extra time than we originally proposed for a couple reasons we want to make sure we take the time we need to recruit a lot of people to be a part of these planning teams give them plenty of of advanced notice about when they would need to participate in those meetings um and that kind of additional time is pushing things back a little bit but not not in the a sense that it is creating a much longer timeline than we originally planned so the idea is that um assuming today or or pretty soon after today we feel like we're

005in a good place to um or we're uh in alignment around what these planning teams should be focused on we will uh continue our recruitment around those finalize what those who those people are and get invitations out to them by November 3rd um if we can get the list finalized by Friday October 9th we'll be sure and get those invitations out to them on the 3 that is two weeks ahead of when they would meet with us for the first time which are those planning meetings there in the middle uh they would meet with us on the 17th and 18th have a break and then meet with us again on the 1 and the 2nd so all planning teams uh would meet on all four of those those meetings with us um that would give

006us some time to um take all of their work and package it up for the Searing team and meet with them again December 15 um that of course is not theend of the project but that essentially gets us through the design period and creates the bulk of the the content of the plan there so with all that in mind um based on feedback from the board and from the steering team uh we are getting a little more specific in our proposal to you where originally we shared with you these four Focus areas which are pretty high level um we're actually now getting a little more detailed and telling you what we think the planning teams within each of those Focus areas should be so the right to read this slide and I'll talk you through

007it is that every row would have a planning team of eight to 10 people assigned to it so that would be if we start at the top access to high quality learning experiences you would have a team of eight to 10 people who are focusing specifically on that topic they are digging really deeply into all the data that we we have collected so far as well as other District data that pre-existed before we started this project to really understand the challenges and the needs related to that topic um they would identify what we call challenge statements and some success criteria around again what success looks like in that area and that would be used to inform um the content of the plan going forward so we're actually proposing 10 different planning teams which I'll walk

008you through the first three of them are tied to that Focus area of learning experiences the first one I already mentioned access to high quality learning experiences um that is inclusive of programming that would be involved uh with those learning experiences um the second one there access to postsecondary Pathways that would be inclusive of general education as well as special programming tied to those Pathways and then the third one there is tied to high quality teaching staff um which if you'll recall we saw uh come up quite a bit both in survey data and in focus focus group data um which Speaking of I did not say this but just a reminder all of these recommendations came from that data so our our primary goal or I wouldn't say primary our first goal in collecting

009all of that information was to identify these planning teams it will they again will dig much deeper into all of that feedback as they get into the planning work of these teams the second group there around access and opportunity there are three planning teams that we're recommending for this Focus area here the first one is distribution of resources this is tied to um in particular a part of the survey where we asked about if your child attended a different School in came School District would they have uh the same resources available to them that they do now um this group here would really dig into the data around that question um in addition to other data that we have relative to distribution of resources across the district and then we have a group that would

010focus specifically on the experience of special education students and then a group that would focus specifically on the experience of multilanguage Learners and those three teams of eight to 10 people each would make up that access ESS and opportunity Focus area the third one here around human- centered support a lot of this was honestly informed by uh a lot of what came out of the last board meeting where um we saw um this topic of human- centered support come up quite a bit in this the uh focus group data and the survey data but in listening to a lot of the initiatives that you all are putting are really focused on right now we see this as a place where a lot of that work can live so um as a as an example the

011presentation from the last board meeting around the Dei initiative there was an action there around we should put a group together to really um create the strategy related to this work we feel like that group could live here uh in addition to a group related to Social and emotional supports and that would include everything from social emotional learning as well as supports related uh I'm sorry supports for parents for students and for staff then the last group there around the operating system we know this F Focus area is a little bit um more vague than the other three and so getting more specific around the planning topics or the two planning teams that we're recommending here the first one is around internal communication so this would be um communication that flows between the school level

012and the district level um it would be internally with staff um key terms here would be things like timeliness and Trust around internal information sharing and then the second one there is around governance so this is related to the relationship between the Board of Education District Leadership School leadership how those roles work together to lead to a highly functioning operating system or oper or uh organization in general I'll say I'll cover one more slide and then I know there's probably a lot of questions and um discussion you want to have here so just um one more note about what these teams would look like so once we feel like these are the right teams to pull together we want to be really intentional about how we find those eight to 10 people tied to each

013of these projects or I'm sorry each of these planning teams um so we have in our last steering team meeting we asked for some input from them around individuals they felt like should serve on these teams um we mentioned that we really want to pull in more parent participation here so to prioritize parents that we can identify to sit on these teams but they really can be anyone from parents to students um to staff members of all different types to members of the community um our only guidance here is that ideally you would be identifying people who hold a specific kind of expertise related to this topic or a represent a very spe um specific perspective that you want represented in this group so if you recall I've showed you this Matrix before but we're

014really honing in on those High influence highin stakeholders as well as high uh interest but lower influence that would be more the representation type of candidate here someone who has a perspective that we really want to highlight and have represented on this group so I mentioned we talked to the steering team we certainly want all of your recommendations for people to serve on on these teams we'll go back to our strategic planning project team we also think it's important that we go back to school leaders and ask for their recommendations um for these teams but we're really looking for about a hundred people because we've got 10 um 10 teams there we want to have eight to 10 people on each of those teams um and we would like both of those teams led by

015a member of the board of the Board of Education and a member of the district leadership team um I know that was so much information but I'll stop and see what questions you guys have or any feedback that you want to share on any of these topics thank you Shelby um see superintendent did you want to make okay all right um I we might all have questions so we'll just kind of go down down the row here at this point yes Mrs nbow thank you so much uh the first first question I have is you had mentioned we want those invitations to go out Friday October 9th I'm sure that was a missp 29th sorry 29 yes okay I know I started filling out mine and I haven't finished okay um is there a way

016that we can access and see who the administrators and principles at the schools are inviting because when I was chatting with one of the principles we both had two names that were duplicates so it would be nice for us to know when we're submitting names oh if that person's already been invited we can invite someone else and I'm not sure the best way to do that if there's some Google doc or something where we can see as it's going in progress definitely we have that we can just share it with you all perfect okay and then um another thought I had is we have had in the past year a few different um emails with some petitions like one I I remember was a community um asking about start times of schools I don't know

017that I really see a category for that but I'm wondering how can we have that have a home in some of this discussion because I know there were several hundred that are and I'm getting all the time um people and I'm saying email Communications um there's some busing issues um and so I don't really see th that those two specific subjects I mean I think we could stretch and say well maybe it's a social and emotional not really but structure um with some of these things I don't know how we can pull that into the conversation yeah thank you for asking about that um we actually talked about that too quite a bit internally because we saw it in feedback um and where we landed is we feel like that is more of a how

018um than a what and so I I think especially actually in those learning experiences the access to to high quality learning experiences which is where a lot of the programming stuff will come up access to post-secondary pathway ways feel like that's where scheduling is going to come up a lot especially as they're identifying challenges they'll see it in the feedback um I actually don't think we want to limit it to one planning team because I think that that how might actually touch several of these okay but I do see it coming up in the planning team conversations and it being part of of what they work through great okay thank you so much you're welcome Mr Wrigley sure I'm impressed by what you've done thank you for the work that you've done so far uh

019and and want following this it looks like when we talk about these learning experience access and stuff that's that's based upon surveys and stuff that we have in from our parents and I like how you sort of broken that down um this will be finished when do you think when when December is that the we will we think we'll have the majority of the content created by the end of December there will be more I would say we call it kind of cleanup that happens in January and February where we we need to meet with District Leaders with you all to get really clear on how to use the plan where the content lives and just structuring it in the most um I would say actionable way so the content will be developed I don't

020think it will be ready to publish until I would say February maybe March depending on how quickly yeah so when what point does this go to the public for their review and comment is there a portion in this I missed great question so one of the if we go back to the timeline notice that we do two meetings and then there's a break and then we have two more meetings um the first time that there will well I will say yeah kind of a second community outreach period because we've done like our broader feedback period um we're actually going to task the planning teams with going and getting some feedback on what they've created so far during that break we don't want them to design everything in isolation we want them to take these ideas

021that they're creating socialize them get more feedback um so there will be a feedback period there it will be kind of specific to the action of each planning team so not a you know broad very public um I would say organized Outreach like we did with the community engagement piece so then the next time that it would be published would be as we get closer to um to calling it you know I would I always put Final in air quotes because it should always evolve and change but um we could certainly I think when we get closer to that point we can decide do we want to do a broader public input period before we call it final there's always an option for that yeah I mean you hate in this process you already start

022your public input but then go ahead and start over again I see this as a living document and that will'll probably have to bring this up several different times and sure I think we could add to this document if there's other issues that we have so I don't think we need to include everything I mean there's lots of stuff going on and stuff we don't even know about next month so anyway thank you so much again thank you Mrs Oaks thanks Shelby this is awesome I'm excited and I sure yeah I really appreciate seeing how this is all flushing out and I'm excited to see what comes out of those parent groups and some of the ideas and perspectives that we get to hear um I'm just wondering if is there anything additional you need

023from us as a board in order to help us move forward smoothly I hear the October 29th deadline I'm assuming we just use that same um code or barcode right that you gave us or uh yes either QR code it's a code right in order and we can fill it out and the question I had was when we're talking about parents with specific perspectives or Acumen like where do we indicate that is there a separate box that talks about what area there is so on the Forum we'll ask for the person's name and their email address and then we ask is is there a specific you know topic or um I can't remember how it's worded but essentially that like what is the topic area that you have in mind for this person and it's

024also okay to say I don't know you know I just think this person should be involved and we will find a place for them um sometimes we even have people move around once we get started but if you do have a topic that is driving the not the recommendation you'll have a place to list it so I previously did submit names but that was before we had each of these nine or I don't know how many lines kind of flashed out test 10 of them yeah and so I'm curious whether or not it would be helpful for us to email you and distinguish like what group they would be most fitting for I don't know yeah that would be great I think when we share the list that um as was pre previously asked you'll

025see the people already on there that you nominated and we'll share it in a way um don't know if we want to make it completely editable but we might um make it in a way that you can go in and like revise what you put in there if there's something different you want to recommend now okay thank you yeah it's a good idea thank you Mrs shill okay so thank you this was really interesting this whole PowerPoint was um interesting to look at with all the data and just all the survey information so thank you for putting that all together for us I'm sure that was a lot of work so get that down um I have a couple questions just number one can you resend that link that we can add the names to

026and also what about as board members what if there's a specific one we want to be on should we email that too somehow or you guys want to pick us I don't know how to usually do it yeah so that was a was a discussion piece that I thought after we got our initial questions out then we would talk about that I'm just ahead of you you are and thank you for doing that so anything else thank you okay um Rick did you have a thank you Shelby for this and I too want to just reiterate my appreciation for your great work on this and all of the engagement that's taken place I and I think I think my questions mostly been answered I was just thinking along the lines of you know where do

027certain programmatic questions lie I mean for example uh you know external Communications may not have been uh you know brought to the surface as much as internal just because it's it's going so well right but I think that's a strength that we would want to you know keep in that conversation or another one might be Community engagement or um customer service that are already tenants of the district that um sometimes if they're if they're going well they're not going to get the maybe the necessary attention so I don't know if that's something that comes to bear in those planning committee meetings that surface that you know these are other extensions or programmatic elements to this that should fit into those but I you know I just I don't want us to lose sight of you

028know the strengths that that we the district already possesses I'm glad you said that um part of this was driven by strengths like uh learning experience is high quality learning experiences was something that came up repeatedly as we're we feel like this is one of if not the greatest strength in the district but it's also very important to us that it continue which is what really got it on this list the um the frequency in which we heard that in the the data but the external communication is an interesting one we talked about this too um you're right that it was consistently rated very high um in surveys and a lot of positive feedback in the focus groups however we want to note that the survey was responded to by people who got the communication

029right and so there's a bias there where we think there might be additional conversations around engagement in particular is in that planning team around multilanguage Learners or the planning team around special education so rather than a a broad you know external communication Focus it's more geared towards um the experiences of very specific Learners in their families welome um okay any other oh Mrs shill so are these the dates of the meetings the prior slide and should we be like putting that on our calendar that's my yes assuming that we um I think we wanted kind of the blessing of this group or any feedback from you all if this was not a good timeline and then yes we would love for you to hold them on your calendar and we'll get those invitations out as

030soon as possible and do you know would it be in the morning or afternoon or it'll just depend we've heard from the steering team that that 400m to 7 P.M time period works really well for them so we're going to stick with that these are all the 17th and 18th is a Wednesday and Thursday and the first and second is a Wednesday and Thursday so we're sticking with those days of the week and the four to seven in the afternoon time window as well okay yeah thank thank you Shelby and thank you everyone for your comments and questions um so let let's talk for just a minute about the timeline um one thing that I want to point out to the board is that um originally we did have a steering committee scheduled for November

0313rd and a fourth one for December 8th so um according to this timeline then that third steering team committee or steering committee meeting but um is um would now be December 15 so my question is then would there be a fourth meeting probably after the first of the year is that correct okay yeah we've left we haven't listed the fourth one just yet um we think that there might be an opportunity to meet with a broader team um not just the steering team but also bring in some District leadership who might be responsible for implementing what comes out of the work of the the um planning teams and so we're leaving the fourth one a little bit open to make sure we can use it for what we feel like we need most at that

032point but safe to assume it will be after the holiday okay so the board members that had signed up to participate in meeting number three and meeting number four um would just need to adjust those on their schedule and the ones that signed up for meeting number four it's still a TBD right when it's when when the dates would so so we'll need to make sure that each of us um those board members that signed up for those are aware of that scheduled change and then yeah yeah we can send that out we can send out the updated and then um and then in talking about the planning teams there are 10 of those and seven board members so let's talk through kind of some hows we can make that work so and and you'd

033mentioned that the idea is to have a board member and a district administrator co-lead a team so um can you maybe just yeah help us picture how that could work sure so I I think there are two options here um the option number one which we've done before where we've had fewer leaders or co-leads than we have planning teams is to um set those sessions up to where if you are one that is leading two you can go back and forth between those in these sessions so these are three-hour sessions they have quite a bit of work time um would be structured in a way that you could spend part of that work time with one group and part of that work time with another group um and we would also do some front-end planning

034that would make you um feel like that you're set up for success to be able to split your time between those groups the advantage of that option is we can keep this schedule um the disadvantage obviously is that you have to split your time the other way that we could do it is we could actually split we could do five planning teams on this schedule and wait and do another five planning teams at a later date um the disadvantage obviously is it extends the timeline we probably wouldn't get to those other five until after the holiday or maybe we could squeeze them in the beginning of December um the advantage is you'd have the fulltime with each group um admittedly we I don't know that we've ever gone that route because most people prefer the

035efficient let's do it all together um but it is an option and certainly one that we we can do if that's your preference okay um what comments on or thoughts on that Mrs nbow so to clarify with the timeline the updated timeline you would anticipate or expect all the board members to be to these meetings is that correct if they were leading a a planning team yes if they were leading a planning team okay so I personally have conflicts the first and third Wednesdays of the month so that is November 3rd December that's it affects almost all of these so it I think it would impact December 1st um November 3 there's no meeting on the third that's just when we would send the invitation oh that's just an invitation so you're okay yes so

036there's the 17th and first so the okay so you're saying all of these areas we're going to be doing these on November 17th 18th and December 1st and 2nd that's right so the 17th and 18th are a Friday and Saturday there should be oh November I'm sorry yes so okay so then November 17th okay so I so conflicts with November 17th and December 1st I'm just wondering if there's any since probably there's there's so many areas it'd be nice to have all the board members there if there's any leeway with these schedules at all even starting later I know clarine will probably have a hard time at the four o'clock time I we're certainly open to adjusting I think what I would need is for you all to propose an alternative to us and let

037us know what would work better for you and then we can uh make it work on our end okay yeah Mrs Oaks how long did they generally last four three hours three hours hour so four to seven is what we have planned right now is it hard usually to rain it in like or does it seem like those teams or those groups tend to want to go longer I'm just curious they are they go very fast uh and so if anything they're always asking for more time not that they want to be there for longer but they're usually saying like we need more time we need more time well that's the way it felt to me in the steering for sure yes m so I also I have a conflict on Thursday nights so yeah

038I could only be there from 4: to 5: so I don't know I mean I'm fine if we just have I could be there when I can be there if we have like a co-chair person you know what I mean I'm okay with that so I just I'm kind of throwing that idea out there yeah I don't know if that's possible to remember well we definitely will have a district person leading so you'll have a co-lead and a district um leader so it certainly would work if you could only come to some of them I think what we wanted is to make sure that you all had at least some opportunity to see the work of the planning teams and participate in those even if you can't be at all of them um but if

039again if your preference is to be at all of them um we're certainly open to a different timeline if you want to propose one sorry um so other questions on that so um so my understanding is that each team would have a co-lead and that there would be information available to the not only the co-leaders but the teams so that they come prepared to that meeting and then what what the purpose of that meeting is then to facilitate the um the work right so that there's something that comes out of that time that then can help inform the rest of this yeah the majority of the facilitation will be done by us you know we'll facilitate in a large group and then give them work time to um to go through kind of like the

040tasks of each meeting what the where the the leads of the group really are helpful is kind of helping work through those tasks and um we we oftentimes assign we give you like different roles that people can play in those groups and so just um helping to make sure that people are taking on those responsibil abilities that flagging us if there if you need more support um often times we will connect with team leads in between the meetings just to say how did it go do you need more on this should we spend more time here um so there's not a lot of facilitation it's more so you know working with that small group making sure they've got the support they need and kind of pushing them through the process okay so what do we

041think about the timeline or do we have an alternative suggestion Mrs Oaks so I know it's not a popular thing to have more meetings than necessary but I personally and I'm just one board member but I personally want to do this right I'd rather have another time where we actually meet to make sure that as board members we all have the opportunity to be involved and a part of the process especially since there's been some public questioning as to you know strategic planning what is it all about I I would like to be able to personally answer as a board member I was there I saw how this went I saw how everyone participated that it was parent driven and and um so that's my opinion I would be open to the idea of adding

042another date kind of like what Shelby was suggesting in order to make sure we do this well so other thoughts Mrs nbow I would I would agree with that and and it would be nice as board members to know who can be when because the Wednesdays I can't do I know Amber said the Thursday she can't do I see Steve shaking his head no so I'm not sure what what that indicates but I I do agree with Miss Oaks I think especially with the current climate in our district and and um in an effort to help um the parents feel well represented and that we are very cognizant of everything that's going on I think it's really crucial that a board member is in each of the meetings at least one and so um I

043would agree with that if we can come up with alternative dates that work for the board members too um is is a Tuesday the possibility like the 15th and 16th of that same week at the Monday and Tuesday does that clear people's conflicts how does I'll have to check our team's travel calendars but but um if if if those are the dates you'd like me to look at I certainly can I can look at it tonight and then and then um for the next one would be well either the 29th and 30th or the 6th and 7th of December 29th of and 30th of November well actually the 30th we have a board meeting so it would need to be the sixth and 7th if we did them Monday Tuesday I have a conflict the

044of the 7th um but well it's at 7 o'clock actually so I'd be fine I could do it from four to seven and and I do believe that the four to seven time is probably the most um compatible with people's schedules generally and I know um I I think that clarine is available yeah at least generally after at four o'clock or after yeah so can I say that back to you so the uh 15th and 16th of November which is a Monday and Tuesday and the sixth and 7th of December which is also a Monday and Tuesday okay great I can definitely check those uh dates tonight and let you know okay and then and then board um so then the question is um if we have 10 planning teams seven board members that means

045three of us would need to be assigned to two planning teams and be able to um go back and forth between those two planning teams I personally am okay with that I feel like I could cover cover the ground um but I would like to know what the rest of you think about that idea Mrs Oaks I'm happy doing more than one too anyone else yeah I'm I'm fine with I sh was shaking my head because trying to get seven people schedul together BU as we are as almost impossible I do encourage if we move that direction and set it that we don't change it again because somebody else goes on vacation or something um you know I so I don't know it depends I guess you'd have to Nancy sort of see if everybody

046wants to do it I'd say we draw spross if nobody wants to do it then we ask people to do this moving back and forth uh but I I think that maybe maybe you have to send out an email to the the board and ask their interest and if you have just three people spond saying that then we solved it if you have four or five you may want to draw straws who El I mean how else would you do it right I I think what we do is just ask each board member to respond with maybe their first and second and third choice maybe of the 10 items and then ask yes or no are you willing to take on two teams and then we'll kind of figure it out depending on how that

047response comes back makes sense okay okay so I think we we got through my question and got through that information and does anyone else have questions or comments about this process or what these next steps are anything else superintendent do you have anything to add Mr Wrigley we were just talking here a little bit um our Dei initiative is a little bit different as we're going about it I don't know if there's a different way to name that some people won't know what di means other people may assume it's something that we're not doing I don't know Dr Robin is there different form different that we're talking about and because I know our methodology of doing that different than what ti has done doing yeah I mean traditionally you know it stands as as dni

048not D what did we have it is it did we have it as dni it's Dei de so maybe there's some consideration or discussion there the way sunlight works is has coded that as is diversity and inclusion not diversity Equity inclusion just just a different term more adequately reflects that we were talking about with the direction we're heading they they don't have the e in the middle so I mean that's something that we might consider because I know just the word Equity we've used it for years been sort of questioned by putting equity in a docum so maybe we want to clarify what we're actually doing um possibly just spell it out that would probably help too for the late person one less acronym for people to try and understand everyone feel comfortable with that

049DN dni would line up with what the it is equity's built into that because it's built off of equity and action in 277 328 so it's not missing but the way they're titling that initiative is diversity and inclusion that's what I would keep it at then it's consistent across both right we can do that that'd be my recommendation everyone comfortable with that okay and so um so just to recap you would like board members to submit nominations of people that they feel would be um an asset to this stage of the process and to submit that to you in the form that the Google form and that um I you know I think um in regards to Mrs neyow's question about duplicates um there's let's um not only could board members look at the list

050but I think if as as you or the project team are going through the list and you notice duplicates um more sooner than later as soon as that's noticed maybe contact the board member that submitted that one and let them know that there's a a duplicate and if they could come up with some others but then also I think um board members could submit several names that could be considered for Alternatives um to each of the te teams because um at this point um we're where we're being very specific with our date and time it just might not work for some individuals so so we would want to be able to have others that then we could quickly invite so that we don't um uh so that as much time can be given to each

051of the participants as possible to plan and especially if there's information that will be coming out prior to the meeting for them to review and prepare for yeah Mr Wrigley I'm thinking as we look for people I don't know if there's a way in these different areas you could just give a brief statement of the qualities you may be looking for in that person or the the scope that they're doing so as I said you just don't want me to give five random names or whatever to you but you want people that really will fit into that so if I know specifically what you'll be addressing and the the types of individuals you think need to do then I could start looking for that individual uh that might be more beneficial than just knowing somebody

052that does something and throwing them in there okay Mrs Nar also I think it would be helpful to have some material for everyone to review prior to the meeting um defining what it is how we came to that that focus and then you know any if there's if there's going to be a lot of material at the meeting I know that was something Cline's not here today but that's something she mentioned at the last strategic planning meeting is is she would have liked to have been able to read through all of that PR so and I think that will help also the parents that are invited because maybe I mean just just right now when we're talking about that acronym I think you know in leas there's so many acronyms that um you know there'll

053be maybe parents that don't feel adequately prepared to have a conversation and whereas you know District employees and others they're experts in the field and they're very comfortable and and so it might be nice to help the parents feel a little more comfortable and prepared prepared to be able to talk about it too yeah okay thank you any any other thoughts or questions okay so Shela you'll confirm that those dates work for your team and then and then we will confirm that they will work um for for board members and I will I will um poll the board members to find out which which team they're interested in and and then get that information to you as soon as I have it okay okay that sounds great thank you again anything else thank you thank

054you so much for being here of course see you guys okay see you okay thank you that that concludes um that item and what a great update and this is I don't know about you guys but it's kind of exciting to be thinking about this upcoming work that's happening um next item on the study session is long range planning committee update I will turn time over to Mr Mr Leon Wilcox business [Music] administrator thank you president tingi uh couple items one we got a lot of time and two only have one bad joke uh since it's since the weather is changing outside uh what do you call an old snowman water okay okay I that's [Laughter] that's I said that not bad he he's struggling because the Raiders handed it to the bronos so still

055call that out just for what it is yeah 31 to7 at the first quarter or something I don't know anyway hey thank you uh uh board for giving us a few minutes we have you know we spent so much the last year and a half focusing on the short term with Co and and keeping our schools open that we haven't spent a great deal of time in our long range planning committees but we have been meeting a little bit making sure we try to stay on top of all the issues that do do arise uh again so we didn't meet a couple weeks ago and just most everyone is aware it's uh Holly Amber and Mont on the committee so we went over some of these things and we have a a few more things

056that we will be looking to go over in the coming months just so we aware three things we want to just talk about today would be uh uh uh diamond ridge transition in the Bell viw building our October one enrollments and Trends and then the Midville Elementary School boundary update and then finally some future topics that we'll look be looking at as a committee uh one of the things that we've always said is that when the Glacier Hills Building is complete uh of course it will combine with EDG BW and Edgemont will combine to form the new GLA Hills apparently we're having an unbelling of the mascot name this week but I cannot I don't know the name yet so uh but uh just so you know a Glacier Hills is still still on schedule

057to be completed by next August now we're facing lots of supply chain issues worker shortage issues with our contractor but we still think we're on schedule to make that happened and same with Peruvian Park uh as you know we're also building a little Youth Academy to the out to the east side of that we've always said that would not be completed until the end of December uh you know if for whatever reason these issues escalate the supply chain issues we may have to look back at the bringing when we can move in there but uh that's where but right now we are scheduled to be on time getting that building uh prepared for next August it's always been Our intention I think we' talk this to you a few times that we would like to

058convert that DeBell viw building into our new diamond ridge uh you know the housing over at the CC Center is complicated with all the Portables out there with the parking and then trying to house inada our our H senior Youth Academy and diamond ridge along with the tech center all on one campus has been problematic for and we've known talked about this at times over the last four or five years years and they've all been there so we'd like to move the diamond ridge into the bellie building and TR would also go and the uh Youth Academy for high school kids would also go as well so only that would be at the tech center would be ctech we'll have to look at bringing this in and retrofitting that building in two phases uh one

059is the summer of 2022 this upcoming summer we like to look at the front entrance and making Counseling Center then also converting the restrooms and creating a shower and laundry area for the students uh part of the problem we have in dealing with a short summer you know basically our summer is only 10 weeks this is actually quite a bit of work so whether or not we be able to move them over on the first day of school around August 15 we'll have to remains to be seen but that is Our intention is to get them over as soon as possible then then in the summer of 2023 a year out we'd like to look at converting making some science labs we need those art class rooms a fax classroom a preschool area we may

060even have a summer a phase in summer of 2024 as well uh what we've promised the Bell viw school and the bell viw Community is that we won't do any remodeling this year while those you know elementes kids are there so we so obviously we have to wait till the school's out to all this information or updates there uh you know this is something we'd like for you to discuss we would like the board to approve this move uh to make that a formal move again that's our recommendation I think it's the committee's recommendation that diamond ridge do moves over and occupies that Belleview Building it will be called the diamond ridge building of course then uh you know OB would ask for that at the next board meeting if that's possible we have selected

061an architect to do these Renovations with us and we bring that to you as well H the next board meeting which is November 9th I'll just stop there that's the only slide there is there any questions about about the board approving that at the next meeting and any questions about that uh Mr Wrigley so a couple questions about that what do you how many students do we expect that building to be able to house good question right now we have roughly 100 at uh diamond ridge I could see diamond ridge you know we've talked about getting up to two or 300 I think it could hold 400 if we needed it I don't think we'll ever need to go that high we want to make sure we meet the needs of our current students so

062we still have students over in Jordan attending in Jordan's not very many just a hand there's a handful be welcome back the classrooms are smaller but I've noticed the diamond ridge classroom are quite small to begin with begin with yeah we don't think that will be an issue because they're smaller class sizes and would they need a gym they have a gym but would they need that is the issue that when we say the summer 2024 that's the issue we have there is how do we get in gym space you know they have the cafeteria of course but that is the big issue there we're going to try to do they've suggested pickle ball you know pickle ball is going to be a big thing right now of course and so we'll certainly paint that's

063one of the things we'll do this summer is paint pickle ball lines out there but yeah they have plenty of space I mean as far as the land there's lots of land to put stuff in if we need to and I suspect that we put in the the parking so that should be okay on that parking area if you remember we did that Park we bought a home over there we did the parking lot about three four summers ago so we think we're okay there if we needed to expand parking we could expand it out on the grass going north on the grass on the east side of the building I think we could easily spend more stalls what's going to be the plan to sort of present this after we do this or even

064before to the community so that we can get community buyin in White City on this we have told White City you know this was back white it's been quite a while uh we have told White City that this was going to be our Our intention of moving this this school over there we're happy to do take any direction that you'd like yeah don't know I don't we may want to talk with white City and see how we could introduce that to the community to let them know that we're moving in a a high school small High School whatever yeah they you know some of the concerns we have heard it's you know obviously kids drive there most of them drive and so they're worry about the speeding up and down seagull Lily always a concern

065uh We've also heard that they don't want us to sell it you know they want us to keep it open space we've always said said that is not our intention to sell that property so yeah yeah and the other one is is this white city has talked a little about dealing with UTA we may want to start discussion with UTA about a bus line yeah that they could do I mean white city has been looking their master plan to have a bus line go up Sly yeah would that'd be great from the track stop down by Jordan high up yeah I mean since a lot of our students come in there it's a little bit closer but so anyway that might be something to consider as we do as the UTA line thank you other

066questions Mrs shill I just wanted to add that when we did have our planning meeting um Dr Dow was there and he said that really is a need for adding more students there maybe up to three or 400 that we're really not meeting the need right now so it's important for us to get a bigger space we're confined to the roughly the hundred we have and that's been our enrollment at diamond ridge for last four or five years is 100 G or take because that's all we can accommodate there but yeah we could double that triple that yeah and it would probably be a phase in as we remodel the building too I don't I suspect next year we'll probably still start with close to the 100 but you know four or five years we

067could be in that 300 or so ranging so um just a Qui question again on timeline if if there was a delay in the Glacier Hills Building um this this would all just be push back delayed pushed back again obviously we're gonna move glacer Hills in when it's done if it's August as we anticipate and as we're scheduled that's when it will be done moved in if it's October we'll move them in in October there obviously so uh move them out of the biew kids will still have to stay at biew and they'll still the Edgemont students will still have to stay down there at the uh at the Crescent View building yeah but we are like I say we got a good jump on Glacier Hills by moving those students out about two months

068earlier last spring so that that that helps that has helped immensely because we were able to knock down the building it's always easier to build on the clean site that we have have that's not the issue the issue is just the supply chain of materials yeah moving on to uh and we'll of course keep the board updated as we get into the winter and the spring on both Peruvian Park and Glacier Hills moving into our October one counts we do enrollment counts on a regular basis monthly basis if not and sometimes even multi- times a month each year but we always focus on one is that's the October one count because that's how our funding is based so we it's based on average daily membership of the prior plus any new growth on from October

069one to October one of each year so that's why October one's always the point in time that I always like to look at each year so the the bad news that you know we have is we're down about 230 students from last year and so since last two years from two years ago we're down pushing a thousand students which is you know concerning very concerning to me you know as the trying to balance the budget that's a huge thing that were based off funding or for wpus and our students and you can see the counts on for each School type Elementary is down the biggest then middle schools up a little bit in high schools and and are non-traditional that' be diamond ridge and Jordan Valley and in trod are the main ones there you

070can see us basically the same uh on board you can see a fiveyear history including this year of trends at each School based on the October one counts so that's on board dos there and you can see where we've come and where we've gone again two years ago we were 34,200 so again close to that thousand down very concerning we thought we'd have a little bit of a bounce back here this year uh I also like to dig in being the numbers I also like to dig in the numbers from one year to the next and see grades I always pay attention to kindergarten is a big one again we're down last year to this year about 37 kindergarteners and then you can also see first graders as well uh some of the other ones

071very close U but and also 12th graders were down so I'm always concerned of seeing what is the trend there what is the situation with these I also liked again this is on board like I also like to look at grades last year to this year so kindergart last year's kindergarteners would be this year's first graders and then going across so we did pick up you know 130 students so I'm thinking people some parents keep their kindergarten home last year first grade this year right and so those numbers are pretty well across the board one of the things that's always happened in our district is that grade eight last year to grade nine this year that is the charter schools usually in the Draper area uh whose kids go K8 Charter Schools but then go

072to Corner Canyon for high school okay so that's typically that around that 200 is usually what we see every year with that but then a big one that I'm always concerned about is you know our 10th and 11th graders last last year 11th and 12th graders this year why that numbers down that's that's that's concerning and of course that impacts our graduation right right there so we obviously try to figure out how these these all work in uh here's just an overview Canyon's online course starting it's its own School this year we had 392 students 259 in elementary K through 5 133 and 6 7th and eth on we show the boundary school for each one of these so it was every B every school in every School boundary we had some in all 29

073elementaries we had some online at least four excuse me at least two and I think that was only one school most of them were more than five I think average would be around seven uh and then in same with the middle schools we showed again we showed where those was 133 or students are coming from now keep in mind they may not always go to their boundary school they may permit to another school but that is something that we always look at there again the biggest number there the outlier I saw was we had 37 in the Midville middle boundary who are who are going online the others fairly consistent across uh elementary schools with a large increase we had Mid Valley we always like to see that new again the new building and the

074new DLI program Spanish there right that has really helped out there so they're up uh 59 students Copperview had a nice little bump again some of that development uh out there by where the Ford dealership used to be probably contributing to that uh then Oakdale a nice bump as well some of those with the large decreases again most of them most of our elementaries had large decreases Oak Hollow I was that's where my boy goes uh I told him he I make sure he takes a shower every day but we still we're still down 87 students there uh and then you can see down 57 at Sandy 55 at Peruvian Park that may have something to do with you know Peruvian being in the Crescent View building this year Oak Hollow had the most elementary

075kids online 19 but still but still be down quite a bit so uh all eight middle schools had decreases uh your Jordan led the way by 74 then Draper Park of course some all set by The Canyons online enrollment for those but still they were still down overall Hill crust and brigh had a nice nice bumps there I think we're picking up some kids in other districts permitting in in in those two areas so again not having the buildings getting finished up also helped but we dropped there in Jordan we've just continually dropped last last couple years and same had a little drop there at Alta as well uh one of the things I always look at is our birth rate here it's from 2007 to 2019 the last information we have you can sign

076the SE from the 2007 on down a slight decrease I like to look at basically that 2014 line and you can just see a slight decrease down in most of our of our six zip codes there the you know it's not dramatic in any one area but if you take out 20 30 40 verst in each one that starts to add up and again the students who were born in 2014 2015 would be our incoming kindergarteners first graders right so that those are concerns and now we know the state's birth rate has gone down and it's below replacement level right now the nation's rate is down so that's always always concerning we'll have to see the impact of Co again this is only through 19 we know we have heard that the 20 and 21

077is down but expected to come back in 22 so we'll see there but those are numbers that we track any questions on enrollments there move to the last questions anyone um I I had a thought so so 259 students um elementary students for K5 do we know which school areas they reside yeah on boards there's a sheet okay if you look there is that on that is on board dos right okay uh it's it's the third page you can see where they reside again o Hollow had the most at 19 Rich Crest had 17 and then Sprucewood with 15 but overall it was in that s eight most them in that 78 range so nothing I didn't see really a big anomaly so so kind of spread throughout the district all 29 had at least

078two but that was only one school that had two everybody else had four or more so again in that 78 range for each school thank you Mr Wrigley are we looking in as an Administration to try to figure out what may be the trends I I'm wondering if part of this group left because they went into online I'm wondering if part of the group left because they went into home school what what T yeah we're going to look at I've asked Floyd to pull our homeschool affidavits to compare from one year to the next not everybody files an affidavit with us right so that is one we also look at make sure our Charter Schools you know we haven't got their data yet for this October one count most of those were down last year

079too so we'll look and compare that as well I I still think it's going back to this birth rate I think that's the biggest contributor right there well I think the problem has been is most of the homes in this area are getting priced out yeah for young families to move into at the cost of the homes and so I think you're seeing people that are more seasoned staying yeah and people that have higher incomes moving in and they may have older kids yeah exactly yeah which is a real going to be sort of an interesting dilemma in the future is a average price home in in 2021 was 500 thou just under 500,000 and many areas above that in the district so that prices out a lot of people that makes it difficult yeah

080and I think we'll get a lot of people from California moving in and they tend to have a lower birth rate in some cases some cases yes so are the other districts sort of having the same issue are you again I haven't got grow because the some are I know Alpine I talked Alpine's the only one I've talked to and they said they were way up they were actually down last year but they were way up this year they have a lot of grow Saratoga west side of Utah Lake a lot of growth out there so they got 3,000 housing permits opened right now where we have less probably less than a hundred in our district yet thank you Holly I I think that youth wave has a has a a large part of this

081um addiction I also wonder too with our home values if some of those folks too are opting to do private schools because they may fall more into that category where that's an option where it's other you know so that might be something to two of the largest private schools in our in our boundaries here yeah we'll move on if there's any other questions to the last topic I had was a the Elementary boundary update one of the things that we uh wanted to do is we postponed this for a year and one of the and we've postponed this bringing this to you till now and then taking out to the community is a couple reasons one we have a new principal at CER viw and another new one at Mid Valley and we wanted them

082to get familiar with their new schools and their communities right and we also have a new director of student advocacy Wendy da and so we wanted her to get familiar with her position and the community and you know the students that that her Department highly serves so we waited till now to bring these proposals to you uh also one of the things that has precipitated any boundary adjustments in the Midville area was Jordan Bluffs it's just developed slower than anticipated right now we have about 65 K5 students there only you know a year ago we were around 40 4 45 so just not growing as fast and if you saw on our enrollments Midville is actually one of those schools that's down qu quite a bit in enrollment uh but this is our plan moving

083forward we'd like to to look at holding some sec's and Community meetings in the next couple months they would start in November to January again we're going to bring in the principles next week and go over a couple options with them and then take it out to the sec's and the ptas and then just some Community meetings at large November through January fill that Co it's kind of getting to the point where we can hold these safe safer that way we may look at some virtual ones if needed uh would any proposals I say any possible because there is a chance we may not have any proposals we bring back to the board in February to April time frame for you to have a public hearing which is required and then before you can uh

084adopt anything and then any change that would take place would be in the 23 24 school year nothing would change for next school year because we feel like all our buildings have ample capacity again the four schools in Midville that'd be East Midville uh Midville coppper viiew and Mid Valley again when as we look at this moving forward our Focus will always be on the students and their families and how to best make sure we support and serve them couple of things that we'd like to look at though is try to maintain and improve Midville status you know they're out of turnaround we need to keep them that way and we know Carper viws in Focus we can't have them go down we need them to go up so we we're concerned about that we

085gota make sure that's a a key thing moving forward we'd also like to we need to keep Carper viws enrollment basically at its current levels or even down a little bit based on just the building capacity there it's just not going to be able to hold again we're around 425 students they not going to be able to hold too many more than that so we'll need to keep that at that level we would like to increase mid valleys we talked about that them being up 87 students but we know they can go up to over 700 with the new building and the new program and we'd like to fill that building more we'd also like to look at keeping Jordan Bluffs in one community school last year we brought forth a couple proposals where we

086looked at splitting the bless and we didn't like you know as we got looking we didn't like that we heard some feedback that was not real popular so we have have decided not to really pursue those and consider those Zion long they just don't seem to be viable moving forward and then we also like to look at balancing options in the Northwest area between East Midville and Midville if we could there may not be an opportunity to do that so right now we have three options out there we had again we mentioned option one and two uh but uh I'll just briefly update you with these and when we take these to the community option one and area well part one and two are the same in all three options nothing changes there so we

087call this little one of this would be again focusing on Carper view in Mid Valley we'll take this little cone shape here on the east side of State Street and move that into the mid Valley boundaries again the just so you're aware of these Maps the orange line are the current boundaries and then with the colors are the proposed so right there we look at taking that cone out moving that into Mid Valley and then we like that idea one of the reason we really like that is because State Street is the boundary between Midville middle and Union so it just draws a natural you know line there most of these students there's about 140 elementary students there do not actually attend coer you only about about 40 do most of them go to either

088Sandy or East Sandy about 10 of them go over to Mid Valley right now so really don't you know I don't know how many would get to Mid Valley but it shouldn't impact it take Carper viw down somewhat then the other thing that is the same is item two and these are the Avenues here in Midville okay you're familiar with that again this would be Main Street right here in Midville this Orange Line uh we'd like this one because kids can just come down these sidewalks again under the freeway which is all sidewalked and then Rock wide right into the uh into the Midville elementary school elementary school which is right there of course the Middle School is right there as well so when they're in middle school they walk and we feel like this

089just makes sense looking at that option as well uh then there's two other options in this two other items in this one we would consider and that would be number three it we take this section here which is uh in Midville and we'd move those over to East Midville and we'd offset that with this section right here and move that which is in East Midville move that down into Midville we don't know about those we want to get some Community feedback and principal feedback about those too right there but that's our option three here's our option four please ignore that it says 4 a but it's option four again items one and two still remain the same this little cone shape here in the Avenues again we look at just keeping this area in Midville

090which it is right now but also move this area over from East Midville into Midville I'm not sure about that one because I think that may get midb a little too crowded so I'm a little hesitant on that one right now but we that still may be an option that we we could look at and keep in mind there could be other little offshoots of these options come about as we move forward from the community the last one was option five again that should be five not 4B but again and that's just the two things that's just the uh the coppper viiew cone area here moving that to Mid Valley and taking the Avenues into M into Midville everything else Remains the Same with between uh East Midville and Midville and so uh I guess

091there's always an option six and that is we could just hold and do nothing but as a committee we kind of think that these two may be worth really pursuing long term we think that's better to get more students into Mid Valley and make it easier for these students in the Avenues to attend mid bill again we'll get more input on that as we bring that back but that's the the options that we have right now is there any questions um questions board Mr Wigley busing on which option I guess would be cost effective with busing and stuff some of them from no no going all the way and down could be extreme we' have to bus wouldn't we or not so this one here just if you look here these students we B have

092to bus across State Street anyway you know there's just no safe walk there we was still have to bust these over to Mid Valley the reason being they actually have to walk all the way up here there's no direct route over here to Mid Mid Valley they actually have to walk clear up here and over and then down so we're still busting them either way this group of students right here these group of students would probably walk you know it's sidewalk and safe walking route they'll bust up to Midbell East Midbell so there could be a little savings there and then we would look at you know these areas here if we it went with option three we'd have to you know obviously these are we'd have to bus these students we'd have to look

093at that too but it's probably equal because we're doing some busing anyway but yeah that weigh into it yeah Mr Shi so are so are you going to take all these options out to the communities and then get feedback and then they'll bring that back to us but just these three right now the option one and two that we had we don't think we'll take those out it's okay they w real popular okay so just these three these three but we want to emphasize there could be something generated once we take it out okay great any other questions or comments on this part of the report just so you know we did Mt and I actually met with the month ago we met with the mid Val SEC and they seem to be supportive of

094this again they're we just talked their school and they you know that's con shape is in their moves to their school in all three areas they seem to be supportive of that when we address that to a month ago so and then just some future things that we would like to consider uh we have done an FCI you know facilities conent condition index for all the buildings we'd like to review that Community we also want to perform a structural study of all our older buildings the last one we did was in 2011 so we would just want to go back and look at these buildings and just reassess their structure uh the structure on them now we won't be doing the new ones you know we won't be doing it the Brighton or the Hill

095Crest or Mid Valley or even Draper park or even some of these that we've done the last 10 years we know they're fine but these older ones we'd like to look at that so we plan on bringing that purchasing bid to you as the board in either the in one of the November meetings either the 9th or the 30th when we have it completed uh we're also looking at long-term improvements for transportation we know that's we're almost sure that's going to be the lowest rated building once we figure out our FCI that is our oldest building and also Eastmont we have done some things there and have a few things planned we talked a little bit about Crescent View over the years on what that building could be used for uh the West Draper Elementary

096School is you again the last project on our on our 2017 Bond we still need to talk about a possible timeline uh the present development and student impact there again a big article in the newspaper over the week over the weekend on on that again it still sounds like they're ready to move the pr in this summer we'll have to wait and see we don't know what their timeline is on construction with the new prison and also some c tech issues improvements we'd like to see there and then any other boundaries that are out there you know there's we think there's a few little things we'd like to look at maybe cleaning up in some areas as well we haven't discussed anything at length but we'll be open to so any board members have questions

097or they could able bring it to us or bring it to someone on the committee so any questions any any questions Mrs Oaks I know in the climate today that this is probably Falls at the bottom of the priority list but I have had people recently in my area ask about um if long range planning can take a look at um sports facilities for the two high schools that don't have indoor um yeah indoor turf and specifically um at corer Canyon they have a number of people who have offered to pay for bubble to put over the tennis court so that their team and actually other teams within the district could utilize those facilities so I don't know everything that entails and I I know you have a lot that the committee looks at but

098I'm wondering if we could add that to the list yeah not sure okay thanks other thoughts Mrs nbar this is something we can talk about more in the committee work as well but um and my school visit to Corner Canyon I had one of the principles pull me over that we have some issues with our fields and I don't know how how aware you are of this but the girls soccer field with um retention of water not draining properly we is that something been an issue for some time yeah yeah to work on that I'll have to see where they're where we're at yeah I yeah I took a little tour and I know we had a a visiting team that refused to play on the field AF and so then they relocated to Draper

099Park field but just something that we probably need to discuss as far as improvements and draining of water um and along those lines the we do have a process for small capital projects which will probably be coming you you'll be putting that those suggestions and ideas together in the next few months yeah we'll look at bringing that to one of the November meetings either the N maybe the 30th but yeah okay we do have a tenative list that we're working towards right now great thank you Mrs shill okay since we have extra time I two weekends ago I was in Washington Vancouver Washington and we went entor um this really cool high school and it's called um Henrietta LAX health and bioscience high school it's like a specialty High School where they they just have

100five programs of study and it's like nursing and Patient Care Pharmacy Public Health biotechnology biomedical engineering anyway I just thought it was super cool it's a small you know just like 600 students anyway it's just an idea for the crestal building I mean I know we have lots of ideas but when I went to Tor I was like wow this is really cool and they're the only High School like that in their state anyway and it it's just a cool idea I thought I'd throw it out there since we have time but I went and toward it and yeah it's amazing they have yeah anyway they have lots of cool stuff for the Kids Hands-On stuff so thank you Mrs Oaks speaking of which and I don't know if this is a question for Leon

101or the superintendent but um when we've had conversations about what's going to happen with the prison site in the future and what that means for you know do we do an early college high school do we you know like what are we going to do as ctech all of those things I'm curious and and we've talked about the fact that that would dovetail into strategic planning we just had Shelby here and I feel bad that she's not here to answer to this but I'm wondering where we can fit that discussion in to our committee um meetings and discussions I I feel like some of that um will be less likely to be well addressed by parents who might not know what the you know some of the resources we have or challenges we have in

102specific areas but I want to make sure that we don't lose out on that opportunity to have those conversations yeah I just to speak to that um part partially uh Amanda so couple of things that are on my mind one is that our Esser funds uh expire in 2024 so you can see uh with this influx of federal money and then that uh expiring and our enrollment count where it is strategically thinking about the future and how we attract students into the district to me that all enters into that conversation right so whether that ends up being a comprehensive Elementary or a K8 Magnet or a Early College pathway you know stem uh I I hope at some point we you know going back to Amber's point you know visiting something like that or Lowden

103County Academy I mean there are facilities out there that that you know build off of this and you saw in the feedback The Early College Pathways was also part of that you know those priorities so so yes and yes I I I would definitely see this fitting into strategic planning uh this spring and I also think part of that would be just thinking design wise you know how we might go about marketing uh our schools and thinking about how we attract students from outside the district into Canyons I would put our programs and Facilities up against any private or public uh I frankly don't think we do a very good job of getting that out there to recruit because it's kind of taboo but it's becoming more and more competitive you know for students so

104I think thinking outside the box and how we might you know design that approach as the strategic Vision unfold so um and I I think that's inclusive with our comprehensive high schools and uh CCH as well you know thinking about the future and what that offers our students so all the above yeah and and I see that fitting into the planning team about access to postsecondary Pathways is is where I see it fitting other thoughts or questions okay well thank you very much Mr Willcox thank you all right well we have a little bit of a break now so we'll excuse the board and we will reconvene please be here and ready to begin right at 7 o'clock thank you good evening everyone welcome to the business meeting of the Canyon's Board of Education today

105is October 19th 2021 and we are meeting at the district office located at 9361 South East in Sandy Utah um we are great F that so many of you have joined us this evening and we thank you for your engagement and um just just by way of announcement there are a couple of overflow rooms so please find one of our um the district administrators that can help direct you to where the Overflow rooms are okay the first item on our agenda is to approve the agenda for tonight October 19th 2021 I will ask for a motion to do that I'll make the motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting thank you is there a second to that [Music] motion I'll second it thank you any discussion to this motion seeing none I will ask

106for a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed that motion passes thank you uh next we will be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Lone Peak Elementary principal Tracy Stacy and then um principal Stacy will share school highlights from of Lone Peak Elementary to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all oh there we go thank you thank you uh community members members of the district and members of the board I'm honored to be able to speak about Lone Peak Elementary tonight and highlight some of the great happenings at our school sorry one of the items I'm most proud about at at Lone Peak Elementary is our ability as a staff to problem solve

107to meet the needs of students this has helped create some very unique Solutions which benefit benefit all students this year when faced with an age shortage we sat as a building leadership team looking at data and trying to determine how to support all students with their learning needs without four of our instructional AIDS during the meeting there were many discussions and what if we try questions finally we were able to place AIDS where we most needed them and Cassie Walker our btsa visual arts teacher throughout the idea of using some of our booster teachers to support where they could this resulted in some pretty amazing interventions and extensions for our students some examples of these are in fifth grade our drama instructional technician is working with students needing a reading extension these students are rewriting

108a portion of the Odyssey uh involving the Cyclops to create a play set at our school in modern times in second grade students are learning about interpreting word problems in math in an art extension they are creating game boards and pieces to solve math problems and as a followup in drama the students are creating advertisements to justify why their game represents that word problem and then they're asked to solve the word problem these are only a few examples of teamwork and creativity to solve a problem for the benefit of our students it's due to the hard work collaboration and schoolwide support of each other that my staff is able to do such an amazing amazing job I could provide endless examples of their Collective work it's happening in every grade level in every pod in

109every PLC it's critical for us to remember that every day our educators are putting forth efforts such as these for students thank you for allowing me these few moments to honor our incredible staff at Lone Peak Elementary schoolk thank you and please you are now unmuted okay now I'll talk um no um please extend our appreciation to your staff that's amazing and we just know how very dedicated they are and uh we appreciate it so please let them know thank you thank you okay next we will turn over to Jeff Haney and Kirsten Stewart from the Communications Department for recognitions president tingy thank you for this time to recognize the achievements of students faculty and staff in the Canyon school district for our recognitions tonight we are honoring Rockstar coaches and science teachers and a

110nationally ranked tennis a ace who goes to Brighton High School those who are mentioned tonight will receive a letter of recom uh Commendation from the Board of Education and the superintendent our first honory tonight is Hardy Owen from Brighton High School he's the tennis Ace that we talked about last year Brighton's tennis Ace Hardy carried on a family tradition by winning the 5A first singles boys T championship in Domin ating fashion now his Encore performance has been even more impressive he recently earned victories in both singles and doubles at a United States tennis Association National attor in aaho Hawaii now simply competing in this tournament is an honor draws are limited to just 32 players many of whom are in college or protour bound now rare is it that a player from Utah and the

111inner mountain region is selected to play let alone win now it's his perseverance and hard work that's credited through injuries and cancelled tournaments because of covid-19 but he has skyrocketed up the rankings in the USA as far as number three in the nation for all players 18 and under but now he's ranked number 26 in the country in his age group and he is considered a festar recruit with offers from BYU the University of Utah and the University of Las Vegas so congratulations to Hardy Owen who won a national tournament in the USA and uh we're crossing our fingers that he'll bring home another State title for Brighton High School and Canyon school district so congratulations to Hardy then the next uh Honore is the Utah high school activities association's coach of the year for

112boys lacrosse Arona from Corner Canyon High School now the charger coach has been selected as the top coach for the boys lacrosse teams now the the Char charger team uh won its first ever trophy for boys lacrosse but it was also the first season in Utah where they played from the beginning into the end of the season the first season of Lacrosse was cut short because of the covid-19 pandemic we were pleased to report that both ala and Corner Canyon brought home state trophies in that first year of Lacrosse and Utah Prep sports now the Corner Canyon team has skyrocketed in popularity and skill the boys lacrosse team not only won the first ever State title but also was nationally ranked at the end of the year last year in the title game uh the

113Chargers won 20-13 over Park City now Aaron's name has now been submitted to the National Federation of State High School associations for possible further honors at the sectional and National level so congratulations to Erin he is the High School Activities Association coach of the year for boys Lacross our next honores also are from Corner Canyon High School they have blinded the Chargers with science the Utah science teacher association's 2021 High School science department of the year is From Corner Canyon High School now this award will be presented to the teachers at the association's conference on October 25th in Provo we applaud the hard work and dedication of Joshua cram Vanessa Fravel RJ green Garrett hone Jonathan crra Chris mcpr Taylor WT George pekman Steve Reed and Devon Shield and the Corner Canyon High Administration so

114congratulations to the science teachers at Corner Canyon High School they make up the department of the Year from the Utah science teacher associations and our next honory is Brighton High's girls lacrosse coach Melissa Nash she was named as the favorite coach of the year now this was a prolook sports contest it was a popularity contest but her popularity scored the Bengal girl lacrosse team $225,000 in product from prolook Sports Plus $1,000 cash after the N Nationwide vote was talled on October 6th which was National coaches day coach Nash walked away as the big winner she was nominated by the public for the honor and the voting was open from October 1st to October 5th so congratulations to coach Nash and the Bengals for winning that prolook Sports competition which can't wait to see what they

115get from prolook I'm sure it'll spruce up all of their team look for the upcoming season also best of luck to Alta High School on Friday in the first round of the 5A football playoffs the Hawks play uint Brighton High School the region Champs will play orm in the first round and Corner Canyon High ranked number one in 6A won't play until next Wing week having earned a Buy in the first round and also good luck luck to our cross country athletes who have earned a spot to race for State honors the state CrossCountry meet is on October 27th and October 28th the Canyons Education Foundation will have a fund bust that crisscross the district to deliver big checks to teachers who have earned Foundation Innovation grants these grants pay for fun inventive Innovative projects

116that can't be covered by state or federal daughter dollars they will be covered by all of the donations that have been given to the foundation by our community supporters also this Thursday we're unveiling the name of the Yeti the mascot of the new Glacier Hills Elementary School all the students have voted on a name and we're ready to let the community know at a celebration at 5:00 at Belleview on Thursday now if you can't make it to the school where we will have the announcement please watch all of our social media pages and our website where we will unveil the name of the Glacier Hills Yeti president tingy thank you so much for this time to celebrate the achievements of the Canyon's District community and return the time back to you thank you thank you

117very much Mr Haney we we enjoy hearing about all the successes and the things to celebrate that our students and teachers and employees are are doing because we know they all work hard and and good things are happening every day throughout the district so thank you okay we have now come to the PA Patron comment portion of our meeting while not required by law the board often designates time and meetings to listen to the patrons of the district Please be aware that Patron comment time is limited to Residents and taxpayers of Canyon's District students and parents of students and current employees of the district patrons May provide board members with written documents these documents must be submitted to the board secretary at the meeting or emailed to the office of public Communications at communications at

118canyonsdistrict.org by noon of the day following the board meeting um and the board secretary is over here at this desk thank you Cindy time allotted for public comment is at the discretion of the board president this evening we have um many patrons that have um signed up to address the board so each individual will will be given one minute and those representing a group 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 agenda nor engage in public comment on Personnel issues of a District employees character professional competence or mental or physical health if a patron wants to comment on Personnel issues

119the board requests that those comments be submitted to the board in writing however if the patron determines to verbally comment on 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 by 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 contain to Quorum and respect we ask that those in attendance refrain from Applause or other types of demonstrations and because our time is we everyone's time is valuable here um I will read three or four names in a row and I recognize

120that some of these patrons that have signed up may be in one of the Overflow spaces so I will like I said I will read several names ahead and if you hear your name called out please make your way um to the back of the of the boardroom we'll begin with Stacy Peterson and then Rochelle Griffin is on the telephone line and then Jessica Smith and then Jessica strong and please accept my apology if I mispronounce your name and please correct it for the record when it's your turn thank you Miss Peterson thank you been coming to the last several board meetings pleading with you to involve the parents in do citing your curriculum and when Lavar Christensen came last time and um went to the code I thought yeah let's look at the code

121I'm a lawyer let's go look at what the code says and so when I went looking Utah state code 53e you guys probably know this but it was an education for me uh Utah state code section 53e 2201 sub1 subc says parents of the primary responsibility for the education of their children and they elect representatives in the legislature on State and local school boards to administer the state public education system subsection two of that same section says in the implementation of all policies programs and responsibilities adopted in accordance with this code the legislature state board local school boards and Charter School boards shall respect protect and further the interests of parents in their children's public education promote and encourage full and active par participation and involvement of parents of all public schools so it feels

122to me like we should be working together to decide what curriculum is taught we want to work with you we want to be a part of what we're talking about with this especially when we're not when we're talking about social things and emotional things it's the essence of our children we should have the first look and the last word when it comes to this curriculum please involve Us in these decisions thank you thank you okay uh please we we ask for no Applause um so we can get through this relle Griffin is with us on the telephone line and then Jessica Smith Jessica strong and then Jessica Ballard hi I just wanted to thank you for everything you guys do um I wanted to be a voice in favor of the second set curriculum in

123the elementary school um I understand the concerns that have been voiced about second step on the secondary level and I and I agree with those concerns absolutely and I'm happy to see the district taking action according to those concerns um but based on my understanding of the Second Step curriculum for elementary age students I find it entirely appropriate for continued use in our elementary schools um our elementary school kids really really need education and every Elementary School teacher and administrator that I've spoken with think second step is a great curriculum for our elementary aged kids and while I'm totally in favor of um getting rid of it at the secondary level um I'm asking that you consider at least um having second steps go through the elementary schools in order to not waste our money

124our time and the training um theal curriculum in elementary schools um at the very least hopefully we can we can see that the remainder of it is taught through this year I just would hate to see a lapse in theal education um every every year is so important for these elementary school kids GFF education yes thank you thank you your your time is up thank you okay uh Jessica Smith thank you Jessica Smith Jessica strong Jessica Ballard and then Christa Pippen according to Utah code title 53e parents are a child's first teachers and are responsible for the education of their children the selection of education programs in the state of Utah was never intended to be done without the informed consent of the parents we as parents have trusted our elected School Board representatives and

125the hired staff of the school boards to thoroughly review these programs before they are purchased this trust seems to have been misplaced it seems evident that either no review was done or that the reviewers do not have the same values of the parents in the school district in either case a solution is required what we need from you tonight is the clear commitment that you will Lish a quality review process that includes parents from the beginning while we need the advice experience and expertise of our great teachers these decisions must be the result of parents evaluations I do not want Second Step anyone else who agrees with me please stand and let's not forget the Overflow rooms as well we do not want Second Step thank you thank you let's see Cindy did you have

126okay thank you okay uh Jessica strong Jessica Ballard Christa Pippen and Aaron Longacre hello thank you very much for your time today my name is Jessica strong um I'm a parent in the Canyon school district I also have a background in public health and I've worked for the last five years in suicide prevention and mental health for youth um I strongly support seal education um our kids need it our teachers need it we are going through an unprecedented pandemic that has brought stress and anxiety um to the lives of our children and our staff and our teachers and they need support they need resources local data shows that mental distress is up among all ages and now is the time that we need to teach coping skills and resiliency skills to our kids in school

127and at home parents and schools partner together to teach Our Youth and second step is an important program andal is an important curriculum to do this for our kids the district has already paid as much as $300,000 for the second step and I fear that creating a new program will not only be costly it will be time intensive and not be evidence-based second step is an evidence-based program that has proven outcomes that shows um 42% less aggression in Middle Schools 23% reduction in bullying and has shown reduction in conduct problems emotional distress and drug use for students who have participated in this program thank you your time is up thank you very much thank you Jessica Ballard and then Christa Pippen who is representing a group Aaron Longacre also representing a group and then Shandra

128Shandra Brown representa group hi I'm here to talk about SE Second Step as well I can understand why parents and teachers would want to keep it I've spent many hours volunteering in School classrooms and have seen the the challenges teachers and students face I know what it's like to have a child struggling in school I know what it's like to have a child on beh on Behavior contracts and IEPs I know what it's like to get a phone call in the middle of the day from the office to pick up my child because of something they did at school I get their aspects to the Second Step curriculum that may benefit children I can see why some people might want to keep it but a parent doesn't want their child to learn empathy kindness and

129goal setting and to manage their emotions parents should already be teaching these qualities to their children anyway my issue is that this program comes from an activist organization masquerading as e as Educators I agree with all the arguments you've already heard about against second steps these past few weeks there's a lot of bad stuff in there and even if you scrub everything negative from the um ex sexually explicit content the love is respect links the divisive ideologies all of those things um even if you remove all the objectionable content this is still a program that is run by activists and not Educators please move that thank you thank you um Christa Pippen Aon Longacre Shandra Brown and then Jessica Anderson thank you for giving us time to address you this evening I'm Christa pipman cea

130Canyon's Education Association president and then with me tonight I have three of our members of our executive board and I'll let them introduce them Julie Bean mallerie record and Kathy Smith we are representing licensed Educators in the district and we recently surveyed our members about seal and the second step program we want to ensure that teacher voices are um being heard in this conversation so we want to share with you our survey results to start with 54% of the respondents were elementary teachers 19% were middle School teachers and 27% were high school teachers 53% of those have taught second steps or second step excuse me one or more years uh 47% most of them from the secondary system have been introduced to or were trained to implement it this year 79% of our elementary teachers

131responding felt it was very important to have an Seal program at their school 177% felt it was somewhat important and only 4% indicated that was not important also of interest at the secondary level 85% of our responding members also indicated the need to have seal taught at their school because elementary teachers had an earlier implementation of the second step program we asked them some additional questions 70% of our responding elementary teachers stated that second step has been highly effective um 8% stated it was not effective and the other 22% had not implemented it in their classrooms when asked if second uh the second step program should be continued at the elementary level 75% of our teachers responded Yes as you can see our survey results are very positive so as the cea executive board we

132are advocating that the board and the district reinstate Second Step as theal program at the elementary level thank you ER Longacre representing a group Shandra Brown representing a group and Jessica Anderson also representing a group thank you thank this is from the Second Step first grade social emotional Learning lesson this time we have a new rule you're going to ignore the shape drawn on the card and only pay attention to its color the color is what move you make blue means Circle red red means triangle and green means Square then the teacher asks so what skills did you use to ignore the shape on the card and only pay attention to the color a student an answers don't talk and I also did not listen and I turned my head off because it wasn't cooperating

133so I had to not listen another student says pretend the shape is not there so what skills are these students learning through this exercise first objective of this leson is to get the students to ignore what they really see reality and let the teachers instruction human interaction guide them anyone who is versed in the tenants of critical race Theory Marxist and gender Theory could recognize that they are introducing students to a concept of social constructionism this is the idea that everything exists not as a part of objective reality but because humans agree that it it exists for marxists it's class for gender theorists it's gender and for critical race theorist it's race critical race theorists assert that that race is a social construct used to exploit people of color proponents of the his of the

134theory teach that all white people because they exist and Thrive within the racist institution or structural framework naturally are racist towards people of color because of a thing called implicit bias this is the second concept that the Second Step lays the framework for its lessons by teaching the students to counteract what their own internal beliefs and associations what was discovered in the Second Step Middle School curriculum is not isolated to just sixth and seventh grade our own superintendent said it best when he stated in front of all of you curriculum is a principal is built principal upon principle if there is even one question of credibility or trust that is corroded because of what has been presented to me then for me that's enough when will it be enough for you there's a um survey

135going around of 650 parents that if you do not stop um Second Step they will be opting out their kids thank you you thank you okay um Jessica Anderson and then Chad Anderson and then Emily or and all of those have indicated their representing groups so I'm Shandra Brown I'm on the school committee community council at Draper Park Middle School um 2020 has brought uncertainty and isolation for everyone especially our children I understand the need now more than ever to support our children and their teachers however second step is not the way to do that castle through second step has a vision for our children and this vision is comprehensive and cohesive they want it taught in kindergarten through 8th grade and then up through 12th grade through second or through school connect the end

136goal to is to have it taught in every class by every teacher and in every um Academia lesson it's not just in social emotional learning they want it woven into their academics so what do they want embedded into our children's education Castle says quote seal has the potential to help mitigate racial and class oppression in the US and globally and the way they teach that is through identity over character and Merit using victimhood and omission of family support they also do it through what she just explained was the subjective truth over objective truth some people will see some of the lessons and say maybe that's just an oversight they left out the parents for support or you know that lesson that's not that bad but what I found is it's a pattern and it starts

137in elementary school it looks benign until you see the entire pattern so what we see as beneficial oh sorry Castle said quote we have seen schools and districts implemental as a behavior and self-management strategy over the areas that we deem to be relevant they see this as misinformed and unfortunate so what we see as beneficial self-management tools such as conflict resolution and setting goals are not the main focus of Castle there there are divisive patterns woven throughout all of Second Step curriculum starting in elementary school the elementary school is preparing them to receive these divisive I ideologies more explicitly later on I am a parent and I do not want second step any part of my kids curriculum thank you okay thank you okay uh Jessica Anderson then Chad Anderson um and then Emily or

138and then Melissa Eno and again I apologize for if I mispronounce names and please correct me when it's your turn all right Jessica Anderson thank you the current Secretary of the United States Department of Education was asked if he thought parents were the primary stakeholders in education secretary Cardona would not agree that the parents were the primary stakeholders but would only concede that parents were quote important stakeholders I am here to ask that the Canyon School District board of education education send an official letter to secretary Cardona informing him that this school board disagrees with him and supports as our guiding principal that parents are the child's first teachers and that parents are responsible for the education of their children please inform secretary Cardona that this school board is fully committed to include parents in

139establishing and implementing educational goals and participating in decision-making at the school site although the state of Connecticut where he previously served may not be committed to their parents as the primary stakeholder in education the citizens of the state of Utah have declared in Utah state law through their elective Representatives that the parent participation is not only supported but encouraged and promoted by the teachers administrators and staffs of the schools please inform Dr Cardona that this school board will promote and expand the participation of parents and other citizens who are supportive of Education in our decision-making processes we look forward to your leadership and your timely response on this important educational issue if you would be interested in our support in composing this message we will be more than happy to assist your efforts thank you

140thank you okay Chad Anderson Emily or Melissa Eno and Sher Diner thank you for your time my name is Chad Anderson um attend at Sprucewood Elementary Indian Hills Middle School in Alta High so Canyon school district I'm old enough to remember when socialism was not in schools I'm old enough to remember when lunch and breakfast wasn't free because nothing is free right I just wrote a check today $25,000 of that check goes to Canyon school district okay so I've earned my two minutes here to speak um as of today 17 State School Board associations have distance themselves from the national school boards Association guess who's not on the list Utah back when I went to school they would have been on the list things have changed um it seemed to me that heavy negative publicity

141surrounding us attorney general Garland's instruction to the Federal Bureau of Investigation has created a need for state and local Boards of Education to take a public position on the issue I propose that Canyon's Board of Education public publish the following resolution Canyon's Board of Education rejects the public position taken by the national school board ass Association and any other organization or individual that believe that Utah parents and citizens pose a danger to education Professionals in this state we strongly reaffirm that parents are a child's first teachers and are responsible for the education of their children and that parents must be included in establishing and implementing educational goals and participating in decision-making at the school site according to AG Garland the majority of us in here are domestic terrorists how do any of us feel safe

142thank you for your time thank you okay U please please thank you Emily or Melissa and no Sher Diner and then Marilyn Larson hi my name is Emily or I'm on the SEC board at Draper Park Middle School given the very public pos position taken by the National School School Board Association nsba that parents protesting the education decisions of their school boards pose a threat of violence that is equivalent to the threat of violence posed by domestic terrorists it is essential that our Canyon Board of Education also take a very public position against this slander of its parents it seems to us that this rejection should also include the sensation of any funding contributions Canyon's board of education is making to the nsba and a severing of any Communications with this organization the people of

143Utah have made it clear in Utah state law that the participation of parents in their children's education is highly desirable and should be promoted by the education profession we suggest the following wording might be included in your statement the Canyon's Board of Education believes that parents not only have a First Amendment constit stitutional right to protest any decision made by their elected officials but they also have the parent responsibility to oppose any Schoolboard policy or practice that they believe will provide less than the best benefit for their children we support their insights and will continue to invite their participation in the education decision-making process in doing this Canyon's board of education is merely reaffirming what Utah state law already says it should be a win-win decision only those who support the FBI's involvement in in

144in investigating parents who Pro protest the decisions of school boards can object hopefully nobody in this room believes that the FBI should be investigating any Utah parent thank you thank you okay Melissa and then Sherry Marilyn Larson and then uh Katrina vassel my name is Melissa inaway and I'm a member of the Draper element School Community Council I'm speaking on behalf of 45 parent SEC members of 20 Canyons elementary schools we strongly urge the board to continue its approval of the Second Step curriculum especially in elementary schools theal curriculum is like a roof Sheltering students for Stormy Weather sometimes a few roof shingles are a different size or color when this happens we can replace those few shingles not tear down the whole roof it's stormy out there as you've heard before the pandemic 13%

145of American students struggle with mental health now is 80% second this curriculum is effective as you've heard teachers have reported its positive impact as students develop skills in communication listening maintaining Focus showing empathy and resolving conflicts Al of view ridgerest Edgemont and Brookwood have seen a decrease in office referrals after implementing Second Step third discarding Second Step materials is financially wasteful the district is spent a total of $33,600 Second Step which could buy a brand new Ferrari of this $243 180 has come from tssa or land trust funds and 32718 has come from school budgets this is not a decision like walking out of a bad movie because educators are not a captive audience to a curriculum Educators build lessons using curriculum materials just like roofing materials no one curriculum will ever be perfect right

146out of the box but especially with the St static Elementary curriculum Educators have all the control no curriculum materials have the ability to spontaneously nefariously rise up and take over fourth please respect Educators time and expertise the curriculum went through the district review process many parents were participated in this review process including members of us in the SEC and found it satisfactory trained professionals chose his curriculum other over others fifth some parents will opt out no matter what the impact of managing the few who opt out is way better is less than requiring all students teachers and staff to find and new learn a new curriculum please me in state the Elementary second step trown thank you thank you um Sherry Diner and then Marilyn lson Katrina vassel and then Rebecca collie and um okay

147yes I'm Sher Diner I am a draper resident of 20 years I have five children in the Canyon school district at Corner Canyon High School and at Draper Park Middle School and I am on the petion against the second step program and I wanted to thank you first for suspending the program as a parent who's done some investigation into the second step program I have discovered unacceptable material and hidden agendas which we saw an example of when as displayed with the kindergarten um one of the kindergarten lessons that was shown tonight um that this content of the program and I ask that it be removed from kindergarten all the way through it undermines the values that as a parent I've spent years teaching my children and even uh it undermines the values I spent years

148teaching my children and as my elected representatives please instill programs that support the values that I teach in my home that do not replace me as a parent that support me and the second step program does not fill those shoes with so many prominent individuals and groups groups uh denigrating the role of parents in the education of their children we expect the Canyon's Board of Education to be a strong loud and definitive voice in endorsing parent-led education thank you thank you your time is up thank you Marilyn Larson Katrina vassel and Marilyn is representing a group Katrina vassel Rebecca colie and then Michelle her hi I'm Marilyn LaRon and I am representing a coalition of 18 families of adoption that have adopted children I'm here tonight to discuss the success or failures of of the

149Cassel Cassel Second Step diversity Equity or any mental social emotional curriculum that has been purchased and implemented in the Kenyon school district for over $300,000 by the administration thus doing so without Direction and purpose purposeful curriculum vetting or permission of the number one stakeholders in the district and that is the parents of the children my husband and I prayerfully chose to adopt two little girls ages three and four through the Utah Division of Family Services our little girls were severely abused cigarette burns on their face hands backs Hot Plate burned on their hands starved held underwater and abandoned before being retrieved by the state Social Services upon bringing these two broken angry fearful hopeless little people into our family we were told by DFS that these little girls would most likely never recover from the

150pain that had been caused to them not to expect them to ever be grateful or thankful for anything and they would hate us and most likely turn to drugs and and early sex to try to make their emotional pain go away however our goal as their family was to change the direction of their lives by loving them and providing them the tools to redirect the horrific abuse they had received and teach them how to love how to Hope and how to be successful it is most important that you all know our goal was not ever ever to allow our little girls to remain emotionally or mentally broken or to ever identify themselves as victims or or oppressed individuals as as the current Cassel Pro Cassel program teaches today I I took a deep dive into

151any and all literacy programs from then on I learned to to to do abandonment the unparented child fetal alcohol alcohol syndrome mental and physical abuse night tear I need to so important um you're welcome to submit it in writing to the secretary we need you to understand that my daughter told me today that had she been raised in today's world with the Cassel program the Second Step she would have committed suicide because it have interfered with thank you thank you Katrina vassel please please no applause Katrina vassel Rebecca colly Michelle herb and Ashley MacArthur thank you Board of Education and superintendent Robbins for having me to speak this evening I am here to respectfully request your support for the continued use of the Second Step curriculum in Canyon school district as an elementary school of

152social worker in the district it is my job to provide support that meets the needs of the whole child our teachers and staff teach seal skills every day when a student has a challenge without evidence-based curriculums however that we run the risk of internal biases not being challenged by both viewpoints then incorporated into what's taught to our students and in efforts to oppose this program there have been comments made that are inappropriate and offensive towards our students of color so going so far as to call them dark and disproportionate amounts of them in the curriculum I would not be acting consistently with the social work ethical principle of respecting the inherent worth and dignity of each person if I did not strongly speak out against these statements for the students that I work with through

153second step we have the ability to teach lessons about respect and empathy as a local school board you are able to provide that evidence-based tier one support for our students and make decision based on evidence rather than personal values and beliefs thank you thank you Rebecca collie Michelle herb Ashley MacArthur and then Nancy Nicholls parents have exposed some of the most morally grotesque and sexually perverted material in our children's schools over the past year and the response from the media the national school board the Department of Education all but one member of the Utah State Board of Education and some of this Administration has been to say the parents not the curriculum are the problem so what's wrong with second stepal CRT I'm sorry seal is a form of CRT or whatever brand Cassell and

154the school boards noted above want to call it is that this ideology teaches our children to view everything through a B of race and then to divide each other into buckets and to tell the group that one group that their dreams won't be realized because they're victims and the other group their dreams won't be realized because they're privileged it's dream stealing and it's directly counter to everything that we know is right we must judge one another based on the content of our character not the color of our skin please remove seal Second Step from K through five and all grades above thank you thank you um please Michelle herb Ashley mccarthur Nancy Nichols and uh Dr Paul mccardy I would like to speak in support of social emotional learning I have taught with and without

155social emotional learning curriculum and I can say that the environment in my classroom is different when I have access to a tier Oneal curriculum I have seen the effects day-to- day of having it kids are Kinder and more supportive of each other they are cheerleaders instead of competitors I have also experienced the extreme worst case scenario of not having tier one curriculum I was present at a school shooting in our district I often have thought how could that have been different if those kids knew a healthy way to deal with their emotions emotions can be scary and overwhelming no matter what age and if you don't know how to deal with them they overrun you that is an dream example but all kids experience challenges in school and they need a chance to learn healthy

156coping skills and practice them in real time home support is essential and I do my job best when I am in partnership with families education is a team parent student teacher but it my responsibility as the classroom teacher to ensure safety empathy cooperation conflict resolution and academic success in my classroom thank you Ashley MacArthur Nancy Nichols Dr Paul mccardy and Chrystal Gregory hi I'm Ashley MacArthur I'm a fourth grade teacher at Rich Crest Elementary and I'm here in support of Second Step rrest has utilized Second Step since 2018 and we've seen great success with these lessons many students at rid Crest struggle with emotional management we have a large population of students who have sustained trauma and come from difficult family situations at the last board meeting a parent mentioned that social emotional learning has

157no place in the classroom because teachers should be focusing on math and reading it's not the reality of Education in today's world I would love to be able to focus on math and reading but I can't effectively teach a math lesson when I have students who are so escalated they are crying on the floor tipping desks and snapping their whiteboards in half all of those things happen in my classroom just last year these students need extra social and emotional guidance to be successful in the classroom a child's academic success is largely influenced by their ability to have self-regulation empathy and problem solving skills I'm deeply troubl that many parents and parents United are using their political and religious beliefs to try and take away this beneficial program it's been incredibly helpful for our school and

158has impacted our students and faculty for the better we value Second Step taking away this curriculum would be a huge loss to the positing systems we've put in place at our school thank you thank you Nancy Nichols Dr Paul mccardy Crystal Gregory and then Alysa Bru hey we appreciate your service as our elected representatives and we are sympathetic to the difficult position that we have placed you in in good faith you spent taxpayer funds on an education program that your constituents want you to cancel it may seem impossible to meet your professional commitments to the education establishment and your legal responsibilities to us the parents and also your voters we accept that you cannot replace something with nothing because as flawed as that something may be it still provides some comfort and security you have

159paid good money for a program to meet your educational responsibilities and are now learning that many of the parents of your students want that program completely removed continuing to use and pay for the current program is not acceptable it seems reasonable to believe that there are many possible programs already created and functioning in other schools in our state that may might become a substitute and that could satisfy all parties this substitute will need to also meet the test of reasonable cost and proven success we should not rush into another hurried decision but instead take the time to identify and I'll give the rest over thank thank you Dr Paul mccardy and then Chrystal Gregory and Alysa Bruff and Alicia CLE thank you president my name is Paul mccardy I'm a grandfather of 10 grandchildren who

160attend school within the Canyon school district district and I'm also a former member of the Canyon School Board and it's good to see you and um Dr Robbins our first Association was Utah principal Academy I spent my career teaching at BYU in family life and psychology and with the granite School District as a elementary school principle and Senior District positions my assignment was there was also to develop success a successful emotional and mental health leadership program in the granite School District Granite at the time was not impressed with the SE program and as a professional educator I do not recommend Second Step social emotional learning for Canyons I totally agree and endorse the evidence and work presented to you by our District Parent Laura Lo Logan her independent committee work in producing presenting you a

16125-page document was was very complete and a professional and thorough the curriculum you were considering or you have suspended uh shifts away from many different emphasis on the family morality and objective truths thank you thank you Crystal Gregory is representing a group Alissa Bruff Alicia CLE is also representing a group and Gina Hammer representing a group okay thank you um I'm a licensed clinical social worker for the school district I work for Alta High School and Hill high school and I'm representing all of our high school social workers including Shad Roundy Vincent Franco Elizabeth Vasquez Greg Shaw Andrea do Raymond acord and CIFA tafisi we are here today because although this curriculum is k through eight the decision made by the board directly impacts our schools as students matriculate to high school with limited social

162emotional skills our students are bombarded by problems that they are not equipped to handle and therefore are turning to unhealthy Outlets they need resources to guide them through this de developmental stage AG according to CD's data dashboard from September to yesterday our high schools have had 72 parent notification of threats 88 safe you T tips and 580 office discipline referrals this being said it is imperative that we have an evidence-based and up-to-date social emotional curriculum in all of our schools we strongly encourage you to look at the data that has been presented to you by Professionals in the field and look for a curriculum that keeps up with the growing mental health needs times change kids are dealing with problems that none of us had in school and we need a curriculum that can address

163these not address the problems of yester year parents should be teaching skills and values at home but we the high school social workers can promise you that your kids are engaging in sexual activity they are being solicited for sex through their phones they are exposed to porn they're using drugs they're bullying and being bullied they're joining gangs and they're searching from our school computers and I quote how do I kill myself we know that there is um sorry there is concern that the curriculums are too Progressive for our predominant culture but mental health does not care about culture race or socioeconomic status the curriculum that is selected and our response needs to be timely and needs to address the concerns of 2021 which may seem Progressive to some but it is needed again please look

164at the data please listen to the Professionals in the field and put aside personal bias and fearmongering please make an educated and well-informed decision our kids need it and deserve it thank you Alysa Bruff Alicia coddle ginaa hammer and then Rebecca Hill hi my name is Alisa Bruff I am a parent asking you to reinstate the Second Step curriculum I want to speak specifically to the concerns about how it touches on race in the second grade my daughter brought home a Schoolcraft That was supposed to be a picture of her using shapes cut out of construction paper my daughter has beautiful brown skin she always Jew herself with a brown crayon so when I saw the Manila construction paper face I asked her why she didn't use brown paper she said the teacher said everyone

165had to use white paper in that moment my daughter was told that her brown skin was different and not beautiful and not something to celebrate when I met this same teacher to discuss my daughter's anxiety months later she was compassionate accommodating and a champion for my child a good teacher but she caused harm to my child in that art project I think because she didn't know any better I have the unique experience of having a student at Midvale Middle and a student at DPMS I have spoke with both administrators I have confidence in both of them and I am on the PTSA at both schools I am convinced that they are committed to the well-being of our students um please consider that if we keep the Second Step curriculum parents can always opt out but

166if you drop it how will kids especially those who stand a benefit the most of this program opt in thank you Alicia coddle Gina hammer and Alicia is representing a group Gina Hammer also representing a group then Rebecca Hill and Kimberly sumers hi thank you for your time um one assumption that has been made is that second step improves the mental health of our children I'm here to report it does not in fact it is harmful here are words from a mental health professional who has reviewed specific step Second Step lesson plans from the man ual which have been used over the last few years a main goal of counseling is to enable the individual client to make critical decisions regarding alternative courses of action without outside influence these Second Step lessons appear to do

167the exact opposite they are all about influencing and almost coercing the students from an outside influence to think or feel a certain way based on the suggestions of the teacher the outline or the lesson if I were to suggest ideas or thoughts without the client being being completely aware of my personal suggestion or personal thought or idea I could potentially be held liable for non-maleficence non-maleficence is the principle of do not harm which is basically to avoid activities or conversations that could be detrimental to a client I would most likely lose my license in one fifth grade lesson Lesson Four it reportedly states to have students ask potentially sensitive information about their personalities and feelings what would happen if your partner if if you partner up a child who has experienced extreme trauma with a

168child who has never experienced any kind of those emot emotions children in fifth grade are not yet capable to capable to process such extreme emotions of others and understand them in a healthy way for example Eric Ericson a well-known child analyst um explains of psychosocial development at a fifth grade age is competency industry versus inferiority a fifth grader according to to his developmental Theory desires to win approval by demonstrating specific abilities if a child is seen as incompetent or taught coerced or made to believe that their way of thinking is incompetent this would be detrimental to their development If the child cannot develop the skills they feel Society is demanding or asking for they may develop a sense of inferiority which would impact their development please remove Second Step thank you thank you okay um

169please Gina Hammer then Rebecca Hill Kim Kimberly Summers and then Len Larson there's a large contingency of teachers who do not support Second Step inal these teachers cannot speak out for obvious reasons here is a statement from a teacher who wishes to remain anonymous I was hired by Canyon's District as a highly qualified teacher in a subject I love to teach we have never had sufficient time to teach any subject to the depth it deserves now we are being required to give up more of that time to teach for which we are not qualified to teach the company Canyon's partnered with has inserted links leading to sexually explicit websites and has worded their content in an anti- family anti-gentile subliminal imprints on developing young minds at Draper Park Middle portraits of individuals who contributed to

170making this a better world line the walls in including Rosa Parks who face who faced down tyranny and would not go to the back of the bus she lived a principled life likewise Draper Park had their own Rosa Parks in Sam Crowley who would not go to the back of the bus who would not be quiet and teach what they hand you he sacrificed the only thing he could a successful career built over years of discipline and effort parent should be included in the previewing of the curriculum before purchase and should have the final say even after purchase company compies who reserve the right to change curriculum after purchases should be held accountable and liable for those changes including but not limited to the full refund of the purchase price and the reparations for damages

171we as teachers must remember that we work for the parents we are their Advocates and we have been entrusted with the with the educating of their children we are never to replace the parent or arrogantly insist that we know what is best for their child so in conclusion teachers are being asked to teach a subject in which they are not qualified to teach and may not agree with this is not in accordance with their employment contracts in which they were hired as Canyon's District we should prioritize respecting every teacher and their contracts thank you thank you please um Rebecca Hill Kimberly sumers Len Larson okay I am gonna change gears here and I'm going to talk about the virtual Fridays so I'm a teacher here at corter Canyon High School and um also member in

172the community I just wanted to mention because I feel like a lot of the light is coming that like hey these are going to be great for everyone but not all the teachers are in support of it and I don't think we as teachers have ever been asked or surveyed to see what our opinions about these are really going to make our lives easy or more difficult I know for example it has two B days that you're calling off during second quarter and yet we're having four a days off for the other four days there's not like have we looked at changing the calendars as far as consistency with a days and B days to keep things balanced not to mention second semester when I'm teaching a current concur enrollment class to miss four days

173is a significant portion of the semester um I think right now our kids need the consistency so to have these Fridays I'm not sure it's really addressing the issues about absenc see of students and teachers if anything teachers say Hey you know I'm gonna actually take that day off because I don't have to work on sub plans so I'm not sure we're really like coming up with a purpose that we want not to mention I've talked to some parents in my area and they have not had the notice so are people going to be really ready for November 5th if this is voted yes tonight thank you Kimberly Summoners lenee Larson and then I have a Jessica strong is that do we have two Jessica strongs that have signed up it's a duplicate okay thank

174you and then Danielle Adamson thank you for your tireless efforts to build and safeguard our children I recognize the Herculean efforts that our teachers and social workers are making right now um and I have the utmost respect for them um they need our support and seal is so important in many ways but second steps is not the answer our children deserve the very best and a deep dive into the curriculum reveals developmentally inappropriate material on all levels if it's wrong on a secondary level it's wrong on an elementary school level and we can do better we all have the same goal we love the children of of Canyon school district they deserve the very best please remove second second steps on all levels and let's find something that works much better for everyone thank you

175Len lson Danielle Adamson and then Benet Larson hello um I'm a mother of five here in a Canyon school district and um want to app I appreciate all of you for all you do I'm talking about mental health and I know that a lot of the um the driving force implementing these programs is because it's about the kids and the rental health and so I just wanted to touch on that proponents of Second Step have also claimed that more students are seeking treatment for depression and anxiety and feeling suicidal however in the same breath those people claim that second step has been taught for the past few years and has yielded great results including lower office referrals these people are assuming a direct correlation between the implementation of second step and lower office referrals while

176while also saying that more students are seeking mental health care if the program has created such a positive result during the past few years why are more students needing Mental Health Care can any data from the past 18 months really be trusted Co has caused unexpected effects that none of us could have imagined there would need to be much more data not gained in a time of covid perhaps only half of the students were actually in the school to try to make the direct correlation that these proponents are assuming already exist even if the program was yielding results when it was first implemented the change in Cassel fromal to transformative and the corresponding changes in the second step program prove that their political agenda is more important to them than actually teaching the values that

177can benefit the students I just wanted two names D Walker I don't know if any of you know this these two names and Hayden tubs two boys from Corner Canyon High School that did commit suicide I don't know if you know their names but I do and I will tell you this everything that is normal to these children I have a seven almost 17-year-old son you're ripping away what's normal teaching kids that squares can be green or Square you're taking everything normal from these children and you're rearranging it and so if they're having mental problems which they are go visit these families okay and there's one other thing all of you the hidden curriculum it's called dumbing us down everyone should read this book write your time is up thank you ding us down this

178is what and implementing these things are taking away curriculum and implementing things that teachers should not be teaching us how to raise our children we have god-given rights to raise children we know how to raise our children Danielle Adamson okay thank you for your time thank you Danielle please please no applause Danielle Adamson Bene Larson Larry man thank you parents are stakeholders in our children's education and we deserve to be a part of this process this is not just a math curriculum or a science curriculum this is a social emotional learning the very essence of who our children are we must play a part in determining the curriculum that will be used and how it will be taught the district the board the superintendent the teachers and staff have lost some trust in approving and

179teaching this curriculum the only way to restore this that trust is to have parent-led committees along with um teachers and administration we want to work together this same conversation is happening Across the Nation board meetings all across the country are discussing second step and other programs we have the ability to lead in this issue districts all over the state and Across the Nation are aware of what is happening in our district right now to have seen what the harmful content was in second step and to have stopped the teaching of this program is exemplary however to return to teaching in any grade makes Canyons complicit in the political agenda that committee for children has Canyons must stop second step um if it must be removed immediately and permanently in all grade levels thank you thank

180you um Benet Larson Larry man and then Shannon Withers hello thank you for hearing from me today um my name is Ben Larson I also work at Nami Utah which is the National Alliance of mental illness my children have all attended Canyon school district and I currently have an a 12-year-old daughter at Indian Hills Middle School all of my students are all of my children have struggled with their mental health and they live in a house where we talk about our social emotional learning every single day um when I left to come tonight to encourage you to keep social and emotional learning for our students our kids are struggling um sharp D data was released last Friday that shows that our kids are feeling hopeless and sad and had nobody to talk to our kids

181are having more thoughts of suicide than they have in the past it's continuing to go up taking away social emotional learning takes away the ability for kids who don't have parents that talk about this in their homes to give these kids skills so that they know how to deal with their emotions so they know who to ask for for help when they are feeling sad and hopeless thank you thank you um Larry m Shannon Withers Arlene heus and then Amanda McConnell thank you it's good to be with you tonight in 2010 the ACA the Affordable Care Act was signed into law that was the year I first became to came to work for kyya school district the ACA was tatted as a cure all answer to health care for everyone it also made a change

182to the number of hours accept that as part-time prior to the ACA the number of hours an individual was required to work in order to qualify for health and retirement benefits was 20 the ACA up those hours to 30 the ACA created opportunities for persons to obtain Affordable Health Care subsidized by the government upfront this seemed like a good deal now all of a sudden persons who had struggled to pay their medical bills were going to be assisted by Big Brother in obtaining Insurance to alleviate their concern over premiums as many of you know the downside to the ACA was is with a decrease in part-time hours from 30 to 20 many people couldn't afford to pay for the government subsidized Insurance opting to go without and use the emergency room this is less than

183desirable situation for any want to be in to make matters worse big business and government agencies including school districts opted to go along with increase in part-time hours to 30 I believe this created a windfall in savings since now those entities are no longer offering Insurance to the many persons who are suddenly no longer qualified imagine the panic when all of a sudden you are faced with reality that the insurance you relied on to care for your family is not going to be there any longer which brings me to my recommendation and proposal next year the additional tax revenue burden placed on property owners in the kyya school district will be paid off this additional tax burden went to pay off the the break up of the district Jordan and and canyons the millions of

184dollars generated will no longer be required to pay off CD's responsibility I don't know if this tax is going to stop thereby giving homeowners and businesses as much as a break or if CSD is going to try and keep tax playing into coffers thank you thank you sir your time is up um you can give your written comments to the secretary and she will get them to the board thank you Shannon Withers Arlene heus Amanda McConnell and Amanda McConnell is representing a group hi I'm Shannon Withers a mother of four um children in the Canyon school district um I have signed the petition against the second step program proponents of Second Step say changing to a new curriculum would restart the learning process adding stress in the already difficult time when staff are struggling to

185recover student learning well if that is what staff is trying to do let's not take another 30 minutes away from them to teach lessons it infused with left-leaning political ideologies let's bend that extra 30 minutes trying to recover student learning students are behind after last year's experience of hybrid and online learning this year they are enjoying in person learning with their PE and being able to learn together in class and out of class one board member suggested in addition additional recess to allow the students to develop social and emotional skills together in real life out on the playground we appreciate that social workers and staff are familiar with the program but if the source of the program is correct and has a political agenda for teaching our children staff familiarity with this C certainly is

186a lesser concern we strongly urge the board to remove second step in all grades and immediately and permanently thank you thank you Arlene Haus Amanda McConnell and then Emily Davis my name's Arlene hus and I typically don't come to these Schoolboard meetings because I just have kids at home and I'm busy with them trying to raise them and teach them and help them learn the best that I know how but this issue was really pressing to me and really important because a lot of things said here tonight don't really make sense to me how it's been Second Step has been in the school district for years but then people are saying we need to keep it because like suicides are rising depression so if it's been in for years but that stuff is still going

187up how does that mean mean it's working just I need that explained to me because it seems that it's not working second step is not working if it's going up but it's been in the school district for years and I took the time to come down to the school district and talk to somebody there and look through and somebody told me you know what we're all of a sudden receiving all these complaints but the lack of complaints did not mean that we it like gave us our approval it wasn't that we approved of it we didn't know but now that we know we're doing better and we're standing up for what is in there and the curriculum that we don't approve of so please take out second step now and forever than you because I've

188heard about money and our children's brains there's no dollar amount that can replace the knowledge and the things you guys are trying to in state in their braing thank you Amanda Amanda McConnell representing a group and then Emily Davis hello everyone my name is Amanda McConnell and today I would like to speak to you from two perspectives regarding the proposal of virtual Fridays I'm the mother of two wonderful daughters that attend a Canyon school district school as and as a parent I'm deeply concerned with the idea of taking seat time away from my children the children of our district and the children of our District my twin daughters are in second grade and thanks to the covid-19 pandemic have literally never seen a normal school year I believe they are in the majority when I

189say they are not academically where they should be while I know all parties tried their hardest and I love the teacher that my kids had during the school shutdowns the virtual school year was kind of a joke the technology never seemed to work right for our kids and I will be the first to admit I am not a teacher I value our teachers so much more after trying to home school for a year aside from purely academic concerns Child Care is also a concern taking six Fridays off means my husband will not be able to go to work for six days being a dual income family we can feasibly do this but many families in our district cannot missing six days of work could potentially be devastating for some Child Care is not a realistic

190option finding a daycare center that can take your child for only one Friday a month will be impossible many families will be competing for the same spots that are available due to the simple fact that we are all in the same area I am concerned for the special needs students in our district for the students that live in poverty and for the students that has a hard home life and will now be forced to spend extra time at home away from their safe Zone from a parents perspective I strongly encourage you to reconsider virtual Fridays in addition to being a parent in this Canyon school district I'm also an employee I route buses for about a fourth of our district and I'm the CES representative for transportation our department just like about every other department

191in the district is grossly under staffed I on top of working my 40h hour a week desk job have been driving a 28 hour a week route often this year I've had to come in early and work late and I've worked Saturdays to ensure my desk job is not failing falling behind while I drive I know almost every single person in my office has done the same a few of our staff literally work three plus hours of overtime a day every day we are all working so hard because we're short staffed last year we lost 64 drivers I would be I would bet that many of them left because of the Fridays and because and we're going to continue to lose more drivers so I would encourage you to please reconsider okay thank you um

192all right so the last one on our list is Emily [Music] Davis thank you board members for the time and energy each of you spend serving us as representatives in decisions related to education in 2018 and 2020 we elected you to fill those seats you sit in because we trusted you to make decisions on policies practices and purchases using our tax dollars your service allows for parents to trust that our children are getting a quality education however recent Revelations about the content of educational materials our children are exposed to has created concern that our trust in the system was misplaced perhaps we share the blame since in our trust we didn't put in the time to fulfill Our obligation to guide you in your selection of educational materials although we are late we are here

193now we are fully invested to participate in the review and approval process before any contracts are signed or programs are initiated which I know that parents are involved in so I'm suggesting that a um continual review process is inated by a parent L Group which would help to set goals for each education level and set some standards to measure achievement so we could review and approve all draft rfps for program programs and services and then evaluate rate each proposal that you get to see which meets parents educational goals as we all know and S STC said parents should have the first look and final say thank you thank you okay that that concludes our Patron comments for this evening and I want to thank on behalf of the board each of you that have made

194the effort to be here and to address the board to share your thoughts and comments and and thank you yes thank you for your um respect and the civility that which you showed um towards each other and towards the board we appreciate that um I just want to also remind you that if you have written comments that you would like to submit um as I I recognized that the time was a little quick but if you have the written comments please submit them to um Cindy over here or if you'd like to email them to Communications canyonsdistrict.org uh by noon tomorrow that would be very much appreciated so thank you all okay next on our agenda is the consent agenda and I will ask for a motion to approve these items and please in making

195the motion please um list each of those items on the consent I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda for tonight approval of minutes for October 5th approval of higher and termination reports appr approval of purchasing bids approval of student overnight travel approval of September Financial reports and approval of sex education instruction committee me membership I will second that okay um we have a motion and a second any discussion to this motion I would um M Oaks I would actually like to pull item F approval sex education instruction committee membership for further discussion um I feel like there's some additional considerations and discussion we ought to have with regard to um pushing things to the policy committee to kind of address some of that okay um is there um would the maker of

196the motion like to restate the motion I would happy to I'm happy to remove that the sex education committee and have further discussion on that so I'd like to amend my motion to approve the minutes for October 5th approval of higher and termination reports approval of purchasing bids approval of student overnight travel and approvement of September Financial reports only thank you and the second the that second up okay thank you so we have a motion and a second any further discussion to this motion seeing none I will ask for a vote all in favor please say I I I any opposed that motion passes okay Mrs Oaks you'd ask for item F to be pulled for further discussion would you like to make a comment about it so yeah I serve on the sex education

197committee and um this has been a conversation that's been ongoing a little bit on and off and I know there were some additional entries of parents that are being represented but I just want to make sure that we have every area in the district fairly presented and perhaps um if the policy committee could take a look and especially make sure that based off of population very area various areas in the district that that's representative um by who we see on the committee um Steve and I talked a little bit about this earlier because he also served on the committee with me and I don't know if that comes in the form of you know having some additional um community members that are appointed um besides just having straight representation from each school or whatnot but

198I just want to make sure it it's fairly fairly done um the last time we met as a committee there was only one Draper resident on the on the committee and I don't feel like that's um an equal representation on that committee so I want to make sure that um moving forward I'm fine with is as it currently stands um last night what what the representation was looks a bit different than what's on that document today but I think for moving forward as um as a board perhaps we ought to adjust some things so okay thank you um any further discussion on this item Mr Wrigley just really quickly yeah on our discussion uh the way this has been set up is by schools so all schools within the district cap representation I think our

199discussion was is should we consider bedo bom populations and some areas of the district do not have the same numbers schools uh so that's a discussion we probably want to bring back up to the policy committee to take a look at if we want to add that they probably like General people that are sitting on their whatever based upon population I know what you call them but anyway so maybe I bring that back up if we do it is there a timeline that we have to have that approved by so okay um I I'm not sure but I think what I was hearing is that that Mrs Oaks was mending moving forward yeah as of right now we have more individuals representing the Draper community and and more of the Sandy community and so I'm

200comfortable with the list as it stands if we need to move forward for State deadlines but I my request is that the policy committee address this the next time they're together so that when we go through this process again it's it's a better representation of every Community okay any further discussion Miss Mrs Nar in a lot of our committee work we actually have three members of the school board and I'm just wondering if that's something we might want to consider with this committee we only have two um that that would be something the policy committee could could take I think I was thinking maybe that would I don't know the timeline but maybe that's something else we could address and have the policy committee take the look at this okay I note note has taken

201been taken any other comments on this item okay it has been listed for actions so if a motion would be in order if um if the board wanted to take action to approve oh I'm sorry Mrs shill oh okay oh ple yeah please come up to the microphone this is Dr Amber rodick landward and she will be asking the timeline answering the timeline question yes we're not on a specific timeline other than we do want to meet annually and due to the pandemic we have not met for quite a while so I think as long as we have time to pull the committee together once it's been approved we've got months to do that so just wanted to let you know that okay thank you and um to to revise that policy we'll take several

202months as well so um anyway as I mentioned this is an item that has been listed for action and so if there is a motion for this item that would be in [Music] order that's fine okay so I um would like to make a motion for the to approve consent agenda item F approval of sex education instruction committee membership with the request with a request that the policy committee um look at our current um practices with regard to how many board members are on that committee as well as appropriate representation of each Community within the district okay thank you um we have I have a motion is there a second to that motion I'll second that motion okay I have a motion and a second any additional discussion to this motion seeing none I will

203call for a vote and uh before I do so I just want to note for the record that U Mr uh Mont millerberg has joined us on the telephone and he did vote in favor of the first consent agenda items so just for the record on that thank you um so so I will call for a vote to this motion to approve the sex education instruction committee membership and to um request that the policy committee take a look at the policy regarding the construction of this committee and specifically to look at broader representation by areas of the district as and board members serving okay all in favor say I I any oppos thank you any opposed all right that motion passes thank you okay next on the agenda is um item 7A school-based employee supports

204I will turn time over to superintendent Rick Robbins and Dr Robert D assistant superintendent thank you president T is Dr D's coming up to the podium I just wanted to express uh my appreciation to our our employees and this this slide deck for this uh particular item was really born out of the discussion at last board meeting around the the six uh virtual days um and so as we were looking at this and just um thinking about the impact of the pandemic and uh as well as the labor shortage the issue withal um you know all of the the stressors that that are occurring um and I think it's been well said here tonight I our employees are are doing more uh than ever before uh on behalf of our students and I know that's

205no different than any other um uh uh job uh but it still needs to be noted just how much uh they are appreciated and I would hope everyone in the room would take time take some time to share that thank you um because it it is uh on you know it is a sacrifice on behalf of our kids during a a crisis that that we're in and it just it's much appreciated so with that I'll turn it over to Dr D to to talk about employee supports thank you Dr Robbins and thank you president ten members of the Board of Education uh in this presentation we wanted to share some of the feedback we've received from primarily principles regarding their concerns about uh their teachers and other employees also talk about some of the supports

206that we are giving at this point and also do a little more explanation about letters training which also came up last meeting um Dr dle is your microphone on the green lights on do I need to eat M maybe a little bit closer thank you okay sorry about that so some of the categories of feedback we have received from the principles uh through our um IAC committee and also directly as we've met with principles uh the time and stress issues I've categorized into these that you see on the screen some of them are very obvious and we've already talked about them but I wanted to just cover them just a moment uh one we are under pandemic conditions as everybody's painfully aware of but what results from that are higher rates of six students resulting

207in additional remediation and interventions that are necessary for our students that is a very uh big lift right now uh second category that we are hearing back from our principles is about weakened ATT tenants requirements increased absenteeism resulting in again additional remediation and interventions now last time and you'll see it again on the next presentation on the six days but um I gave you some statistics from a window of time early in the district today I received a report that was compiled uh by one of our assistant principles that shows data that is more comprehensive for the quarter that we're nearing the end of and the absenteeism has accelerated dramatically I can share some of that information with you I did not update this because I just got it this afternoon but I will you

208got it okay um but once you see the data there you're going to your eyes will really open up on how much absenteeism is happening we've already covered it in the past but also I want to bring it up again substitute shortages and once again it often results in teachers foregoing prep periods and or combining classes resulting in lost time to prepare lessons and increased workload so what's happening not all teachers are shouldering equally that burden but we do have some teachers who regularly step up and uh they basic basically forgo their their prep periods or they bring in lots of other students from other classes as needed because of these shortages that is a big load and a big ask for our teachers we also have open positions uh we had the last time

209I heard uh we have over 250 positions that are open in the district primarily support positions AIDS and things like that and without those types of support in the schools it leaves teachers and schools with less staff to help them and that results in increased work and stress on the teachers uh and then the final category that I put together was a repeat from last time but I want to restate it the implementation requirements uh the two that I mentioned last time are seal and also letters training uh typically we train in advance and the teachers have time during the summer to think about how they can incorporate that and then they implement it in the fall and in those two cases that's not what's happening this year so um that just kind of highlights

210really the workload that's bearing down on our teachers and it's staggering in many cases so what are some of the current efforts to provide additional support one our superintendent has been going out in continues to go out on listening tours so we can hear directly from our employees and um we are having discussions about what he's Hearing in cabinet and other meetings and that's a good source of information that is that we need we have removed all PD that is not State mandated or tied to Grants which means we're obligated uh for this throughout this calendar year we have suspended the roll out of any new initiatives that directly impact teacher workload for the year and we meet monthly with the principles in our IAC to discuss ways to improve teacher and school supports and

211that's one of the uh meetings that we have received the most feedback regarding the workload and the stresses on our teachers we've also provided additional notice to ensure that our teachers know about the mental health resources available to them we do have Professional Services that are available um we do recognize that uh there may be a bit of a time delay because there's so much Demand on those services but they are available we also have District employees which are signing up to substitute teach during the letters training and as I told you last time we are targeting the schools which tend to have the most difficult time attracting substitutes so that the substitute pool that we do have will go to the places that it's most likely to serve anyway and our human resources department

212continues to recruit new substitutes and develop new ways to allow additional types of substitutes so this year they have come up with volunteer substitutes part-time par educator substitutes and student teacher substitutes so they are trying about everything they know how to try to bring up that Workforce to support so uh Susan Henry she is a great asset in this district and knows as much about letters as anybody and so I've asked her to help give some explanations about letters good evening I'm so glad to be here and um to talk to you a little bit about letters and give some historical background and hopefully clarify any questions that you have have about what this initiative is how can how come Canyons is involved and what we're doing to support our teachers so um as Dr

213D said I'm Susan Henry I'm the K5 Ela lead for uh Canyon school district and uh work with a team of people in elementary English language arts I'm also the elementary team lead in ISD and I work with um my director Amber rodri landward one of the things that Happ happened to me as I first came to work for Canyon school district is um Canyons invested in me and I was so Greatful for that and I'm passionate about that one of the things that um I was in what the investment did for me was um the district sent me to be letters trained and so in uh in and around the year 2012 to 2013 I started my journey to be letters trained and to be a facilitator that teaches letters and so I taught

214that for our district for a few years to coaches and to um other Personnel in the district including reading teachers in the middle and high schools um that was with what was called letters addition two since then um letters the company has come up with a new addition letters edition three which is what our teachers have been asked to do and when I knew that a letters edition three was being offered the state was also offering to train more people at the time that I was trained with letters addition to uh myself um the state the state said to me we think you're the only one in the state of Utah that's trained to do this so um there might have been someone else I don't know but if you want to ask if I'm

215passionate about letters now you know my background and I'm super passionate about letters um one of the things that um I did when the state offered to have some people certify in letters is I offered up myself and uh went to my director and said I'd like to build capacity because I don't want to be the only one so let's build some capacity in case one day I don't work for Canyon school district but let's hope that's not soon but and uh really work with this whole idea of getting some people in the special education department and some people in my own Department so that we could train up our teachers and with that we actually made plans with special ed to do some initiatives because a special educator should be the most highly trained

216in how to remediate reading skills with students and so um we started to make some of those plans but but and there were some things that happened so let's go now to what's on the slide and talk about what the state then interjected with and um how how we can leverage that as a district to make that um powerful and help our students so um I want to remind you and you possibly you know this but right now as of um when the Letter's initiative was first brought up to the State Board 47% of all K through3 students Statewide were reading below Benchmark and um that sounds like a number but I like to say it like that's really one out of every two students in the state is not benchmarked can't doesn't have the

217ability to read at grade level so one of the things that the um state did was then use their Esser money to be able to say well we have this need we're bleeding and how can we then help help all the districts and one of the things they did was use data to decide that so districts with less than 60% of all K through3 students making typical or better growth now that's typical or better growth I think we can all agree that all students should make growth that number should be 100 but the state gave some some room there for people to be able to make that goal so districts with less than 60% of making that growth on the middle of the Year data and that was done at the 2020 in at least

218four demographic areas are required to participate so initially 69 Lea were chosen I've heard a few others have joined because I guess the state had extra money or something to that effect however as Canyons we qualified in four areas along with a lot of other districts sometimes you know the the kind of sucking air it feels good if others are sucking air too however i' like to Champion for our own district and really say you know what is it that we can do so our areas as it says there are all kindergarten did not make the 60% growth that's stunning uh one grades one through three are lowincome students grades one through three students with disabilities and grades one through three multilingual Learners one of the things that um makes me a little sick in

219my stomach about that is um when I first heard we qualified I I was stunned because I just think we do so many great things in this district and I I Believe in Us and um I I I also know that um every student deserves to learn how to read Because reading is the driver of everything that we do so most there are jobs where you become an editor or you write for the newspaper or there are jobs like that but most of the time a lot of the jobs are scientists and uh people who work in Social Work Work in schools all of those require critical thinking skills that require reading and writing and if we can't provide that for our students then um we haven't done what we have promised our stakeholders which

220are our patrons who have paid taxes myself included I live in this District my kids went to this District my second daughter was the first graduating class of the Canyon school district I have a daughter who teaches in this District right now um and so to say I'm not a canyon Zite would would not be true because I am and truly uh believe in that so um one of the things we know about research is that 95% of all students can be taught to read the 5% are those outlier students and and I I shouldn't call them outliers but students with extreme dis abilities or um have um possibly um for no fault of their own um cannot learn to read or can't learn to read at a sufficient level to U make an income

221past third grade we also know that reading is um more difficult for us to patch up so with all of this data we need to think about then what do we do next I didn't know I had to press a clicker here there we go so let's talk about then what is the current state of early literacy in Canyon school district so I told you I was a little sick because as a person who um helps to lead Ela in our district it kind of hit me like a big backpack of rocks and I um and I was a little upset and as I talked through that um my director reminded me and I'm passionate about this this isn't a covid thing this is something that's been happening in our district for the last five

222years and in our K through3 data we don't have the one and two but we have roughly one out of every three students that is below Benchmark and the other part that's fact for us is that there is minimal growth in the proficiency from the fall to the spring so in other words if they're 72% in a grade level in Fall there's a likelihood they might be 73 and then maybe 72 but it's stagnant and teachers could argue and anyone could argue well the Benchmark changes yes it does but the fact remains that we're not closing the Gap so 48% of all of our fifth fourth and fifth graders when they enter School in the reading inventory this year and the year previous and the year previous to that were below Benchmark the part that

223is hard about that piece of data is then one in two student students in our district is not prepared than to be a critical reader in the fourth and fifth grade recently our own District was identified as needing a system of support in optional extended day kindergarten so even though we we qualified for that Grant we didn't make the growth needed as you saw on the previous slide with kindergarten and because of that then is what happened is um the the estate doesn't put um they don't punish us but they call it a system of support they'll come in and evaluate what we're doing or not doing to be able to help us through that in Canyon school district the majority of students who are below Benchmark in first grade stay below Benchmark into middle

224school students taking intervention classes rather than Choice electives that's one of the things that will happen so if you are if in second grade you're not ready to rock in Canyon school district there's a high level chance that you'll be taking an intervention class instead of something else that you would rather Choice have Choice with millions of dollars in our own district has been spent on um the full teacher equivalent professional development intervention materials and um we've been required to support intervention in the middle and high school over the last five years those classes have grown they haven't shrunk so this is kind of the ugly facts about where we are so one of the things that um happened when we were put into this um category of needing letters we were kind of excited

225and one of the reasons for that was because um we had already tried to put into place a plan because we saw the trajectory that was going so what actions did we take first of all we started what we called early literacy Academy and this was pre pandemic so our purpose was to build teacher knowledge and because I believe so much in letters we hired a letters consultant who was a national trainer she worked with us and we collaborated around here we're using this curriculum in um in Canyon school district how will we help with what we know with evidencebased practices and the science of reading to help kids to be really great readers we put into place some um routines some supports um all K2 teachers were invited to come to this three-day Workshop

226that was across the the year with time in between to do implementation we started that in year 2018 and we did a 2019 2020 cohort what happened in mid 2020 however is we didn't get to finish training our second grade teachers because we went into soft closure and we weren't able to then have the professional development that we had planned during when that um happened when we were doing the early literacy acmis one of the things that we did is we started to um do what we called targeted walkthroughs where a um there was a um implementation checklist where we're looking for high quality in our schools that was executed and District coaches the coach and the principal would walk through and look at all of those literacy pla practices that were happening inside of

227the school one of those reasons is that we would have learning walks those walks to see where the implementation was taking place the coaches and the principles that participated in that really liked it but one of the things that I think was a misstep on our behalf is the fact that none of this was um it was all volunteer so we couldn't guarantee that everybody was participating nor that every teacher had put all these things into practice Co interrupted this literacy plan and because of that our data has remained stagnant um so let's talk about what's happening now when letters came on the scene and the state said we're going to take this Esser money and we're going to help you as a district we were we saw this as an opportunity we also saw

228that it was going to be hard really really hard one of the reasons that I know it's hard is I've done it not only have I done it once I've done it many times I did it with the level two and now I'm doing it with the addition three so right now I only have a couple hours left to be totally certified with addition three and of that I have done the same thing that the teachers have done so I know what it takes and I can be in their shoes um usbe requires and these are their words coming from their slides eight online units and that's on the letters platform they require that the teachers in that letters platform do assignments quizzes they do some Reflections there's a preest that shows what they know

229already and then a post test to see that it's Mastery assessment and there's also a bridge to practice there's also over the course of those two years eight professional learning workshops we've started those those are done with a Nationals letters trainer we did ask to have our own trainers and the way the statement had their um contract with voyager Sopris um it was how they passed it through their board that that needed to be the the national letters trainer with that the state also said it's best practice to be able to have implementation for teachers principles to participate in coaching Cycles we as Canyons have invested in coaches we have coaches in every building and this is the way we'll get that solid implementation from school leaders and and make sure that the coaches can

230be in the classrooms and do what they need to do to support teachers in implementation Canyons recognized that letters is a a certified dyslexia program I know that's one of the items that the board has talked about and is worried about and this is one of the ways that we can um support teachers to have the tools in place to be able to teach kids to read and uh parents do not have to think about their child as be having a reading deficit or being a struggling reader so when we put together our implementation knowing all of those components and knowing that we had been embedded in the science of reading for a very long time and that we had the those pieces in our Maps we were pretty passionate one of the things we

231wanted to make sure is this that teachers would be compensated so that we could have a monitoring system for accountability and how we did that is we took the bridge to practice from the letters platform and we made a space for that to be uploaded into the canvas platform the reason for that is not because we don't trust teachers and it's not because um we're trying to check on them is because we want to coach and give them support So when we're talking about here's your bridge to practice we can see what teachers are thinking and how they're building these case studies with students that they're really targeting to have um have growth with their struggling readers so basically the bridge to practice becomes a case study or a uh virtual portfolio of evidence of

232what kind of interventions have taken place with the student and what type of um uh outcomes and data have gone along with that so what part of the Gap is truly being closed with that we also knew that we would need to have schools participate in those learning walks a district coach um having um which we have on what we call our letters team we would go through and help the pr princial and the coach to be calibrated on the walk through to be able to see where those small tweaks can be made and instruction so that um kids are getting efficient instruction that can take hold as I've stated before we're giving $400 per unit um which would be $3200 over the course of the eight units $600 per year I want to also

233remind you that we have dedic dedicated $2.9 million over the next three years to for this initiative that includes the 65 teachers that have been invited in fourth and fifth grade when uh principles heard this was happening for um their K through3 teachers they were clamoring for us to provide it for fourth and fifth which we have control over because we have letters trained people we were only able to allow 65 to join that cohort and we would also like to have a cohort going over the next few years for um new hires so that we don't create another Gap because if there's another Gap we're going to then lose instruction again in the year 2024 25 I believe um that year the Institutes of highered will start requiring in the state of Utah for

234the science of reading to be taught for outcoming teachers out of our own state universities um I know there's also legislation in the works for that and letters is a competency that can also go towards a literacy endorsement I want to remind you that we've done this before we didn't have the followup and because we didn't have the followup it didn't take hold followup is the important part so that people can be coached um I'm passionate about public money I am a taxpayer my grandchildren go to the schools my granddaughter goes to Willow Canyon Elementary I um um we I know that kids can learn to read with the right things put in place I also want you to be bold and to be passionate about literacy like I am that's the only way we're

235going to move the dial for students taxpayers deserve for their students to be literate do you have any questions yes or yeah questions Mrs nbow first of all thank you for coming and presenting and for your passion with literacy this is something that's been um a tenant for me and uh I'm really grateful for the additional supports for teachers to implement this especially to those children that have not come off with the best first start um and I have personal experience with this as well so um what I am hearing a lot i' I've gone to all the schools in my district and talked to teachers and principles and um and I think everyone unanimously is really excited about letters and sees the potential help for our children and to help us bridge that Gap

236the one thing that I am hearing a lot from is that is that the canvas course for bridge to practice is becoming very overwhelming to teachers um teachers are using vocabulary like I just feel like I'm drowning by the time I I do all of these things and then I have to uh upload it to Canvas and put everything in um I talk to principal moots at OK Hollow and she was saying that that she has teachers coming to her in tears often saying I want to get an A I want to check all the boxes but I don't have enough time to do the canvas course and so I guess I'll just forfeit my additional money I'm doing everything else but something has to give so my question to you with your expertise is

237is there a way maybe it's with your coaching observations to observe the interventions and the things they're doing is there somehow we can simplify this because um I've also heard from teachers saying we appreciate the extra money but we don't have any extra time and of course of course you know how much they're doing outside of class for this and this I just keep hearing over and over the canvas course is there anything we can do for that what's your thought on that I appreciate that and we've heard the same thing and it's not that it hasn't been on my mind so thank you for that question um I talked about this with Dr Robbins and some of his his people and um one of the things that we know that was happening is we

238um in the canvas Court we were giving feedback because feedback changes practice yes and one of the things that um we have talked about is really giving more positive feedback and helping our teachers to see that this process is is helping them I think because it's the first unit um one of the things that has happened is they're actually asked to do that same form in the letters platform and what we want them to do is not do it there but do it in campus so if they just would flip it over and I see that some of them are starting to do that I think they thought they had to do it twice and that's not what we're asking them so we've tried to really clear clear that up with the coaches and we've

239also tried to not have um any teachers have to resubmit anything that if they've done it they've done it because that is is the key is the key part the bridge to practice is the big difference between addition two and addition three and the reason for that is you can have all this knowledge and you can have all of this um implementation but you have to have something that links them together and what the bridge practice does is it's a case study I'm picking some students and I'm going to make a difference if every teacher in our district made a difference with three students that's a lot of students absolutely yeah I I estimated that out of over 1600 students so we would change the lives of 1600 students if we let go of the

240bridge to practice um implementation will probably not stick so even though I understand where the teachers are coming from and I empathize with them I taught in the classroom for 22 years um and it is hard however if we're not passionate if we don't hold to this we might this public money we ourselves are spending 2. million think what the state is is spending think of all the taxpayer money whether it's our money meaning Canyons allocated to us or not it's still our money because we're still taxpayers and if we don't get implementation and use that Keystone of Bridge to practice and walkthroughs we're giving up something that's very powerful so I understand the canvas course and um in some cases and this is what the teachers don't know we've even lightened up some of

241the assignments in the canvas course so an example of that is in the letters it tells you to give a test and right now in Canyons we already give that test it's part of our protocols so we just have go find the results and write what you know about it which is much easier and less time consuming than giving a test um I've talked with uh my colleagues at the state that and ask them about how we're doing our plan and if it's too much and they have said yours your plan is well thought out and we will you will see results um hang tough hang tough with me I I I know that's a lot to ask but if we're still getting these complaints through unit two I'm happy to readdress and uh of

242course I would do whatever needs to be done to help a teacher we'll go out and Coach them we'll sit side by side we've asked the coaches to sit with them and help them with their Bridges to practice we made those changes this past Monday Monday yeah that was yesterday a day in a life in Canyon school district is a week sometimes so yeah Monday we made those changes yesterday okay is that yeah uh just a followup so I and I appreciate the bridge to practice and how important that piece of it is I and it sounds like maybe you have done some simplifying that was my question is what can we do to simplify um with the other Elementary schools I talk to as well I know principles are doing faculty meetings by email

243because these teachers really are having a hard time just with the time commitment um and and there's other sacrifices being made so um in fact principal moot said in her 34 years of being a principal she's never had so many teachers ready to quit K through three and so and I think and I think this is just part of the puzzle right this other piece is the excessive absences and so my thought tonight after hearing from these schools was just how can we still have that bridge to practice and that excellent implementation in this wellth thought out plan but simplify where we can and it doesn't sound to me all the feedback I'm getting is not that the teachers are overwhelmed from implementing it it's the amount of um work and and some of it

244viewed as maybe some busy work that there trying to find enough time in their outside of school so um you're not wrong about what they might see as busy work um the first unit is really looking at data and understanding the brain and that's where we are living right now when they get into unit two they're going to start writing lesson plans and it's going to be very meaningful for them so this is laying their foundation so that they can do the next step and that's why I think we need to be brave and hold on on and be passionate and be bold does that make sense I was out at okalo today met with their teachers and their coach and um I hope that that a their coach I know would meet with them

245and she offered to and I would also go out there so we'll do whatever it takes to support them time is time you're exactly right yeah and that's something I can't really give but I think Dr dowle can and you I think he's asking for that so yeah I mean that's that's what I think this whole thing is about it is one just one piece of the puzzle okay okay thank you uhuh thank thank you uh superintendent did you have a comment then Mrs Oaks yeah just um I just want to tell Susan how much I appreciate her and Kenna and Amber uh Susan and Kenna came to cabinet that that was the my people conversation and I hope she wasn't intimidated but um she did a fantastic job of articulating in uh the issue

246I a couple of points that she didn't make that she made with us that I think also helps frame the problem is that we have many students if you go back prior to the pandemic uh if they did not attend kindergarten right and were home and then the pandemic hit and they had either they were at home or didn't get instruction maybe they did depending on what they had access to um but many of those students that are are now sec in second grade really for the first time being you know exposed to direct reading instruction and so you can only imagine you know that that gap between kids that you know maybe receive that extra support at home versus those that didn't and just that you know that that Gap as widening instead of

247instead of closing so I I think one of the main reasons I really you know wanted to make sure Susan was here one to feel her passion and energy for this but I I feel like that's something that you know if we had to do it over again just really helping everyone understand the why right and how important that is unfortunately the timing of all this um it it's the perfect storm once again right it's one-time funding it's the middle of a pandemic oh by the way we're in an extreme labor shortage so teachers are having to cover for each other I mean it just the list goes on but I do believe you know that we are at critical mass here when it comes to literacy and I think um you know one of

248the things that that really resonated with me is just the fact that that that achievement level has been stagnant right so so something has to change right and and I appreciate her willingness and their team our team's willingness to really look at ways that we can be f flexible um in in trying to you know meet you know to meet those needs and also provide uh relief I I think going forward it's really important to understand you know and looking at some of the uh comments and thinking about attendance and the this landscape that we're in that you know it may require us um quite frankly to really rethink what it looks like what what what does education look like on a daily basis because all of these different pressure points are changing almost daily

249many not of our own making um the state you know as we know the last two years has had attendance requirements on moratorium well we wouldn't you know we couldn't predict what kind of impact that would actually have but when you think about literacy rates and achievement and learning and engagement you know it it is having an impact so uh we we've got to think different about that and I I certainly after I listen to them present recognize the heavy lift that our teachers are you know taking on and I think we can continue to look for ways to you know lessen that lessen that heavy load and still you know push forward with trying to to meet their their needs and I I think this additional time on Fridays um it does create issues

250at some level but fundamentally at our core as Susan mentioned you know it that cas three as we know that K3 literacy um attainment uh it it it is such a projection for everything graduation rates it really it sets the tone you know literacy rates for adults in how uh we all behave and attain you know goals in our life is related to those early years so this is a very very important discussion so that's all I wanted to add thank you Mrs Oaks thank you so much much Susan I appreciate it and I also felt your passion I was really excited to hear that it is a certified dyslexia um curriculum or training I guess and that and that's something I'm very very passionate about so that is wonderful news I hadn't heard that

251until tonight so um I have also heard some of the concerns that um Miss naow shared um some of the teachers incredible teachers some of whom my kids have had before are stressed out to the Max and they'll work really hard at their assignments turn it in and then someone comes back and tells them it's not good enough and they're just super overwhelmed um that was one of my concerns about making sure that like a good faith effort on the part of those teachers is met um reasonably and that also um some of the one and teachers that have written into us have concerns about their jobs or not having their contracts renewed or having it reflect poorly on their um how they rate out as a teacher and and so not only are they

252expected to do this much larger workload but they feel this enormous sense of pressure beyond that um another you know to touch on the the argument with regard to how much money we could potentially lose I would submit that we are going to lose additional monies by loss of instruction days right if we do virtual days I mean that has to be considered too um and I so just and I would love it if you could just clarify a little bit more about what the state requirements are versus ours like exactly where it is we're going above and beyond I mean I'm looking at this but there's some overlap some of it is not quite clear to me and also an additional question that Miss Arnold wanted me to ask um she's not here tonight

253but she requested that I ask certain questions on her behalf and one one of them was that based off her her understanding or something she received this past week as a teacher um that the state deadline requirements had changed somewhat and so it had spread out the requirements of when they had to finish certain units can you clarify that a little bit for us so your first question I I should have brought a pencil sorry was about um was about the resubmission and um so so since the the cabinet gave feedback to myself and um Kenna when she was here um Kenna senson one of my um administrators in our department we have ceased making anybody resubmit and have instead said um are are giving feedback such as thank you for uh submitting this we

254see you've done a good job here and here maybe consider for your student next time X or whatever so that we're still coaching and giving that feedback but not making any teacher resubmit um the reason the resubmitting was happening is we were trying to hold to this 80% because 80% plus is Mastery and so we're we were looking for that definition and um although as I talked with the letters Team U who is uh grading that and it's it's a fair question um they were w't trying to be harsh but I think because of the climate we're in saying you can resubmit please came across as harsh and so we have corrected that and I appreciate you asking that question and the feedback so there won't be any resubmissions needed if they complete it it's

255complete does that make sense I think your second question was about their job so is that correct um so the as far as a teacher Los losing their job around this they will not lose their job there is as a specialist and the specialist that I work with we have no power over their job um it might be perceived that somehow because our office happens to be at the district office but I'm a teacher at heart and I'm a coach at heart and I have said to anybody who's asked me I want you to succeed and I want you to get the $400 per unit and I will make sure that you do and I'll come out and help you if that's what I need to do so um I don't I I will admit

256Mrs Oaks that I don't know that um even though I've said that I don't know that it's been heard because I think we're in a climate where there's some anxiety happening because of lots of things but I can assure you that that's the motto of my team uh there was a teacher that one of the my teammates went out and said I will take your class so you can finish if because I can tell you're stressed about trying to get a sub and I will take your class for an hour I will do whatever it takes I don't know if she took her up on that but we those are the kinds of things that we've been offering because we're coaches that's what um Dr uh rodri landward has has that's that's our role we're

257teacher Specialists we coach and so we're here to support not to give any job action if there is any job action that's to be done that between them and their principal supervisor and that I can't comment on so um because that's not my role if that makes sense um does that answer that question and then I've lost your third question in my head I'm sorry you're fine I just really would love some greater clarification on exactly what it is we're doing beyond what the state requires I this is a question that keeps coming up again and again so here we've put this J deposed together the state is requiring online assignments face-to-face workshops and Co coaching and the online assignments include a bridge to practice what we are doing is we're monitoring the bridge to

258practice by having the teachers and they can just throw it take a picture of it and upload it and some of them have done that they don't have to do it twice and I know that there is some misconception around that and we need to do a better job about cleaning that up and clearing that up one of the things when the day that I did go to Cabinet is uh I know Communications wants to help us to clear that up so as many times as things have been said or emailed um we haven't done enough communication and that's on us so so we can do more of that to make that more clear so we are still doing everything the state has asked us to do the only thing that is um remotely even

259different is these uh walkthroughs that we're doing but you could even say that is still a state expectation because the coaching as you see over on the one side coaching walkthroughs is a way that you coach people for what they should look for and then that helps a coach to get into the classroom we asked some of the coaches what is it that um can help you and what are the teachers saying now that they finished un at one one of the coaches said this was my Monday we have more actionable items and things that are being talked about in iplcs because we allow the teachers to take their their tests together and so they're talking about these pieces another coach said they're using vocabulary and diagnosing students already and we're only in unit one

260I mean that's big these are Big shifts they also said they we don't have to hold them accountable because they're holding each other accountable so there are I there are big shifts and I'm not going to minimize anyone who's feeling pain over this I taught while raising my family and I do not know how I might have done it all at after school but if you do an hour or so each night it is possible but that is draining after you've been with kids all day long I mean let's admit that so um we are doing exactly what the state has asked us to do we've just tried to make this in uh a canyon way to be supportive and be coachable is there something you're seeing that we're doing extra that you have a

261specific question about we're just getting feedback from some of the teachers saying we don't understand why the district is requiring this much more and it probably is the campus piece I would imagine um and in follow up to the last question that Miss Arnold wanted me to ask was that the state has kind of adapt changed some of their deadlines so that it extends out part of the deadine lines and so the teachers don't have to get as much done as quickly is that correct or can you speak to that I that is not something I'm aware of are you aware of that Amber so we we did we we said that there were some deadlines that we would accommodate and we have at if we had teachers like they're out on um like they're

262quarantined for covid or someone has passed away in their family we've asked them to talk to us and in a caseby casee basis we have given them accommodations because we want them to get the money and we want them to succeed and we're not trying to be punitive at that is not our intent I'm just passionate about getting this kind of training into every teacher so it can be in every classroom and being punitive isn't that way what we're battling against is that it's been mandated if I had offered this and said this is something that Amber has given 2.9 Million to the ELA team to be able to bring this to all of you um we would have had people beating the door down but when we're told we have to do it it

263feels a little bit like you don't trust us or you don't think we know enough and I told you at the beginning I felt that way and Amber said this is great this is an opportunity and yeah that's how we should take it um did you have something you want okay yes am I supposed to are you the president acknowledges us yeah that's what I thought okay again I just want to reiterate reiterate I am very excited about this I do feel very passionate about this um I have a a degree in teaching English and I'm very passionate about reading at my house I had a son in first grade with a first year teacher who did not know how to teach those kids how to read after doing some digging I recognized the entire

264class was below grade level at the end of the year and I spent the next two and a half years teaching him how to read and catching him up and now he's above grade level I understand how important this is and I'm grateful for your passion and your expertise I just want to to ask you a few questions you said be bold I need to be bold in asking you a few questions because I was at Oak call out today too iold it's all it's all good h i I think what I most interested in and and in behalf of the teachers is can we look at is there anything we can do to simplify what we are asking a little bit not to not to change the importance of the bridge to practice not

265to change the implementation but if you look at this eight implementation checks with principal coach letter specialist walkthroughs um school-based coaching observations um and then the canvas as well and then the the money attached is there a way that we can say Hey you know some sort of simplification I'm grateful that you've already simplified and that they don't have to resubmit that was something I heard but is there is there other ways we can simplify because I think what the teachers are facing you've talked about climate I think what I keep hearing is how many absences their kids have and that is a huge stressor with them maintaining this and so is there ways that we can possibly simplify or even say guess what teachers on a weekly basis if you if you make these

266boxes check check check check check you may still get some compensation I have heard from both principles that are saying you know what it's actually my best teachers that always go the extra mile that stay extra late they are the ones that are the most stressed they are the ones that feel like quitting and so I think we really need to take that feedback and say you know and and I I trust that you and and Dr rodri I I definitely trust that you two together can maybe think of some ways to not sacrifice the quality but look at ways we can simplify a little bit to clarify the eight implementation checks are over two years so there's only four this year so just to clarify that um and we can look about simplifying what

267we are asking with those checks is that we only look at three teachers with the district and I didn't say that before so we're not seeing every teacher we are asking that coaches try to see every teacher but that's part of their job they should be in classrooms looking at what kind of teaching quality is going on and intervening and supporting but that isn't from a district lens I know when a district person comes in it makes people feel agitated so a principal can say is there a volunteer if they want more than three teachers they can if they don't want more if we need to we've we've uh I've customized like out at Midville um they said we can't possibly do this we've dedicated whole days they wanted their whole staff I tried to

268pull back on the principal and the principal said no we we need this this is what will change the dial for us so I I would as you talk to principales I would ask them to contact us because we will help customize that for um schools and if they will contact us we can help work through that so that teachers can check those boxes like you stated um we have given pacing guides and other things for them to do and I think sometimes although the intent is to keep them on Pace it also feels like we're watching them and I and that is not our intent and as loud as I can say that that will probably always feel that way because because I'm not in the classroom next to them but instead at the

269district office so anything that the principal wants to talk to us about I know I customized it at a cop review at Midville myself um I've worked with East Midville we've customized some things there um so we are I we're happy to engage in those conversations so if principles talk to you about that we're we're happy to do that and help it meet the needs of their school would that be a satisfactory way to solve that and feel yeah yeah yes and when you talked about um the teams of teachers taking some of the assessments together I know they're doing that at some schools and not all so that might be a great thing to publicize to the other schools because I know they're stressed about that is there any consideration for any teamwork on

270the canvas course submission okay great okay thank you um I think Mr Wrigley has a couple of questions and then we'll we'll wrap this one up and and I just want to let board members know if they would like additional information I'm sure sure that it they can reach out and get other questions answered thank you just really quick here because I know we're GNA we'll be midnight again we can't past midnight the bridges to practice is the canvas group or is that the group at the state level and the in the canvas is something different the C the bridge to practice is part of the letters platform from the state level the only thing that we have done is we have asked that that we are collecting this in canvas and we use that

271as our platform because the whole purpose is that if I'm watching over three little people that I really want to make yeah gains with I can take this now to my student services team my SST team and I can say here's all my evidence so actually teachers might feel like it's a hoop but our whole purpose is for this portfolio of evidence where they can say I've done this intervention I've done this intervention question I guess my question is on that I think appreciate that is is it possible to download that information into canvas from the state office I mean if we could download that I mean just one computer talking to another it solves that issue you have your stuff and we don't have to Reiner it the other question I had is um

272you gave us some Grim statistics on our district I suspect if you took across the state it's pretty much the same in all the districts that we you know this is not just cering it's falling behind that the rest of the state has the same things that are happening so this is a Statewide issue and the last thing I would ask is our parents are always telling us I want to help what are we doing to get send stuff home to the parents to say this is how you could help your child you know to move forward with this is there stuff that we can do no I know in the the low income it's going to be difficult the grade with student disabilities maybe not as much parents are really involved if they had

273something and the multilingual Learners maybe but is there stuff that we can do to send home to parents that they want to be partners with us and how can we help that so that's a great question and we uh Dr rodri lanward and myself and some of the team have started work on and have built what we call the CSD reading Corner website and it has supports that parents can utilize uh and use um as far as websites go we have good great best I would say we're still on the good category is that fair to say what I'm trying to say is it's a work still in progress I would ask you to go to that website it's not hooked to our main website but if you Google reading Corners CSD something it will

274be up it tells parents how to work with their kids there's films there they're suggested where they can get text all kinds of things it would be helpful I mean I know all our kids of canvas now even our youngest You' be inter put some of on that the parents just to involve the parents I think if they knew I think they would step up and say we want help so thank you thank you okay Mrs Oak has one last question yeah just to capitalize that on that so Bob this question especially for you and if Susan anywhere close I'm wondering Subs keep coming up as a massive issue it's a massive issue with you know social emotional learning it's a massive issue with getting our teachers trained to teach our kids better reading skills

275it's an issue in every area I'm wondering what we are doing to reach out to our PTA ptsas to plead with the parents in the community to please come out and sub we have had so many parents through this seal business come to us and say what can we do to help this is it if you want to help your community you want to help the schools you want to help the teachers you want to help alleviate part of the burden and allow us to get to a place of better decision making this is it and it's something that we can all pitch in and do a little bit of it will make a huge difference so that's all I have to say thank you and thank you for that information and and helping us

276better understand this this um initiative and this program in our district and um I I would just like to say I think the board would might be interested um in a report the road and and how you're seeing the successes that are coming from this work so thank you oh sorry one additional question Mrs naar I just have a question for Dr Dole uh when when I it was great to hear um what we're doing with letters and when I had asked that this agenda item be uh on the agenda as far as what supports we can do for for teachers we have a report of what of kind of the the issues with the stress I got a the report about the unexcused absences uh you know nearly 40,000 unexcused absences in one of

277our high schools kids that are more than 20 minutes late to class I mean those are in the thousands as well I know that's a ton of stress for our teachers and I just wanted to ask what what can we do what more can we do for our teachers yes you did ask that yes so I I just want to make sure that we discuss that at some point in our that did not fall by the wayside I do have some ideas great uh we I believe that they probably are best served going through the strategic planning process okay because I believe they're fairly big and I didn't want to just throw them out without it going through the proper course that's what was on my mind I did not forget about it and we

278will address it okay okay thank you so much sure all right thank you that concludes this that report item next is um item 7B propose proposal to add up to six virtual days learning days to the 2021 2022 school calendar second reading possible action uh I will turn the time over to Dr Robert D assistant superintendent thank you so uh last time that I actually presented this I apologized for the title of virtual because it's somewhat a misnomer if you remember um there's no intent to have that as a synchronous learning day online in fact it doesn't necessarily need to be online I know that a lot of our elementary teachers for example would prefer to do it more with hard copies uh rather than a virtual setup but um we were struggling a little

279bit for an appropriate name one thing that I want to also remind you of is that this was not intended to be a day off so uh Mr millerberg made the point that the best instruction is typically face to face and I make no argument I don't think anybody does um however it's not a day off of learning it's uh intended to be a day of learning and if you wait where did I have [Music] that this should be designed uh to support the learning intentions and success criteria of the current week or the following week so um we are fully anticipating and expecting that learning will occur uh you have brought up and we had a teacher bring up uh the dates as a point of concern and um we did have a a

280a criteria that we went through and we actually ran it past principles for their input but um it's not lost on me that we could do a better job uh when we were talking about uh well we did not talk about balancing the a days and B days like we should have and we can do that um my recommendation to you would be that on this proposal we start with November 5th but I come back because we need to start in my opinion right away um but we can come back with a new set of dates for you and make sure that after you approve those that everybody's very very well aware of that and uh my apologies it didn't meet all criteria but it didn't meet a set of criteria that was carefully selected

281um to try to make it so that we weren't running uh week after week with four day weeks or less um and and a few other things so my pledge to you would be that we'll review that if that's your direction and we'll come back with a an improved list of dates for you we want to be sensitive to the teachers needs 1 I do also want to report that after I presented this I received some pretty uh impassioned feedback uh from elementaries I had one uh Elementary that reached back to me and and said that there was loud cheering through the halls of the school and even tears this was an elementary school again where they were so grateful that they will have some time to do some planning and especially work on letters

282and other things so um I know know that it doesn't necessarily meet everybody's needs and I also want to say that it's not an idea that originated in Canyon school district we have other districts that are doing this uh including our neighbor Jordan School District now they're doing four days but this is not a new idea and there are other districts as well that have done this to try to help support teachers and we recognize that it's not perfectly convenient for every everybody now I didn't want to go through the entire presentation again because you've read it you've had time to look at it but those were a couple of the points that I wanted to make up front and also answer any questions that you might have thank you board questions comments um Mrs

283Oaks mine is just on behalf of Miss Arnold who before this meeting um pursuing an on a challenge communicated with me that before she had concerns about the virtual Fridays after looking deeper into the issues with letters and particularly with our substitute shortage she does not so she's supportive of the idea Mr Wrigley yeah this has been an interesting time uh sometimes we forget that we're in covid pandemic still uh and in fact in some cases it's worse than it was last year uh in many cases as far as people not work work and all kinds of other issues happening it's been adding on to that um I I've talked with uh a couple teachers have sent some stuff you know typically of the letters which is one thing we've talked a lot about uh

284they also have this new Envision 2220 or whatever that new came out new this year so a lot of teachers are now having to sort of revamp their lesson for that one um there's many times especially in the middle schools I mean the elementary there's insufficient time for for prep time there's no prep time put in there so that's always been an issue that we've had and going on forever um and so there's not a time to say okay I'll do this during my prep time uh teachers just sort of do the whole lesson and go on uh also you know the addition to the individuals being out more frequently we saw the numbers over here and you'll probably talk about them they're huge which means that we have to make extra lessons for those

285kids we also have kids out with the pandemic uh that are coming out and more than just that getting the the co co they're out because we don't have mask in the schools and other things so that increased the the number of kids that are getting it uh teachers are also having outside duties on the recesses uh because we don't have sufficient staff um so now they're going there and then they're helping in the sub shortage um so it's becoming a a major crisis I mean I looked at our terminations just this sense this is a termination list from September 30th to October October 14th we had 10 teachers leave during that one period of time but not due to terminations right pardon me that was a resonations yeah those are res sorry resonations that

286happened during that time which is we don't say was higher than we typically did I went to one in school this last week they said there was about five teachers that were thinking about leaving 10 year teachers they were thinking about leaving so I think there's a real crisis that we do need to address if we don't uh I well I think we'll have some real issues our our teachers mental health and if the teacher is not emotionally ready and and physically ready they're not going to be able to teach your kids very well and then may add to all the other issues that were going on um I think A and B A and bday would be very helpful to address on that um and the other issue we're g be talking about next

287is the whole seal curriculum and if we have to add some additional time to that it's going to break the camels back perhaps so anyway I think I I I would support this um I'd like to do more but I think it's a little different this year than it was last year I don't think employers will give everybody every Friday off as we did last year because they don't have any staff themselves they're running short so I don't know exactly how this is going to be and it'll be difficult on the families to do um I'm not sure exactly what else we can do we have very limited opportunities and it sounds like our other districts may be going four days a week which could even make it more difficult on the parent so I

288support it at this time have to reassess it in the future and see what happens there but um I don't know if we have many other options really thank you thank you Mr millerberg has a comment and then Mrs shill yeah president thank you very much for the opportunity to comment um a little over a week ago I showed up at hrrest high school they were doing mock job interviews with students and they asked me if I would come up and interview some students as I arrived at hris high school I walked into the office and Nola Taylor one of the secretaries looked at me and she says you came to substitute right and I kind of chuckled with no Noah a little bit and told her no and let her know I was there

289and I was just checking in at the office and as I was leaving I just walked back into the office to let them know that I was leaving the building and I watched at least three teachers come in and say where do you need me where do you need me and I was just so arrien with the quality and the caliber of the people teaching our children and their willingness that even though we're in a in a labor shortage even though things are not perfect how willing they are just step up and cover and I think that what we have to look at is is what I call balance you know we as elected board members we represent the public they elected us they're our bosses and we need to make sure my perception is

290that our job is to make sure the best education possible happens in our schools and that takes again the word balance we can demand and demand demand and we are watching our teachers give and give and give more than they've ever given before we are in extraordinary times and I think that requires that we have extraordinary solutions to handle extraordinary times and so I feel like these six uh virtual learning days will show the teachers that we care that we understand the additional pressure they're under and I believe in long run it will provide a better education for our students than if we did nothing and let the system crumble out from underneath us so thank you for the opportunity to comment thank you uh Mrs shill okay I would like to make a motion

291so I move that we approve adding six virtual learning days to the 2021 2022 school calendar starting with no November 5th and the other additional days to be brought back from the administration I'll second that motion okay um we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion to the motion I would just Mr would you like to the motion yes thank you president so I just want to um talk about how I support this and we have heard from a lot of teachers that say they really need it um they are struggling just like the superintendent said I mean this year is The Perfect Storm and we're still in a pandemic or have a labor shortage we have a lot of absenteeism um I know that a lot of the high school

292teachers just like Mont said are filling in for other teachers so they have like no prep time because they are filling in filling in because we don't have teachers so um I just think we need to do this as a start can do more too thank you any other discussion to the motion oh Mrs nbow I want to add my comments that I also have heard from a lot of teachers that most teachers are giving up their prep periods to cover other classes because of the substitute shortage so essentially especially in our elementary schools we have more requirements of them and they didn't have a prep period to begin with but the upper levels did and they no longer have a prep and then we've got the elementary school with extra requirements and so I

293do understand uh the patron comments that came and I appreciate them I definitely think it's a great idea to balance the schedule with AB I do um second that motion with the understanding that we do have a lot of teachers who teach a in concurrent enrollment that feel a lot of pressure about getting through all of the material and the percentage of their students that pass those and so um I just wanted to comment that I understand and recognize that stress and hopefully the balance of the schedule will help alleviate that a little bit and again feel like this is the best way to try to meet the needs of the teachers with the excessive absences and and over 20 minute late tardies on top of the other things for this year so and I

294also just wanted to comment I am excited to talk about how else we can support the teachers okay um we have a motion in a second any further discussion to the motion just quickly Mrs Arnold said that she she was in favor of this also by so we don't make that record yeah um although although she's not it's not counted as a vote it's not counted as a vote but it's okay all right not counted vote but she wanted to make her wish thank thank you and I too am in favor of of the motion and um I appreciate your willingness to respond to the um concern that was brought up about the balancing with the ad bday and um I hope that we will do some really good communicating because November 5th is not

295that far away so so um anyway thank you so we have a motion and a second and I see no further discussion to the motion so I will call for a vote all in favor of the motion please say I I I thank you any opposed that motion passes thank thank you thank you okay next item is item 7c discussion on social emotional learning curriculum and um second reading possible action I will turn time over to school performance directors and it looks like we have uh Dr McKay Robinson um Alice peek and Cindy Hansen president T can I just comment real quick I just want to thank the school performance team and Bob for their hard work on this as well and just remind everybody um that this these are options they're presenting this is

296not specifically recommendations from school performance but options that the board asked us to bring back tonight so just want to tell them how much I appreciate their their work and diligence on this and the Mets too as you know we're in the middle of accreditation visit this week and these guys really gone the extra mile so just appreciate their efforts fantastic thank you Dr Robbins and thank you president tingy and our wonderful board members feels like it's been forever since I last stood up here to present in fact I'm positive that I have a lot more gray hair than I did the last time we met so but I'm owning it so it's all good um but as Dr Robbins Illustrated and mentioned um these are simply options and not only are these options but

297these are for the remainder of this school year this isn't something that's to continue from this point on necessarily this is strictly for the remainder of this particular school year so we wanted to start off by essentially um illustrating and pointing out the process that has been taken to get to this particular Point since our last um board meeting back on October 5th and um highlight the different individuals that were involved in this process and and selecting particular options so we first and foremost had a discussion at the cabinet level and for those that are in attendance that may not know who sits on cabinet here at the district um level we have our superintendent our assistant superintendent we have um our instructional support department director our responsive Services director um all of our school

298performance team the legal team as well as uh human resources and also several members from our Communications team so that's just to give a little information for those that may not know who sits on cabinet um we also had um several discussions in our principal's leadership meetings to discuss what has been um historically happening and what they would like to see moving forward instructional supports um met quite regularly and met with us in school performance as well as we began looking at all the different options that were um possibly out there um for this interim period um we also worked closely with responsive servic and then Dr Robbins received quite a bit of feedback as well through sec's and ptas on his listening tours as well as some of the breakfasts and different things that

299he has been involved with so that is essentially the process that has been taken from October 5th until now to get to um where we are now um in our last board meeting there was also um several questions that came up regarding um whether or not social and emotional learning um was required within our schools and if it was even necessary or if we should just um um I guess get rid of it Al together for lack of a better way of describing that and so wanted to um point out um the Utah State Board of Education board rule as well as some additional guidance and this is the r277 d400 d8 and it talks about in a specific section referred to as prevention and intervention and in that first area it talks about how

300an Ela provide a school comprehensive violence prevention and intervention strategies as part of a school's regular curriculum including resources resource lessons and materials on Anger Management conflict resolution and then also respect for diversity in other cultures it then continues on to um illustrate and point out that an Lea should also or shall also develop or incorporate to the extent resources permit care teams and um just so you are aware in our school district we refer to those is student support teams originally they were called care teams but there are those things are in place as well but then you'll notice there on C social and emotional learning is on that list from this state board Rule and the guidance that we have received so that is um just there to try and address one of

301the questions that did come up in our last board meeting we also have this other information also falling within the State Board Rule and guidance and it's um a document that is known as portrait of a graduate and the Utah's portrait of a graduate came about in May of 2019 and that document was created through work done by a task force comprised of board members and Utah State Board of Education staff members who relied heavily on Statewide surveys and feedback from Educators students parents and other community members and the portrait of a graduate basically identifies the ideal characteristics of a Utah graduate after going through the K12 system so those of you that have not had the opportunity to look at the document as a in its entirety there are 13 ideal characteristics that are

302identified within this document these are only five of those specific um characteristics and we are only highlighting those simply because they're the ones that tend to connect most um with the social and emotional learning aspect of it but for those of you that are interested the remaining eight that aren't not listed up here are academic Mastery Civic financial and economic literacy digital lit literacy communication critical thinking and problem solving creativity and Innovation collaboration and teamwork and service and so all of these things are um all part of this process of looking at what is best for um our schools regarding the social and emotional learning as well as this is something that we have continued to look at closely moving forward with our um current strategic planning this next particular slide essentially just illustrates the

303definition that we have um I guess um become familiar with over the years and this was actually the definition that was in place when the board originally adopted um their social emotional learning curriculum and this is here simply as a reminder of what it means and what it's all about and what it entails for those that may be still questioning what social and emotional learning truly is and how it is recognized throughout the industry and rather than boring you in reading it word for word um it is just simply there and available on board docks as well um this next slide basically um illustrates the different skills that are found within all social and not all but the majority of Social and emotional learning curriculums I'm trying to avoid using acronyms and so I apologize

304that I keep saying Social and emotional learning over and over and over um but if everyone's comfortable I I may jump back and forth between that andal but um anyway back to back to this these are the skills that are found and highlighted within those curriculums and truly are the the foundation of what social and emotional learning curriculums are about um and they basically are there to teach and support students in applying the specific skills to help them be successful within school and academically um I oftentimes think of and this has been um Illustrated multiple times and discussed over and over but as you all know our teachers spend a lot of time at the beginning of a school year or even throughout the school year teaching rules expectations routines everything to an order in

305order to create a specific environment that is conducive to learning and I'm able to help create that specific learning environment that helps them to achieve everything that they are wanting to achieve and a lot of the social and emotional learning skills and attributes um contribute to that learning environment as well I don't believe there's ever a day that goes by and I can say this speaking as a former Elementary School teacher for many many years um it's where my heart lies and I love it that's the whole reason why I stand before you now today is because of my passion for education but then also as a building administrator where you don't have a student or two coming in from Recess have having just had an argument about not being asked to play or um

306so and so called me a name or whatever the case may be and you spend that time as that teacher trying to resolve the conflict that is there as well as teach them correct principles and skills to help them resolve that on their own in the future and in the process of doing that you are eliminating more and more of that academic time that is um taking place and so a lot of this social and emotional learning that is um been being Incorporated into our classrooms are to not only resolve those that are there but also be proactive in trying to eliminate them in the first place so that we can focus on what is most important within our classrooms um so in regards to the considerations and again this is strictly for the interim

307for the remainder of this school year we felt it was very important to I guess set some criteria as we began looking at the different options that are available um as you all know we have taken great pride as a school district to be very much evidence-based and we felt that that was necessary to look at programs that are evidence-based and also connected to the industry standards and we've listed the industry standards there as well just for your reference and those typically are self-awareness self-management responsible decision-making relationship skills as well as social awareness we also wanted to look at the instructional time and for those of you um who may or may not be familiar the elementary um a lot of these lessons are taking place on a daily basis and um it's this we

308were hoping for and wanted to align whatever options were there with what has already been given to the teachers for these particular lessons to take place and not try and create something that requires add uh too much um time or um adds to what was already there and then in the middle schools they've just been simply doing things on a weekly basis and each school is a little bit different but they have essentially um set aside 20 minutes within the day depending on where they are then the cost it's obviously an important discussion we've heard that brought up on multiple occasions um the amount of teacher professional development that may be required moving forward that was also mentioned just a few moments ago and then planning time requirements for our teachers and then also we

309felt it was extremely important for families to have access to those lessons as well for the review and we've heard that um repeatedly for the last few board me meetings and um appreciate all those parents that have expressed their concerns and those that continue to remain here with us well after well not well after a few minutes after 10 um but um hopefully we can all appreciate their commitment and their their passion for this as well for I think we all Stand United in wanting to provide the best education for our students so those are the criteria that we have um that we kind of set up to look at and um help us make better decisions so in regards to the interim options these are the four that we came up with and I'll

310spend just a a few moments talking about why um these were um selected as well as um we will go into a little bit more depth of into each of the specific programs that are being um provided as options not recommending simply providing as options but again um the first option is second step and wanted to stress and that's why we put Elementary only there um simply because we um all understand that we are not moving forward with that in the the middle schools at this time uh one of the main reasons why that is up here as another option is because it is the current um program that was adopted by the board several years ago and again cannot stress enough that this would be only for our elementary students um the second option

311is near pod social and emotional learning lessons um with the social and emotional I'll get into to um depth on that um here in just a moment so I won't I'll move on this option three is positive action and this is a program that some may or may not have heard about um but this might sound familiar to several of our board members but this was one of the three finalists when we originally adopted curriculum back and so that's one of the reasons why we felt as though it would be worth looking at again and then the fourth option being leader and me which was also one of the finalists in the um original adoption process back several years ago two things that we really want to stress and highlight here is that there will

312be parent opt opt out options available regardless of the option that is selected by the board um so we really wanted to highlight that as well as any and or all curriculum will be vetted at the cabinet level so regardless if whatever option is selected um we will still go through that process the individuals that were listed and highlighted before um we want to do that in order to avoid any future missteps um to be completely honest with you and 100% transparent um it hurt my heart in a lot of ways to hear um parent comments talk about having lost faith and lost trust within us and that's the last thing that I think any of us would ever want and so with that in mind this is one of the reasons why we will

313continue to vet regardless of whatever option is selected and ensure that um all the feedback that we have received and been receiving um that we will take all that into consideration as we look at whatever um lessons will be provided to the schools so to dive into this a little bit more in depth than to give an overview uh the Second Step option number one consists of 22 social and emotional learning lessons for each grade in levels K through five um the lessons are organized into four units in grades K through two but then um into three units for grades three through five but they are the same um units that are listed there and what I mean by that is where it says skills for learning empathy emotion management and problem solving those are

314the four units and they just simply combine two of those for to make only three units um for the grades three through five so skills for learning um let's see yes okay so um within skills for learning just wanted to highlight some of the lessons that are being taught in there to give everyone an idea so in that skills for learning unit um those lessons include those being lessons on being respectful following directions understanding different perspectives listening with attention and being assertive in the empathy unit lessons include on how to deal with accidents um and for those of you that may be question or wondering what that means um I accidentally pushed him over or whatever and there's always those I guess difference difference in opinions and whatnot but showing care and concern feeling confident

315showing compassion and disagreeing respectfully um under the emotion management unit lessons include calming down anger managing worry or embarrassment avoid jumping to conclusions managing frustration and avoiding assumptions and then under the problem solving um unit the lessons include Fairways to play handling name calling responding to playground exclusions or problems seeking help and dealing with peer pressure so the lessons for our social and emotional learning Second Step they are packaged in a hard copy binder with a CD and a DVD that provides on online access to those particular videos and um this was a question that came up I believe a while back about the concerns that were there so we wanted to just really emphasize once again that the CDs and DVDs that were provided for those lessons they are still static in nature they

316have simply placed them on the line for the teachers to use because the majority of laptops no longer have the ability to play a CD or dvd without an external drive that you partic you plug in um I have gone through and literally put every video from the DVD and CD um in one computer and had the online version next to it push play and everything is exactly the same with the two and those are the only things that are available to our teachers in this particular program in the elementary world and again we do not have access to other online videos for the elementary other than those that were provided on the CDs and DVDs Second Step as a whole does offer things like that but that is not something that we have purchased

317or have access to so just really want to to make sure that we're understanding the difference there um okay now as I mentioned before we had the criteria that we had outlined and so we basically set up for each of the options this little table to help you to see exactly um what we discovered for each of the options that are being presented tonight so in regards to the evidence-based and Industry standard connection second step is aligned to the industry standards and there have been multiple research studies evaluating the program program that have been published um want to point out that the instructional time itself sits around 15 to 20 minutes which does align with the time that we already had um the cost here it does say no additional cost as we do already

318own the curriculum with that being said um we also want to highlight as was mentioned earlier that cabinet would be vetting and making sure all the lessons that will be sent out and whatnot so there is that and honestly up until this point the amount of time that has been put in by everyone reviewing and going back over things there is that cost that has been involved with there but as for the curriculum itself there is no additional cost as we do on that curriculum teacher professional development none would be required at this point um simply due to the fact that the majority of teachers um are familiar with it and we using it prior to the stoppage that took place planning time is very minimal and then the family access um they do have

319access to the hard copy lessons and can be made available to um for inperson review and then other little pieces of information that we thought were important this is the board approved curriculum um it has been used in elementary schools for the last four years it has a vertical progression in skills to support Mastery and it is also the most widely used social and emotional learning curriculum in the state of Utah in yes please before we go to all of the other you have another slide I guess one more slide on the Second Step opt out so maybe you can scroll to that do that one and then yep go from there okay yep perfect so this slide is simply there for um I guess to provide information in regards to where we were prior

320to the stoppage that took place so in our elementary schools we had a total of 25 students that had opted out those are the numbers and from which schools they came from with that being said I would also like to acknowledge that these numbers could have very well been there could be more numbers based on the fact that this if a stop had not taken place yes if that makes sense so these are there simply as a pre you know once the stoppage did take place and for the information of of um I guess you could look at this as well as the board how seriously you took this and the feedback that was received from parents and putting a pause and and a stoppage to it and so we just wanted you to make

321sure that you knew what the numbers were as well at the time thank you thank you for your presentation I thought maybe it makes sense for us to comment after each instead of going through the whole thing and then um I I I I think we should let him conclude the whole presentation and then we can comment is that yeah okay okay is that what you'd like me to do present te yes okay perfect so on to option number two this was mentioned in our last board meeting as well um near pod social and emotional learning lessons and um first and foremost wanted to basically point out that this would not be a freefor all um as you know and as if you have visited nearpod nearpod is very extensive and have a has a

322large catalog of lessons even those that fall under social and emotional learning but I want to explain um also the process that was taken prior to last board meeting as we were providing this as an option as well um but essentially we and when I say we individuals from instructional supports Department responsive services and school performance all got together and we began looking at the lessons that were already made available on nearpod and we also in that process um looked at what Davis School District as well as weever school districts were using and kind of used that as a starting point um because they had already vetted some of their lessons and we identified 37 lessons that we thought would be appropriate but in that process we sat together watched um watched particular lessons we

323paused we asked a ton of questions and quite honestly we challenged a lot of the material that we did find as well what is nice about the um nearpod option is that we were able to as the individuals sitting in that room eliminate particular slides that we felt did not align with Canyon School District's Vision as well as the feedback that we have received um throughout this process and so we also went through the process of looking at all the links that may have been found within these particular lessons and references that were found at the very end and if there was anything that was questionable or alarming to us we simply eliminated it and wiped it out all together we went through that process for six specific lessons spent um quite a few hours

324doing that and at the end of identifying feeling comfortable with six of those particular lessons we decided we would not continue unless it ended up being the option that was selected simply because of the amount of time that was being um put into this process but we did feel it was important to at least have an understanding as well as recognize that we would be able to edit and eliminate anything that we did find to be questionable um and those lessons would simply be organized um again into the five units that are there and those are the um industry standards that we identified once before and then we could organize those lessons into K2 lessons grades three through five K8 or 68 whatever is decided in that regard so those are the near pod um

325options and again here's the the chart that we put into place it does connect to Industry standards and is evidence-based um but the lessons themselves have not been evaluated for impact overall the cost of this the timing does align with what we do already have in place the cost um the Utah State Board of Education has purchased neari licenses for all of our Educators but again as I mentioned before the um amount of time that is put into looking at each of the lessons and eliminating there is a cost to that I guess for lack of a better way of describing in that um the teacher professional development I would argue that there wouldn't it wouldn't require a lot of professional development simply due to the fact that a lot of our teachers are already

326using NE nearpod as a resource um not necessarily for social and emotional learning by any means but for lots of different things and then the planning time should be very minimal but the family would have access to the lessons that we would be approving and um have identified as ones that are um I guess effective for lack of a better way of describing and and acceptable um those lessons are interactive and they do connect to our instructional priorities and then we do also we wanted to highlight as I mentioned a little bit earlier that they are confirmed and are being used within Davis and we were school districts so those are the first two options and I will now turn some time over to um a wonderful individual that I like to refer to as

327my sister she always calls her my mother but won't accept that but my sister to talk about option number three it's pretty true I do kind of mother everybody um okay so I'll just for the record Cindy Hansen is addressing us now yeah all right no not his mother I know don't want to know how old I am okay uh so we're going to look at positive action um that's our our next option so positive action is a little bit different as I go through this in that it really is a paper based curriculum K12 so it does require licenses or um as you'll see in the chart their subscriptions so licenses are purchased for teachers in schools the number ofal lessons differ by grade levels they have 140 lessons K six per grade and

328um 80 lessons in seven and eight um and that's because positive action their intent is for it to be a daily instruction so they have a lot of extra lessons because they're looking at it as a 15 to 20 minutes in the elementary 20 25 minutes in the secondary or in the middle schools um so that's why they have so many lessons available um they do have it go through 12 but we're we're just looked through eight um so the lessons have a paper and a digital component their digital component is simply PDFs of their hard copy lessons so you can have an account where you go on and log in primarily so that if you had online classes where you were trying to do things via Zoom that you could actually project and show

329the things that are the the hard copy lessons so students would still have access to that information so they didn't have other kinds of you know lessons or things that were produced and accessed online just PDFs of their own um materials so positive action aligned to Industry standards multiple research studies evaluating their effectiveness they've they've received a lot of awards and accommodations um it's 10 to 15 minutes at the elementary and 15 to 20 at secondary so that does align with the time kind of allocations that we've seen um the cost of second step and and I will say as I go through this I've um when I was at Mount Jordan you know we we had some of these as kind of pilot things so I I can kind of explain what it looks

330like in the the kit so it's approximately as we were trying to figure out all of the different pieces about $600,000 initially um with ongoing costs annually so part of that is a training that they do and the $550 training is for online participants up to 20 so they'll have up to 20 participants online the $33,000 plus track um pays for an onsite trainer and that's for up to 50 participants and then the 25 people is for trainers you can do trainers of the training so you can pay for people to come in and and train your people to be trainers so the $400 curriculum kit per teacher so um it comes in a big box and they basically have um a journal so the students have this journal they have these envelopes and these

331different things where they can keep their Journal throughout the year so it's got different lessons that they can turn in or things that they can just write in and then it has all sorts of different cards and um manipulatives and all whatever they're going to need for the the lessons throughout the year so when you look at and then it has a planning book so there's an instructional guide for the teacher as well that goes through that has every lesson written out and printed um so it'll say in the lesson you know here's the materials that you need so I might need to get 30 pens and then here's the materials that are part of the kit so that's that's what the kit looks like looks like the $330 per grade level subscription that's the

332licensing piece that I mentioned in the previous slide so that's every three years um additionally $150 is required every year to reboost that consumable part of your kit so that's kind of what the breakdown is when you look at how many teachers we have and and all of those costs that that would come together so that's what that looks like um teacher professional development you have the one day of training that they provide just to overview the program I know when I was at Mount Jordan we did it um online like they we did a piece where they talked to us and kind of explained the training the planning time for teachers is minimal the the lessons are all pre-done they have like here's what the teachers can say here's the different activities here's the

333stories everything is all part of that kit um there is family access to the hard copy lessons um that you could see you know come in and preview you could see the teachers instructional manuals and Etc one thing about positive action is they also have if you wanted to pay more they also have kits specifically for families so they're designed to promote and a lot of their materials are about making that family connection and really valuing that piece in this whole process and so they do have specific kits that are designed to to be family kits that are go out and are used that way um there is a vertical progression in the skills that's one of the other pieces specifically so there's only seven units well there are seven units um that they use

334K12 so their seven units are self-concept positive actions for body and mind managing yourself responsibly treating others the way you like to be treated telling yourself the truth improving yourself continually and then the last one's kind of an overview for the year so they have a a progression you know each year each grade level on those seven units so those are the comp components of positive action okay our final option to present to the board tonight excuse me I'll just say for the record Alice P is now addressing the board thank [Laughter] you so the final option we're going to present to you tonight is option for leader and me and Leader in Me is a whole school Improvement model that's designed to empower students with leadership and life skills that they would need to

335thrive in the 21st century and as McKay mentioned earlier this was one of the three final uh programs that was considered for curriculum adoption the first time around uh this program is grounded in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven cvy and students are first taught to lead themselves through personal responsibility planning and decisionmaking and then to lead others um through a ten of listening conflict resolution and teamwork and this program also uh takes an organizational approach to uh social emotional learning it's designed to create common language and culture throughout the school community so Leader in Me is an educational technology tool and digital lesson Library um all these materials are online and they do come through the leaderin me.com website it does require licenses and annual memberships those memberships include online professional

336development for teachers the online video Library resources for teachers and students that include articles stories printable materials uh access to coaching books and posters and certainly I'm sure quite a bit more so let's look a little bit at the different pieces that we looked at in the other options um it is aligned to our industry standards um or to Industry standards excuse me um and those core competencies for this particular um program are self-discipline initiative relationship building communication and collaboration um they have had independent case studies and program evaluation uh research studies have been conducted in in three peer review journals um the instructional time is anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes per day that does again align with our previous seal allocated time for schools um the cost is uh going to be approximately

337$225,000 for students and then another 122,000 for the lighthouse training um there is an annual membership involved D with that as well you can see the breakdown of the numbers there um in terms of teacher professional development so in talking with um Austin Haslam who was gracious enough to come out and spend some time with our our team and kind of look at some of the uh PD options um they really highly recommend two days of on-site learning um per school team and by per school team they look at creating a lighthouse team of about four to eight uh teachers at each school um and that's ideally in a normal situation that liouse team uh would go through a full day of training however given our current needs uh for an interim program um Austin

338felt like this uh we could probably do one full day of training um just for the teachers which would include a combination of perhaps three hours of individual teacher training and um they really encourage us to do uh training on Neuroscience which is sort of like uh helping uh teachers uh in terms of their knowledge base and their Wellness so that they're prepared then to teach these lessons um he did say you could break these three hours into increments of hours at a time so if we didn't want to do an entire day's worth of professional development for teachers we could possibly break it into one hour segments um along with that three hours of training for the teachers again uh he said the rest of that day could be spent with coaches going over

339um the curriculum so teachers become familiar with it and have a good idea of of how to dive in with the lessons um planning time requirements OB obviously it's a new program so there will be some planning required um we were told it's minimal um but um you know again um most of these lessons are fairly scripted um so they should require little preparation uh however there will be obviously some planning required Family Access um we were told that each school has a username and password that can be made available to parents if they would like to access those lessons and that information and those different components online so with that just wanted to reiterate again that the four options that we've put in front of you are uh parent opt out is allowable for

340all of these options and again any of the curriculum that is um agreed upon will also be vetted at a cabinet level to make sure that all the materials are appropriate and uh follow in in line with Canyon's Vision District um alignment and just making sure that uh we're meeting those standards that um have been set so with that our team is prepared to start to answer questions that you might have okay thank you very much for that presentation um I think we do have questions how about if we start um with Mrs nyar and we'll just kind of work down the work down the road thank you thank you so much thank you for your presentation and thank you for the hours you have spent I know with accreditation there is so much on

341your plates right now so thank you um okay I am gonna start with thoughts on um things that will take the least amount of time and then move on so my thoughts are and I want to thank you for all of the review you did of nearpod I've spent hours on that as well since we were given logins in my opinion that program is not skills-based and I think it would take a internate amount of hours to take out those things that we need to take out and review I also feel like it's it's too it's a too much time um positive action that's far too much daily time in my opinion to take from the classroom also I think it's it's far too much cost for a temporary solution so I've ruled that out

342immediately um The Leader in Me looks like a very viable option uh my concern is with the training for the teachers I think we need to have it be a virtual day or something like that um I and you know there's that that the cost it's it's the best cost of the three options um and uh it already aligns with the given time and our schedules that we have so I see some benefits with that okay now I'm going to dig in okay with our process and I understand you were under a great time constraint and I feel the pressure as well with our emails I know we're getting a lot of messages hurry quick into sight but the very first thing I wanted to talk about is on your slide of of Who provided

343insight and input I would suggest that perhaps we have not gotten enough input from parents the SEC and PTA input I believe side conversations during the listening tour do not equate to actual input about these specific options I think we've heard loud and clear about one option but not the others at all um the the school board because we're the ones that are going to vote on this one problem I had is I had a login for nearpod and I have a login for second steps but I didn't have a way to really view positive actions or leader in me and so I was researching online for a long time trying to find that but I would have loved to have some sample lesson plans and I feel that I feel that that's really important

344as well is vetting this at the SEC level I think the reason why we're in one of one of the reasons there's mult but one of the reasons why we're in this situation is we didn't have proper vetting at the SEC level at every school and so I I would submit that and question if maybe that's something we could do as we're looking at the options is to have that presented to all the sec's like sample lesson plans to get more parent input okay um I also when we received this petition of 639 parents against the option that's still on the table that also leads me to believe this isn't students this is families most families have more than one child so again it makes me feel like uh maybe maybe that input by parents

345hasn't you know we need to think more on that um okay so I wanted to I've talked to members of the usbe and I just wanted to provide a little clarification we are tying it to the r277 d400 d8 and and uh McKay did a great job of of articulating we don't that these are the things that tie in and the portrait of the graduate but we do not currently have any state standard for seal and so that's very important I think to acknowledge here we don't have any state rule on it okay um all right so I've gone to all the schools um Indian Hills is one of the schools that has not yet implemented second second steps however meeting with them was really um fun and and interesting and they sent us this

346email with all of the different supports and lesson plans they've been doing to promote emotional wellness and respect and kindness and inclusion in their school I found it very interesting to note that they are actually the embryo in our district for all counselors all C at every almost every School in the district they have someone that went through their program first and then is now and and Cindy's nodding as she knows I just thought these folks have done an excellent job of creating awesome lesson plans and I wanted to share with you some of their insights um I also talked to Karen Brown our our psychologist at the district as well as psychologists at every school so um there are certain things missing from second steps in the ruling of 277 uh I've gone through

347and looked at all the lesson plans per grade I don't believe honesty and integrity is super present as one of the skills being taught well Wellness for physical wellbe being not present optimism maybe not as present as it could be service maybe not as present as it could be um a lot of the psychologists that I spoke with said that they would and there's more than four of them said that if we were to continue with second steps at the elementary school level they would want to make changes to certain lesson plans in particular there are students that have experienced trauma in their lives and there is a sharing component and sharing of feelings and experiences that they said would not be um appropriate at the classroom level and they did not feel um they

348liked they said even their interventions with at risk kids they're very careful not to have those conversations that there would need to be limits and boundaries in the lesson plans instead of share a time you were said think about a time you were s we all get sad now let's talk about the skills to um help us through that but they said that that's very very important to keep um some confidentiality that way and to help children not be um extremely vulnerable the overshares and the kids that don't know how to set up boundaries and they said oftentimes the same students that are at risk and have had trauma are also those that don't maybe naturally have those boundaries um okay uh I know one of the reasons and it was stated it's an option

349because it was a board approved curriculum um and of course you know I was not on the board at that time um the teacher professional development uh in the slide it says that there will be no more hours for Teacher professional development that it's all been done however Indian Hills uh ollow and Willow Springs all I've talked to the principals and their teams none have had teacher training because they had not yet started the program so I think that needs maybe we could possibly change that because there will be more teacher professional development hours needed for that because once it was put on hold they have done it um let's see okay another thing in that another element the vertical progression was was listed as maybe a positive here and I think that vertical prog

350progression is lost in that those skills building upon each other Dr Robbins has said it because we're not doing it at the middle school level I'm not sure if that should be included as a positive because of the scaff in and we're not doing it anywhere else but Elementary if we decide to do this um okay additional costs we have no additional cost and I am not sure about that because not only do we have schools that haven't ever implemented it yet that need to do teacher training but also um you know the all the psychologists I talk to did say there would be changes they would recommend and so I do think there's some staffing hours um necessary if we were to move forward with that um then the other big piece the principles

351I spoke to at the elementary schools in Draper um Willow Springs and Oak Hollow said they are very concerned about how many students would be opting out and they're concerned about what they would do possibly with those students because of the substitute shortage and we're using coaches and teacher aids for people with letters training they said I don't possibly know who I would have with those students that are opting out I quickly just went through this petition and just counted the the families in dra there's 299 families on this list um spoiler alert I did filled a phone call before this meeting and was um talking to a parent that was involved with this and they said this has only been out for three days um I also with all the emails we've gotten from

352parents I emailed them back the ones that didn't want it and asked where their kids are uh East M Middle alah High Jordan high Willow Springs Draper Park Corner Canyon brockwood Elementary albian Middle Hill Crest High Oak Hollow Draper Indian Draper Elementary Indian Hills and Lone Peak so I do agree with what McKay was saying I think the opt out would be greater it's I think it's as low as it is because it was on hold um okay so when I I talked to these principles and I said please tell me if you could way of a magic want just the principles in my district what would you want and all of them all of the ones I talk to at the elementary school level because uh for second steps we're only considering Elementary um

353they said please not second steps because my teachers haven't been trained on it yet they're already stressed with letters and we would have too many kids opting out the other thing that was mentioned is that they are very concerned that there's a shadow now on this program and they are worried about restoring trust and confidence with parents um and it new to me I didn't know this I knew at Draper Park you know Dr Watts had filled a lot of phone calls phone calls and parents coming in but I I guess at the elementary school the principls have been as well and so they were they were their thought was I asked if I could use their names and they said yes but their thought was please please rethink that and um and so I

354I know there are schools that like this program I know there are teachers that like this program and maybe possibly something we cons consider is that we don't have a one-size fits-all plan um someone I admire said this and I think it's very true it is you cannot compromise principles to achieve unity and where we have this curriculum we're trying to teach skills um and yet reviewing the lesson plans um and parents have iterated it tonight it seems that maybe in certain lesson plans we're doing more than teaching skills and that's where the concern lies and so I'm sorry it was very lengthy I I've got a whole notebook full of notes but hopefully I did a good enough job summarizing thank you that's all thank you Mr Wrigley please please hold your applause yeah

355first off I I want to express my appreciation for Mont being here he's actually on vacation in Hawaii three hours ahead of us so behind us Oh I thought he was ahead I'm not feeling as bad mon okay I thought he was ahead of us um yeah Steve it's actually four hours four hours well so you you're you got all kinds of time left in the night thank you but thank you for taking your time away on vacation to be with us I do appreciate that um so anyway so let me I've done a lot of thought on this uh I've talked with a lot of people and I've met with pretty much every constituent group group in the area I woke up last night sort of interesting I woke up for the first time

356not worrying about this I was wondering what was wrong is every single night as I wake up I've been thinking about this and and as I woke up last time I'm going that's weird it's not my head it's a great feeling um anyway so where where do we start on this um I've had the opportunity to meet with the parent United several groups in there I've also had talked with several parents that are very Pro this and have been trying to come up with some solution that we don't have another mask no mask issue uh or school day issue in school I mean we've gone through so many things to break parents apart I've been trying to take a look at what's actually trying to unite parents together and how we can do that um

357start off with I I agree and uh that uh she's trying to look and yeah anyway she's like going to look around okay um that's fine um I agree that we need to um move forward on on moving uh second step out of the district um and it's been interesting is I've talked with several parents who've been very positive on Second Step once I informed them of the reason that it wasn't just the the insights that you guys came up with on the middle school but it was just sort of their their move over to transformative social emotional learning and some of the new Concepts that they've done in the last couple years that have made it where I didn't think it felt that would be supported current on the current board um and so

358I the bottom line I think we need to move away from that as I've talked with a lot of parents and talked with them especially the parents that have had second step and feel very comfortable with it they sort of said Okay I I agree maybe we need to move that direction I'm okay with that can we have some time to transition they're worried about dropping that off so I've been trying to come up with a a middle thing to that um I've had several people on both sides say how can I support you and I don't think they're telling me how could I support you to support my food way but I think they're really saying how can we come up with some kind of solution that we can meet the address kids all

359the parents I've talked with they care about their kids they really worry about it either way and they have strong arguments and strong stuff about that and and and we have a lot of contention in the world right now I'm trying to figure out how we not have contention here in the district trying to keep that out of our schools and try to out our kids because you know they get enough of this watching this stuff so to begin with I want to be very clear that in 2018 when we implemented this it was vetted by the secc's and we had quite a process but in 2018 the world was different okay there wasn't all the things that have happened within the last couple years um and over this last year you know Castle came

360out and said this and second step came out if this was happened when we did it there was no way we would have taken them as a vendor uh in that particular side uh because we're concerned about this is a pretty conservative board I would disc uh and say um so uh that being said the the program in the elementary school uh was actually produced is copyright in 2011 that was a long time ago uh before a lot of type people started really putting in transformative social emotional lessons um I agree that uh on the on the elementary level I've had a lot of people I've talked with our school counselors a lot of what they're they're doing and and also the elementary and the middle school and the high school and two counselors are

361concerned is involved with second step their lessons are involved around Second Step it's adding on um so we're not just talking about the teachers we're talking about a whole infrastructure that we need to actually move over into whatever else our Pro program is going to be um I with it's the product itself may have some issues in there that we may need to take a look and say hey yeah we need to pull that but any structure is going to have that no matter what we get we're gonna have to vet out something um the other thing I wanted to make clear in the community is I really appreciate that uh you the Utah parent United went through and vetted out second step and in Middle School however youah Canyon second step program is very

362similar to The Common Core versus the Utah common Corp and the common Corp has certain things that we don't want in there the Utah common course rather have S sanitized it and brought into some different things so as we've implemented it none of our middle schools so I've met with many of our almost all of our middle schools and talked with their principles none of them have just turned over the keys to the car and said okay here here's teachers go ahead and take whatever you want out of there teach whatever lesson you want uh for example Midville Middle School um what they have done is they have an online uh Google docs and they have a person that with the principal and a group of individuals that put together and vet out the program

363decide what they're going to teach what they're not going to teach put it on a Google Docs and that's the only thing that teachers have access to in Midville middle they don't even have access to Second Step they also put in with that their IB Program U and so they sort of tie in sort of the values and put that together uh over at um edat the middle school program there they put pretty much the same thing they have a teacher that sits down and invests it with the principles and with the school counselors and they come up with sort of a modified version that they put in a Google doc and they allow the kids to answer on canvas uh so uh you know I I want to make it clear that the the

364concerns are are real in regards to the program but we've been providing a different Second Step than than actually you may some parents may be concerned about so as far as a trust issue all of our schools have said to me we're we're vetting this really well um one two allow them to go directly to the program Butler for example allows them to go to directly to that program but they vet the lessons and what they're going to be teaching in the lessons and they say this is what's going on if the teachers are allowed to go it's because it gives them an opportunity to take a look at it so I think in our middle schools um though this program has a lot of stuff in there that I don't support and I think

365we need to move on because I My worry is going to be that it'll just get worse I think we have kept the kids safe in this district and the teachers and the principls and our staff have been pretty diligent about making sure that we have not let out the the concerns that they have within that um so I just wanted to make that clear as we go through and and you know and talking with a lot of people um and trying to draw people together in regards to that my question is as we move to part-time things Leon we have to put on an RFP for this and since we already vetted these two in the original RFP we're okay for part-time or do we have to put out another RFP because these these

366amounts of money is above what the state procurement would be without putting an RFP is that correct I mean we've got 200,000 six five 600,000 yeah we'd have to so it it would have out yes would have to go through the vetting process we've already gone through some of the vetting process getting these quotes you know doing this now so so whatever we move on that and that would take quite a while probably to do I would guess but so as far as the the other programs so as far as my feelings on the the middle Elementary I would like to see the elementary continue for the rest of the year with being vetted uh and even more than what we've done uh because there's a couple reasons now as far as moving into the

367new schools I think we we don't need to do that the schools that have not had second step we don't need to move forward forward with that um the schools that do have second step I think we need to allow those parents that time to transition over it's sort of like they're saying okay we'll compromise um at least that's why I'm hearing from quite a few they've talked with is we really like it but I understand where you're going and if you get something to replace it because we really want seal if you have something to replace we feel comfortable with it also gives us a longer time to pick something that's appropriate rather than just quickly putting something in because a lot of the teachers are saying this is a real difficult year and

368we don't need any more training things we need to do we also don't need any more issues with on our children really need to have something at this point uh and the other part now near pod I've looked at the nearpod program I don't know why the state bought a a a copy for every single teacher it's just not the level that we usually do instruction within the the district uh it's pretty Elementary especially for the middle school um the positive uh uh action I didn't see much of it I pulled out some stuff I passed it around give everybody a little stuff it's it's more hard copy it comes from Boise State University I Googled it and couldn't find any CRT references which is sort of cool first thing I did got on there

369and looked at that so I didn't find any of that maybe I didn't spend enough time on it um it's pretty expensive it would require especially in our elementaries a whole new training program to go on to finish off the rest of the year and then we may turn off at the end of the year and say h we don't like it so now we have to retrain you again for the next year which is pretty crazy um then on uh the leader in me um I've been associated with this since the first time and spent a lot of different times on that and quite impressed with it um I think also with the elementary we would have in the long run it may be nice but I think we need to go through a

370committee and vet that and decide that the case um for the elementary schools for the for the short term I think we'd have a lot of training it's a possibility if we cannot come to compromise on second step to go through I think we're gonna have a lot of concerned parents on the other side saying you're getting rid of something and doing it and I think we'll have a lot of teachers coming back to us and saying you just gave us six days but you just took away six days so what if what have we gained from that I do think I have talked with the middle schools initially I was pretty much to keep this in the middle schools for the rest of the year the middle schools are saying it's pretty tainted they

371really are concerned about having second steps in the middle school with so much stuff even though if you were to take a look at their program it's pretty sanitized uh they've gone through and and have vetted it pretty well um but yet in talking with the middle schools it may be well to move forward on that and if that was the case I we may want to look at leader and me for that to move quickly um I think their program from what I've seen over the years and looking at it um is um pretty impressive and they have a really good even better high school program uh and right now I've talked with our high school teachers and and our principls or whatever and they basically need something too we're seeing this stuff where

372kids are out it' be nice to have it where they have some associate and they start feeling appropriate with the school so um at this point I would basically encourage the board to move forward with the Second Step throughout the first year notifying them then we intend to end this contract uh and maybe move towards leader and me on the schools that haven't uh that have second step maybe even asking the schools that don't have second step so we have the same thing most of the teachers are concerned on their own that they will teach something that people will not agree with so it's much better if we have something at the district level that we agree on to make our teachers feel more comfortable and to make our parents feel more comfortable than rather

373every school having their own program and developing their own program which then leaves us much more to criticism and the concerns that are being addressed so that's where I'm coming from thank you Mrs Oaks I'm going to first do you mind if I read some of what Miss Arnold asked me to share that oh yes thank you okay so I will go ahead and share that first um she says for the reasons below I wish to have more time to review and learn more about where we should go with theal program I feel more harm than good will come of this if we rush into a decision students lives have been and will be affected if we don't Choose Wisely teachers are already on overload but I trust they have enough skills to manage their

374classrooms for a while longer while we find something that is easy to implement and focus more on social skills counselors have had years of experience and hours of clinical training that they should be able to help the students and the teachers we have psychologists on hand to help everyone she says my many concerns start with a particular study um that she shares where it talked about um that the goals of Education um need to be reframed to prioritize not only academic learning but also social emotional and ethical competencies surveying the current state of research in the fields of social emotional education character education and school-based mental health in the United States Jonathan Cohen of Harvard University suggests that social emotional skills knowledge and dispositions provide the foundation for participation in a democracy and improved quality

375of life she says there is a clear picture of an agenda about where social emotional education was to take schools districts States and the nation particularly with castle with the change in um transformative seal um defined by Castle it says seal advances educational equity and Excellence through authentic School family Community Partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships rigorous meaningful curriculum and instruction and ongoing evaluational can help address various forms of inequity and Empower young people to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe healthy and just communities so Claren goes on to say there is a clear picture of an agenda here also about how social emotional education should change or direct schools and communities she says let's be clear social skills or character traits and social emotional education are

376not the same however I don't think that social emotional education is far from psychoeducation and the line between psychoeducation and Psychotherapy are so close that it is impossible sometimes to know the difference our educators are not trained to be psych Educators let alone psychotherapists many clinicians who have provided psychoeducational sessions know it is difficult to keep the lines clear often in psychoeducational settings therapeutic material is brought up and difficult to avoid stepping into Psychotherapy as teach we may not know we may not have known we have even opened that door psycho education has to be provided in a way that does not lead to any confusion about what is being provided ask yourself if you have any reasonable doubt that the students or parents will clearly understand that you are not providing Psychotherapy in any

377form this means making it clear that you an instructor teaching a course to students using a syllabus and lessons and you are not providing emotional or mental health care to K through eth graders I do believe that with second steps in our SE curriculum we have stepped on and over that line I do believe that the lesson taught lessons taught were outside oh the particular lesson taught was outside state law I do believe that the lessons taught were not age appropriate I do believe we did not nor will we have control of those lessons I do believe they are part of a bigger agenda and that students see inappropriate materials in the lessons if voted to continue the lessons tonight I want to make sure Hippa secure platforms are protecting confidentiality many of the skills

378that are learned when studying social and emotional health services have to do with providing safety reducing risk and providing the best service to our students but what they say back to us needs to be protected are we using a hipa secure platform for conducting social emotional lessons that could be seen as psychoeducational sessions I think she may mean Psychotherapy there once again I ask that we wait until until we have our third discussion before taking action clarine Arnold okay thank you U do you have your comment can I take a break for a sec yes yes after eaing out okay Mrs shill okay um so this is a really hard decision and um I have a lot of similar thoughts as Holly and Steve have already stated and I'm not going to go through them

379all um but I do think just from um teachers that we've heard from and our school psychologists that we do need some kind of a program at all levels um I don't really want to move forward with something at the middle school level without it being properly vetted and us going through our regular process that we go through to adopt curriculum I don't think that will be smart um at all so I I don't know what to do at the middle school level I'll just say that um just for a lot of the reasons that have already been said about I mean our teachers are already overworked they are stressed out I don't think we can start a whole new program at the elementary level and we haven't you know heard a lot of problems

380at the elementary level I think i' would be in favor of keeping Second Step there just for this the this year but I would want um the district to vet every lesson I think you said you would do that anyway um I want to make sure that parents are notified before the lesson goes out what that lesson will be so instead of telling parents after the fact what it was taught maybe the week before send out what was is going to be taught and that way parents know about that ahead of time they can decide if they want to opt out of that or not um and I I do like K's idea of surveying I'm not sure if we survey sec's about this or we survey all parents to talk about what they want

381but um I think surveying is a good idea for the Middle School level especially I wouldn't be opposed to it for elementaries too I mean this I mean for elementaries they do do it every day but for the middle school I mean it's it's one day a week right for 15 minutes so if we wait on this decision that is not going to be too drastic I don't think um so those are my thoughts at this point okay thank you um Mr millerberg yes thank you so many thought so much to say you know um the the decision was made about a month ago to suspend second steps in in our schools that was a pretty drastic move since that time and I'm going to divide this into a couple types of uh comment I'm

382going to say public comment which to me our school district patrons uh has been overwhelming against Second Step at all levels our Educators or employees their comments have been overwhelmingly in support of second step in the elementary level our social emotional curriculum uh provides a common language which really helps in the school system to have communication between teachers and students improved you know the the district uh during the Su well couple couple of months ago or whatever it's been I've received two letters from Second Step apologizing for the content of second steps and in there they had a problem to fix the problem my feelings are where were you before this became an issue I have been very disappointed in second steps and just the fact that they are willing to flip-flop and change things

383around helps me better understand the nature of the Beast we asked our own resp responsive service department to V second step four years ago we asked them again to V it a couple of months ago and shortly after they had assured us that they had vetted it again then loveisrespect.org came up I don't know how the rest of my fellow board members but quite frankly I was embarrassed to have our responsive service department say they had beted that and then have that come up it is my recommendation that second step be completely abandoned by Canyon school district I do believe that social emotional learning is beneficial as a part of the uh ongoing curriculum um I don't care for nearpod because I feel like our our students already have enough uh time in front of

384iPads or screen time um my recommendation would be that we immediately move the entire District to a program such as leader and me leer and me was a finalist when we made the decision before uh leader and me have been uh very successful elsewhere I've watched leader and me imp implemented in a title one Elementary School with great success and it's based off of the uh seven habits for successful people um the other thing is we talk about the cost of second step my position is the cost of second steps is way understated because you know what there is a social cost and there's an emotional cost associated with second step it is so tainted at this point in time I don't believe that we could successfully keep it at any level and if you

385want to look at the cost of what our social cost have been and what our emotional cost have been uh I would say they would be more than what the uh the the dollar cost has been for second step I uh had emailed Mr Willcox during the week and asked him how many hour man hours have been spent since the uh since the public is uh us know how they feel about second step and he estimated that those talks would be between 25 and $35,000 so that's kind of where I am on this uh I'm just looking at my notes to see if I forgotten anything yeah I've got public trust and confidence in there uh I feel like we've really suffered on that and I think we need to move forward quickly and put

386something else in and I am vehemently opposed to keeping Second Step even at the elementary level pleasa please don't applaud Mrs Oaks I really appreciate a lot of the comments made by my fellow board members these are good people I hope you guys know that you're really lucky to have such a good board these people spend a lot of time a lot of effort I don't I don't know about the rest you guys but I couldn't even take a shower this last week without having all of these things running through my head hundreds of emails so many conversations going to schools talking to counselors talking to principes talking to teachers talking to parents this is a lot um per I apologize if this feels really scattered there's a lot of thoughts that have been going

387on in my head um first of all with regard to looking at a different Band-Aid program um for this interim I am deeply concerned about the teachers work level um and their stress at the elementary I don't want to burden them with anything else that they have to do additional training on this year we've just talked about that with letters with everything else going on we're doing virtual days to try and support them I just I see a Tipping Point that at some point it's it's too much um second I I feel that it's important for the community to understand certain things with regard to these decisions about why seal is looked at so heavily by schools why it's a part of the discussion Nationwide why it's a part of the discussion Statewide why is

388all of that for those of you who are not familiar with the term trauma informed practice you need to look it up and understand it there is something called an a square for children it stands for adverse childhood experiences and the higher an a score is for a child child the more difficult any learning is at all in fact children with high a scores exhibit same kind of like actually um symptoms that are akin to an extreme disability they can't read they can't compute math they can't function and that is why the schools have over time developed a vested interest in figuring out how to be able to address children that have gone through trauma and how to help them because we can't do our J job we can't educate children we can't educate the

389Next Generation when they're so traumatized that they can't go through the very basics of learning so I think that's an important piece of context I also think that Standalone programs foral are an complete picture it's it's it's not when I ran as a school board member one of the things I I ran on was the fact fact that I believe very strongly in whole child education and when I say whole child education I don't just mean that they have a 20 minute lesson once a week that's not a whole child education whole child education in my mind is when a child is able to actually move in school they have PE they have music they have art they have opportunities to interact with their classmates and actually develop themselves in a complete picture I think

390sometimes there is a rush to curriculum like set curriculums that are scripted that we think that that's going to fix the problem and I don't think it will and I hope that we can address this in our strategic planning um more effectively because we need to look at it from a more holistic point of view it's harder to do it the way I'm talking about much more difficult but over time especially once the No Child Left Behind Act was passed we've lost those pieces and I think we need to pull them back again um next I I actually think it's important for our staff including our counselors at this in the district because man we have a lot of people that are really angry with us about this move with second step a lot but

391I think it's important to recognize that the supports as a board that we've put towards mental health our second step is not the only one and actually we're quite robust in this area when um Miss Nar and I met with Indian Hills staff this past week um it was really fascinating because principal Graham shared with me that he had run into um a member of staff at Skyline High School um which has over 2,000 students and Indian Hills has roughly a thousand plus and they had exactly the same number of mental health support stuff so for double the amount of students in a high school they had every bit as much FTE um well full-time equivalency dedicated towards mental health than we did so I think it's important to see this from a holistic picture

392we are prioritizing this as a board having Oneal curriculum paused for a period of time doesn't mean that we don't care about this we do very strongly actually um I also think it's important to recognize that learning to behave in a school setting is different than what one learns at home schools have a vested interest as stated in the state code that um they shared with us in this presentation for students to be non-disruptive and appropriate in class I mean over the years I've had a lot of parents say to me why I don't understand why these kids are acting out my kid can't learn anything I mean it's it's that issue we're trying to address in part and when you have a kindergartner who comes to a classroom of 20 students for the first

393time that is a sign significantly different setting than what they've had growing up even if they had a lot of siblings and they have to learn systems and they have to learn all sorts of different things that it's important that the schools work through that with them and it's not that we want that to compete with parents at all in fact we hope it complement and that is really the goal um one of the things I think is also important to consider is that second step at least in that elementaries in my experience with my children and believe you me I've watched what my kids walk in the door with with regard to this program like a hawk um but last year they didn't get much of it in part because of our virtual Fridays

394and in light of that I I don't think what the pause that we're experiencing right now is that significantly different from what we had last school year so that's something to consider too um I don't feel comfortable in addition to the issue with giving our elementary teachers more of a burden I don't feel comfortable with any any other program that has not been publicly vetted I don't want us to be right back here a few minutes later it'll feel like with similar problems over something that we put in place temporarily I feel like we have to go through this process appropriately and um I am also in favor as Miss nbar and aelle shared about um doing a survey with parents at schools that have already had it I would also agree with with Mr

395Wrigley that if no school if a school hasn't had it so far let's not give them an additional burden to learn this year let's let them do what they're doing and let's survey the parents in those communities where they have had it they've probably had some measure of experience and they can actually speak to whether or not they want it because I will say there is a silent group of parents that initially they were really blindsided by the change the abrupt change and we've gotten a lot of angry emails a lot of passion outpouring a lot of frustration and I think this warrants getting an adequate pulse on where parents are at in their respective communities um let's see what were some of the other things I want to say I want to make it

396clear um the term CRT is brought up a lot in this venue um on both sides of the aisle and I am a law school graduate I'm an attorney I graduated in 2004 makes me feel really old and um I first learned about critical race Theory as the last student in 2011 I'm not a proponent of critical race Theory and I am a proponent of children learning how to be sensitive to other people's experiences and be kind and respectful and appropriate I bristle every time I hear people accuse me or other teachers in this District of teaching critical race Theory when they haven't bothered having a conversation with that teacher or with an assistant principal or with a principal there is as you know in the medical community a huge loss of morale right now

397amongst medical personnel they are taking a huge hit and I would say the hit that the teachers are feeling is right up there the teacher morale is suffering and it's going to have long-term implications for our kids I don't even want to think about how many resignations we're going to have by the end of this year and here's the problem with that there's a nationwide teacher shortage I have friends who live in other states that their kids quite often are sitting in the cafeteria because there are no substitutes and there are no teachers and they're there for long stretches of time I guarantee most of the parents in this District all of the parents do not want that for their kids it's already been a very challenging year but the negative accusatory rhetoric where we

398place behavior of a teacher in one other District or in other states or in other places and we project that on our own teachers and canyons and use a broad breaststroke it's inappropriate and it's hurtful and it's going to hurt all of our kids we have got to think about how we're approaching things um do exceptions exist absolutely they absolutely exist and when that happens there's ways to respectfully address our concerns and work through that with our our school leaders um I was just informed that some some of you may be aware of some of the Tik Tock um promotions of having kids destroy school property bathroom property I don't know if you know what it was last week it horrifies me slap a teacher and get it on video slap a teacher I mean

399this is the kind of climate that our teachers are working in can you imagine how demoralizing that is they need to know that we believe in them and that we appreciate what they do for our children um that's all I'm going to say about that um I also have um major concerns about transformative seal and what Castle has come out with that and I am and with M on this I don't trust what second steps motivations are with regard to that um and as an aside I really hope well let me back up a little bit when we met with drier Park Middle School and Indian Hills Middle School's staff their counseling staff um Holly and I heard them share with us how many referrals they have received already this year in the first 35

400days school that was at that point of blue slips now a blue slip is when a child um a student demonstrat some sort of um behavior that indicates suicide ideation Draper Park Middle had over 25 already Indian Hill Indian Hills was about the same it's way more than what they're used to our kids are in significant distress and I I would like the state to take note and understand the distress our students are experiencing we need more mental health support and that's hard too because we have a mental health professionals shortage at large which leads me to my next Point um like Miss n I've also spent a lot of time speaking with school psych not well School psychologists yes but also clinical psychologists in the area one of which I I particularly respect and

401he treats a lot of students in our district and I asked him some very specific questions with regard toal curriculums and he clarified some things for me that actually was a real Watershed he said there is and similar to what Miss Arnold talked about there is a very large difference between Psychotherapy and psychoeducation he said psychoeducation is where you're going to have evidence-based principles for certain skill sets like this is how you deal with anxiety this is how to make friends this is how to deal with bullying if you need help this is where to go it's kind of a clear skill set he said he gets really nervous when he hears about situations kind of like what some of the parents have brought up as concerns where there's a time where people are starting

402to share things he said you know a therapist is trained in the art of knowing how to establish rules of confidentiality um making sure that the kids aren't sharing Beyond where they should that they're not hanging out outside of their group therapy sessions like there there's a lot of nuances to that and he said his concern really is what happens when we go from psycho education into a place of psychotherapy and that's actually dangerous for the teachers to because and that's not their role that shouldn't be their their role or their responsibility and if I were a teacher I think that would be a lot of pressure I for me it's very important moving forward that whatever we do um whether that come you know these communities come back and they say overwhelmingly that you

403have like one Elementary School that absolutely wants Second Step that in the vetting process I want to make sure that any of these lessons do not go beyond psycho education it cannot go into a place of psychotherapy I have um shared my concerns with State Schoolboard members on this and asked for us to have seal standards they haven't done that yet who knows what will happen with the state legislature this year but for reasons like this I feel inadequate as an attorney a mother a board member to make judgment calls attached to um psychology and making sure that we're not going into place that we shouldn't so those th those are the things I have to say at this point I'm in support of um waiting to to make a vote on this until Karen

404is back with us and a few weeks and in the meantime I would love to be able to see some surveys go out to the school communities okay thank you um I I just want to share a few of my thoughts um I really appreciate the board members and all of the work and I hope everyone here and everyone listening understands how very much we care about um researching this figuring it out making a decision because this really is a an issue that um is so important and we have received a ton of input on all sides of the issue and it might seem like there are just two sides but there aren't there are all sides and it's a very important issue in a very complicated context and um and I think you know

405from the remarks that have been made already I think maybe you understand that we understand how complicated it is um one thing that I know for sure and through this whole exercise this last few months I I firmly believe in the importance and the value of a tier one support um for social and emotional supports and that is most commonly found in a curriculum or social emotion learning um part of the more comprehensive social and emotional supports that our system has that has been referred to um and and I also recognize that in this era of covid and I I've started calling it an era because it has now impacted three school years and um when you're a young person 3 years is a long time maybe for some of us it's not that long

406but it is a very long time and it's been disruptive that entire time um in one form or another of disruption and so I um I am very sensitive to to that disruption and that disruption has caused um varying needs to be um highlighted in our in our students as well as our teachers and um and I I know that there's concerns and I've heard the concerns about uh second steps particularly but I also know that there are benefits from social emotional learning and there are benefits to Second Step I have heard from many many parents about those benefits and that they want to keep it in fact we I mean just even this evening someone representing a group of I would guess 35 or 40 people spoke um in favor um and those are

407all all parents in favor of it um I recognize the concerns that been brought up about second steps and um the dynamic nature of second steps however I feel a Insurance um from the presentation today as well as um the the um my experience over the last couple of years that the elementary curriculum is is static it's not Dynamic and um and I understand that um that the um Administration is very aware about vetting each lesson and I I am confident that they will they will vet things with a whole different lens than maybe prior because of all of this exercise that we've done um I uh I agree that we need to have increased parent Communication in whatever we do I agree that opting out is a critical component of whatever we do but

408I'd like to make the comment and I think one of the um patrons addressed the board earlier that if there that um that there would be an opt out option but but if social emotional learning is discontinued then there that essentially that there's no option for the families that would like it and need it and and I I have some concern about about taking away and and in a very real way limiting parental options and a lot has been said about parental um decision-making on what's best for their families and their children um I also agree moving forward long term that that we really do need to use our strategic planning process and and if the State Board isn't going to set some standards for social and emotional standards then I think it's worth it

409for Canyon's District to tackle that and um and along with a portrait of a graduate I think um yes that if we move forward to adopt an a curriculum that really I would hope we could get something that's K12 that for that consistency for that vertical um alignment and and Scaffolding and all of those reasons but that process in order to do it right is takes a lot of time and it needs it needs to um include a lot of stakeholders include a lot of data include a lot of um research and um and I think it would also include um us on the board looking at our curriculum adoption policy we've kind of started talking about that but I think that would be something that that we would need to do to help um

410provide uh some provisions and Direction regarding these Dynamic curriculums and regarding the um stakeholder input piece of the process and but that being said when Second Step was adopted we followed the the process that was um current at the time um and in thinking about the whole child a lot of us been said about that and really um when thinking about the whole child and and educating the whole child it's in my mind it's about meeting needs providing supports and opening up opportunities for each student to not only succeed but to thrive um those are just some of the thoughts that I I put together and I I personally I am comfortable um continuing was Second Step at the elementary level and then having further discussion about the Middle School level um but at the

411same time I know it's those those Middle School kiddos they need they need supports they need help and so I you know I I would be in favor of adopting one of the options I I I realize nearpod is is not a great option but it might be okay for a few months to finish out the school year so that's that's kind of where I'm leaning um anyway so those are my comments any additional comments board members Mrs nbow thank you for your comments I wanted to reaffirm that I do believe that social emotional learning and developing some good skills is very important for all of our children and I also am a firm believer of whole child one thing that was very reassuring for me was to talk and visit with the principles and

412the counselors of all the schools that had not yet implemented second steps and to recognize that although second steps is a social emotional learning curricula it is not the only type of social emotional learning we have in our schools all of our schools are doing social emotional learning even those who hadn't uh had the roll out yet what they're doing is counselors at the middle school level are going in they're teaching lessons on friendship how to make a friend kindness respect I know o h was doing stuff from um public it was a public website and it was involving everything they were doing for their awards for their kids so every month there was a value such as honesty such as respect such as on time on task so I do think that definitely all

413of our students are getting social emotional learning uh in our schools regardless of what we decide tonight and I think that's important to highlight thank you other comments Mr Wrigley just really quickly I think it's really late we tend to have long meetings um and I 11:30 tonight's not a good time to make a decision however we put this off for every two weeks our next meeting is in three weeks um the schools are asking us to make a decision as to what we want to do if we have a problem tonight I suggest we maybe meet at a short meeting next Tuesday we really need to get this resolved all we're going to have is more people upset and more comments coming in and more Insurance that's going on with people um so you

414know either if we I guess the question comes in on the elementary is either we keep it as it is because we're overwhelmed or we make a decision to not do anything which is not a decision or we put some other new program in there and then we're fighting in regards to how much is going to impact the teachers which we're trying to do the middle schools we probably need to have some decision I think that the middle schools are basically what I'm hearing is they're saying that they that they need something together throughout the district because they don't want one school doing one thing and then them doing second step and having people concerned and pounding them on Second Step so we probably need to come up with a solution but I think we

415need to come up with it pretty quickly so my suggestion is we try to I know I hate having other meetings but I don't really want to see this go on for another three weeks nor do I think any of our people do any other comments Mrs shill well does anyone want to make a motion so we don't have to meet next week so we can make a decision I'm just I just want to know um this is listed as possible action so a motion would be in order this my power I'm just gonna list one concern we've talked a lot about process and the concern I have have especially for determining anything at the middle school level is again I don't know that we've done enough with process we've talked about the all these

416interim programs we've gone through all these different facets I don't know that the parents and public have had enough input on middle school and I actually as a board member did not believe we were determining anything for the middle school tonight when I uh opened up the slides and saw that second steps was elementary only and we were talking about elementary I did not recognize that we were considering doing something temporary for the middle schools other than second steps and I don't think the other programs have gone through that process that we've talked about that's so important um at the school Community Council level with input and Sample lesson plans and and you know a survey was mentioned so um the Mo I I'm prepared to make one motion which is to start off with

417and that motion is to not move forward with a I make a motion to not move forward with a decision at the middle school level because I do not believe any of these temporary options have been properly vetted yet at this point so I'll make that motion if I have a second the motion is that we do not make a decision or determination at the middle school level tonight I want to start with that motion it's not it's not forever no just tonight because and my reasoning behind it is that we the other options and the options that have been presented to us tonight are um the leader and me what is it the nearpod and the and the positive action I do not feel any of those programs have been properly vetted and follow

418the process as is outlined in our policy for curriculum adoption so I make the motion to not determine that this evening if I have a second you know that that feels like a negative motion to meif uh you know we're making a motion to not do something and if we don't do anything we've kind of already accomplished that and so I would much rather we address what we're going to do with the elementary level okay M then go ahead I I was gonna say okay that motion did not receive a second okay thank you I'd like to make a motion that we um survey those schools that have had second step and the element level to get a pulse on um which of their communities really want it I feel like we need more accurate

419picture of what's going on so my motion is um for us to survey those elementary schools that have H been using Second Step previous to the current school year I will I will second that but can we clarify who we're surveying are we surveying all parents are we surveying SEC who are we surveying I think all parents okay um Let me let me just make sure we're on track there's been a motion made and that motion has been seconded so discussion to the motion so I was saying I think all parents should be surveyed for those okay other other discussion to the motion uh Mr Wrigley then Mrs N I I guess I would ask for some clarification to that how long do we wait in regards to that is it is it a week

420where we meet next week we have that information we can move forward is it three weeks uh how long is this because I think our public needs to know what's going on um and I I I agree with them that that to go ahead and and to Mo to ask the parents that are in these schools that are actually in receiving Second Step what their opinions are should they you know would they but I would say I think we've agreed that we're not going to ask to continue it forever I think the the question would be in those particular schools do you agree to continue it for the rest of the part of the year with us moving forward to find another program vetted vetted program or do you think we need to move from

421that now to another program but we probably need to also survey the teachers because I think the teachers have a real big portion and maybe even our counselors real big portion in this because our teachers may say I don't have enough bandwidth for this and I think we need to know that we can't I I really like to to do what the community says but if I've got a walk out on teachers or the teachers are leaving us as we said earlier we're shooting oursel in the foot right well maybe we can ask the administration how long would it take in your estimation for us to be able to get results back for surveys like that um okay at Mr millerberg and then Mrs nbow yeah my my hand was Brave could you see that

422yes thank you yeah I I think that trying to get information back in one week is ridiculous uh I think we we also need to have somebody whether it be board leadership or whether that be a a poll of some sort we need to see what the questions are because we all know that the uh results of polling people can be very much affected by what questions are asked and so you know I would like to have at least somebody whether it be the entire board or board leadership that the questions that are going out and so I think that uh if we address this issue at our next board meeting that has been scheduled in 3 weeks that's great okay thank you Mrs nbow and then Mrs shill although I like the idea of

423a survey and hearing from parents I would be remiss if I did not share my personal thoughts my personal thoughts is the second steps curricul curricul ulum has lost Integrity with me I've had correspondence with um the committee of children as well as second steps and like Mont I feel and like Dr Robins I feel that this program that had such questionable material embedded in the middle school program and also has some other agenda as has been published by Castle to me it has eroded my trust and so um as as a leader as an elected representative my concern is that this this program that perhaps started off as as something different than what it is now I I don't know that I feel good about speaking up and saying I think it's against my

424principles and I think that when we find a company or a program that is doing something that all of us here can agree is not right is it enough just for them to remove that material and then move forward I I you've heard me speak up on defending teachers and providing supports for them I love teachers um this there's a reason why I went into it and our teachers are very valuable and I like Nancy I commiserate with the teachers that are saying this has been a good program but I do feel that also it's important to remember where this is headed what has been published the response that we have been given and if if there's something if there's a byproduct or a product that is not good and not wholesome then why are

425we going to continue to have the second steps logo in our schools in our handouts I also would suggest that whatever we move forward with and I am in favor of social emotional learning and supports and skills taught I would love us to see a reverse classroom where it goes home to the parents first and they get the first conversation with their kids homework goes home first and then it's taught in the school but I just wanted to share that okay U Mr Wrigley to the motion just quickly to that motion I mean I think we all agree that we want to get rid of Second Step the question is do we run out of the room in regards to and leave casualties in the process with our teachers and stuff and parents mad because

426they feel that they're invested in it or do we give them time to just with assurances that the curriculum is there's really not much issue on that curriculum there's a couple things have come up but that we've been able to go in and give some time to move forward in a in a fashion I mean I I agree with everybody I just I don't feel comfortable about that but at the same time I feel less comfortable about moving quickly to get rid of that and having the ramifications on so many other people um I think that uh that hurt more people than actually being very careful with that so but we also do need to make a a recommendation to move to do something moving forward with the middle schools either have them present some

427more stuff or we vet that or we see that or something goes on in the middle school so we can make a decision then too they are having major behavioral issues I don't want every single school coming up their own unvetted program because we have nothing else I think that's more dangerous than us making a decision and moving forward at least on a temporary basis okay um Mrs shill and then uh Mr millerberg um so I as our board has done multiple times I think we could survey sec's and we could get in that information back by next Tuesday because they have a process where they can vote quickly and the sec's have been involved in the social emotional curriculum and have knowledge about it so they are the parents who are informed and know

428about it the most so that is my idea I don't know if I make another motion or what anyway that's just idea Mr millerberg yeah I would just like to call for the question we have a motion on the table and we I think we need to address the motion okay so the question has been called and that that is a motion that is not debatable but I will ask for a vote on whether or not to call the question and if a vote in favor of calling the question um then means is essentially it ends all all discussion on the primary motion and I will just restate the primary motion thank you is is that um that the board gives direction to the um Administration to survey all elementary survey those elementaries that have

429been using Second Step previous to this school year conduct surveys in the school communities that have been using Second Step previous to the school year okay and that motion has been seconded okay so um the question has been called all in favor of calling the question I I I six minutes G be called okay calling the Oh I thought I just explained it so okay I okay all right um and I I'm going to vote no on call the question but that one two four to one thank you oh Mont did you vote I'm sorry he made the he called the question so and I and I did vote Yes so I voted in favor of calling it okay five to one thank you um so the question has been called so again I will

430um restate the motion to the motion is to have the administration conduct surveys in the school communities that have been using Second Step previous to the school to this school year so all in favor of that motion please indicate I please say hi hi hi okay we're getting a little I'll okay that and I'm I'm going to be know on that as well and I would like a chance to explain why I feel like um I feel I feel like um it's going to be difficult to conduct a survey that would be really meaningful and effective um but I understand what the rest the board is trying to accomplish with that and so I um anyway but I I understand and I think that there has been suggestion that that we take a look at

431the questions and and try and make it as effective of a survey as possible Mrs shill okay I would like to make another motion to to um clarify the previous motion yeah it did pass but we could I voted for it so I can make another motion um so I want to I move that we um survey School community councils and we make it one question do you want to continue with second steps or not it's one question yes or no yes till the end of the year yes or no question that's my motion there's a motion is there a second I would like to amend that motion and my motion is that the survey goes to all parents with the one question okay um I'm trying to think because if the motion hadn't received

432a second then it's not really a motion that can move forward to be amended I guess I can do a new motion I will second that okay I amend that motion that just was seconded to go to all parents of students with one simple question would you like to continue second steps for the remainder of the school year only or no elementary elementary only and only the elementary schools that we have previously implemented second steps okay so let me just think um so the motion is that please restate your motion I'm sorry 1156 the motion was that all parents who children go to elementary schools where second steps has already been implemented receive one question would you like second steps to continue for the remainder of this school year only yes or no reped so

433no and that motion has been seconded any discussion to that motion yes yeah um discussion to the motion was that you Mr millerberg yeah I yeah yeah I have a I have a concern with the motion simply because it's a very binary type of a question it's yes or no it does not uh provide those taking the survey with any uh knowledge at all as to what would happen if they say no okay any other discussion to this motion so I just want to say that that is why I specified School Community councils because I do think they have the knowledge those parents have the knowledge about school about SEO they know what it is they've discussed it they look at data so they do know which is why I said the one question so

434I mean I think M has a good he a good point I think Mont has a good point but I think even all of us sitting up here tonight we don't know the answer to that we still haven't resolved what we're going to do with elementary schools who haven't had second steps so I don't know where I don't know how to qualify that question Mrs Oaks I think one of the difficulties with do it with the sec's is it puts a large burden on the sec's because if you have a community that's really divided or has strong opinions and all of a sudden the sdcs are getting a lot of the pressure I I don't necessarily want to do that to them I think it would be for me I I feel like it would

435be more accurate blueprint to understand whether or not the parents at large feel a certain way so um so um I yeah I I would like to make a comment to the motion and then and then Mrs Nar so I um I mean this is why I voted against doing a survey because I feel like it's really not going to give us a good picture it will give us people saying yes or no to something that is a very complicated contextual situation and I I've anyway I I that's why I'm opposed to a survey and I don't mean that in any regard that I don't respect parent input or parent voice because I do I feel like we've received a lot of parent input and parent voice and um and I feel like it's something

436that we um that that we as elected board members it's our job to to receive that input put to do the research do the study and to make a decision so that's that's just my thoughts on it I believe Mrs ibow and then Mrs Oaks I I am thinking more about what Nancy said and my concern is we have a divide Steve's talked about this we have a divide in our district right now and we're only prolonging that without action the other concern I have is what if all our secc's in those schools are then lobbied by parents and getting emails I don't know that I'd want any of them to have the burden that we've carried for the last few weeks and so I'd like to withdraw my motion actually and I'd like to

437make a new motion and the motion is I stand with Dr robins and I'd like to remove second steps from all our elementary schools and I will second that okay we have a motion and a second discussion to this motion uh Mrs Oak and today I rate shout to all of the elementary principles and I have several in my district and ask them um how they felt on in this issue every single principal came back in the affirmative that they like second step they feel like it's made a huge difference in their school community I cannot in good conscience with so many teachers um counselors and principes make a decision on this when I don't feel like I have an accurate picture on numbers and where the parents actually are and that's why I'm asking

438for it I feel like we have yes we have um petitions in both directions we've received emails but it still does not give me a clear picture of the amount of support or opposition to Second Step so for me it's a tool it's not that they're the ones deciding it's a tool for me to understand as a board member where to go on that Mr Wrigley I guess I agree with that I think we probably need to come up with a thing but we canot vote it's 1202 we can we can vote can we vote we I thought the at 12 o'clock it went in the next day and the agenda ended no it's still one continual meeting okay right thought um Mrs shill and to the motion because we do have a motion which

439has been seconded well no I I won't comment I'll comment any other comments to this motion okay Mrs nbow one quick comment Mr wle has said we are going to discontinue Second Step we're just doing it next year instead of this year because it's only for the interim which is all that it's been proposed for is temporary just my one thought with that is is will this continue this divisive nature is it better just to rip off the Band-Aid quickly instead of all through this year and then are we going to be petitioned in the fall to keep it for longer so I just want you to think about that ripping off the Bandit I think has a real impact in that I think we we have as many parents on both sides or even

440more so we discount the other parents on the other side they've provided us input so I really think we need to make a decision at the same time either we keep it for the end of the year or we replace it with something but to say we're get rid of it and not replace it we then caused more trouble with our constituents because they're saying now you've taken away You' given me nothing else so I'm really concerned um Mrs Oaks and then Mrs sh I have an equal concern about giving something to a school that hasn't had anything yet that they've been kind of like I mean Indian Hills really was quite impressive when we met with them this last week and and how they've managed and and done some pretty Innovative things I don't

441want to project or insist on on them having a program simply because we want to checklist that we are in a situation where the schools are at different stages of of implementing second step and or implementing their their seal and I I don't feel like a one-size fits-all is appropriate necessarily um especially when we've had a lot of people say please don't take this away it's a huge impact to our morale I we really need to know where the schools are at respectively and and I think the point is is well taken is important to point out we are doing away with this program this is a temporary question that we're addressing Mrs shill um so I I mean I just have to point out that of the schools that I represent and that's actually

442is including Al I'll include alvan and Butler even though I don't represent albian um but all of the bright new feeder there's been um seven parents oped out that's .3% those are the patrons I represent so I mean and I have talked to principles and my area really supports it so I'm just saying that because yeah anyway so that that's my information but also I'm not comfortable getting rid of it until we know what the plan is going forward okay any other discussion to the motion yes yes uh Mr millerberg I think it's obvious that we are ill prepared to make a decision tonight and I would very much be in favor of tabling it till next meeting and that would give the administration time to to get a survey out bring us information and

443make recommendations as to what we should be looking at because hopefully in three weeks they are better prepared to make recommendations than we are better prepared to accept or reject their recommendation um so we have a motion and a second a motion on the table and a second and I believe you were the second to the motion um so I don't know that we can we can table discussion but I don't know that we can table a motion that's active so so unless the motion is withdrawn I think we need to um to take a vote on it I will withdraw my second okay so we have a motion with no second okay any other action or comments our instruction so well let's just see if there's any other action that board members want to

444initiate um I think Mrs nbow and then Mrs Oaks I don't have an action but you said for comment is it okay for with with Mr millerberg talking about more information if we're tbling this to a new meeting I would really like some sample lesson plans to be able to review as a board member because I did not feel comfortable with moving forward with any without sample lesson plans and I also think with the their process that in the time for the next meeting why not have sample lesson plans at the secc's as well if we're trying to even though it's a temporary fix if we're implementing a curriculum I feel it does need to follow our established policy for process because it's still a new curriculum to our school district okay so that was

445a request for some additional information to come to the board um prior to the next meeting um I will say that we've we have had and the public has had access to the near pod and the and the Second Step lessons okay Mrs Oaks so do we technically need a motion to request a survey or is that I believe that motion passed oh it did pass just kidding um I believe the motion that passed was all parents we don't have clarification of what that survey consists of so we there was some discussion that um that at least some board members get eyes on the questions prior to it and I believe that we we put our Administration in a really tough spot if we start dictating the exact questions they're professionals they've done surveys before

446um they they understand how that works and then I think it's totally appropriate appropriate for the board to review the questions but for us to initiate the questions I think might be a little bit uh problematic Mrs Oaks my experience in working with L to State Heathville particularly she's excellent at this and this is really her her area of expertise and I think she could come forward with some questions that she feels like we get the information that we're looking for so another comment or so I was just trying to clarify because Mrs shill had talked about uh a yes or no and I had talked about a yes or no so we're not doing the yes or no we just disced it we hadn't really we're we're asking for a Ser the motion was

447to survey parents and then we will ask the administration to create that survey okay so we are not the the administration could have it be yes or no or it won't it will just be survey questions that was my question it will be multiple questions because in the motion we never Define that and then after the motion we talked about yes or no and there was some of us in favor of it and some of us not and I'm sorry I know it's getting late but I believe the board um and I guess tell me if you object to it I I I thought the understanding was that the administration would develop the survey and present it to us and and that the board could review it before ited okay okay um that was discussed

448after the motion was made and voted on but okay sounds good okay and I I will make one comment and then I think we will be moving on but um and I you know as you know I voted against that motion but um I just want to throw it out there that if we're going to this effort let's maybe try and make it so that the data that is received could be usable as we look forward to what a more permanent um solution to this dilemma would be that would just be a thought I'm sharing so okay all right that concludes discussion on that item um approval item D approval of 2022 2023 school calendar antena of approval for the 2023 2024 and 2024 2025 school calendars this is a second reading and um um

449Mr Leon Wilcox will present um Dr Sten rot has been yes thank you president Ting would like to excuse Dr Sten Roode uh again last meeting we did the first reading of the calendars just so you know nothing substantially has changed from that last meeting again we'll ask you to formally approve the next year's calendar at the next board meeting uh again it will start on August 15 first day and end on May 26 of 2023 only things that we have changed from the previous calendar or we've again we talked about changing the colors so everyone could have access to them uh the midterms were eliminated will let the schools determine their own midterms and the last thing just uh that we put that early that middle schools will have a late start every Friday

450again nothing else has changed there uh nothing else has changed on the 2023 and I mean 24 and the 25 Calenders I don't think I'll spend any more time talking about those again just a big thank you to m dley Mrs shill who serve on the calendar committee and all the other parents and employees who do that put this together for us big job I'd like to make thank you is there this is just second reading this is just second reading so um any questions board on this information oh okay thank you Mr Willcox we'll try to bring that back for final approval next boing okay and I'll do the next one to president tingi if it's okay with yes so next item is policy update uh 5.24 student educational travel policy oh maybe Dan

451Harper may want to and policy 20.6 teacher and student success act tssa and exhibit this is a second reading possible action and who will be presenting well I've already presented all right Mr uh Dan Harper legal counsel for the district okay we have uh two policies uh this is for second reading and possible action uh the first is probably the simplest and straightforward uh it's policy 200.0 6 teacher and student Su success act um and it just kind of uh changes because the process was retitled to the school plan development and approval process process um so it makes those changes there uh so very minimal changes to that policy um so recommending that that uh be approved uh the other is to the student educational travel um as you're aware we've been having issues uh

452because of Labor shortages and other things um so what it does is expands the options for travel to include uh on on a small basis um using uh as kind of a a secondary option if uh School District buses if it's out of state and they can't find a commercial carrier uh that they could use uh rental vehicles um on a limited basis only two uh for smaller groups uh so that would be changed in the policy and allow that option and that is also for a second reading and possible action uh any questions I okay see no questions this is listed as possible action so a motion would be in order I'd like to make a motion for us to approve policy update 50024 student educational travel policy 200 .6 teacher and students success

453act tssa and exhibit thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second it thank you any discussion to this motion seeing none I will call for a vote all in favor say I I any opposed and then I'd like to note for the record Mr millerberg has has left the meeting yes thank you okay thank you that that concludes the items under new business um next on the agenda is Staff comments we'll start with superintendent and then business administrator Mr Wilcox no com okay thank you Mr Wilcox just one of the things on the higher terminations you may have recognized one name there that's Rick Conger I'm uh sored to see that he is going to be retiring well deserved with him excited for his future but he will be greatly missed he's

454been a Pioneer in this district from day one so he'll be retired at the end of this calendar year December 31st so we'll be looking for as a a replacement to bring back to you for approval that's all I have thank you thank you okay board members um I'll just ask if anyone has any additional comments they'd like to make this evening no okay see none um I will call the meeting adjourned and thank you all for a lot of work done today so thank you