Board Meeting

001materials that are either put in an electronic format like on canvas which is um widely used in our district or other means it could be things such as worksheets reading assignments all kinds of things that teachers could select to to help direct those students does that answer your question sorry and these days are not going to be synchronous these days are going to be asynchronous correct okay okay it is recommended that those days start in November to help families prepare for the changes in the school calendar and the proposed dates are those listed I'll read them off November 5th December 10th January 28th February 11th March 25th and April 29th those days were selected in consultation with principes and directors to try to ensure that we we were not um creating calendar conflicts much like

002last year as a matter of fact the language on this slide is uh largely taken from last year's expectations uh but I will go through some of the expectations and that is that teachers would report to school for work they would provide and communicate teacher availability for students and parents for two hours each of these days that could be done uh in an office hour or it could be a phone call or it could be something else just to meet the needs of the students um the learning through for most of the day would be done through a asynchronous learning uh the options for the students this would be or should be designed to support the learning intentions and success criteria for the current week or the following week um this time would also may

003be used to collaborate with peers plan and create the following week's content provide needed Outreach to students Implement interventions for unfinished learning and like last year this time is not intended to be used for athletic or performing Performing Arts practices I've listed three rationale uh for this proposal although there are more um our administrators report that their teachers are tired stressed and feeling unique challenges I will tell you that in working with principles today in IAC and working with them now closely through the school year uh there's a lot of concern on my part and others that um it's a very difficult year they are struggling and we're looking for ways to support them uh the administrators and the teachers uh in this case most of the emphasis is placed on the teachers in this

004presentation in addition to the challenges imposed by the pandemic stressors on time and mental health include a shortage of substitute teachers supporting higher rates of student absenteeism and implementation needs let me explain those three items to you if we take a window of time which are roughly equal the beginning of school until September 29th over the past three years you can see the number of absences needing substitute teachers now to be clear there are absences that don't need substitute teachers for certain positions in the district this is primarily talking about uh teachers in the classrooms we had 1691 of those in that window in 2019 and we were able to fill all but 97 of those positions last year we had a decrease in the number of requests the window is also slightly different but

005it was at 1489 and we had unfilled positions of 341 and if you look at this year we have an increase in the requests at 2264 and unfilled jobs of 694 until that date now the last couple of days have been really pretty rough for our schools it seems to be continuing to accelerate so we obviously have a problem filling substitute positions and those positions are frequently filled by teachers sacrificing their uh preparation periods or combining their classes at the elementary level maybe splitting classes and spreading them around or just adopting another class uh which adds to my concern of mental health issues stress um that we have with our teachers in the classroom also if we look at the student attendance rates in 2019 we had a school year average districtwide of 98% attendance

006last year that dropped to in the window of time that we're trying to represent here because that's all the data we have for this year it dropped to 89.8% this year it's dropped to 89.4 two now that's an average districtwide we have schools that are operating below that I put one there of Hill Crest at 83.8 2% which means that a little over six 16% of their students are not coming that is quite a hardship to prepare and provide remediation and interventions for those students once again adding to a real high stress level for our teachers and then implementation needs typically we train our teachers in the spring and summer before fall implementation and this gives teachers time to plan for the new curriculum or whatever we've been training on this year we have a

007couple of situations that have altered that one is the letters training which is a state mandate which requires uh nationally trained certificated trainers now we in this Kenya school district and usbe support this training it's very valuable it's good and I think most would would be able to say that it's needed in most places but it requires simultaneous training and implementation and the training includes roughly 60 hours of independent online training that's a lot to take in when you're already working full-time plus we have a lot of um hours they will be out of the school which is going to exacerbate The Substitute issue and just for your information we've put together a signup sheet for district Personnel we're asking all departments to sign up for substitute positions to support the teachers that are going

008to that training because we can't fill the positions with our regular substitute pool so we're we're trying all hands on deck another one that you're well aware of is theal curriculum reports our schools uh need for positive climate and the shift in curriculum will require simultaneous training and implementation and as I was talking with principles today in IAC they asked me if I would please also suggest that they have a lot of work to do with canvas still um in their learning and implementation so um questions okay Mrs Arnold I have a lot of questions and I have a lot of comments and I'll try to keep them um in an order um first I want to say to the people who are listening out there that I absolutely understand where you are and how

009you feel and what going on with this year because I'm there with you but with what I'm going to say it's going to kind of sound like I don't but I do and I'll get to my point eventually and I apologize to board but it's going to be a little bit a little bit um lengthy but hopefully informational so first of all um as I read this I feel like it's an orange but we're taking apart all these pieces and trying to put them together and saying they fit but they don't fit or a puzzle I don't know which um I really feel like we have an artery that's bleeding out and we're kissing it and and saying it's too bad it's a little boo boo and it's not it's it's a it's a big

010artery so as I went through here I want to talk about each individual part of the poll um one is that we do have a sub problem it is a huge problem but most of the problem and you can correct me is letters from the state mandate because that takes out so many teachers and I'll I'll be asking if we can get some information Madam president later but when you have K through three who all have to attend one day almost every every month a conference in Zoom so that they can review all of the material that they have covered in eight sessions in one unit and taken tests in my opinion it was a repeat of a repeat and I really didn't need that day of being on the zoom to have them review

011my eight sessions however it does take away K through three teachers in the district and I I couldn't even tell you how many that would be per day to go to that Zoom meeting and it does take on that same spot a lot of time to do all the work like I'm averaging between I want to say eight and 10 hours per unit not just the six that they're saying that it takes or the eight that they're saying that it takes so back to the subs if we could maybe go to the state and ask them I mean they probably contracted it out it's probably already a done deal but if they could either help us with money to up the sub pay to have more subs or just get rid of that one day

012of inservice for all those K through three teachers and let them just do the book work and take the book tests and I don't know in our district are we running one student or are we running three students that we have to keep um anodal notes on for those lessons is Amber here three students okay so three students we have to keep anodal notes on during those those eight units that we have to pass off um that that would help with the subs if we could get the state to kind of like I don't no either that I put the classes on Saturday and and get more people and then be able to pay us money for working on Saturdays at least we would have subs for room but that's part of the problem um

013or we could hire and I'm sorry this is broken up in Parts because it's it's part of what they're wanting us to do so we could hire full-time subs and Leon would have to handle this at one or three per school I don't know if our Esser money is all gone or the co response funds are all gone or since the state's mandating that we do the um letters that they could also um contribute to since they contributed I think it was $4 million to letters and they can contribute to the subs that it's causing our teachers to not have that's causing the stress that's causing the the split up of the classrooms um we could also o ask that conferences there would be no more conferences for teachers to go to this year and

014that the subs go to sick um classrooms first and if the teachers couldn't go to their letters somehow we would not go to letters but get credit for letters but we would have sick the subs going to the sick classrooms first the sick teachers classrooms first because that's what's happening in my school like every day I sub a classroom or half a classroom because the teacher's sick but the subs are all gone to letters and so there's no because the subs can call in I mean so the subs can look and see that the teachers will put in for it two weeks ahead of time or three weeks ahead of time and so they're not having to get up at four o'clock in the morning and choose the sub job they can choose jobs out

015I mean like they can choose them out for almost a whole month or two months right now and then know that they don't have to be woke up at 4:00 in the morning to take a job so then the people who are sick are calling in at 4 in the morning and then there's no subs they're already gone to letters or they've gone to the conference of somebody going to a conference so somehow we need to get the subs to the sick teachers and not to the letter teachers so that we have Subs first and um it's hard once you put in to go to letters you're not supposed to do it until you finish up the unit it but once you put in you're also not supposed to back out of it because they

016have them booked back to back to back I mean I'm booked out to the end of November right now that's when I had to put mine in for my unit too then I was going to ask if like last year the district Personnel could sign up like they did last year and help out I know that that takes you guys away from your jobs too but like if one day a week or one day every couple weeks if there were people who could go and help sub in the schools for at least the sick the sick teachers and the sick employees not just the ones who are going to the conference I think there has to be a I think there has to be a line drawn there somehow the the sck get the SI

017get covered and the conference thing and the letters thing becomes secondary um Dan the other one was if the teachers are taking this students from their classrooms and they're taking their class plus I don't know 20 more or 10 more and I'm not quite sure Bob you can help me um we do in our district pay them for taking those extra students right because I couldn't I couldn't remember that um I know my I'm covering as a coach um I'm pretty sure your coaches are probably covering too and then they can't coach because they're covering as um substitutes correct cor it does happen Okay um we don't have a choice if there's no sub at our school the coaches go and do the sub subing um the other one was which are which schools are

018we worse at not having Subs is it the elementaries because the fact we're going to letters is it the middle schools and high schools or are they equal which schools do not have the most Subs I think that's going to day-to-day based upon the way they've called in so the the data that I've shared with you has not included any letters training so that is just sick four personal leave days so far that's the data I've shared so there 694 sick people not getting covered not the people who are going to to um letters that's correct so the our district is not doing it I think the way your district is where there are a number of days and you sign up for letters where ours have two dedicated Trainers for particular days and the

019day the DAT I show does not reflect letters needs okay so explain how they're doing the they're not doing the zoom all day long to finish their unit one oh I'm not saying that I'm saying that they have not started the letters training like you have so the data I showed does not reflect days needing letters and yes the district has started signing up our district Personnel to cover classes as a matter of fact we prioritize the schools that uh usually have the hardest time getting substitutes as the signups for the district people so essentially what you're saying is when letters begins this could this problem could get worse it could so no one's going out to zoom lessons yet at this point that's correct then you have a huge or problem bigger one because

020it takes like there'll be eight people gone out of my school in a day or six people gone out of my school in a day and that's just my school that's not all the other elementaries and the other four or five more people so anyway so just on my list that's something we probably need to bring back because Subs is going to be a big huge problem so moving on then is mental health and um so I I recognize that and I'm not a psychiatrist but I do believe that probably 99.9% of the people are working in post-traumatic stress right now whether they believe they are or not pandemic fatigue whichever one you want to call it and um so I just wondered if there was a way I know we're trying to give them

021these days but like I said these days are like a kiss on the Boo Boo and saying here this is what we can do we don't have any Band-Aids right now and we have no doctors on staff and so um I know that we have Community um psychologists or psychiatrists at the schools almost all of ours right we have mental health workers workers there I wanted to know if there was a way that um some of our employees could maybe tip into that to be able to have some counseling for the stress that's going on and then I wanted to know um just and this is up to to Nancy by the way it's kind of like I'm really talking at you but I'm really talking to her because it's up to the board the

022board makes the decisions right I'm just throwing out suggestions to the board and then you can put it all together and decide what you want to do but I kind of wanted to know what Bloomquist H's numbers are right now because I would like to know from the beginning of the year to now um I was told that um we are like two months out for any employees to be able to get into Bloomquist hell I'm hoping that we're not that far out but it would be nice to know the numbers um that we have of teachers and employees um well employees across the the whole District that have been trying to get in contact with them and get some kind of help um and how long they've been waiting um I think we need

023to talk more too about what are the other ways we can help I mean like we're talking about one day a month and actually I would rather have it be called the mental what is it called when you take a mental day a mental relief day I you know like one day a month isn't much and it's not going to help a ton I mean we will will re relevate it a little bit but it's not it's not going to it's not going to help might help a little on the long run but not very much I think something more has to be done and that we can think better out of the box and come up with some better strategic strategical ideas on what to do with that um I think I've covered letters

024it's taking away our substitutes it takes a long time it is really stressful the other program I needed to know was 95% to walk I know we're starting to implement that last year if you don't know what that is it it's that the teachers do all the testing then they get together and then they group the kids and then they have like 11 or 12 groups where the kids all go for 30 minutes during the day and that rotates all day long and so if you don't have enough instructional AIDS then you also can't have those groups and then the groups have to double up and then if you have no substitutes then also then that doubles up on the double up and it's just more stressful because you can't do what you're being asked

025by the district to do to be able to fulfill that program so I'm not quite sure where we are with walk to read in in Canyons I'm not prepared to answer that particularly but I think what you're saying actually supports my proposal okay so so anyway um just along that line then um the other question was um because I'm trying to also come back to the sub thing with buses if we're not busing on Fridays then that gives us extra money only for this year though but maybe there might be a way to put that money into um either paying the subs more or figuring out how to um yeah how to help the staff or better staff some more help for um employees that are really needing to have some counseling right now that

026may not be getting it and then as far Asal um because it's on your list right I'm just going down the list theal curriculum I'm at the point right now that that isn't even on my on my list of wanting to do because we can't get subs in the classrooms we can't help the teachers get some stress and relief and that seal can sit there for a m moment until we figure out what the heck we are going to do with seal okay so um just a reminder board this is the first reading and so I think Mrs Arnold has asked some questions and maybe some information that when you bring it back you could provide that information to the board and any other questions or comments on this on this item Mr Wrigley yeah

027thank you for the time um this is an interesting problem we run running into uh we' have changed the definition of closing schools down with covid and I'm hearing in many of the schools that actually it's as bad this year if not worse this year than last year as far as kids out are running multiple uh ways of teaching um uh and the schools are and the teachers are actually having pretty much the same issue that they had last year is that correct yes they are yeah I mean we're not hearing as much in the news the problem comes in this year's last year when we actually went to a 4-day week most the employers were sort of on board with that they were giving people four days that day off or whatever as we

028move to these six days um I I do have concern I think we need to do something um I do have concern I did ask originally one of them to consider doing this a 4-day weekend and none of these fall on a four Day weekend do they no they don't the reason I asked for that is because I think most parents will have to take their holidays off they'll have to take a vacation day and if we had a vacation day where they could take four days and go some places rather than a three-day holiday and then having to take another random one so I don't know if there's a way to I know there's a reason for this and you spent a lot of time but I'm just wondering if there's anything to help

029the parents that we be dealing with this because if we don't have them on vacation they may be on latch key um I've had several I mean I know that the main issue is are K through3 I've had several very heartfelt letters from almost two pages long talking about the stresses that these individuals are on and the effect that it's having on their family and stuff like that I suspect as I've talked with other schools and stuff and teachers that this is something throughout the district um as we take a look at this especially on the K through 12 I mean k through three is there other administrative things we could make maybe do to cut to cut down on some of to give the teachers a little bit more time uh in this process

030that we have control of I know we don't have control of the letters training so in our some of the other districts are looking at things where administratively we could say we're going to put this off for a while this year or we're going to do this uh within our control to allow teachers to have a little more extra time to prepare for all the things that the canvas things they're all doing canvas they're all doing all kinds of stuff again it's an active conversation with our principal in our I okay yeah we are discussing that so as we move forward with this and considering this' be interesting to see if we could link any of these with some four days off or anything so we can help families U but also that uh we

031try to take a look if there's anything we can give just in general with our teachers um and and then maybe ask some of the teachers I mean this interesting all the stuff we're getting in thank you okay thank you it sounds like we're um maybe needing a separate agenda agenda item to talk about how to how to also support teachers um I believe u Mr millerberg had a comment or question and then Mrs Dr Bob um you went through the number of substitute teachers or number of absences for teachers and how many substitutes and how they fall short and everything by doing this are you hoping to either a have teachers not get sick as much or B uh not need as many substitutes well the primary reason for doing this is to give

032teachers some time uh to focus on uh their preparation and other activities during the work week uh so that we can support them we I don't have data to show this but I'll tell you what I think I think that if uh teachers do have this kind of opportunity they will likely have less absences during that week if not more in the month um because they're having the opportunity to have um time more made more available to them for their preparations so you're kind of feeling like they wouldn't be as burned out and would not have the tendency to be ill as often that's what I believe okay um have you you gone through with these what one two three six dates that you gave us um and compared that to the school calendar and

033how many Fridays are already being or students already off school for no school days and how many are left if you were to put these days [Music] in so these days did do you understand my question I don't think so I mean you've got how many Fridays in a school year we already have several of them as I look at the calendar there several are yellow already which means it's a no school day right then you put these six more which would be basically no school days that's not the way we see it the students will be giv activities and our teachers will be working okay um how many school day how many in school days will we have left in the calendar year for Fridays for Fridays I don't know I haven't counted that

034okay but the school year is 180 days and I don't know how many weeks that translates into divided by five roughly roughly if you you been just did a half a day Friday because we only are we or are why am I sing tonight we're only there from like you know 9 to 12 and then there's lunch and then you pretty well go home so if you just say three hours so approximately three days are what we're using of children's time or teaching time for elementary for high school then you'd be using all six right yes six full days and middle yeah you know last uh last spring we had great aspiration that this would be back to a full schedule for the students and we also understand that there's at least I hope there's

035a high correlation to the amount of in FA you know in class uh instruction the students receive to what they learn and so this I guess you got a Balancing Act mental health and instructional time but I really hate to see that instructional time disappear the way that we're proposing it is not a disappearance of instructional time and it is my sincere hope that it helps the teachers deal with the mental health issues they're they're facing but instructional time will be cut we no they will still have learning activities on those days and we've already discussed which is which is better classroom instruction or virtual instruction and I don't argue that point okay thank you thank you Mrs Oaks and then Mrs nbow thank you Bob for sharing this with us so I just have

036a couple questions one is I'm wondering if you can address we've already addressed the the stress and pressure that's happening at the elementary school level I'm wondering if you can give us a little insight at the middle and high school level with the teachers I have talked to some of the principles and the teachers at that level and part of the stress that I'm hearing from them has to do with um how much of a difference we're seeing with attendance of students that a lot of them are just choosing not to come in part because of state law changing is help me understand if that's correct because a lot of the teachers are saying my attendance is way down I'm trying to support them on canvas even though it might not necessarily be Co numbers

037there's a lot of kids just choosing to opt out not to come and the second point and and then I can leave it to whomever is that I actually disagree with mon on the point about the the Fridays being useless while there were times that I had kiddos and parents report back to me that they would go on Fridays and teachers weren't available by and large when they were available and they were following through on that and um when students would utilize the time the feedback I got from a lot of parents was that that was extraordinarily helpful for their students and their own mental health and being able to get caught up and balance all of the demands and reg that they had going on especially during what's still a very stressful year for

038the students too so I actually think it could be a very positive thing for those kids if it's used properly and if the teachers really are available during those two hours so yeah to your point on the absences our principles are very concerned with the changes uh they feel like they don't have real teeth to enforce attendance and and many students and families are choosing to not attend is uh the report from the principles um okay Mrs nbow and then Mrs shill okay thank you for this presentation uh as I see it there's four problems the higher absentee rate which we cannot change because the moratorium on the attendance laws with the state the shortage of substitute teachers which we have a a very large labor shortage problem in the state something we may not

039be able to change so the two issues that I see that we really need a lot of great work on is the implementation issues the letters for the elementary school teachers and then any new curriculum and then what's going on with the mental health piece and the burnout and so I would love to see some other creative um Solutions and thinking outside of the box so I just did a quick little math here obviously we have a lot to discuss with theal curriculum coming up but perhaps in this year of all years as these teachers are burned out as we have all these Elementary School teachers doing letters maybe that maybe that looks a little different this year and we take care of our teachers first and their emotional health if we take if we

040take that out so they don't have to do new curriculum learning and that 20 minutes of every day if you take 20 minutes every every day that's 3600 minutes which is 60 hours if if you take out the six days of the week that they were saving that's 42 hours in total it's 102 hours there's different things we can be doing such as high school doesn't have any prep what about high school having late start days where the teachers have some prep time um you know and and when you want to talk about mental health we see all the statistics with the sleep right if our if our teachers can sleep in because they are they are burned out or if they need to get there and do some other things if the kids can

041sleep in just a thought I'd love to have you come back to the board with some other ideas about what to do because I think those are the two things the implementation and the burnout and then also I'd love to see how we are addressing our teachers needs as far as counselors School Community I know um Draper Park they were doing some activities for teachers like some social activities and things like that how that's going so that they really feel like they're part of this Greater Community and I just would love to see I'd love the teachers to hear loud and clear that we care as a district and obviously you do and you've brought a a plan but I'd love to see us stretch out this plan and look deeper into their needs because

042I keep hearing it and I just think we can do better and more and we need to give this time to really think through what else can we do what more thank thank you Mrs shill so I just want to um add my comments and I really do appreciate you bringing this to us I have also talked to teachers and principles and people are at the end of the Rope again like I really do feel like we need to do something and I I mean this is still a day where they're working and students will still be learning and I do think we need to do this for our teachers it just shows that we care and we realize what they're going through I mean I had a teacher say this year is way harder

043than last year to me because um you know because there's actually more cases anyway there's just a lot more ambiguity this year that they're dealing with um so anyway so I'm just supportive of this and I appreciate you bringing it forward thank you okay thank you um I I from from what I heard there may be some conversation that could be had with the state about letters my understanding is it's two years the teacher has two years to complete the training on that it's a two process and you know perhaps that could be stretched out to three years or something and and get a little relief there I don't know what this you know that's even worth having a conversation with the state about and then and then um several board members have mentioned um

044additional ways to support teachers I believe that is probably we should consider that as a as a separate and distinct agenda item and keep focused on this proposal because as I'm looking at your proposed dates one of them is less than a month from now right and it's going to be very important if the board chooses to um to go this direction and approve this um proposal it's going to be important to get communication out to families and parents as soon as possible so um so board I I will ask can we when we bring this back next meeting for reading is it all right if we listed as possible action yeah um I would rather not take action on next on the next meeting I will not be here and I would like to

045have the ability to vote on this matter and I liked I liked Steve's suggestion too looking at different dates because maybe that's more relief for teachers if it's on a weekend where there's already a date off so that gives them an extra day Steve that suggestion just quickly yeah I Mr Mr Wrigley um I think a lot of our parents take kids out on Fridays anyway because they're half day um and if it's attached to some weekend or something it gives them a reason I think that's going to make it easier on the family to actually do something so I don't know if we could look at those other dates it might be nice to take a look and see what dates we might be able to do uh superintendent yeah just a couple of

046thoughts um and I agree with everything said I I would like to comment on letters I I do not see the state changing or bending on what their expectations are I I actually spoke to superintendent Dixon this morning about these very concerns that have been voiced and um as much as I pressed her for flexibility I don't see flexibility ility coming in any way shape or form I'm not saying that's wrong or right just that that's where they're at if they were going to provide that flexibility I think they would have already done so um so there's that uh to your point president tingy I I would recommend I mean we need direction on this because of timing um I I love and support the question about a bigger picture and framework presented by multiple

047board members I think that is rolled into strategic planning and thinking about longterm in the spring uh when the board really develops that process and those anchors about what that you know might look like in the future I I to me where we're at is you know this kind of goes back to conversations we had last year at the beginning of the pandemic and recognizing the need to be flexible and responsive I we're I think we all support 5 days of instruction we know how important that is to Mon's Point um having said that recognizing the issue of where it's at I think um to all the points made is that we are still in this place where students are moving back and forth across um in person and staying at home for whatever reasons

048maybe it's quarantine maybe they're afraid uh I think are we better at at really providing a blended learning environment yes is a improv from last year I think it's improved Mark and it's much better but having said that there's still that is requiring a lot on uh everyone's plates to really make that Dynamic work I think we'll continue to get better and better at it but in the short term you know those are some issues so I and I also agree that we could align those dates better to fit um you know looking at the the calendar with Martin Luther King Day President Day in spring break there's three right there that we could you know potentially align that would help you know with families but uh I too have been hearing a lot from

049our teachers and cea just about the the level of stress and and burnout and I know everyone's at different kind of different breaking points um you know I don't think it's it's one issue as I've said before these fault lines run across lots of different paradigms social economic political family I mean it's not one thing right that pushes people to that point but it's multiple issues that that they're that they're dealing with so I I think it would be supportive but timing wise the first proposed date is coming up in November so bringing this back at another board meeting in October is really going to be pressing time if you know if the board chooses to support this Madam president I kind of I felt this I feel the same way I think that we

050we need to bring it back in two weeks because I think putting it out and putting it out isn't helping teachers either we either need to tell them yes or tell them no and not put this off any longer thank you um Mrs Shield did you have something yeah I just have to um the point about aligning this with holidays if we actually want students to learn I think we shouldn't align it with holidays because then parents will just take it off and add it to their vacation and then there will be no learning done so I I like the dates that are in there Mrs nbar and then I think then we'll wrap it up thanks uh just a question about can we bring back more options too I just counted and there's 39

051weeks left in the school year and there's a lot of I just would love to see more for the teachers I and and even actually ask the teachers would they prefer these six random Fridays or would they prefer a couple of hours in every single week built into the school year left that they can have prep time and things like that so I just love to see options because I'm happy to do what's best for the teachers and what's best for the students and I think that teachers that are happy and not burnt out is going to be best for the students i' love to see some options um I I think to superintendent's point that probably is a much more complicated decision or proposal than than what we're looking at right now but if

052the board wants yeah you I mean and I'm not disagreeing Holly but that you know when you're thinking about the moving parts that that necessitates every week and how that rolls out across all departments in The District transportation Food Services schedules that's has a much greater impact right so not disagreeing with you and I'm not I'm not you know trying to say that that shouldn't be part of our conversation I would like to see that rolled into our discussion in the spring with strategic visioning but this here and now with the proposal in front of us I would recommend that we need a decision or at least a direction where the board wants to go sooner than later I I'm good with that if we can add an agenda item because I don't know that

053the spring is soon enough maybe we can have an added agenda item for how else to best address the teachers needs because if I'm a teacher and I'm in Burnout and I hear you're getting these six days and we're going to do something else for you in the spring to about when the school year's over so if we could I don't know if the board's okay with that but another agenda item how to address the teachers needs we can look at adding that as a separate agenda item um on a future meeting all right board so I think we've wrapped up the discussion and we will be bringing this back next meeting thank you madam president can I ask a question because I'm looking at the calendar here and like if you attach it you

054know attaching it to um another day I don't know if we could get maybe feedback from the principls that um is it better to have the three-day weekend or then attach it to already like Thanksgiving if you attach it to that then they have five days but that doesn't give them any real relief during a Thanksgiving five day and then um October there's the the is a the fall break but then they have four days at fall break instead of just having three days at fall break is it better to actually have it on another day where there's three days off is there a way to get that information from the teachers or principles about which way they would rather have it a three-day weekend once a month or attached to a holiday okay thank

055you Mr millerberg I have a real issue with uh trying to lump those together three-day weekends because Bob if what you told us is what you really want to have happen to where the teachers are available in the school for the kids to come into the school on those days to work with the kids and you hooked that with a three-day weekend already what are we encouraging we're encouraging the kids to be gone with their families we're encouraging the teachers to be gone and I think that is really not a good idea to hook those together with extended weekends thank you see Mrs what you said up front isn't what isn't what you really meant I said what I meant we can't Mrs so to your point M here's the question if you're unable to

056be here next week that our next board meeting after that is not until November 9th and so we would have already passed November 5th which is their initial date so in light of that are do you feel still strongly feel strongly about not having possible action next time we have a a a three presentation rule of the board then it sounds like we'd have to choose a different date other than November fth if that's the case well I mean there are situations when timing does allow us to bring things back for second reading possible action and then at that point in time the board can decide so I guess we need to make a decision or somehow decide between us that we're going to go ahead and put this on as an action item yeah

057so I think what I recommend we put it on as um second reading possible action and then at that time the board can decide if they're ready to take action or not okay thank you Dr D I think that clears that issue up or we've concluded the discussion it doesn't clear it up all right oh thank you next item is um approval of the 2022 2023 school calendar and tenative approval for the 2024 and 202 4 2025 school calendars this is a first reading and that gave Dr Floyd Sten rud plenty of time to get up to the up to the podium I'll turn the time over to him thank you very much president tingy I appreciate that and members of the board thank you for the opportunity to to share uh the the calendar

058discussion for tonight uh what we are uh looking at uh and what the uh calendar Comm would like to propose is that the 2223 uh calendar for for uh the k12 and also the 2220 uh 23 calendar for Brighton High be uh be the proposed Calenders for next year and just going back now to talk for just a minute uh to start with on the 20 uh 22 2023 school calendar we do have August 15th as the start of school and May 26th as the end of school and uh the reason for those two dates specifically is that we do have an 11-day winter recess in that year which uh tightens up those dates just a just a bit in addition to that uh we have uh also our other recess days with Thanksgiving and

059our uh spring recess as as normal as we do for all of the calendars and also our parent teacher conferences in September and February extending into March in this particular calendar as well so I uh and nothing else really uh to talk about in this particular calendar other than the days prior starting August 8th where the teachers are back at school oops did I go too too far and with the Brighton calendar uh also St and end of school of course on the same days and then you have the uh trimester end on November 4th and February 16th those days are in purple and then their October 6th January 12th and April 20th days are their parent teacher conference days uh and then of course they have their comp uh teacher comp days on January

06013th and April 21st is scheduled there then so anyway those are our proposed calendars then as we move to the tentative calendars for 2023 2024 we have school starting on August 21st and ending May 30th with a nine-day winter recess the other recess days for uh no uh for Thanksgiving starting on November 22nd ending the 24th and then our April 1st through the 5th which is a bit unusual but that's our first full week in April right at the very beginning and then our parent conferences in September and February uh filling those two uh consecutively right in the month which is which is actually quite nice to have for that particular calendar and then our Brighton calendar of course moving with the same end uh beginning and end dates and then their trimester end November

06117th and February 15th with their uh parent teacher conferences October 5th January 11th and April 18th and then their teacher comp days on January 12th and April 19th so with these particular calendars uh one thing that we have done is we have pretty well stuck to the color scheme that we have looked at for many many years now and uh if we actually just for a moment move back to the K12 calendar for the 2324 year we have several days in there that are shaded for midterms and if you take a look at the February day on the 29th you'll notice that that shade actually obscures the 29th quite heavily and for November 17th uh one thing that Steve well and you can take January 17th or April 19th October 1st any of those midterm

062days or end of quarter or end of trimester days as Steve Wrigley pointed out they're difficult to print uh the other thing that this does uh with regard to the way those days are shaded is that it clutters the calendar and the other issue is that as far as the schools are concerned the midterms are Superfluous on the calendar because they basically choose their own midterm dates and we don't choose those midterm dates for them so listing them on the calendar is kind of a nuisance for schools and they have let us know that the calendar committee has let us know that so as we move forward to the 2024 2025 calendar what we have done is we've eliminated the midterm dates uh we have kept the uh trimester days but we've we've identified those

063a little differently one other thing that you will notice is that uh one of the issues that came up is that for uh members of our community who suffer from color blindness the green and red colors on the first day of school is unreadable so they can't make that out uh we actually ran this uh calendar by uh the the proposed calendar by four different individuals who are colorblind in the community and interestingly enough what we found is that they each read it differently but they couldn't read the number but they suffer from different uh types of color blindness which uh we found quite interesting so we changed the color scheme to uh match what they could see and we found that the orange and red actually helped them see the colors and also the

064uh the peach matched somewhat the gray but when it was next to the yellow it didn't seem to matter and and they could also read the color the the number anyway so in addition to that this color scheme is so bright and with the yellow the blue the orange the red the purple we know that we're getting a little bit out there with the colors but as far as those members of the community who were suffering from color blindness this color scheme helped tremendously in terms of their ability to see the calendar the other issue was as uh uh Mr Wrigley pointed out is that when we identify the dates with other than uh using something other than a color it it makes the print uh such that we can't identify that day and we

065have to use the legend off to the right in order to see what we're looking at and patrons like looking at the the calendar to identify what that date is so if you notice on uh November 15 and February 27th we have placed an asterisk on those days and down on the legend at the bottom for K five trimester end we have placed an asterisk so on the Brighton calendar you notice that the color scheme is the same with the brightness of the colors and the elimination of the midterms has left the calendar unobscured and easier to read and cleaner so one other issue with this that uh we had to to change is on the side Legend on the right down at the bottom rather than having the asterisks identify those last four items

066where it starts every Friday as an elementary stand uh student early out day on down we've placed dashes instead of asterisks so that we don't confuse the two items in addition uh it was proposed by the calendar committee that uh we insert every Friday is a middle school student late start day in addition to every Friday is an elementary student early out day because every Friday is a middle school student late start day and we have that now so with this particular calendar and the way it's now designed uh going back actually to the proposed calendar for the 2223 year uh with your permission what we would like to do is because the midterms are uh no longer really useful to the schools as we would like to clean up this calendar as well uh

067because the these calendar cleanups are cosmetic and not any changes specifically to the calendar uh with your permission we would like to make some changes to this proposed calendar and that is that we would like to change potentially the color scheme to match so that folks who do uh suffer from color blindness would be able to see these these calendars not have to wait until the 2024-25 calendar but start with this next year's calendar to see uh these numbers eliminate the midterms use the asterisk instead of shades on these dates so that it would be easier to identify those trimesters use dashes off to the side in the legend rather than asterisks and also place every Friday as a early out for uh for middle schools so with that uh those are uh for this

068first reading that is what we would like you to consider those five items great thank you any questions board members all right U we appreciate that that great report and all the work that the calendar committee does so we will look for at the second reading on this those cosmetic and those changes that you mentioned on these calendars so would you like like me to make those changes cosmetically to the calendars uh now for next no I think I had no is fine yeah because okay then we'll take a look at it next time okay thank you appreciate that thanks thank you okay next item is introduction on redistricting um I will turn time over to uh Charlie Evans director of external relations and uh Leon Wilcox business administrator Mr abin thank you um yeah

069so this is the actually the third time that we've gone through redistricting we had to do it very when we were very first organized before the first election we spent a lot of brain damage on that we didn't realize that we were the only ones taking it that seriously when I showed up down at the county they looked at it said yeah this is good thank you very much and so um uh so this is obviously something that's very important I don't mean to make uh light of it it affects what we're talking about here is the shape boundary of the districts of the precincts that you all represent and the people who run for election and for the next 10 years uh will run in and so um there we go um I think

070everybody understands that in the wisdom of our uh founding fathers they enshrined in our constitution the requirement to do a census every 10 years it falls on you know 10 20 30 40 last year of course was a 20 it was also a CO year and so we're much later in the process and we normally would be uh we normally would have finished this sometime in July or August and so everything's behind because of that um I spoke today with uh Brian Maxwell who works he's on staff the Salt Lake County Council and also the chair of their redistricting Commission and they're very flexible and would um be willing to take our recommendation just about any time he asked if we could be ready in the first week of November they meet every Thursday in

071the morning and I told him that night might be pushing that I would bring that to you guys tonight that um I if we if they if that was a hard and fast deadline certainly we could meet it um but if we had another week or two that might be preferable given the the way that our board does business and he seemed to be okay with that but he did close a conversation by saying if you can do it that first week in November um that will be great and so um these are the according to this uh the the 2020 census these are the population of each of the districts and if you do the math each district should have about 32,300 people in it and so we can see that Mont and clarine

072and uh holl's districts are over the rest of you are under by a certain amount now in most redistricting um it is required that each district be within 1% of the other districts but what Brian told me today is that school districts don't have that it's not that strict for school districts because they want to be um make it easier to keep School Community School communities together and so they would ask us to be within 10% each of our precincts to be within 10% and he did say that they really wouldn't like to see these larger districts that are likely to keep growing to be on the larger 10% side side and so I think there is some flexibility for us to do what we want to do and how we what you guys want

073to do and how we need to do it uh we just need to kind of get on it at this point um this is um I call it a heat map it uh if you look at it online you will make more sense because you can zoom in but those these are your precincts those blue dots on there indicate where current board members live and those very smaller dots are uh uh census blocks that have census data in them and so you can zoom in and out uh of this map if you look at it online and and glean more information and then the next uh slide is a little better maybe clearer picture of our Precinct map and so one of the things I wanted to come away from this meeting with first before

074I do that Leon is there anything you wanted to add no I think you had everything thank you char uh just I think on this map again it's on board docs we just wanted to give you an idea of where the schools are located the physical buildings uh when I talked to Charlie's had conversations with Brian I talked to him as well one of the things you said is on 10% or some justifiable measure he said well maybe look at schools you know he said Granite doing the same thing and they have eight high schools so they like to keep one in every pre Sy at least but obviously one we have to have two so something like that you know we have eight middle schools I don't know if that's something you want us

075to look at but I think our request as Charlie said is just get your direction how you want us to move forward that yeah that's what I'd like to leave here with if possible is some direction from the board as to how you would like uh a proposed map to be drawn that you could then uh act on and that we could submit to the county hey um any thoughts this is pretty interesting information um I I think the I mean we've got the map and we've got the numbers so that as so I guess the idea is as as we adjust those lines to get within that 10% spread um there are we know like if we move a a boundary line two or three streets over we know how much that changes the

076numbers correct right we down with Rick in that GIS I forget what you know as you move the line you can see the population change and so you know when you hit your target so um but I also feel like board members we know our areas pretty well and we know where some natural boundaries lie and um and where they don't lie right yes so I think it ought to be something that each individual board member has an opportunity to also take a look at what some of the options or possibilities might be and weigh in on it um any thoughts board members yes Mrs nbow okay so that 10% margin is that by the lowest population District to the highest or is it to just to the next numerically my understanding is that each

077needs to be within 10% of 32,300 okay so each needs to be in 10% of 32 32,300 which is what like meain of all these that's that's the average the average okay you maybe said that and I missed it okay um so then are you going to give some proposals as far as L I'm not gonna do anything you guys don't ask me to do he's so smart um so when I pulled this up today something that I found interesting is how large in population my district is and yet how few schools are actually in my District boundaries so that was one thought um another thought was feeder patterns so in my district we have a portion of people who go to Mount Jordan Middle and go to different different schools and so that was

078a thought I had too was the logistics of of having the board member that who that school resides in their District it is a little bit easier um I found in doing this a little bit easier to keep School community coun of school communities together but it is not uh it's impossible to do completely right has been my experience in doing this in the past but it is easier um than when we're drawing school bounds is M um any other questions or tots or you know Mr millerberg Charlie for me it's you know I understand you've got to do what you got to do but for me to say draw the line here or that I don't know how many people you move in and out of a uh Precinct when you move the line

079and so you know for me it's kind of a worthless effort to even try well one one of the things I thought about doing this could create problems of its own is why I'm I think we should be cautious about doing it but um I'm I'm happy to sit down with each of the board members and Rick and and look at each Precinct with the board member that represents that Precinct and draw a boundary and but the problem we're going to have and this has happened um every time is that as well as you guys work together um there sometimes has been a point of disagreement as to where exactly lines uh should be drawn and so I my concern is um having everybody in one at the time uh may be may make it

080difficult to resolve conflicts and I don't want to be be the referee or the Arbiter so Charlie as I'm looking at this like I get I need to give up people but I can't give them to district one he already has too many I can't Shuffle it down to District Seven she has too many which means I have to shuffle it over to five and even if I shuffle it over to five that doesn't help three because five has to shuffle some over to three if you're if you're shuffling this direction or up or down right and so um and then like you said when then you start looking at it you have to be careful because then I totally lose a high school and I still keep the middle school or do I lose

081the middle school no they're about in the line so it's got to be it almost looks like we have to shuffle east to west not north to south to be able to give seven to summon six give four to summon five give five some more to three and give one some to two does that Sense part of this is going to be where the the increase has been you know sometimes the and often it's the case that the increase isn't right on the boundary line and so moving that boundary line just a little bit doesn't get you much sometimes not all the time but sometimes and um you know you really don't know until you sit down with and start drawing the map with the gis data I know but think I can be a

082big person understand what you're saying I don't disagree I think I can be a big person and probably give a few over to to five and three I mean I we can do it we're a good board we know how to do it yes we we can do it um Can Mrs Oaks I agree I think we can figure this out um I would submit that one of the things we ought to consider is that it would be good for each of us to have a balance of Elementary and secondary schools I've um mentioned this to you personally before when I asked about redistricting um I have eight but really functionally nine schools and which I think is more than anyone else here has which is funny because I have slightly lower population but um

083I end up having two middle schools one high school that's definitely my boundaries but really functionally Corner Canyon also kind of falls under my umbrella as well because dper Park Middle is one of my schools and all of the students from Draper Park go to Corner Canyon so it's the same constituency so it's a lot of schools I I try and visit each school's SEC meeting at least once a year and to attend events and stuff but it becomes really difficult and I just think for moving forward it makes more sense to me to make sure that the schools themselves are balanced amongst all of us so there's better coverage that makes sense okay um thank you I I think maybe for the Next Step all right I'll just throw this out as an idea

084how how about um if you sit down with the maps and because you'll have access to get those numbers and get something with you know considering the location of schools considering where board members reside and considering you know the need to stay within the 10% and just draw up something preliminary then then the board has a starting place for us to look at it and and discuss it I'm certainly comfortable doing it that way if that's the way the board does and I think with Leon and maybe Susan uh we have we won't have the understanding of your neighborhoods of course that you guys have but we do have some understanding of our school Community neighborhoods we can certainly come back with a proposal or two if you guys are comfortable that my I want

085you guys are in charge obviously but I certainly want this to be a process that everybody is comfort with okay it looks like we've got um Mr Wrigley and then Mr millerberg Mrs shill and Mrs nbow okay so I mean some options I one could we could meet with all each seven and we come out with a calendar then we pull it together we take a look at it say what what is what seems to be because you may be we're actually right making several calendars may be okay that's one way the other way was to have you come up two or three different C ERS that may take a look out and then rather than just one but two or three then we could take a look and balance them off I know I've

086lost some last time they could probably go back in there I've got some natural boundaries on stheast so it's easy to take some from clarine because her boundar is are 7th East I could just go down a couple blocks yes and pick that up but I don't know what's going to happen with yours because your district is low but you'd have to go into Draper maybe so anyway okay hey um I apologize m Shi hasn't had a turn yet so we'll do Mrs Shi and then Mr millerberg and then Mrs Nar um what well I just had an idea which I don't know maybe just Mee in small groups like two or three of us because the boundaries are east to west so like it's going to be between me and Mont and I I

087would rather him decide what part I take than me anyway um because it is part of his City I mean that's the other thing that's tricky about this is my boundaries are pretty much the city of kwood high and I think his are Midville and now we're going to be mixing that up but I guess we can't help that we do have that 10% margin but that is if we take something up there that's outside of that they will probably send it back to us or they will decide on their own I don't think we want that yeah okay that that's all thank you Mr millerberg Mrs nbow you know I think I think one of the other things that you're see is most of the more highly populated are your West tree syns and

088that is probably based more on high density housing being in those areas and I think somewhere somehow I'm trying to be careful what I say maybe it doesn't matter anyway but um I would like to hang on to some of my areas that have single family homes in them um and so you're what you're saying is if we move the boundary Too Far West that's what you're going to look yeah if if you if you move for example if you move uh Amber's boundary down to where seventh swings down up to ninth which to me would look like a fairly natural place to do it that puts Hill Christ High School right on the edge and that takes a bunch of single family homes out of mine and I become more highly concentrated with lowincome

089and high density well my my experience with this is there's a thousand ways to skin this cat and I think we can we can accommodate that and I would like to I would like to maintain somewhat of a balance in those areas to where I have economic strata covered on both ends and type of housing covered on both ends so there's a balance I feel confident we can do that okay I'm glad you do thank you Mrs nabau okay a couple of comments and thoughts so what also is important is where our constituents attend schools so even though phys and like I pointed out and Miss Oaks talked about you know there's certain school buildings that reside in our districts however we really you know in representing our parents anywhere where their children are going

090to school we need to be involved in that school so um I have a couple of thoughts the first is I really like the idea of also looking at where the board member resides um and what those feeder patterns are so the east to west doesn't necessarily make sense like I'm just looking at my map and I'm you know a little further south in Draper and so for for me you know it may make a little more sense to do you know to draw that line F farther north because I I you know I'm quite a bit farther from all those homes um I like Amber suggestion about the board member that's giving to another District to be involved in that conversation I thought that was a good suggestion my other thought is at what

091point is another District created my question is because if you look at the populations the city of Draper is actually a big population that our school district serves if we look at the boundary lines of the city of Draper and right now we have we have Sandy Midvale Cottonwood Heights Draper aren't those all the cities there's just four of them five seven right so we don't have just R over we can't do anything else once you once you have a certain population you're bump seven so where is is large so so when we're looking at realigning these District Maps though we have four cities but we have our cities have different populations and so that may be something we need to yeah I mean City boundaries really aren't aren't congruent with ours um with you

092know theirs are kind of mostly those cities but like I represent a good part of Conwood height City and Sandy City and we also of course have Alta and and the town of Alta yeah the town of Alta and and White City of course that's right so so I think yeah we we need to move on and this is just a first look at this and I think I'm glad you told the county that we probably need that we will take our time because um so with all of those suggestions I think hopefully you can we'll put you to work and come up with maybe a couple of different options and then um I think maybe um it would be appropriate if if board members once you get those options put together board members could

093take a look at it and then and then weigh in on so the specifics for their area we develop the the options and then invite board members to come in uh in groups of adjacent precincts I think that would make sense so that between the two of them they could take a look at the specific yes president can I ask just one more question sure Charlie I look at it and I I've got the largest Precinct and that is based strictly on population and yet if you look at the number of registered voters who actually vote I would bet I would not have the mo the largest number is there any way you can adjust that to where it would be people that really vote no or registered no by by by you know that

094is by constitutional mandate that it has to be by population not by voter or any other demographic okay that something we don't have a choice about unfortunately okay thank you I think you'll be busy be will'll be busy thank you for your time appreciate thank you next item is the introduction of our student advis Council and I see that we've been joined by many of them so I will turn time over to Dr Robert dle assistant superintendent first let me apologize I marched right out of here after my last presentation because I forgot the roster for our students and I didn't I need it no I need it so I apologize I wasn't mad I was in a hurry so uh tonight we have the opportunity to meet our student advisory council members this year

095and uh I apologize if I mispronounced some names I think I probably will but please raise your hand if you're here so the board can recognize you from Alta Autumn angstrom Luke Bard Alicia before we can see them will you stand up yeah that would be great otherwise you see the hand okay let's go with Autumn angstrom again and Luke borgard Alicia Ruiz and Maller Goodfellow from Brighton we have Haley Wilson Xander Nelson Taylor Naro and Bryce mayor from Corner Canyon we have Kimberly Montoya Garcia Lance andren Creed Garder Bella nibi from diamond ridge we have Ava Bolan and Gabe Gutierrez from Hill Crest we have Emmy Arin dond Jason Moon Puma KH how do you say uh Selina you and from Jordan Cameron cof coffee Shelby Hadley Emma Moreno and Isaac Brockbank so Bard

096here's our new student advisory Council robob you will give us a lift right thank you oh it's on it is on board do yeah yeah oh we are so happy to meet you and grateful that you're here um and we look forward to working with you this coming school year thank you for accepting this assignment and this responsibility and we hope you find it to be an opportunity and something that is rewarding for you as well um so board do you have any questions or comments for the students I think it would be fun if we could get a quick group picture and then um and then we would like to um close the study session and then maybe have an opportunity just to meet with each of you individually or just and yeah if

097you want to join us back there during the break that would be great but how about a picture we do a quick group picture with those of you that are here I for hey um thank you and just um we will will take a a 15minute break and begin our business meeting at 7:00 p.m. and we appreciate those of you that have joined us here in person and and thank you for your patience while we just meet and greet I'd like to welcome you to the meeting of the canyon board of education for the business meeting and today is October 5th 2021 and we are meeting at the district office located at 9361 South 300 East in Sandy Utah um the first item of business is to approve the agenda for tonight I will ask

098for a motion I will move to approve the agenda for tonight October 5th 2021 thank you is there a second to the motion thank you any discussion to this motion seeing none I will ask for a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed that motion passes thank you next we will be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by alav viw Elementary principal Scott Jameson who then will principal Jameson will give us some school highlights from Al of viw Elementary please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all is this already on says turn it on but I'm assuming it's got the green light if the green light's on

099it's on perfect thanks Nancy well thank you for this opportunity to highlight alw Elementary School we serve 582 students in kindergarten through fifth grade we're located in the heart of White City Township uh near the White Tower swimming pool school first opened in 1963 but since then we've had a beautiful new building constructed and that opened in 2017 and don't get me wrong we love our building it's awesome but it's not the the entire depth of Al toie Elementary we also have a lot of programs we're a Spanish dual immersion school that's recognized as International Spanish Academy school the ISA program is an educational Outreach initiative of the Ministry of Education and vocational training of Spain where High performing schools in the United States and Canada Implement a Spanish English dual immersion uh curriculum with

100the support consult consultancy and recognition of the ministry Alie also uses a two-teacher model approach to dual language immersion and we found that the two-teacher model was so successful we actually adopt it in all of our non-d classes as well we have supplemental kindergart as well as a special education diagnostic kindergarten which is a place that gives even Disneyland a run for its money as the happiest place on Earth we have strong academic programs that follow the canyon District multi-stem of support framework and produces results and academic gains we spend our L trust money and our TSS tssa money in areas of our greatest academic needs which currently are reading math and emotional well-being we Implement positive behavior interventions and supports our students follow the school rules also known as the keys be be engaged

101believe in yourself and uh be safe uh one funny story when I was first appointed it out to be Elementary about three years ago I was out uh uh talking to the kids after school and we just learned the school rules and this kid came up to me a third grader and he had one of those ring pops on his hand and he holds it up he says Mr Jameson look I'm being engaged I thought well that's not exactly I mean that's pretty good though uh we also have been uh implementing a program at our our school called citizenship class so when students make mistakes and it rises to level of an office referral they come to the office and we do a citizenship class with them just like they make mistakes in math or

102reading or anything else like that where you go back and retach them we do the same thing with with our behavior and citizenship so it's an alternative to lunch detentions or any other types of office referrals it's designed for students uh to make improvements and and to grow and it's a focus on reteaching rather than punishment alone we also have a fabulously fun and energetic PTA that sponsors many fund programs and recently reached their fundraiser goal good news for them bad news for me there's pies flying towards my face in about two weeks we have a functional School Community Council that gives authentic input and uh influences the decisions that are made it out to view on topics such as school Improvement plans safety covid plans and the equity we also have daily morning announcements

103with videos of the principal and a student and two hilariously hilariously funny jokes so yes we have programs but there's so much more to out you I want to share a quick story that a teacher shared with me just recently she said I had a student who was running for student counsel when the time came to give speeches she realized that she never wrote a speech I told her that she could either run without a speech or speak from her heart she decided she was going to speak from the heart she came up in front of the classroom and started strong the reason why I think you should choose me for student counsel then she looked at me tucked her face in her jacket and started tearing up she was she was scared I reminded

104her that this was a safe place and that she was doing great at that moment the whole class started cheering her on they were saying go girl you got this you're doing amazing I believe that this type of encouragement from our classroom Community helped her finish just as strong as she started through her tears she told her classmates that she believed school should feel like a second home because for most of us that's what it is she added that she wants everyone to feel loved and included she ended by saying that's why she CH that's why she should be voted student counsil because she would make sure that school felt like a second home the class erupted with cheers they clapped and told her how Brave she was I believe the strong sense of community

105that these students have have built with their with one another motivates them to show up each day and continue trying their absolute best so what makes Alie great it's the people it's the teachers the office staff The Lunch Ladies the reading interventionists the the custodian and uh the parents the community and uh we just recently had an award given to one of our uh volunteers as at the Apex award to Dr Aly cow so that's kind of exciting uh there's many reasons we come to work and give our all and that's really what it comes down to is the students we're there for the students we love our students we appreciate our students and we're grateful for the opportunity to to come and talk to us a little bit about alter VI so thank you

106thank you principal we we appreciate all that that you and your staff do will you please extend our our gratitude to them as well and and thank you for sharing all about that amazing school next we have um we will have some recognitions and I will turn time over to Mr Jeff ha and Miss Kirsten Stewart from the Communications Department thank you president tingi for the time that the board grants us uh during the board meeting to recognize the achiev achievements of students faculty and staff in Canyon's District tonight for our recognitions we are recognizing the stars on the stage our Utah principal of the year and record setter on the grid iron those who are mentioned tonight will receive letters of recognition from the superintendent and the Board of Education as well as a

107Canyon's District keychain our very first honores tonight are a corner Canyon High School and Hill Crest High School now in the words of Shakespeare at least paraphrased they came saw and overcame student actors from Hillcrest and Corner Canyon High School fared quite well At Last weekend's for an anual Shakespeare competition this was at Southern Utah University and we asked the question to brag or not to brag well of course we're going to brag Hill Christ and Corner Canyon theater students impressively both won the sweep Stakes award in their divisions the Huskies drama dance and choir groups received more points than all of the other teams in the Oxford Division and the Chargers scored the most sweep Stakes points in in the Buckingham division now bright and High's dance company also finished third in the competition

108in its category and just as interesting to note that this is Hillcrest Hillcrest theater's eth sweep Stakes award in 12 years at the Shakespeare competition and every piece that Hillcrest had in the competition placed at least in the top three this is the first time that's ever happened for the hrist the the uh students this is the fourth consecutive year in a row that both the Hillcrest stage crew won first place in the tech Olympics and the actors won first place in the Ensemble scene the Hillcrest High School first place finishers are the entire team they won the sweep Stakes award they won the tech Olympics The Ensemble scene Jacob riplinger um won the Larry lot award for the best actor in an ensemble with a $1,000 college scholarship man tanani also won with a

109monologue won a $500 acting camp scholarship Porter Eldridge Megan Oaks and Gabe Williams won the duo trio scene all winning thousand scholarships and acting camp scholarships go fiser won the tech portfolio also the tech Olympics Tanner Abbot won her and makeup Dylan jman set construction G fiser stage management Leo Campbell props and Toby Bohan for costumes the second place finishers are Serena Rogers in monologues and aan Elder jiren Ruff and Ayan sasta in the duo trio scene film the third place place finishers are Jacob ruplinger with the monologue and Joseph Abbott Josiah Hall and Robin odison from The Duo and Trio scene Corner Canyon High students they obviously won the sweep Stakes award Isaac remond won the monologues and a $1,000 scholarship Ian colon Lauren Dunn Creed Gardner Emma Haney Chase Johnson Jonathan Lutz Maggie

110McDow Genevie McGill Nia Peterson and Isaac Raymond won the minstral large choir and Adam B bisio was one in sound and technical theater they won second place finishes in Ensemble monologues and duo trio scenes won by Ian Colton and Lauren dun so congrat congratulations to Corner Canyon High School and Hillcrest High School students for winning the sweep Stakes awards at the 45th annual Shakespeare competition this is a huge deal and they practice so much for this they did a phenomenal job congratulations to them our next Honore is the Utah high school principal of the Year Dr Brian McGill from Alta High School today he was honored by the National Association for Secondary School principles as Utah's nominee for the national principal of the Year honors so we wish him congratulations uh unfortunately because of covid-19

111restrictions he wasn't able to travel to Washington DC for the traditional ceremony to honor the country's top principles instead a virtual ceremony was held today now since Dr McGill arrived at Alta High School enrollment has jumped from 1600 to 2300 he also was instrumental in bringing in step to the U at Alta high school ALA is the only High School in the state to have this agreement with the state's Flagship institution of higher education two cohorts of alah high Hawks that's 160 students in all are currently participating in this early college program already alah high students have saved about $6 million in tuition costs by particip ipating in step to the U now interesting Dr Migel started his career as a Hall Monitor and a school counselor so with this honor Dr Miguel joins a

112prestigious roster of previous winners from Canyon's District including our 2020 Middle School principal of the year Paula Logan who unfortunately also did not get to go to Washington DC they had a virtual ceremony to honor these amazing principles so congratulations to Dr Miguel who is honored today in that virtual ceremony and we also cannot forget the Corner Canyon Chargers on Friday they tied the state record 48 wins in a row on the football field so congratulations to the Chargers they beat the West Lake Thunder and they have a chance now to become the sole record holders this week at home against Lone Peak that game is on Thursday the Chargers are now tied with du Shane with 48 wins so best of luck to coach care and the team this Thursday if they win they

113will have the state record for most wins in a row now one more item to mention Canyon's District's commitment to ensuring that every student is College and Career ready when they graduate from high school is evident by the decision made by the Board of Education the Canyons Education Foundation is helping that vision and that mission Come True by giving a little bit of help to our students in getting to college all across Canyons high schools are holding college application weeks that's five days dedicated to helping students fill out and submit at least one viable college application ukah or Utah college application week is a a fun week for our high schools they spend um the five days getting students excited about applying for college some schools post fun College related items on their social media

114they play college related bingo games they hold assemblies and encourage everyone to wear t-shirts and sweatshirts and hoodies of their favorite colleges and universities but sometimes there are students who want to apply for the college of their choice and they don't have the funds to be able to submit those college applications and that is where the Canyons Education Foundation comes in now literally every drive at the recent Canyons Education Foundation golf tournament was helping students in their drive for postsecondary Education now Denise hok who is our foundation development officer is here to present a check to the board of education in Canyon's district for $110,000 the amount the foundation board has approved to help students in need apply for the schools of their choice Denise do you want to come forward okay there you go

115thank you the kenyons Education Foundation is proud to support this initiative once again this year and provide financial assistance by offering these $10,000 four college application fees for students that allows every student to apply for college if they choose to do so we want to congratulate those students who are taking this first step to go to college so at this time I'd like to present to you a check for $10,000 on behalf of the canyon Board of Education not Board of Education Education Foundation board thank you so much thank thank you and if if I could I I would like to ask Mr millerberg who serves on the board of the foundation as our representative to the foundation if you would accept the check thank you thank you so much and please extend our appreciation

116to to the board if you will Denise how much we appreciate it and we know how helpful it is to many students as you said who are ready to take that next step so we appreciate it the Canyon's Education Foundation is a huge support to our teachers and our students we also want to note that o October 7th is the start of the 5A and the 6A girls soccer tournament so best wishes to all of our teams who will be competing in the state tournament in girls soccer now also October 7th is the start of the 5A girls tennis tournament so good luck to all of our student athletes who will be competing for State honors and October 12th is the start of the 5A and 6A girls stalker state tournament for the second round

117so we're crossing our fingers for all of our teams to bring home those trophies so congratulations to all those we have recognized tonight and much luck to those who will be competing for State honors in the very near future and President tingy we turn to time up to you thank you very much Mr Haney we appreciate the time that you spent to share with us the great achievements um okay we've now come to the patron comment portion of our meeting the Board of Education encourages public engagement and values input from the public while not required to do so by law the board often designates time in meetings to listen to the patrons of the district here are a few guidelines for addressing the board Patron comments are part of the public record of the meeting

118and comment time is limited to Residents and tax payers of Canyon's District students and parents of students and current employees of the district um patrons May provide board members with written documents pertaining to their comments these documents should be submitted to the board secretary over here um at the meeting or emailed to the office of public Communications at communications canyonsdistrict.org by noon of the day following the board meeting time allotted for public comment is at the discretion of the board President we have quite a few individuals that have signed up to address the board so this evening so that we can have time to hear from everyone who signed up um we will give two minutes to individuals and those representing a group will get three minutes the board of education does not discuss matters

119which are not on the meeting's agenda nor engage in public comment on personal issues of a District employees character profession competence or mental or physical health if a patron wants to comment on Personnel issues the board requests that those comments be submitted 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 um as we begin the patron comments portion of the meeting uh the the Board of Education would like to quickly address some issues that have been raised in the community last school year masks were required in schools by State Health order this year a new Utah law restricts school districts from issuing MK mandates also to be clear critical race theory is

120not part of the curriculum being used in Canyon school district there are no plans to incorporate it into the curriculum or instruction in Canyon schools we are making these things clear now to answer any questions and to make sure patrons receive some feedback as it is the board's practice to listen and take notes during Patron comments now um we do have one Patron that has signed up to address this over the telephone so um but so you are now unmuted okay um so um but we will begin our first um Patron is Lisa Bruns who um will be representing a group so three minutes and then on the telephone Janine Cardis will will receive two minutes and then Tor Gillette also two minutes although I come before you as the adviser for Utah parents United

121I'm also a parent with two minute two children in the in this District I was going to say two minutes this issue you are facing tonight about how social emotional learning is taught at school is not about politics it's about protecting our children and specifically mine from very harmful ideologies I believe our district is a model for other districts on how the system should ideally work I believe um we as parents have brought our concerns to the board and superintendent respectfully you have taken those concerns seriously done your own research considered all feedback from both sides and are poised to take action to make a decision that is best for our students I truly understand the weight of that decision I know you have a district to run that has children with varied levels of

122social emotional skills mainly because they come from varied levels of socioeconomic situations I don't sit in an ivory Tower and pretend that these disparities don't exist it may surprise you that I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Santa Ana California there's lots of gang activity I was a ly kid my mom was a single parent who worked two jobs to send me and my brother to a better school so we wouldn't have to go to the one down the street where there were frequent driveby shootings uh sometimes our water or electricity would get shut off because we were living paycheck to paycheck and back then there weren't social emotional learning skills taught in school um and even though my situation wasn't ideal I still learned learn the skills of grit resilience hard work and

123perseverance and how to treat everyone I meet no matter how different they were for me with kindness from my mother it W uh she's really a great woman she is and it was for me and it should be the case for all children that parents retain their place as the main drivers of social emotional learning for their kids not the schools it really should be an opt-in program not an opt out if you do feel a desire to supplement these skills the students that need it deserve a neutral program without a political or ideological agenda tied to it it is extremely clear that castle and curriculum like second step want to use social emotional learning to reprogram our children into so social justice activists for particular causes causes that make them question objective reality reject

124familial cultural or religious beliefs uh uh favor socialism over capitalism and push them to believe that racial gender or class identity matters more than unifying as a human race and that's not good for them or for our country I plead with you vote to discontinue second step in all grade levels and get this poison out of our schools and let's not replace the swamp we in with another swamp like near pod if the industry standard you're looking to meet that will be mentioned in Dr Robin's presentation tonight has anything to do with aligning with Castle standards then I will join the hundreds of parents who have the same concerns and I will opt my children out if you want parental support onal and I know you do we want to partner with you there needs

125to be complete transparency to build that trust and an effort to include us in the decision process we're depending on you to protect our kids from curriculum that pretends to want to help them but really desires to indoctrinate them please make us proud thank you thank you okay um Janine on the telephone yes my name is jine cardz I've been a member of Canyon's District PTA FBC and PTSA for 10 years I'm calling tonight in response to the cancellation of the second step program this program has taught our children for a while has been taught to our children for a while now I'm upset and a little disappointed of how this was handled one group pretty much dictated what was going to be taught in our school my issue now is how you're going to

126handle future complaints by this group or any other that will arise in the future will our schools just become an unkind andap uncompassionate political Battlefield that's all I have to say I just wish that things were handled differently I'm a little disappointed in kenyon's District tonight thank you TOR Gillette Tor Gillette and then Jen rup and Bethany Foster who are representing a groups so they will get three minutes thank you president tingi and School Board um I have to say I've presented to you multiple times before and I've never been so nervous and I think it's because I have so much passion for this topic and and also as you know this has been in my 16 years the hardest start to school year I've ever experienced and I know that you have heard that

127from many many Educators many parents and many students um and I am firmly believe we don't teach academics we teach students we don't teach math and English and science we teach children children have more than we need to teach than just academics we need to teach social emotional learning we need to teach problem solving we need to teach empathy we need to do that in combination with the family and the home but we need to do it and we need to do it now it's been a hard school year our student behaviors are are off the charts right now more than we've ever seen before we need a tier one program in our schools that our students can have a Common Language and a common expectation and be able to talk about their feelings we

128need to have that not only does a social emotional Program help support our students it helps our Educators our Educators have told me many many times how second steps helped them to have the verbage the way to talk to a student to help them problem solve to help students have empathy to help them um manage to in the classroom we need to have give those skills to our Educators as well as our students and we can't wait any longer I hope you can um get to a resolution and I hope that resolution allows us to keep a tier one program into our schools so that we can support our students and our and our Educators and provide those Services I understand that there are going to be concerns by parents um there will be concerns

129with any program that we choose that is why when you talk about neutrality we have to talk about neutrality is not eliminating things neutrality is about providing the support and letting people choose and choosing means we can opt out of a program which is what we have thank you board thank you Jen rup and Bethany Foster they've signed up together to represent a group um and they'll have three minutes and then next is Ashley Anderson and after Ashley Anderson is Ali teller thank you for having us um we're representing a group I'm Bethany Foster social worker at Altera Elementary and I'm Jen rup social worker at alav View Elementary um we're representing a group of psychologist social workers and counselors at our elementary schools including Bethany Foster oxa Dalal Ali teller Hanah gulo Stephanie Knight

130Barrett caps Jennifer rep Olivia Buckner Brien Blake Kelsey Weaver Nick Lennox Katrina Van Tassel Gina Lloyd Doug berer Ashley neton Valerie Payne Kimberly foresight Gabrielle Ernest Tracy Gerard yenia kamacho Pam Doyle and kambria Cory thank you very much for this opportunity to address you dear Canyon board board of education and superintendent Robbins we are writing to ask you to support the continued use of the Second Step curriculum in elementary schools the decision to utilize the Second Step curriculum was made through a formal evaluative process which thoroughly considered the evidence base of the curriculum the success of the school-based pilot programs and the expertise of counselors teachers and administrators who thoroughly examined the curriculum there have been no concerns raised regarding the elementary addition of the Second Step the vast majority of the curriculum is taught

131from paper-based lessons that have been successfully taught for the past three years in Canyon's district elementary schools it teaches very basic skills essential to being College and Career ready such as following directions listening to learn resolving conflicts and solving problems it has been included in randomized control trials and outcomes have been proven through a scientific process we also have data from our own schools that show how this Implement how implementation of Second Step curriculum can improve School climate and help our students for example at Alie Elementary second step was just rolled out last year through a an examination of our Cersei data which is the student risk screening scale of internalizing externalizing behaviors from Fall to Spring we saw a decrease in externalizing and internalizing behaviors by 65 students that's pretty big especially in a

132in a very um hard year like last year was in another school we have seen um office office discipline referrals have decreased dramatically since initial implementation dropping from 412 in the 1819 school year to 84 this past year this 80% decrease in office discipline referrals amounts to scho students spending more time in the classroom learning the skills necessary to be College and Career ready these outcomes were achieved because second step is to to all children there's a consistent language that is used schoolwide and the positive pro-social behaviors learned are reinforced by adults across all School settings this consistency is not something that could be attained without a standardized curriculum used across the school one of the most important important aspects of a successful program is the involvement of families as social emotional professional professionals we

133can best support students when we partner with parents Guardians and other family members the Second Step curriculum gives us the tools to do so families are made aware of what skills need to be taught or what skills are being taught through informational work worksheets sent home regularly all right thank you we appreciate it Ashley Anderson and then Ali teller and then Jessica Anderson hi my name is Ashley Anderson and I have children at quell Hollow albian and Brighton High school I also serve on the albian SEC thank you for letting me speak today I want to focus on two topics today the first one is to Advocate advocate for keeping second step two of my children participated in Second Step at qu Hollow and I fully support the program um I'm very every principal I

134have spoken to has stated that the teachers overwhelmingly like the program some teachers and administrators have even said at the very least Keep Second Step in the elementary schools it is a static curriculum that does not need to be vetted on an ongoing basis I know some links were found within Second Step that were not in line with the Utah Canyon Canyon's district code do not completely eliminate the program because of links that can easily be removed you have anal curriculum already in place and it works if the district has time to create and Implement a new problem then they have time to vet and pull links from the current program our kids need tier one SE support today and they need a program that will meet their needs not a crisis curriculum that will

135that the district will throw together hastily and put into schools while they create a long-term solution the second topic and this is the most important one we need more support of our teachers and staff it is an honor to live in the Canyon school district area and have access to such wonderful teachers and staff I have been in meetings with these teachers and they are tired they need your support I have felt their passion and I have seen their frustration at having no say in this decision I asking you to listen to them get a formal poll from teachers administrators and sec's go talk to them get their input and use what they have to say in making your decision thank you thank you Alie teller J then Jessica Anderson and then Jeremiah olon hi

136everybody my name is Ally I currently work as a counselor at an elementary school in the district and I pour my heart and soul into the work that I do I'm very dedicated to supporting the social and emotional needs of our students as well as creating more Equitable systems in our schools it's a really challenging start the school year this year and I told my friends I was either going to cry or puke so I'm kind of glad I'm crying instead of puking um but I'm here tonight to ask for your continued support of Second Step um it's been transforming our schools in only the most positive ways um my school I'm super proud of is the school that uh achieved a 80% reduction in office referrals from the implementation of the program and actually

137a lot of what I was going to say has been said so I'm going to take a minute to guide you through and awesome strategy that's taught in second up um it is the way that we teach our kids to solve problems and they use a acronym called step or an the acronym step the S stands for State the problem the T stands for think of solutions the E stands for explore consequences and the P stands for pick the best solution so if we apply that to our problem right here right now right our our problem is that there's a disagreement about the use of our current social emotional CRI ulum there are a lot of potential Solutions many of which have already been provided um providing families with an opt out a an opt

138out op option excuse me is an awesome solution um working with the publisher to remove parts that do not meet our goals um is also something that has already been done links have been removed from the Middle School curriculum they're really willing to work with us allowing schools to work with their SEC and BLT to determine continuation is another uh possible solution there are a lot of other ones um the exploring consequences piece of that uh system that process is what we haven't taken the time um to go over we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this evidence-based curriculum and the time and cost of repeating the curriculum adoption process is highly consequential mostly to our students but to our Educators as well thank you on the last step of the process is to

139pick the best solution and I just really hope that you'll listen to everybody's positive feedback that's here tonight um and getting rid of Second Step curriculum doesn't fix that problem thank [Applause] you Jessica Anderson Jeremiah Olen and then alen cow um first I would like to Express gratitude for the open-mindedness of the board and the action taken by the superintendent to put second step back on hold for all grades and advise the board to come up with a new curriculum entirely while I personally believe the seal has no place in our schools period I am here tonight to address the issue immediately at hand that second step be thrown out entirely the written and video content and that a new assembly or newsletter form be implemented as soon as possible I also want to express

140my willingness and desire to be involved in the process of implementing the new curriculum I know that much of the debate has been created on the new updated video content of Second Step that displays a clear political agenda with damaging ideologies these videos have no place in our schools and are harmful for our children I am so grateful that we seem to be on the same page as parents and administration on that front but my fear is that there may be thoughts of keeping the old written curriculum in the fifth grade curriculum that I have personally reviewed I was more concerned about the written curriculum than I was the video content lessons have the children getting into Partnerships And discussing emotions that could leave them feeling quote vulnerable as in the handbook another lesson advised

141teachers to monitor such Partnerships as the activity being directed has the students asking poten itially sensitive information about their personalities and feelings these are just a couple of examples of what is in the written curriculum I do not want my children being directed to have these types of discussions in school how can a teacher possibly monitor 10 to 15 Partnerships and effectively navigate such rising Rising emotions among our children our teachers are not equipped to handle these situations they are not therapists and even if they were I have not signed up for group therapy for issues my children most likely don't even have that will ser certainly be suggested to these activities in the curriculum in the 25 page curriculum review of the 8th grade second step curriculum which I believe has present been presented

142to the board much of the concern comes from the written curriculum if there's any question on whether the problem lies just in the new updated transformative seal or in the entirety of the curriculum I am telling you that none of the second step step curriculum is fitting for a school setting moving forward I would suggest that the new curriculum satisfying the state requirements be given in an assembly or newsletter form so that can I can be present and have follow-up discussions with my children thank you thank you Jeremiah Olen and then alynn cow and then uh Rebecca heus uh just a rhetorical question for everybody here I'm I'm a parent with two children um would I show a otherwise good movie to my children if it had one or two obscene scenes in it uh

143my opinion is a little bit nuanced about seal I think there are a lot of surface level really good qualities really good exercises um I haven't reviewed every single lesson or video but I found many redeeming qualities however I think there's a couple of problems one I think it's I think it's a little vague I think vagueness at this level at the curriculum level opens up interpretation and execution problems um on the ground level and that that can be that can have a whole host of issues um number two I think there's a lot of Trojan horses there's some really good things like I said in this curriculum that I that I would support but I think the vagueness um coupled with these troen horses can really open our children up to some damaging ways

144of thinking so I'm opposed toal um and I know many of my friends are as well with children in the in the district I think it is overall a program that should be revamped um maybe some things included that are good and things that are bad thrown out I think we could probably mostly agree of the good things and the bad things um and also as I thought about it I thought why not have children learn these things in an organic way what if we doubled or tripled or quadrupled recess time so these children could learn these things organically how to communicate with their peers just like most of us probably did and maybe just maybe some of these increased office referrals came from the fact the past 18 months if not more our children

145have been kept from their friends or recess or school they're a little bit pent up just like we all are but there's other ways to accomplish these things without slipping in potentially damaging ideologies and patterns and thinking thank you thank [Applause] you Aly Cal Rebecca hus and then Hillary huitt and I will just right now apologize for if I mispronounce any names and so please correct me if I have thank you for your time board my name is Aly cow and I'm a member of the Alie School Community Council as an SEC we understand how meeting the social emotional needs of the students directly affects their ability to engage in their math and language learning and meet classroom expectations uh we use tssp funds to have three additional behavior interventionists in and increase the hours

146of the one the district provides uh we increase the time of our social worker to fulltime um as a school we've invested over $4,000 in Second Step materials a curriculum we had planned to use for years I'm familiar with second step from handouts that my child brings home and the conversations that those help us initiate I've taught Second Step curriculum as a long-term sub and a daily sub I've seen the results when I substitute and volunteer in the classroom and how it helps students gain the skills that help them with their academic learning I've seen the objective data that supports the benefits of teaching the Second Step curriculum we trust the Second Step curriculum that the district has been using for four years and have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars please trust your profession

147that have vetted the Second Step curriculum trust your social workers that are in the schools trust your teachers that teach in the classroom trust your administrators that are in the schools please consider a more moderate solution than completely eliminating a curriculum that the district has used for four years without problem and invested hundreds thousands of dollars the one questionable link has been removed you know the amazing employees you have at Canyons I do what I do and all that you have generously honored me for because it is impossible to see how hard those employees work day in and day out and just sit back please support the teachers and their overflowing plates by allowing them to use a curriculum with which they are familiar to teach basic principles of respect empathy listening and problem solving

148thank you boor thank you Rebecca Haus Hillary huitt and then Cassie Smith it's Rebecca Jims thank you sorry no that's okay thank you for letting me speak thank you for correcting it no problem so my name is Rebecca Jims thank you for letting me address you today I'm here to speak to you as a parent of four kids who are in The District Two in elementary and two in middle school but what's unique about my my situation is I am a teacher in the district and I've been teaching second step for three years I've been teaching fourth grade I also um am a homeowner in Cottonwood Heights Utah I have always been grateful for the progressive nature of Canyon's District I've been impressed by the direction of its leaders um that they've taken to ensure

149our students are getting a research-based education I felt supported as a teacher and as a parent I felt confident that our district leaders were making decisions with our entire community in mind however superintendent Robin's decision to remove the Second Step curriculum in all grade levels has deeply disappointed me I've been teaching second step for three years I have found its lessons and its strategies to be extremely valuable resources for me as a teacher and for my students who come from various different backgrounds I do not feel that second step in the the fourth grade curriculum has any political or underlying meanings it is what it is at a time where students are struggling more than ever with mental health and teachers are hanging by a thread it is harmful to us to take these resources

150from us we're not hanging from a thread because we don't have math books or books for our kids to read we're hanging by a thread because of the behaviors we are facing day in and day out in our class rooms to strip us of this resource is demoralizing it's harmful to the morale of your teachers to take this from us we've been using it for three years my students have this language they know how to talk about their feelings my four children are attending these schools I am so glad that they are having they were having not anymore comfortable supervised discussions of mental health thank you Hillary huitt Cassie Smith and then Stacy Peterson my name is Hillary huitt I'm a parent sorry I'm a parent of two children at Sunrise Elementary and a member

151of the SEC there I'm appalled and frankly really disappointed that a decision was made because a small group of very vocal parents came to you and got to decide what every student in the district was going to learn as a board you are responsible for the outcomes of every child not just the children of a vocal group of parents you've listened to teachers and other parents support of Second Step so let me tell you what my second grader learned in Second Step last year being respectful using positive selft talk identifying feelings showing compassion emotion management handling making mistakes managing anger solving problems taking responsibility and playing fairly on the playground there's no political agenda in second step it simply gives our children are already having a difficult time in school skills to solve problems with

152their peers and their teachers please don't take this program away from our kids thank [Applause] you Cassie Smith Stacy Peterson and then Shandra Brown hello thank you um I am also a parent of ch children in Canyon school district I have children at alw elementary Alara Elementary and Mount Jordan Middle School so um I have we have been through it all and I'm here to give my input um and let my voice be heard that that I am disappointed in this decision to get rid of the second step program and the abruptness of it was what really caught me off guard um I'm very grateful to our um the principal at my at one of my child schools at Al viw who was able to send out an email first at letting parents know that

153we were putting the program on hold and that they would keep us up to date when more information became available and then also for letting us know as soon as it was available that it that the program had been discontinued I immediately felt a call to action to write back um and and voice you know that I I didn't that I thought that was a you know a terrible thing because I have really liked this program but I appreciated my principal keeping us in the loop um and and as parents because I didn't know that this was something that was even uh going to be an issue or going to be a problem because the positive things that my children at different schools have said about this program and the papers that they bring home

154as their parent I do get to be involved in their education they come home and I get us look at that paper and say hey you guys were talking about bullying today like let's have a talk about it while we're eating dinner I have this paper that gives me things I can do with my child at home and now I am involved in that curriculum I am part of that decision and I get a choose at my house let's continue this discussion if there was something that came up that I didn't agree with as a parent I would be able to look on this paper and say now we're not really going to talk in depth about this but that's my choice I wouldn't have those options to have that same verbiage those same words

155if my children weren't receiving that at school if they weren't at school learning these things coming home and talking to me about it and we are able to communicate and work together and be a support of the school thank you for your time thank you Stacy Peterson Shandra Brown and Jessica Davies thank you uh I'm a parent in Canyons as well I have two children first I want to thank the superintendent for recommending that Canyons discontinue the use of Second Step um and in order to develop a new politically neutral curriculum my request of him and as of the board is that you remove it permanently in all grades as you know Lisa and I reviewed the entirety of the eth grade curriculum and we put forth a report out of 27 lessons there are

156only two that we said we had no concerns with two so that's 25 lessons taught during the year that we had a concern with now even if you don't agree with all of our concerns it's pretty clear that we can't just say we're going to remove this link from this lesson we're going to remove this video from this lesson or not send home that handout there is a political agenda that weaves through almost the entirety of this program and that's our concern so we're so grateful that you've put it on hold and hopefully that you're going to remove the whole thing not just the eth grade it is it is everywhere I haven't reviewed the elementary curriculum as in depth as I have the Middle School curriculum but I've have talked to many other parents

157who have and they've shown me example after example after example of these same political agendas that are starting their way through and and hopefully not going to make it all the way through till our kids can see that the next issue is if you do eliminate it what then our hope is that you'll create or find a politically neutral curriculum that will be able to satisfy um satisfy our requirements obviously most parents want our children to learn about goal setting we want our children to learn about um standing up for what they believe and treating others with kindness but when those are taught with social justice or with a racial slant or with a activism slant that's bad and we have a problem I know that there's curriculums out there that are politically neutral and

158in my opinion the best way that a teacher can teach is by not showing which way he or she leans politically religiously what their sexual orientation is that just doesn't have any part to play in teaching these children values we would also request that they participate have the parents participate in helping you we stand at the ready we will help you find a curriculum or develop one we will help you to find the right solution for all of the children that helps them to be great kids academically well-rounded great leaders for tomorrow without any political agenda thank you thank you Shandra shry is Shandra Brown Jessica Davies and then Sherry Sadowski hi my name is Shandra Brown I have six kids in the cany well they'll be going through the canyon School District um first

159I just want to thank each of you I can feel the concern for our children in this entire room everyone that's spoken and I'm so grateful to genuinely work with each of you you've been so great in my emails and concerns um I want to start with one of our nation's models which is urbus Unum out of many one it is because of our differences that we all come together in strength my concern with seal is that it has complated good tools from social emotional learning with divisive ideology Second Step teaches our children that they will be judged on their identity through their race sexuality gender and and religion not on their character which is their behavior their actions and their Merit they show they start in middle school where they have them do identity

160Maps that's not where it starts it starts in elementary but they do identity maps in m middle school and it tells them to put their race their gender their sexuality and it tells them to even put things that they may not want to tell their people about their identities it then shows them video after video of children being put down because of their race gender sexuality and religion it is quite depressing and it doesn't give them tools of empowerment in these specific videos My Hope or sorry let me go on in seventh grade it defines harassment and bullying dependent on the power imbalance and also dependent on their race gender sexuality and religion it completely omits their character it completely omits from the um definition of harassment and bullying what the child is doing their

161actions My Hope Is that we can find a curriculum that honors Martin Luther King Jr and his dream that we can teach our children that they will be judged on their character and not their skin color we can teach our children to unite together in e Unum out of many one thank you thank you Jessica Davies Sherry Sadowski and then Alicia cotle hi my name is Jessica Davies and I have two children in the school district thank you for allowing me to take the time to comment tonight I wanted to avoice my opinion as a parent of the district and say that I am in favor of keeping the second step program in our schools I've seen the positive benefits of this program in my own children and in their schools I felt it would

162be irresponsible and do a great disservice to discontinue the use of this program without having a program of equal Merit already in place I did I did not want to come and speak tonight but I believe it's important to listen to more parents in the district and not just the parents who are the loudest but not the majority there is no curriculum in the world that is going to please 100% of our stakeholders this program is a great program and the few flaws that have been found in it can be adjusted in instead of throwing the entire curriculum out my mother just retired from Canyons after teaching Elementary School for 37 years and she saw great Improvement in her students problem solving and conflict resolution skills through the use of this program I'm very familiar

163with the program and both the benefits and the criticisms of it the benefits of the second step program far outweigh the criticisms and I believe that those areas that some of the stakeholders fill are problematic can be adjusted in a way that can help us find a healthy Middle Ground I encourage the school board to work with the current curriculum to adapt it to the needs of the district instead of throwing it out let's be an example of how to work together and not let cancel culture take this great program from our students thank you thank you Sherry Sadowski Elisa cotle and then brenn Wht Church hi my name is Sher Sadowski and I currently serve as a member of the sec's at Brighton albian and qualo and most of what I want to say

164has already been said but I wanted to go on record as someone in support of keeping a modified Second Step curriculum rather than taking time and resources to develop to develop something from scratch every teacher and administrator I have talked to like the program and express their desire to continue with these valuable tools and resources please listen to them the decision to pull Second Step without taking any surveys talking to Educators or getting any feedback from your employees is truly unfortunate particularly in regards to the elementary program over the past several years it has already been in place throughout the district there have been no red flags no concerns and from what I gather nothing but positive reviews discuss these items with your teachers and administrators and support what they need to best help their

165classrooms and schools please advise the hundreds of Educators throughout the district before making a decision based on a small percentage of parents thank you thank you Alicia cotle Bren Whit church and then Christine marowski morowski please correct me when it's your turn uh first off I just want to say thank you my name is Alicia coddle I have five kids in various schools in this District um I have yet another concern with seal I I have a child I'm going to speak of my child my child who has anxiety I'm gonna speak of her just my one little child I was curious to get feedback from licensed therapists just to see their viewpoint on seal I'm going to spotlight one lesson fromal this is fifth grade it tells the students to tense up act like

166I'm going to condense this to kind of feel like they have anxiety and then they say the tension you were just creating in your body can be similar to how your body might feel when you are experiencing anxiety what do you think anxiety means and then let the children talk about anxiety I have my daughter in therapy I can't have her go back to a school that is talking about anxiety and then her xiety flares so I asked um some licensed therapies therapists their opinions they said this is why I don't like group therapy for kids and teens it gives them ideas and things to think about that their brain wasn't even thinking why on Earth would you give an already anxious kid who has Tendencies to worry more things to worry about it's so

167suggestive it's like saying now class Alicia says she's worried about dying in an earthquake have any you thought about that duh I am now even worse Alicia said she worries about hurting herself by taking pills or cutting her or whatever this is from a licensed therapist um she said even very healthy-minded individuals would start to think those thoughts if given the idea my daughter has anxiety I'm not a licensed therapist but I could see when I'm reading these lessons over at the district and they're having group therapies with a teacher who doesn't know how to teach therapy how it can stir up anxiety or I do have a friend they were talking about it he's in seventh grade and he came home and said Mom I think I have anxiety and she said why do

168you say that well he listed he listed what they talked about in school so I am grateful and I do not want this program I do not want my child to have therapy from somebody who's not licensed and I appreciate you putting it on hold thank you thank you Bren fit church and then Christine um so a couple weeks ago I had told my eighth grader that I was going to opt him out of the second step program um I had told him that there were things that really concerned me and I didn't feel there were topics that were appropriate for a 13-year-old um luckily it was actually that same night that the superintendent gave the recommendation to pause the program I encourage the board to vote to remove the second step program completely and

169here's why first of all this program brings up some very personal and sensitive topics and like what was just said before me these discussions should only be handled by licensed professionals our teachers are not licensed child psychologists or therapists and some of these lessons and workshops are completely inappropriate in a regular middle school classroom setting secondly the second step program refers students to a website called loveisrespect.org which includes tips for your first time having sex monogamous versus open relationships sexual attraction and or romantic attraction and that's just to name a few I feel these are completely inappropriate topics for 13-year-olds and this website violates Utah sex ed laws that states that parents must give consent for their child to be taught sex topics my last concern that I will mention is there seems to be

170a recurring theme in the Second Step lessons that parents are not a viable resource for their children when students are told who they can go to for support and encouragement parents are either listed last or they're not listed at all parents are sometimes even portrayed as un unsupportive or ignorant I am definitely not okay with any curriculum that tries to drive a wedge between me and my child topics of sex sexual orientation abuse divorce and others are very personal for each family these are not topics that can be treated with blanket answers and those answers should not be decided by some outside organization these are between parents and their children I have other concerns with second step but these are just a few As you move forward in finding a new program I would ask

171that you be very transparent in your curriculum and include parents in this process um I believe the new program you're going to explore is aligning with industry standards but who sets those standards as we've seen Second Step does not often fall in line with our parental or Community standards and just listening to everyone I do feel like everyone in this room wants the same thing and I hope that we can all work together to find that and I thank you for taking the time to do so thank you [Applause] Christine and will you please um correct me on your last name I apologize is it on or off all right we turn it on okay um two months ago I came to my first board meeting and I was told at the start just like

172this meeting the CRT was not being taught unfortunately it has already been implemented and has been for years thanks to parents who investigated it problems were pointed out was suspended and I thank the board for correcting the error that was made I appreciate it unfortunately seal is the new name for CRT manure By Any Other Name stinks just as bad it's a lice fluffy bunny but has got manure in the middle you can give it nice words but it has the same problems the CEO of Castile for second said social emotional learning must actively contribute to anti-racism we see seal as a tool tool for anti-racism this is the same anti-racism introduced by ibram X Kennedy and he has said the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy for to present

173discrimination is future discrimination that is not a solution at all what might have been a good tool at one point in time has been corrupted for many years schools have been taking over for parents more concerned with emotional than educational they're using time that be used to teach math science and English Etc and they're focusing on how they feel and while that sometimes has a place it should not be our driving Focus teachers are not trained psychologists they're not counselors neither are they their parents my kids teachers are not their parents I love them they do a good job most of the time but they are not their parents and I seriously do not want them counseling them and it is not their job you want to know what parents want from their schools for

174their kids to get a good education to get good at math so they can become an engineer to become good at biology and science so they can become a doctor to be able to read and write so that they can competently join the world that is what we need from our education system we don't need them to be analyzing their feelings with unlicensed individuals I don't want my kids taught CRT or social justice or sex sexualization we need to go back to the kiss principle keep it simple stupid we can we can talk about feelings we can go according to like Park Lan it says respect responsibility safety what more do we need than that respect one another be responsible and be safe that covers everything and it is not biased it doesn't point out

175differences it applies to everyone equally thank you thank [Applause] you that that concludes the patrons that have signed up to address the board and we thank each of you for for addressing us um um I'm sorry did you sign up all right um yeah we'll give you two minutes thank you very much Lavar Christensen a former state representative in this wonderful wonderful School District tonight takes me back and reminds me of so many treasured and cherished meetings with you and those who have served before you perhaps you might recall the six-h hour meeting when we looked at saving the Arts from 7 until 1 in the morning and uh again you have always listened so carefully and sincerely to the parents I just wanted to mention one thing and is this is that if you

176just make a note in the minutes if you would have this meeting that Utah code 53-2 d201 policy for Utah's public education system I was honored to write this as well as the Civic and character education statute that I have brought to your attention before but as we've recodified the Education Code and my my years of service span 16 of the last 18 years but and I serve continuously in the education co-chaired the committees it's always been the passion when of my life that when it comes to We the People when it comes to education it means we the parents and so the education Bible the Education Code that's now being recodified over 800 Pages what would you expect the beginning of it to say where's the beginning of the Bible say in Genesis in

177the beginning you don't put it at the end it's at the beginning how does the education code for the state of Utah begin 53- 2-21 The Continuous cultivation of an informed and virtuous citizenry among succeeding Generations is essential to the state and the nation parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children and elect representatives in the legislature and on State and local school boards to administer the state public education system which provides extensive support and assistance all children of the state are entitled to a free Elementary and secondary public education as provided in the Utah Constitution Article 10 moving to the conclusion in the implementation of all policies programs and responsibilities adopted in accordance with this public education code the legislature the State Board local school boards and Charter School governing board

178shall respect protect and further the interests of parents in their children's public education and promote and encourage full and active participation and involvement of parents at all public schools thank you that's what I understand that you do so well and it's difficult in a meeting like tonight to wonder what the voice is but I think your pause decision and I and I hope that we will continually reaffirm thank God we trust thank you thank you Mr Christensen okay that that concludes our um Patron comments for this evening and as I mentioned earlier um we thank you all for your engagement for your thoughtful um comments and respectful comments and um thank you for your time here we will now move to the next item on the agenda which is the consent agenda I will ask

179for a motion I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda item a approval of minutes from for September 21st 2021 Item B approval of higher inter termination reports item C approval of purchasing bids item D approval of student overnight travel item e approval of Lea specific license thank you is there a second to that motion I'll second that motion thank you any discussion to the motion seeing none I'll call for a vote in favor of the motion please say I I any opposed that motion passes Mrs Nar seconded the motion yes thank you okay next on the agenda is item 8A process for compliance with Utah State Board of Education rule this is a second reading and I will turn time over to superintendent Robbins thank you president team um so as a

180followup to last board meeting when we talked a little bit about uh equity and education and this new state rule 277 328 um we we discussed and shared just some thoughts on what equity and action looks like in our district and how it supports uh Student Success and so tonight I thought as a followup it would be great to have um Al Jackson and Kevin gens from sunlight uh works here with us tonight just to share a little bit about their work with the district um and some of the followup that they've done working with our board subcommittee as well as District administration and we'll go from there so if Kevin and Al want to come up I just want them to know too how much I appreciate their work with us uh in this

181process as we go forward so I'll I'll turn it over to Al [Music] hello and thank you for the time that you're giving us my name is Kevin giddens I'm the senior partner and this is Al Jackson I'm also a senior partner so we have two seniors and we are senior even though we may look a little younger but we are definitely senior um we represent sunlight works and as you can see in the screen do you have monitors as well perfect uh sunlight works has been around for over 20 years uh we've worked with organizations in the US and internationally uh organizations businesses educational institutions and we focus on leadership development personal leadership first uh we what our standard content is all about is principle-based learning principle based development and what that means is

182that it's not based on personal values it's not based on polic politics or social justice it's Universal principles that are Timeless that we're teaching the the leaders today we're focusing on our our initiative around diversity and inclusion and to be very clear to Define what that is diversity is the fact of quality of being different period you don't have to hug it squeeze it embrace it accept it diversity is just different and we have gotten away from that basic principal difference and focusing on race and gender and all this stuff that's just a very small portion of diversity inclusion is about inviting it's about welcoming and so our organization is helping leaders to focus on those basic principles around diversity and inclusion it is I think horrific what happened to George Floyd however it was

183really frustrating that everyone went to the word race before they went to the word Behavior we focus on behavioral change and race is secondary because you have to look at what the behaviors are and as we share with you today diversity is more than race it's really about behaviors it's about how we treat each other about trust it's about collaboration and so our initiative today is dealing with diversity inclusion how we can bring about change with diversity inclusion by focusing on those basic principles great first I want to give credit to Dr Robbins and his entire leadership team for being proactive they reached out to us well before the school board acted in August so I want to make sure that we note that for the record that they've been proactive in this and so

184it's given us an opportunity to come and help as best we can and one of the things that make sunlight works unique compared to other dni training initiatives is that we focus on data we start with data so what we were able to do was provide three assessments and we surveyed principles and the district leadership which is Staff administrators staff administrators correct thank you and we had about 60% participation in that and I'll address that a little bit later but we use the data to help us to be proactive because what we'll do is we'll take that data and find out where the gaps are and then build with the leadership of Canyon school district those dni initiatives that help us close those gaps and at the end of our engagement then we do those

185assessments again to measure the progress that we made and so the first assessment has to do with Diversity Awareness and understanding the second one involves psychological safety are we creating an environment for people to be seen valued and heard and third organiz ganizational systems impacting those dni standards because at the end of the day what we're hoping to achieve just like everyone in this room is greater performance in the classroom creating an environment where the kids feel safe to learn safe to challenge the status quo and and and and provide greater performance so they can compete in today's world and I have to give credit to the Canyon school district for being proactive in this area and not reactive so I'm going to turn over to Kevin to do the assessment number one so as

186we mentioned the assessment number one was called the four lenses in the four lenses survey uh social scientists did a study with three civilizations they looked at Native Americans they looked at indigenous uh populations around the world and they discovered that these three civilizations distinct had uh agreement a commonality and they all believed in four distinct personality traits and these personalities traits was expanded by a uh social scientist called Carl Young Myers and Briggs took it a little further but the essence is that diversity is more than on the outside it's really based on the inside who we are from our perspectives and it takes these four these four personality traits and allows us to look at ourselves differently no one likes taking assessments to say you should be a doctor a lawyer a nurse

187or this this assessment the great thing about it is based on behaviors if you don't like the results change your behaviors and that's the great thing about this assessment and so as we took the assessment and shared the results we're going to share with you the results from the assessment the participants got to look at it from a perspective of oh if this is my temperament and I don't like my temperament I've got to change my behaviors so here's the results of the assessment it came out on these four colors these four colors are represented by blue green gold and orange and if as I describe this if this relates to you you'll understand how you can look at these behavioral traits to make about change to bring about change when we surveyed the administrators

188principles and staff it came out that the majority of them were blue had a blue trait blue trait is all about relationship focus and that's a that was their strength communication is their high point of what they do very well and every personality perspective have a part that is an opportunity to grow or a gap or weakness for blues the weakness is enabling because they are into relationships they want to keep peace and Harmony they don't like confrontation they don't like contention they love peace and Harmony they may not say anything they may be quiet and allow bad behavior to go because they don't want to create a conflict but Blues are great because that's where relationships are found the next highest that came out is logical thinkers green green is are great we need

189green thinking logical thinking they're very matter of fact uh green is all focused on data information if you ask the green we're going on a picnic they want to know what time who's going to be there what's what what are you bringing they need Data before they can make a decision they cannot make a decision with out data and it's important to understand these combinations because as you look at these two personality traits if green was married to blue blue would call Green and say how you doing I'm calling you at work Green's saying I'm fine and they're silent blue is waiting for a paragraph of information and green answered the question I'm fine period blue says well I'm calling to see if I love you green says I married you didn't I now for

190a blue they don't like that because they want more of a relationship but it's important to understand green is a matter of fact and green doesn't need to stroke a blue and say you're doing a great job but if you have a principal that's green and teachers that are blue teachers are wanting to hear a great job they're needing that positive affirmation and if the principal's not aware that that's their personality he may not give them a positive word until their performance review now now a conflict arises now if the principal happens to be a female and the teacher happens to be a male all of a sudden we're saying oh we've got a gender problem has nothing to do with gender had to do with the personality traits if the principal happens to be

191black and the teacher hasn't be white we go oh we have a race problem we do not have a race problem has to do with the personality trait that's why this assessment is very efficient because it focuses on behaviors not race gender sexual orientation has to do with who you are from the inside not the outside as you look at the Gold structure it's all about structure goals are about organization and the great thing about goals is they bring the tradition you want goals to train but goals have a weakness as well Green's weakness is they become arrogant not that they are arrogant but greens can be perceived as arrogant if you ask to Green for directions and they say if you're going to the store you go down right left turn around the corner

192what did you say right left around the corner if you have to ask a green person a third time they've written you off they don't have patience with stupidity and that's why they're viewed as arrogant not that they are but that's their mentality Golds what they have to watch out for is their control freaks now again the reason why I'm bringing this up is because as we learn our temperaments from this survey it gets to be about behavioral traits and not race or gender or the the outside orange are are what we call juvenile delinquents not that they are but because they're free-spirited they don't like rules they don't like Authority they're Innovative and here's the thing we generally put teenagers who generally are orange with teachers who generally are gold and we wonder why

193there's a problem and the issue is or we'll put teenagers even from the inner city with police officers who have gold mentality and we think it's a problem it's not a problem it's just that the police officers are fulfilling their role of order law and the teens are fulfilling their order of fighting their perspective of fighting against Authority so I'm bringing this up to say as you do this diversity assessment you look at diversity from a perspective of personality and behaviors and you teach people to learn how to work within those behaviors and change the behaviors versus changing other things that are not possible so this is our recommendation after doing this assessment if you realize you have an imbalance can we go back to other screen for a second the imbalance is we're doing

194a lot of hiring the same we hire who we like and so it's not about hiring we now need more Hispanics or Asians that would be great or blacks the issue is we need people who have those mentality those characteristics so if you notice blue is covered so if we're thinking about who we need to hire we need a lot more of orange and gold because that's what we need so I say that to say our recommendation our recommendation would be to do professional development train and develop our administrators and teachers to understand how do I work with blue which is there's Pages we're just giving you a sample there's pages on data of teaching qualities of how to work with blue how to work with gold how to work with with green how to

195work with orange and these professional development opportunities would help people to understand what trust is how do I build trust how do I collaborate how do I innovate how do I problem solve within different personality traits and that's our first recommendation with the diversity oh and finally the other thing we discover is that people aren't thinking with the whole brains even tonight as we listen today we had two sides but what if the two sides came together in thought with their whole brain as you look at these colors both green and gold are left brain thinkers orange and blue are right brain thinkers and they Clash at times but they're times we can come together we need whole brain thinking in the district with our leaders and what will happen is left brain is the

196lineal the math the technology they will censor very quickly cut it stop edit it get rid of it the right brains will say no we need creativity we need more and the answer is obviously for those who study this this this content you allow the right brain to have opportunity to create to innovate and then the adults come in and say okay time's up here's what we're going to do we prioritize and we bring it down but the idea and I don't mean to f it but the idea is to always think with whole brain thinking and often times we're not doing that we're jumping to either all right or our left and so our other recommendation is to educate and share more of what behaviors are left brain behaviors what behaviors are more right

197brain to help people to realize when I'm behaving up I just jumped to right brain let me give a little more time to that I just jumped to Left Brain let me give more time to the right brain before I bring in the edit and the prioritization so again a recommendation is professional development around these competencies and to provide whole brain thinking in the district all right psychological safety inclusion do people feel safe in their environment to be themselves inclusion so we look at the the overall score is 72% and these are net promoter scores and the object behind this scoring is if you're if the numbers come out to be 8 n 10 that individual is likely to promote the district or recommend the district if the numbers are six seven right around that

198right around that range the person is more inclined to be just be indifferent so there there's some work to do these are actually these numbers are not that bad compared to other districts that we've surveyed but there is work and room for improvement so the first one where you got the highest score was inclusion do I feel safe and do I feel accepted learner that's the second highest do I feel safe to engage in the learning process to ask questions and give and receive feedback contributor do I feel as though I can use my skills and talents to contribute and and make a dist make a difference and the last one where we've got some work to do is Challenger do I feel safe challenging the status quo and you go back to what Kevin

199indicated if you've got a lot of Blues they're more inclined to be more reserved and don't want to be confrontational so they they hold themselves back a bit so let's look at some of the questions that we asked that involve inclusion I'm treated with respect I'm accepted as a member of my team those are pretty good scores I feel included by the people I work with not bad learner my team supports my efforts to learn I'm allowed to learn from my mistakes and I feel comfortable asking questions a little bit lower on that end 7.29 contributor my team allows me to do my job my team values my contributions and I'm encouraged to contribute as much as I can in my role now here's the area that we identified that needs a little more Improvement

200and these are the three questions associated with Challenger I can take responsible risks without being punished I feel safe disagreeing with the way my team does things I have the freedom to challenge the status quo and so what we will do is we will take the leadership team of Canyon school district and we will create committees to address these areas and create those dni initiatives that help us close those gaps so here's our recommendations professional development is needed particularly in the area of psychological safety and inclusive develop leadership everyone wants to be seen heard and valued do we create an environment where people feel as though they can contribute we want to empower and engage committee work that represents all stakeholder levels we're talking about training that is going to be that we can create

201for the the one who's working the lunch lady the lunch Guy The Librarian the teachers the principles and so forth and then we want to encourage District leadership cabinet to look at Canyon strategies and and operations to ensure that there's equity and inclusive principles we want to be intentional about diversity and inclusion as we create these initiatives Kevin the last assessment that we administered with the assessment around organizational systems and the reason why this is very important you can go to the next slide this assessment looked at these areas of organizational alignment culture identifying processes confronting reality and input for organizational priorities you can already guess from the left side of those categories what C ceg ories might receive a low score if we have a lot of Blues confronting reality might not come so

202high but as you look at these areas under input in organizational priorities those areas was do I have input in Administration financial health wealth Health sorry uh student performance do I have input in professional development and do I have input in Human Resources we so the first question I would like to ask is and this is rhetorical you don't to say that loud any thoughts on why if we're focusing on diversity inclusion why would we administer an assessment around organizational Effectiveness and the answer would be it's ineffective to just throw diversity and inclusion training at an organization before you have the infrastructure to support it it's also not effective to throw diversity and training towards the institution because diversity and inclusion is not an outcome anyone who says we need diversity and inclusion the question

203to be why that's the first question why is it because of trust is it because of collaboration Innovation productivity you want to make sure your diversity inclusion initiatives are going towards your organizational objectives student performance belonging Unity Equity those are outcomes so we administered this this uh organizational assessment to determine what are the priorities and when we initiate diversity inclusion uh initiatives will they be aligned to your systems and this has been the result of that so the results came out in these areas on stakeholders needs scale oh the scale is out of six so stakeholders needs 4.3 stakeholders are feeling that needs are being met strategic capabilities so strategy is at a 3.7 capabilities are higher so we feel that we're capable but we're not strategizing we're not connecting strategy the people concerned because

204in every organization people makes it move makes the organization move that's a 4.5 you can see but notice structure and process is a 3.7 rewards had the lowest that your administrators teachers are not feeling that they're being incentified and rewarded or appreciated so somehow even though we have all the blues if you remember we must have some green leaders that are not providing that reinforcement bless our hearts and then you have results are we result oriented at a 4.3 and culture at a 3.8 our recommendation is anything that's in the threes are a concern even if it's a 3.9 for whatever reason you had participants scoring it to get to the threes and that's what I'd be concerned with so even though I want to compliment I'm not brown noising because I'm already Brown I

205want to compliment Rick Robins because Robinson because I believe he is very strategic he has a vision and a plan but one of the issues are people aren't either hearing it or learning about it there must be a communication Gap because they feel they don't understand the strategy so our recommendation is to spend time in doing initiatives around communicating our diversity inclusion initiatives because that's one of the a areas that your leaders are saying we don't know strategically why are we doing it to have 40% of your respondents not take the survey is saying they're nervous about taking a diversity assessment they don't understand it diversity is normally a charge word people are afraid of it and so that's concerning hopefully at the end of this initiative when we administrate administer a survey for a

206second time our success would be that that 40% would take it because they are included into the strategy of why are we doing the diversion inclusion initiatives so as you look at those three areas are now our recommendation is in these areas to create committees with developers who would develop initiatives around strategy create a committee that will develop initiatives around diversity create a committee to develop initiatives around inclusion and professional development what that means for strategy is what's the vision align how is diverse how's strategy aligned to our vision how is diversity aligned to the valuing of employees and contribution how inclusion as you see aligned to commu communication and operational effectiveness and house professional development aligned to inclusion and engaging the right people in empower ing your administrators to do the work so with

207that as a recommendation we want to show you one last Slide the reason why we have these recommendations is because of these scores out of six if these areas are pulling these scores those are the areas of opportunity that we have to work in we wait for your endorsement of these areas once we have the endorsement of these areas we then establish the developers and the developers start working on these initiatives once the initiatives have been created we'll come back to the board and say Here's what the initiatives are here's what we've created the board will have an opportunity to prove says yes continue to go and we'll go a little further uh we will work from there's a a philosophy in Japan that says you work a little and you say is this right

208and you come back you work a little is this right in America we like running with the ball we like going way down to the end zone then asking is it okay during this process we're going to do the kaon way where every step we go through the developer phase influencer phase execution phase we will come back to the board get your approval and then continue so that you will have continual input in the process from beginning to end thank you any questions thoughts about what we're proposing um okay thank thank you for that presentation uh superintendent did you have anything to add I I just you know a couple of thoughts um as we've kind of gone through this exercise I really appreciate alen Kevin's thoughtfulness and uh really understanding Canyon school district and

209our needs and kind of the the current uh climate that that we're in um and I I I really appreciate the thoughtfulness around this professional development piece for me I think you know there's been so many questions about what does this actually look like in our classrooms and and how does that affect um freedom of expression and what what employees and students uh are able to do or say and I I just I feel like that when you look at when you overlay the rule 328 which is uh I think it it demonstrates um diversity inclusion in in a lot of different ways and how it talks through that as well as how it uh also kind of lays out expectations for neutrality and impartiality in our classrooms I I just feel like their work

210really aligns to that and supports you know the district's Vision so I I see that as as one element I also o see the influence in curriculum that this can provide as well as um the board you know really it's not my strategic Vision I I Kevin's giving me way too much credit uh superintendent is just one you know element to that but really it it the board's the elected officials that represent our community and in the end in the spring I I think the Strategic visioning process that the board is currently going through um and right now we're in that Community engagement phase and and really looking at that data that will inform the board I think this weaves into that conversation very well and will inform uh the board in that decision and

211can really develop those anchors that then can drive uh diversity and inclusion initiatives and it kind of is timing up that way and I know that's difficult because I think to Kevin's point it has kind of put us in this suspended time where you know people are not real sure I mean we're still relying on our strategic Vision that you know is now 11 12 years old and so yes we're looking forward and we're kind of in that time where there's some uncertainty and then you throw the pandemic on top of that and I think that's kind of you know exacerbated some of those issues but I I think it is a you know a great time for Hope and looking forward and how this will inform our strategic Vision long term so I just

212appreciate their work and support thank you board thoughts questions okay Mrs nbow and Mr Wrigley I just wanted to first thank you both for being in person it's been fun in committee work to do some Zoom calls with you um one thing that I really appreciate in this discussion as we look at the board rule well the state rule that's also been adopted by the USB is is the fact about promoting this neutrality and this unbiased perspective in the classroom and I really something that really um I really appreciate it is in the first Zoom call with both of you the the strategies of of always initiating that we see we hear and re respect that really um drew me in at that point and when I see it down to the student level and

213the classroom level is this idea that everyone feels safe that they can they can contribute and that uh I I really liked Kevin shared a story about when he was young and how important it is to appreciate our differences but to become unified together in the in the commonalities and so I just wanted you to maybe if you could talk about that just for a moment of how we see like a real life practical example in the classroom because I was really that really um resonated with me so just a a real life example in the classroom of how this is going to help us with our neutrality and inclusion well three words that everyone even in this room three words that everyone wants to be heard I see you I hear you I value

214you and I I want you to know Canyons I we have worked with schools in California believe it or not in Idaho in Back East Midwest and your results are the highest of all of those schools so if anyone thinks that there's issues with racism or Pro there's not problems here in this District you've got great teachers doing great work it's a great Community but there are some areas that we need to be aware of and those areas are sometime what's called unconscious bias and the unconscious bias comes out naturally that we don't see people if there's someone who is a special Edge student and they're in in a school and they're walking down we may inadvertently we may not recognize it but if I'm a parent holding my son's hand and we're acrossing the

215street and I see someone looking shady I may bring my child closer to me all right okay okay right and you don't realize parents what you're doing is telling that child oh every time you see a wheelchair or every time you see something something's wrong and so that's letting them a child know oo every time I see someone with red hair every time I see someone who's homeless they may be a threat and those are unconscious bias that we've got to help people look Beyond and so see differently because I grew up thinking oh wheelchair pretend I don't see them now if you think about it if you pretend you don't see someone in the wheelchair what is that telling the person in the wheelchair or if you see someone limping and you pretend you

216don't see the limp what is that telling them you want to see the limp you want to see the wear chair because that's who they are just like I say I'm a bald blackheaded guy and it's okay to say that everyone say Kevin you're bald and black isn't that wonderful and she has blonde hair isn't that wonderful it's okay to see these when you don't see them and you say I don't see diversity I just see gr everyone's the same that says you don't see me as a black man and you don't recognize me that means you won't hear me and validate me so these principles of see hear and valid valid has to do with seeing the individuality of a person and valuing it not to say that we you know it's not good

217to have commonalities we want to find them and we don't want to treat me different because of that but it's important to see those differences yeah I think the one thing I might want to add is also Kevin and I have raised our kids in Utah so so we we were down in Utah County which is another part of the universe but we we had our kids but we raised our kids in public school system so we we have a different perspective on this and we bring that to the table as well thank you Mr Wrigley I appreciate you guys being here uh from what I understand that the the state law is that we do diversity and training within our staff and I really appreciate your different way of looking at this a friend

218of mine it's the principal way it's I know and it's so different because a friend of mine was in another school district which I won't mention and she came in on diversity and inclusion is a nasty word in some districts and she came in and they told her because she was of One race she was Prejudiced and she had to deal with it and and you're telling me she made have been blue green or yellow and not a particular color exactly so exactly you know and that that somehow we need to take a look at you we I do as a counselor I do a lot of personality tests and frequently you'll have the wife come in and say something's wrong with him fix him and it really is not he's just different and you

219do the assessments like you're showing and just going he is okay he's just different he's an introvert she's an extrovert so I really like the approach that you're taking with this it looks like you're be doing it with all of our staff it's going to be a way that's not going to label anybody a racist or anything else it's going to label people basically based upon personalities and taking so here's the problems and this is how we could resolve these problems rather than maybe making it worse and causing More Problems by by labeling people and stuff and when we get to it we don't even want them to label a person oh he's a blue or she's a blue versus she's exhibiting blue Behavior he's a BL exhibiting green Behavior that's the language we want

220to get them to focus on the behavior not just the color yeah and a person is made up of the top two colors not just the one so people more Dynamic than that but yes you're in business I've been in business fears and and we use the Myers braks and stuff and if I've got a boss that's a certain personality I could present myself to him and help him understand in his language rather than coming from my point of view so if I understand where they're coming from I could understand even though you're you have a blue personality traits I'm going to present to you based upon that I'll speak your language you'll understand me and then maybe you'll say oh you're orange and let me understand orange so I appreciate this way of going

221about it it's so much different than the traditional inclusion and diversity training that people are just sort of shutting across the country because it's shaming them so thank you ladies and gentlemen we have honor student right there I'm telling you you've got it right okay thank you sir thank you thank you see Mrs Arnold and then Mr millerberg I just want to tell you that this is eye opening because I I know sometimes there I feel like there's a disconnect between between what's going on between us between um cabinet between Administration between other employees and so this is great data for us to look at and and look at that disconnect that you're talking about this little shock that you told us we need to um hire more Control Freaks and more juvenile delinquents but

222that's among the administration we haven't done the the teachers yet I'm sure the teachers will come out more gold but that's the administrator staff and principles that you don't have enough gold oh my goodness thank you for that clarification all right so I really do appreciate all of that and to let us know where we are and I really like the direction you're going like we used to do these personality tests and I was always every color um so it's fun to to be able to hear what you're saying and know the direction and learn how to better express ourselves and to be able to work through that so thank you very much thank you Mr millerberg can I just tell both of you how at e you put me when we were on our

223first uh Zoom call it was wonderful Kevin for you to stand up there and say you're a black bald man I thought you and I have got a lot in common we do we do and you have a beautiful head it's beautiful it really is and the first time Al you complimented me on my suntan you remember that and I thought you guys have taken the race issue and made everybody comfortable with it and we can look at it and say we are who we are and there's a lot more we have in common than we have different you know many years back I took a personality test and they used red white blue and yellow and red was kind of the dominant personality and I told my wife when I finished there were 45

224questions I said I'm a healthy mix of red and yellow I've got 44 red and one yellow um but I appreciate very much uh the way you approach this um I still even though you tell me I may exhibit green traits I think of my self is green um and I am very very much appreciative of the way you guys have come in and handled it and explained to us that diversity does not mean color diversity means our behavior and I think that if we could teach that we would all be so much [Applause] better thank you Mrs Oaks hi so glad you guys are here it's wonderful to see you in person and I appreciate all of the work that you've done I think this will be really useful for to inform our strategic

225planning I love um what you have to say about hearing seeing and valuing people and I don't I also want to kind of ask you a question with regard to how this plays into or how it works when there are individuals that have a story that is impacted by difference I um would never venture to say that as a white woman that's grown up in Utah that I understand what it's like to be a black woman in the South the Deep South or there are often times people who will say to me that they understand what it's like to have disabilities but after growing up with a paraplegic grandfather and a child that has disabilities that does impact your world and the way you see things so I'm curious about how this works with regard

226to individuals that do have a story that impact their perspective and um how we make sure that that's honored and valued I absolutely agree I think the principles of hearing seeing hearing and valuing another human being is at the core of who we need to become I'm just curious about how that works from your perspective I tell your what she's asking I don't know but you know that is real what you're saying and for example which what I hear you saying is that we don't want to get so far to the right or left that we ignore that yes we do have humans that do treat people differently because of race because of sex that is true but it's very important you would not prescribe medicine before you diagnose or you wouldn't in this country

227we always say innocent till proven guilty we always want to go to race before we look at something else if People's hurt my my wife is a clinical social worker which means I go through therapy every night and she has taught me she has taught me that hurt people hurt people and you have people who are African-American or different races and they're hurt and because they're hurt they're not recognizing that it's the hurt that they're feeling and it's not about their race and my particular comment is Frederick Douglas has a wonderful quote says I know of no rights of race more Superior than the rights of humanity or human and if I'm hurt I've got to really ask is it really because of race or is it really because of something else if it is

228because of race then you apply that same principle to behavior for example as I mentioned before again I want to State for the record it is horrific what happened to George Floyd but before any investigation before any law or or uh sentenc things everyone went to race and it could have been that that officer was very gold focusing on Authority he wanted Authority and the Mr Floyd was really an orange and whatever he did we teach our sons if a police officer says stop stop don't run and so my point is I'm not blaming any thing on Mr Floyd I'm just saying based on his personality by what he could have said the officer could have went into my authority mode and I want you to respect me now if it is race then you

229apply the same principle the be the behavior that the officer did was he was applying undue force and you focused on the undue Force by focusing on your white and he's black that's a abstract concept that that officer is not going to comply with to bring about change you bring about change by teaching an officer you applied undue Force if it is race then we talk about what that behavior is you are now applying Force course because of race and so my point is I don't mean to be redundant is you've got to apply it to the behavior and figure out what the behavior is and that's how you're gonna bring about change because race is very ambiguous it's like all thisa you just can't understand it but you can understand a behavior I hit

230him I withheld a job from him I I inappropriately touch this woman you focus on the behaviors and then you go back track to say did you do it because you're dominant or did you do it because she's woman and then you apply social sciences from you know that way so all I'm suggesting is you do have to apply those principles but you have to exhaust everything else and make sure is it other behaviors first before you go to race because if you focus on applying the race pill and it's not race you're not going to solve the problem that person's just honory and you're get and they're going to always be honory and that's the problem and you didn't apply the honory pill you gave the race pill now we've got a problem got

231people fighting arguing looting because you didn't apply the right pill respect was the pill you should have applied and you were saying all these black people looting no they're not black people looting they're just people who don't have respect focus on respect I appreciate that thank you Kevin [Music] so and I wanna I want to just point out one of the things I really appreciate about your approach and especially the the goal of psychological safety one of the great tragedies that I've seen in my in my opin opinion or perspective over the last year has been that this discussion that we've had about race or um perspectives about race has actually pulled us farther apart as a country it hasn't brought us closer together in part because we're so fearful about offending somebody or being

232perceived as the enemy and I appreciate you bringing a space um like you said of Greater psychological safety to be able to actually openly talk about behaviors about perspectives and I do think that that's an important thing for us to be able to have real conversations in act in order to be able to be seen and heard so thank you again for being here and I just want to close by saying what you just said is the key you've got to establish the reason why it hasn't worked in America of all these let's come together is because they haven't created psychological safety first that's the first thing you have to do with any group is create safety safety so they can learn safety so they can feel they can contribute safety they can they can

233be heard that's the first thing and that's what we hope to do before we do any initiative is establish a level of safety and if race has to be talked or gender that's what you do but you have to find what to do to create safety then you move forward so that that is not looming looming over you so thank you that'll be the first part of any professional devel we do is we start with psychological safety so thank you I think that's all of the comments so I'm going to show a little bit of my green and maybe gold Behavior here and I'm going to ask um Next Step because in the in the state rule 277 328 um the district is required to develop professional training which I think you've given us a

234vision of you know a good picture of your vision for that but it needs to be something that that has to be available to the public for their review there's that transparency piece and and it needs to be board approved so so I I guess I'm just asking kind of next steps timeline things like that so first question is is does does the rule have a time frame um it's not stated in the rule and I don't I don't think there there is a deadline at this point so the next steps is to get approval from the board on those four areas once you say those four areas are good to go then we have a development team developing those areas and as I said before before we get too far we will come back

235and say here's what we got s far and it'll be approved by you before we get any you know go any further but after you have developers then we have a team of influencers who will socialize it to parent stakeholders community so they know what's going on and then you have drivers or executors so before we even deliver any training we've got to go through those stages of developing it then socializing it then driving it and executing it and so I hope that we can have your strategic plan out by December or sometime soon so as we're developing our diversity initiative it can be aligned to that strategy so that we don't put the car before the horse okay but you anticipate it being something that could be um articulated and and out to the

236public for like posted on our website and things like that oh yes completely completely okay yeah thank you any any other questions just a comment on that President I I do see it I mean from the beginning this was a challenge that I brought to their attention that through the Strategic visioning process that some of this may run parallel in those discussions and how we you know we implement it I mean I to me the the professional development piece seems to emerge as probably a priority that we get something in place you know sooner than later I I'm hopeful that the principles and anchors that will emerge from the Strategic Vision um that maybe they'll can begin to emerge sooner I I I don't see a polished strategic Vision in place until early spring at

237the earliest so you know the timing on this is not going to line up exactly I think how we all would want it but um I you know I think listening tonight listening to the committee listening to Administration as we get more feedback from uh the public and from our teachers and principes and and community at large that hopefully those things will begin to emerge the um I think starting with professional development probably as the priority in what we you know get accomplished first and then and then go from there but I I do think it's important that the Strategic Vision get to a place where it's solid enough that you feel it you know really can drive as the Northstar and driver in the process great thank you all right we really appreciate you

238being here here with us and for all that you've enlightened us with appreciate that okay okay um next on the agenda is the policy policy update while Mr Christensen is coming up um we have policy update for 5.24 student educational travel policy and policy 20.6 teacher and student success Act tssa and exhibit this is a first reading Mr Jeff Christensen assistant legal councel thank you president see any members of the board so as as indicated on the agenda we have two policy recommendations from the policy committee for for first reading so the first one is our student educational travel policy and specifically here we're we're looking at one regulation near the end of the policy uh We've experienced over the last year as as many other organizations are experiencing labor shortages uh particularly with commercial

239transport in in other areas and uh so one of the issues we're facing is uh being able to transport students back and forth um on overnight travel trips so we're modifying the policy or recommending to modify the policy to to reaffirm our our ground transportation priorities but offer an additional option as you can see see on the slide and in the memo what we've done is um reiterated uh the priority uh prioritization of first going to our school bus transportation then second to our commercial carriers and then third we're adding an option where Rental Vehicles could be used uh in narrow circumstances um this would be when um a maximum of two Rental Vehicles could be used um for for transport of smaller groups and we've also added um as outlined in the policy some

240additional safety measures in working with State risk management um specifically there are additional training State risk offers for defensive driving that we would require our um administrators or employers that or employees that would engage in this form of transportation they would be required to go through and as outlined in the slides we have um also just outlined what those those Provisions would be so uh other than what's listed in the red line the real effort here is to just another option um within safety parameters for our for uh Transportation the other policy that um is for first reading is um the exhibit on our teacher and student success act framework a and as you recall um through State Statute uh the district um is required to adhere to the teacher and student success act and

241it allows boards to create a framework for um development of school plans and go through the school approval process we adopted a framework with the policy uh two years ago and what we've done here is just made a few minor edits to that framework that's outlined on the slide um we've modified the title to address that it's a plan and development process um that's um conducted in accordance with State Statute and as SEC School Community councils are meeting um we're requesting that additional data be provided um in those meetings as they develop their plans and then also in the framework we've added that a plan should include um a contingency expenditure plan which we haven't had previously um of course a tssp plan can be amended but this would um be built into their plan

242that should there be um a plan for dispersing of the funds they're going to use for that plan that in the event for example uh technology was intended to be purchased and it became unavailable that they would have an alternative mechanism or plan to to work with and lastly uh that the plan should be referenced on the school's website again these are both for first reading I can answer questions recognizing um these will come back for for second review and discussion any questions board I guess yeah no no questions so I I do want to just say on the data um that most um principles and schools sec's are looking at data we just wanted to um put it in the framework as um as one of the requirements for the for the development process

243so so we're not really asking them to do anything that they're not most likely already doing yeah thank you uh the the other okay let's see so that concludes that one and then and then now we'll have Mr Christenson address um policy update to policy 50011 and special which is special education for students with disabilities and the updated CSD special education policies and procedures manual this is a second reading possible action no it was a separate PowerPoint that's all right I I can speak to to the issues with this one um so in our previous meeting we had we brought before you our special education policy which when it was adopted we we adopted through our our exhibits um the state um procedural manual that uh the special education rules for special education that is

244promulgated by the Utah State Board of Education and we're required to adopt those those rules um what we've done in this policy is usbe has gone back again and revised rules those um rules that were that they're by Statute are required to adopt and then each district has an opportunity to develop their own policies and procedures and through that process our our draft is sent to usbe for their internal review and then it's returned to us to be approved by by the board so this agenda item is um updating the policy to include those uh procedures and both the special education rules from the state and our policies that adhere to um the the idea or the individuals with disabilities Education Act um will be now part of the policy and as as as exhibits

245thank you any questions or discussion [Music] board all right I don't think there are any questions or discussion and as I mentioned this is has been listed as possible actions so a motion would be in order and if someone makes a motion please um specifically say um include the update to the policy and approval of the CSD special education policies and procedur manual so we want to go one or the other on it it could be all in one motion but just specifically mention that policies and procedures manual we're right here on 8 C on C sorry uh I would like to make a motion I sat on the committee we reviewed all this stuff there was nothing extraordinary about it most it was just requirement by law and we added on to that so

246I make a motion let we approve updated policy 500.1 special education for students with disabilities and updated CSD special education policies and the procedure manual as stated in the agenda on item C thank you for that motion is there a second I'll second it thank you any discussion to the motion seeing none I will ask for a vote all in favor say I I any opposed thank you that motion passes thank you Mr Christensen thank you next on the agenda is um item 8D discussion on social emotional learning curriculum I will turn time over to superintendent Rick Robbins thank you president um first off uh I just want to say thank you to everybody that's here uh tonight that has offered their input um and their their thoughts um and that includes emails and phone

247calls uh from our patrons our parents the public uh obviously uh this is a intense uh topic as most have been through the pandemic and this certainly uh feels the feels the same so I say that with uh great respect to to everyone um that has participated and I I fully recognize the gravity uh of the sit situation and um it weighs on me heavy has weighed on on me heavy over the last little while as it has on all of you as board members um I really believe and I've said this from the beginning that we have more in common than we have different and I'll stick uh to that I know that feels uh glass half full but it's true uh we are not the enemy to each other and we are the

248union and we should proceed accordingly and hopefully um as I've suggested before is that we find Common Ground uh to do just that that our children should not be partisan this this shouldn't be a Battleground um instead it should be a place of Harmony where we work together and we move forward and one thing that I'm I'm very proud of is the fact that we can come together in board meetings um and meet and discuss these issues I know everyone has uh their own passions and their own feelings about this but I'm very grateful that everyone can be respectful and kind to each other um that's not a bad thing and that doesn't um you know that that doesn't it's not trendy it's the right thing it always has been the right thing and I

249would think that we would want to model that um for our own our own children um in their in their behavior um I think it's important to note and I'm I'm G to State this for the I've said this before that I think we all want the same things for our students I have supported uh social emotional learning uh from the beginning I have supported it over my entire career uh many times o over my uh lifetime I can think of those most teachable moments you know whether it was an as an athlete former athlete mon um he likes to give me a hard time about that but I've showed him on the golf course that I'm I'm more than a former athlete um but I think about so many of those teachable moments where

250you know in that moment of time a teacher or my parents or adult um you know talk to me about empathy or talk to me about goal setting or talk to me about resilience or how I treat others and so uh I think there is a lot of good to be had and we I think we do want the same things and when I look at at uh you know what was described to us tonight by Uh Kevin and Al about being seen being heard being valued a sense of uh psychological safety and belonging uh recognizing diversity and differences and celebrating that and I look at um the industry standards set by Castle which our state has adopted at not just at the district level but at the state level yes there are issues with

251castle and I I have recognized that but when you apply those same principles to self-awareness self-management responsible decision making relationships skills and social awareness I think there are a lot of commonalities there that we can find our way forward that uh that doesn't have to be uh combative so uh I want to pick up from where we left off in our last board meeting the recommendation to the board uh was to discontinue uh second steps uh at that time and and I and I want to be very clear about this is that uh my position is not an indictment on the need for supporting our students with social emotional learning the issue here is is that as we've gone forward in fact I think and I'm I'm speaking for myself here no one else but

252I have been one of the biggest supporters of second steps publicly I've supported second steps I've supported social emotional learning publicly and so you know these comments uh about um you know me not supporting this are are just not true it's not true in my actions it's not true in what I have said the facts are that as a district as we've gone forward that yes certain links and certain attributes of the second steps program as a vendor uh I cannot stand behind and that doesn't mean that this is the only solution I'll present a solution to the board it's one of many the board um has the prerogative and the presedent to do as you choose and I'll I'll take that direction but we drop the ball uh as a leadership team and there's

253no other way around that and and I can't defend um some of the the links and and some of the agenda that I see uh with second steps it has been terrific it's been terrific over the years I I've I've seen second steps in many districts and there is still a lot of good there uh to be had but as this went forward if there's even one question of credibility or trust that is corroded because of what has been presented to me then uh for me that's enough and that that means that I can't go forward um and recommend to you that we sustain that because we know in education that curriculum is built one principal on the other and it's very systemic that way and and over time uh it's it really is a

254matter of building on principles from the time that our students are kindergarten kindergarteners all the way through 12th grade and Beyond um and so if we choose to parse out which that clearly is an option if we choose to parse out parts of that then we're accepting the reality that we may be playing whacka um on an ongoing basis which I don't know that that's healthy for anyone so um after those things came to light uh uh in recent months um and and more most recently uh with uh some of the websites and links and hyperlinks that uh were part of that um I'm only speaking for myself but um it calls into question my credibility uh as well as the districts and that's why uh I recommended that we put it on on hold

255and disc continue until we could we could talk about some solutions um so going forward I first want to just recognize the great things that are happening as mentioned tonight by our social workers our Psych olist our counselors our teachers um I am deeply grateful for the work that they do and and I I think as I've said before it's very um you know this is Uncommon Valor that our teachers show up our counselors show up our psychologists show up every single day to serve our students and these are just a few examples and I know you've seen this this uh flowchart this infographic before but but you know this this is my point is is that this is just a small part of what happens every single day in our schools um you know

256whether it's fortunate or unfortunate we're in a place in our country that our students show up with all kinds of different you know baggage each day and uh I'll leave this uh this great Senator unnamed but most of you will know who I'm talking about he and I had this discussion and you may have heard him tell this story about school lunch at one point in his career he actually tried to pass legislation to ban school lunch because that's just a cost we don't need kids should show up with school lunch they should be have their Lun look they they bring their lunch every day why are we paying for this and then he spent some time in schools and he spent some time seeing what actually happens in cafeterias at lunchtime and the great

257need to provide that service uh to kids and if you're hungry you can't learn I mean I'm one of those kids if if I didn't have lunch if I didn't have that service provided to me then you know I'm I'm not going to learn I'm checked out right there so so there is a necessity there is a need to provide certain services for our students to build them up to help them have a a positive experience and that that is the world that we live in I don't I'm not I'm not saying that that is right or wrong but it's the reality that that we're in so we should be there to support our kids in every way that we can possible hand inand with our parents um so these are just some of the

258layers of things that happen within our schools every single day and I think it kind of goes back to you know being seen being heard being valued um and that you know that's a lesson that I learned uh at a very very young age there is there is so much power in that and being part of something bigger than yourself um that you know this is not an individual Endeavor this is about us working together so where are we now so as I mentioned this is one solution to think about um going forward uh nearpod is uh a Statewide Learning System uh the state adopted this many many years ago it's supported by our state board of education it has a state contract uh it's also supported by our legislature they have funded nearpod uh

259subscriptions for all teachers in Utah is it perfect no just like any SEO uh curriculum nearpod does a lot of different things uh they provide multimedia lessons they provide assessments um there's a lot of different uh support there I'm only suggesting this as a potential uh temporary solution and we'll talk about longterm uh in in just a minute but you can see there our team's been looking at these uh lessons um and and vetting those uh this could fill that void I think to that as it was mentioned tonight one of the um big issues with this pause is that uh with everything on our teachers plates adding one more level of training uh is just is not acceptable at this point and I agree with that this is very plug andplay friendly um and

260is it as um indepth as second steps you know probably not I I don't I'm not saying that it is but if we're looking for a temporary Solution that's supported by the state um that has tremendous support across many different districts um I think nearpod could fit that temporary solution so how that would look is uh we would control every sing single lesson uh through cabinet through my leadership team it would be open to the public one of the things that I really like about nearpod that I wish second steps uh would learn is being visible to parents and the public and with nearpod uh through canvas those those lessons can all be uh visible on Demand versus having to come to the school or you know um or coming to the district to review

261these so I really like the transparency uh piece that that uh this could have um it would also uh provide us much greater control in in what we uh approve or or roll out to our teachers so this this could be a temporary solution until we get to a long-term solution and I'll take questions after I get to this last part so a little bit about nearpod you can see kind of what what they align to they do align to C Castle um they if you look at those standards that we actually have in our um culture and climate umbrella there these are all included um that uh that are there and you can see I think one of the things that are that's important is is that it does have research and and evidence-based

262resources as mentioned I I realize and I appreciate one of the comments that was made by one of our patrons tonight one of the challenges is is that right now in Utah they are no clear seal standards there are standards that are embedded in certain rules right like suicide prevention like Bully prevention Healthy Lifestyles that's in our health State Health curriculum but there's really not anything out there that clearly defines uh seal standards and so because of that it really does kind of create this wild west of resources that are there and so relying on something on something that has uh research and evidence behind it I I think has been a longstanding u practice in canyons and one that um you've you have utilized before so you can kind of see uh what that

263might look like with nearpod it would follow the same type of protocol so longterm a couple of things one is uh this does not follow traditional curriculum adoption protocol we're in the situation we're in and so I would ask the board to consider whatever that decision is is that you consider a waiver for uh curriculum adoption at this point as needed um and it doesn't mean that we Veer from that long term it just means that we may have to Veer from that in the short term with whatever Direction you you give Administration to go long term uh I believe and know that as the Strategic plan uh it unfolds and uh we're already starting to get much of that feedback and later tonight Shelby will summarize some of that um in her report but

264as that data emerges social emotional learning support in Canyons is very strong most of the uh survey data that we're receiving uh is very supportive of of supporting this and so I think what I Envision and see is that as the board Works through the Strategic visioning process is that uh there will be certain anchors or principles that emerge that can really drive this uh process and then in the spring early spring or maybe sooner based on those anchors that you develop then you can direct Administration uh in partnership with the committee or parents uh administrators uh employees however we want to do that but we would backward map uh those standards uh with social emotional learning uh curriculum now that might look like either an RFP that you go out I would actually recommend

265that and I know in the last meeting I suggested in-house the more I'm listening to our staff um the challenge of doing in-house curriculum is daunting uh and I probably underestimated how difficult that would be especially where at this point there are not state standards but who knows right I know the State Board is thinking about this and they may come up with their own state seal standards um sooner than later we already have uh usbe portrait of a graduate P20 competencies there's great great uh support and resources there that can help Define dispositions and skills uh for our students that can help drive this it's not it's not everything but it's a place maybe to look at and to start with as we develop our own uh strategic uh vision and plan so once

266those are developed then we backward map in the spring and we develop a long-term solution for uh secl curriculum adoption which would follow our our traditional adoption policy at that point so you can kind of see at this point some sample lessons of what uh that might look like in the short term you can see there uh what those uh those might be again uh I think those align to you know everything that's been talked about tonight and what we would like for our students and um what we'd like to see in the short term and and maybe in the long term as well so a timeline and I've already I've talked to this a little bit and then we'll take some questions but you can see they kind of where we're at at this

267point uh and um it would be it would be developing really this continued Community engagement in strategic visioning um at the same time uh if the board uh chose uh to do so then uh that may be a few different options I've presented one solution you may have others uh by the time we get to uh late fall early spring I would hope that we would have those uh anchors or potentially standards in place and then drive uh backward design or backward mapping of curriculum through our regular adoption policy next spring so you can kind of see how that's outlined there from now until spring and even fall of 2022 okay that's a lot questions thank you superintendent um board Al um Mrs Arnold hey so um my dad taught me when in doubt just

268don't also taught me that if there's one little piece in the movie turn it off and so I just I have tried to follow what's going on I've tried to look at the curriculum I've tried to justify the curriculum and I can't justify it because we can't control it and so when you mention don't do it the traditional way I can't I can't do that either I can't not not follow the traditional way because then we're one more time maybe losing some trust with the parents because we're not giving them the opportunity to see it we're not giving them the opportunity to give us information back about it we're not we're not giving them um their voice and they are they are I am their voice I mean they need to tell me what they

269want and then I'm supposed to do what they want so I just want to say that with I came from California from teaching down there when I got here um 20 year 22 years ago now I was pretty shocked about how marvelous the kids were here and how how they just learned and how they were respectful and how they were kind because I had to actually teach them new words when I was in California like they would swear every other word and so we would have to build a new word like can we say spaghetti when we get mad can we say macaroni I'd let them choose a new word to express how angry they were or upset they were or how happy they were because you know then they would use another word for

270about how happy they were that wasn't quite an appropriate word so in saying that we're not anywhere near there still after 22 years I'm in the classroom I see these kids every day and yes we have some situations but it is not a tier one situation this is my opinion it's a tier two or tier three situation tier TI tier two small group tier three individual we have counselors here to help with those tier two and tier three situations so I'm not I'm not even interested just so you know in near pod the teachers don't need to try to implement one more thing because we don't have anything they have themselves to draw upon to know the good things to help the children with we have character Ed out there that we've used in the

271past that we can use we have books that are awesome on character Ed that they can read a book and they can discuss that character red standard for the the week in the whole school we have people who have already gone through all of the sixth grade and seventh grade seal made their own slides taken out all oops all the bad stuff and it is now stagnant and instead of changing all the time that we have that we can pull from we also could add another recess help them learn how to do it together and behavior that's normal and adjustable we could add art and dance we can have games where they learn to manage that karate oh my gosh I learned so many things about character traits in karate watching my granddaughters go there

272we can do yoga I mean and and the whole thing is we don't have to do it right now I mean my gut is saying we don't have to do it right now I know we're in a pandemic I know that we're fatigued I know that we're probably post-traumatic stress and yes we need some assistance in figuring out some of that but I am not a psychologist I am not a counselor and I do know we open Pandora's Box a lot of time with children who have emotional problems that we don't even recognize we opened that box and then what they go home and then the parents have to figure out how to keep the Box open or close it and so back to the my tier one and tier two I think we need

273to go back to the basics first of all we let all parents know second we let sccs no third we we figure this out first before we go on any further we hold it and we figur it out I don't think we start going oh let's throw this Band-Aid here no no no no I like the other Band-Aid no that one makes me allergic let's ose this one I don't want to do that I don't think it's fair to teachers I don't think it's Fair they've changed their schedules already and all these principles in Middle School have already changed their schedules already figured out what they could Implement there already figured out what they wanted to do with the students book clubs um conversations on character traits um different things and so I'll just tell

274you I'm just voting not going forward with anything for right now until we figure out what it is we want to go with thank you you Mrs nyau thank you for your comments clarine I appreciate her perspective as a teacher also thank you Dr Robbins thank you for your presentation I really appreciated what you said it resonated with me I absolutely agree although second steps has some really good elements of skills taught I too cannot stand by a program that has any part of it that I feel is unhealthy and damaging for children so I thank you for that um growing up my mom had us listen to whenever we were sick at home listening to these things called Power tales and it was a character attribute associated with a figure in history honesty with

275Abraham Lincoln um Thomas Edison had one about and I can't even remember but anyway there were character attributes that were uplifting and made me think I want to be like that someday I spent hours looking through pod um I think I I'm going to first say a few positives I think and I I spent hours on Second Step I do think that near pod is a little more uplifting however here are the the issues I I find with it um in one of the lesson plans with building relationships it says if you're sad you tend to be analytical and self-reflective and do not want to be around people we have personalities out there that are introver introverts that are naturally analytical and it doesn't mean that they're sad so I didn't like that it's putting

276people into boxes of sad and happy if you're happy you want to be social and around people I have children when they come home from school they go up to their room and they read because they need some alone time and I have children when they come home from school as soon as they open the door can I be with a friend so we have different personality types so I was concerned with that um often in every lesson Planet actually has the children put their emotion and an emoji if they're happy and then they listen to the story and then how they feel now and how the people in the story feel the concern I have is if I ask any of my seven sons right now are you happy the first time they may

277say yes the second time but are you really happy are you happy I am concerned with making sure that we aren't open Pandora's Box and we aren't in an effort to try to help kids we're getting them focused too much on what are my needs what are my feelings I want them to be more focused on outward how can I help others how can I be grateful today how can I build someone else and so I I don't like how the how the lesson plans are framed um I agree with clarine that we need to be very intentional with our next step and to go through the processes with the sec's so I too am not in favor of doing this and I understand we have this need and I really respect the counselors and

278the people who came today and said we need to help our children I want to help our children but I want to make sure we do it in the right way and I want to make sure that we also do look at these other extenuating circumstances such as middle schools that have six periods who whose child may be in a DLI class because his primary language is Spanish and he's low in math so he has to take math so that child has no electives whatsoever I'd rather spend those 20 minutes letting that child explore whether it's have have extra PE and physical Time arts music dance other things to get the kids excited and passionate about learning and something they're interested in so I would like to look at some other options and thinking creat

279L outside of the box um just in closing a few months ago I was driving behind a minivan and the bumper bumper sticker on the minivan said honk if a child falls out I know it's kind you know meant to be funny but I thought about that and we have this big school bus and we do have all these kids with all these different needs and I don't want any child to fall out of the bus but I also believe as we listen to parents talk about their kids who have anxiety issues who are going to therapists I do believe we need to be so very intentional and really listen to um the parents of these families with all these kids with all these different needs to know best how to move forward in more

280intentional steps thank you Mr millerberg okay so superintendent do you ever feel like you're between a rock and a hard spot never you know I think it is such a hard decision I will tell you I've not heard great things about near pod but I've heard less bad about near pod than I have second steps yet I've heard wonderful things about second steps too so I think it's a very hard decision I listened to some of the patrons say that uh seal has no place in our school and I think your example of lunch is spoton I think for those students that come from an enriched home they get all they need at home grateful for families that are well organized and effective families that are functional family that they can do that but we

281have so many students we have such great Bor the word we've heard so many times tonight we've got such great diversity through our district we have kids that live at the homeless sheler in Midville I will promise you they are not getting at home what our some of our other students were getting and somewhere in this great world of public education we need to try to meet the needs of all the students and I think that is just a very very tough very difficult uh order to fill feeding our kids that's an easy one you know here it is you got food Aller allergies we can handle that we can do this we can we can take care of the kids when I was in school I preferred to bring my own lunch because I

282didn't like what they were trying to feed me but I certainly understand you know when I was a kid it was my parents responsibility to have my teeth checked check my hearing check my vision feed me clothe me all five of those things I just mentioned some way somehow have now become the responsibility of the schools and I don't know if we have more working you know two-income families if we have more single parent families if we have a whole bunch of other things going on in the world but somehow even down to seal it's become our responsibility and I wish I was smart enough in that area to know what the right answer is I don't know that nearpod is the right answer and I don't know that if I that I want to

283go for a stop Gap measure but I also feel that if we don't have something for the kids that are not coming from an enriched home we have a greater chance of losing those kids and as we've talked so much about suicidal ideation over the last several years I don't want to lose one of them one of those kids acting on that ideation is one kid too many and so I feel like we have to do something and you know we've heard so much about what we've spent on uh second steps and I guess you can take that as a plus or a minus we spent so much that we should stay with it or we've wasted our money and we shouldn't have done it at all I don't know but there has to be

284you know you you have resources to look at what's worked other places in the nation um I don't know just because a PR program comes from usbe that it's wonderful probably has a pretty good chance of meeting most of our community needs so you know I'm I'm torn on this I really am uh I don't want to leave the kids hung out to dry I don't want to jump into something to cause a greater burden on our teachers but I know we have to do something so I'm I guess I'm in the great state of confusion right now you're welcome thank thank you Mr shill okay um I just want to thank my fellow board members for their opinions and I agree with a lot of them and I'm going to have to maybe well

285okay wait we're I'm going to start with a few data points so I got this information from the district earlier today um first of all I wanted to know how much money we have spent on Second Step so in the elementary we spent 247,000 514 in the middle school we spent 82522 60 so for a total of 330,000 3660 over the all 18 right yeah piloting yeah not one year that's total toal the total that we spent and most of those are School level funds right District wise I think it's about 70 or 80,000 right well you have to ask Le on that because I don't know that Detail no most of it would be most of it district there was some schools who use their their own this land trust or or Andor tssa

286I had that reversed yeah okay and then the second question asked was how many parents have opted out of Second Step so far so 18 at Draper middle school and um 12 at all the other middle schools total so and I know we just barely started it and then we stopped and we started it so that's probably I mean that's probably not where that number would end um but I I also just I mean I've been struggling over this you know for the weekend like I don't know what is right I mean a lot of what Mont said is true like the teachers are struggling like I can't we can't add one more thing but we also need something for students because they're also struggling um more than ever um I do kind of like

287the idea of some kind of survey of parents or SEC because I feel like it's really split and we've gotten several letters from SEC saying they want to keep it so um I would maybe be in favor of that I also am in favor I'm going to tell you what I'm in favor of I'm in favor of maybe possibly doing that I'm in favor of a parent committee to review the lessons um um well I I actually don't if we're going to do near pod I don't want to make the decision today I think we need more time and I don't really want to throw out our process for curriculum either as other board members have said um so those are just some of my ideas but I'm also hoping that some of my fellow

288board members might have an idea I mean I do appreciate everyone here and I I understand there's a lot of passion and caring I understand on both sides of this issue I mean people care about the kids they care about the students in our schools so that's also what makes this decision really hard um I just I I wish we could come up with some kind of compromise that's what I wish we could all come up with but I don't know what that is so um those are my thoughts for now thank you go next Mr Wrigley thank you uh I really appreciate our last thinkers our last speakers he talked about whole brain thinking um I think I'm a whole brain thinker and some people think I'm a non-brain thinker but anyway your whole

289brain um is this been an interesting process the the reason that we got this in the system I pushed a lot this ask I pushed because I saw the need that a lot of was happening in the schools where we couldn't teach because the kids were not ready to receive the education we had and I think that's the issue we currently have right now that the schools are having issues today that they can't teach because the kids are so emotionally uh just erupted all with all the stuff that's going on that they can't really learn the way they need to do um so in the process uh as a whole brain thinkers usually do I went out and took both the brains now I used to say the right brain and the left but I

290can't use the right and the left any longer because those are political terms so I saw one hemisphere of the brain and I went and met with the other hemisphere of the brain um and I think as we as our our speaker was talking about how we put both together I found some interesting things I think as I've said before I think on both sides we all have the student and their children is at the center of I'm concerned about my child I'm concerned about the safety of my child I'm concerned about the well-being of my child this each part of the brain's thinking about it differently but I think this is what I've sort of said went through so I start to do some research on this I I met with our our our

291people over here great conversations very much wanting to work with us they spent a lot of time in and going through and looking over and giving us some insight as to what the issues were with with with that I really with second step I really appreciate that I mean there was a lot of time spent with that um and I understand where they're coming from I support where they're coming from I lot of a lot of the stuff and on so Second Step I'm going it's got some issues as you're saying it's got some issues I've lost some trust with that um then I've met with a lot of parents I met today with sec's I met with several other group parents I've talked with lots of counselors I talked with most of our Middle

292School PR principles almost all of them trying to get where what is the possible op option to this because we're between a rock in a hard place um we can do nothing I'm getting that's a problem from that doing because there's some real concern with parents and teachers is that doing nothing may not be the answer um I took a look this weekend at um the near pod and I've taken a look at all the the stuff coming in from from Second Step um Second Step has some issues uh if we were to use it we'd probably have to clean it up uh near ploud has issues when you look at the just the curriculum not the content but the delivery of it how they supports the teacher we got an a program in in

293in Second Step as far as the structure of it and probably a c program in near poot it's one of those things that is really boring when you looked at it I don't think it would draw the kids in very much um and I didn't have very much support for the teachers in talking with the Middle School principles and stuff years as we said earlier there was some real concern that we don't have time to put a near-term project in and that would probably cause more problems in our district than to to do nothing at this particular point in time um we have a lot of parents saying that on the opposite side of the brain saying that this program we love it it's done great things we don't see any problem with it I

294don't understand why you're doing that most of our staff are saying that most of our principles are saying that uh I mean so and most of our teachers are basically saying that the teachers have been going on advocating for us and saying for a long time and is this is a good program there's a lot of good things that's coming from them so I feel really uncomfortable on either side saying to the to the parents saying no I discount what you said it's the same I don't want to say I don't discount what you say you know I think they're both coming from the different sides of the brain telling me what they feel and what they're doing we have two options I see with three options I guess when is we could do nothing

295but you know in talking to some of our teachers for example uh Eastmont has had more behavioral issues in the SP the first of the year right now than they have in sense all the last year that currently right now because of the pandemic their sixth graders have never had any social emotional learning because they left basically School in the third grade before we had started in the last couple years we've had the pandemic so we've got kids that are stuck emotionally at the third grade level emotionally in their the sixth grade and they're saying it's causing some major issues I talk with the the school psychologist and the schools social workers and they're saying we made an entire tier one two and three interventions based upon having a product and so our tier two

296and tier three interventions are based upon tier one so we can go and talk with them and when we're doing our groups we could reinforce that and now you're telling me I can't use anything I've got to come up with the whole new plan or you're G to put something different in I'm gonna have to start all over because it is different between near pod and and and second step um and so so that's one way we do nothing the other one we can put we could use near pod um but if we do that then we have to a massive training where we could have to convince teachers and parents that think this is an ideal project and and school counselors and everybody else our professionals that we're replacing with something else that's a

297c product but we're doing it because there's some issues um personally after looking at all of this and I've talked with both sides today about this personally I think we need to really go ahead and take a look at the current project in other words B basically say we need to do something and within seconds a step and move forward with something else but in the meantime as we do this process that you're talking about we may need to take a look at Second Step and have a committee of parents come in and say is there anything good in Second Step that we could use I think in the elementary I don't think we're G have as much there is some stuff in there but I don't think it's as bad as this as the

298Middle School to take a look at the middle school and say is this even usable if not then maybe go to PO nearpod in the process but doing all or nothing I think I think we're going to I'm just trying to worry about contention we've got enough contention going on with mask and no mask and shots and no shots and everything else this is just one issue we're going to PE pitting parents against parent and how can we get both sides of the brain together to say how can we start working on this how can we come up with something we're moving towards the direction that we want to move we understand there's some issues but I think parents that that like uh Second Step need to have something they feel confident in that's going

299to be as better than Second Step uh Le you know for their perception and the parents that are concerned about Second Step they need to know that we got something else too so that's one option then is for us to move forward with the second step program but do it under a canvas model where we don't have everybody going most of the high most of the middle schools right now is what Claren said they're under ear in canvas so they pull the things that they want to do they put it in canvas and they have total control over it they don't have all these links or whatever else it's very possible to have the district office put together the lessons with a Central Committee that approves what the lessons are and they use it at

300least in the in midterm until it gets us through this what we have to do because not only we have to get rid of it but we'll have to go ahead and try to figure out training to implement something new so it ties in with everything so that's the three options I'm going at this point I know it's not very popular with either side but is to take a look and say what can we do in regards to getting moving second step out of the district because of some issues but replacing with something that's equal or better than what does not have the issues in regards to theal issues that been presented and to use some more from maybe using the same criteria you've been talking about with npod as putting it on a tight

301system within the state that's been approved by parents on a committee of individuals that looks at it parents and professionals if there's certain issues we just don't put it in there if there's certain other things I mean that's we're building our own Canyons program based upon a current curriculum that we have um so that would be my recommendation I think waiting longer and longer from talking with the parents and talking with the teachers and talking with the principles they have issues that are going on right now and to wait and continue I think we need to try to figure out how we could take what we know is got issues we we've had Parents tell us as issues and to try to figure out how we could address those at the same time that we

302don't throw everything out so we can move forward in a time in a crisis and a pandemic that we need to do something um but we can sit here for months just going back and forth we're going to be uh losing all the trust of the parents that like that program all our staff that like that program the teachers that like that program and we're going to be causing contention between different groups in the in our in our district so I think it's going to lead to more contention than if we do something and pull the groups together and try to move forward some way at least temporarily to do that um it's a no win on either side but it's better than a a lose lose or whatever so thank you thank you Mrs

303Oaks okay this issue has been beaten to death tonight I don't think we need to go back and forth on the same things um I want to Echo a lot of what my fellow board members have said and I appreciate how um thoughtful you've been in approaching this decision it's hard um I'd like to echo part of what clarine said especially with regard to basic things like recess PE Arts music one of my favorite things I had as a child growing up was having my teachers read to me in the classroom I never had happens anymore it seems like very rarely and ever since the No Child Left Behind Act happened and certain subjects like math and reading and science were prioritized over other things slowly slowly slowly a lot of those other things that

304really contributed to a child being able to interact with their peers and collaborate and enjoy their time at school have been stripped out it's been sad for me ever since I've had kids in the public school system that they only get two recesses in elementary school it's not enough I've always wished that they've had more opportunities to play and to sing and to move I know recently at one of the middle schools in the SEC there was a huge debate about whether or not they should allow even additional minute and passing time between classes because the kids have been saying it was not enough time for them to be able to use the bathroom or to go to their locker after a while lost perspective of the whole child and the whole perspective and part

305of me thinks maybe we allow sec's or principles to have conversations with their school communities about some of the things they can do practically to be able to add some of those pieces in and breathe life into the classroom and the school again um in the meantime from my perspective as an attorney I can't help but think about the importance of process and and the nearpod solution does make me nervous with regard to that I think part of what got us into trouble before is that the process was not as robust as it should have been as far as um running things by the sec's and doing things on a more extensive level to make sure that the community was fully on board and and when we take it even a step higher I've got

306to admit I'm really frustrated that we are in a space where on one hand we're told we're supposed to push seal learning and on the other hand we can't really put a finger on where that comes from from usbe I really feel like we need to I don't know how we communicate this but we need more leadership from them these are like some of the conversations we've been having up here tonight are major um policy considerations that need to be hammered out out by legislature or by a a state school board for it to be left to individual school board members um to figure this out and an individual districts doesn't feel like the appropriate forum and I think that we need to have some conversations a little higher up I agree with what Mont

307said after a while I get pretty irritated by the fact that we're considered the safety net for everybody for everything from feeding kids three meals a day to providing psychological and mental help help and and so many other things without additional not much additional funding really I mean even letters training we heard it tonight about the fact that we're expected to have our K through3 teachers learn it and believe me I'm really excited about it I've read about it I've heard testimonials from teachers that felt like that's transformed teaching the classroom and yet at the same time we're expected to figure out how to provide substitute teachers and pay for all of that at some level um we have to have these larger policy discussions the mental health system in this country is inherently broken

308and I feel like what's kind of evolved over time is that this seal push in the classroom is extraordinarily well intended but it's a bandaid that doesn't fully address the issue so not that that's really helpful for you Rick I'm sorry I I really sorry that you're stuck in this position and I really want to express my gratitude and appreciation for every single person that's taken the time to come out share their perspective on both sides I know that you care about your kids I know that's why you're part of this I value this process and I value your contributions and I'm really appreciative of our our um School psychologists and social workers they're doing a heroic work and so are our principles anyway that's all I have to say thank you [Music] um so

309yeah Rock when heart a hard spot and that state of confusion all of those things um I too like my fellow board members have um heard from so many parents about the concerns that they see and I I keep thinking of um of uh what one person sees as a concern another person sees as a strength and a benefit and that is one of the challenges of working in the public system is that there are so many different viewpoints um I I do need to say that I 100% support the need for seal for social emotional learning as a tier one strategy in our schools I I feel like um years ago when when there were so many um needs expressed for that that's when I really became aware of how important it was it's

310not and but the social emotional learning as a tier one it's it's not an insignificant component but it is a only a component of a comprehensive system of supports that we do have in place for students so I just kind of want to keep that perspective we have and I think superintendent you've mentioned all the many things that we do have in place to support our students um I I recognize that um that this many schools many teachers many students and many families have greatly benefited from Second Step lessons over the years um we cannot discount that because at this moment in time some concerns have been raised I feel like um like um by just dismissing every all the good that's happened I think we do our our system and our schools and our

311professionals a disservice um and I agree that we're all here we have our common purpose we all want what's best for students and like I like we like has been said multiple times just different approaches just very very different and I also recognize that there are some people that won't be happy with any option that we take it doesn't matter there will be some that aren't happy so um I I guess the question for me is how is the best way to move to better because I'm always one that's looking can we do something better and I guess that's the question that I keep asking myself and I'm sorry I don't have a specific answer to that but how's the best way to move to better I I really like um this idea that you've

312presented for the long-term seal solution I really think that by engaging our community engaging our professionals engaging um the board in developing a very um concrete foundation to this um to this um component of our system I I think it's really great so I guess I mean the question is what do we do between now and then right I mean that's I'm stating the obvious right so um and you know board this is listed as a discussion and as has been mentioned several parents this is you know the last few days was the first they had heard of of any of this um concern and and this discussion and um I also just will remind the board that currently second steps is the board approved curriculum for social emotional learning and um so I'm just

313sorry I'm just stating some of the obvious things just as a reminder for procedurally and I will yes Mrs Arnold I'm trying to do my homework while we're talking a little bit too um because I I recognize that um a program does not fix a problem I mean they're good they help us that letters isn't going to fix the problem 95% is not going to fix the problem but really fixes a problem more than anything else and we always go back to this whole thing uh I don't know how many thousands of times and I even hate using his name but I'm going to use his name it's Hattie and Hattie said that relationships will help the growth 99.94% when you go down through the list of hadti which I was looking at to see

314whether you know where where he is with what goes on with students and it says student control is a 0.02 aptitude and attitude is a 019 mind fulness is a0 28 counseling is a 35 music was a0 57 and I haven't gone through like what happens with art and dance and um and giving them other opportunities I do know there is a district that um was back east and they used spark if you've not heard of spark um they had all the students engage in an activity that they love before school started and that helped trigger the endorphins in their brains and they were like the bottom of the bottom of all schools and um back east and then through them doing these activities before school um they discovered that it sparked their brains in

315the next couple hours they learned more were able to sit more were able to be more intentive on what was learning because they had a chance to get the activity get the body moving get the Wiggles out and their scores soared and I just I know that my I was always taught don't don't act in the panic mode take a moment and I just think two weeks is in a moment I I really think that it's not going to break or make us in two weeks it's not going to break or make us in four weeks teachers know how to manage children if they don't then they don't stay in the field because it's too hard to babysit all day it's just it's just taxing to babysit all day we have these skills in place

316in the elementary we've been using them for four years we pretty well should have them manageable and and figured out we're not saying that they can't use those skills right we're saying they can go ahead and use the skills we're just not going to lose use the lessons for a moment and we have all those things in place that you just read down that that are help guards for the time being and so I just it's the board's decision but I just think we hold on a moment and we don't let our emotions drive us and I I just want to say too I know some teachers feel like there were some loud voices it wasn't the loud voices that changed my mind other they did bring to my attention some things I didn't know

317which I'm than ful for that but but that attention helped me then do more homework and I felt bad I felt bad I hadn't done more homework beforehand I thought I had but apparently I didn't do enough but then back to the perspective part that people have said if I want to know about history I go to my husband because he loves history like he can tell a story about anything and everything about history to help me understand it and learn it but if he wants to know things about education then he he comes to me but I learned a lot of history from the people who came forward and said hey did you know which made me start thinking about other things um like where are our books written who are writing those books

318and even though we adopted them um they came from other countries and do we believe or do we not believe those countries care for successful in our country it it has sparked a whole another thought in my brain about who is really guiding Us in education and that we need to take another look and we need to really figure out how to manage those new courses that do come on the internet and the lines and figure out the links and how they're linked but back to back to the seal lessons um I don't think they're going to make or break the kids I think the relationships will but we do have teachers who have gone through them and vetted them and like I know at Midville we have a teacher who's amazing who redid All

319the sixth grade lessons she has them on canvas and all the whole school does those sixth grade lessons and then the next year they do all the seventh grade lessons and she was working on the eighth grade lessons and they are there's another teacher I think in Union or Eastmont middle school but I just I just go back to can we just pause a moment it's okay we'll be fine it's not going to mess up kids for a month or two while we sort it out I'm not really willing to put another curriculum in place that hasn't been vetted and then find other things in it that we didn't know again and then have everybody come back again I really don't really like board meetings that go past 10 o'clock just so you know I

320still have to get up in the morning and teach those kids so um and they don't want me honoring because they are what you are you go in the class honory they are honor you go in lovingly and patiently they are loving and patient and so they are what that ever that teacher is that goes in there and we've kind of drifted from this I'm sorry I'll just keep this short we've drifted from this where I noticed that kids loved music because a teacher loved music kids love math because that teacher loved math kids loved history because that teacher just loved history sometimes we forget that and and we have these scripted books now and it doesn't teach the kids that we love it I mean like when I have to read that scripted book

321for 95% I just want to just frown and I'm trying not to I'm trying to be happy about it and trying to to be good about it and um I know that if I don't do it it's probably the end of my job but um I just think we can do this we've done it before with Co we've done it before with doing drawing lines of where people had to go to school and didn't go to school we can do this just give us a breathing moment to everybody a a time to do a little more discussion I just don't want to hurt children in trying to help them so that's what I want to do uh thank you Mrs um nyar and then Mr Wigley I think our kids need a breathing moment too

322if you've ever looked at the class schedule of what our kids do it's pretty exhausting my kindergartner comes home really tired because it's a half day and he's trying to get through everything in that half day um when I think think of of some comments clarine made that I think are so true we do currently do morning circles we do currently have Wellness rooms we do currently uh exhibit restorative practices with our kids um I know that we do training with our teachers about how important positive reinforcement is in the classroom you should have three positives for any um any disciplinary that you do um so I'm going to go back a minute to when I was teaching in down in the Alpine School District in lynon I had a creative writing class and I

323wanted them to write about snow and there happened to have been a snowstorm so I told everyone to get their coats on we were going to go play in the snow for 20 minutes when we came back into the classroom it was the best writing I'd received all year long and the kids it was middle school and they were like so excited and couldn't believe that their teacher was going to go play in the snow with them but that 20 minut minutes of that physical activity it stimulated the brain they came back they were able to use all of their senses in the snow and they wrote some amazing poetry and short stories about snow and winter um I think we do need to think outside the box when we when we're talking about teachers

324and their exhaustion level it just makes me go back to that saying if Mom ain't happy nobody's happy if we can have our teachers get a break be able to also not have to all of a sudden learn a new curriculum but maybe that 20 minutes built into the day is some sort of um in elementary it could be an extra recess and so these Elementary School teachers that are having to get through this letters which is new maybe they get a 20 minute break uh at Middle School at high school there's there's activities we can do but I think there's a lot of ways we can fill those 20 minutes that will still provide positive reinforcements gratitude um that positive six that was sent to us by a patron a few months ago I've

325been reading about that it's pretty fascinating there was a woman who was shot in the face um years ago um chess Johnson and she talks about how taking moments of gratitude every day changed her perspective and focused on others and happiness so I think just like when Charlie Evans said there's a thousand ways to skin a cat I believe that was social emotional learning too there 's a lot of different things we can look at in the interim where it wouldn't be approving a curriculum but it could even possibly be um you know a little a little um training um with teachers as far as you know here's this article about positive reinforcements in the classroom and there's um you know the kids get to have free reading time um I also think we can't

326ignore the factors we have a glaring in my mind elephant in the room the screen time of our kids is really affecting their social emotional well-being so whatever we do in the future I I love your long-term plans but we need to be looking at that too in our vision and our mission um that we're able to help these kids navigate through screen time to make sure that it's healthy for them and I think that there's more than we realize that's associated with that with negative social emotional health so um I think that's everything thank you Mr Wrigley and then Mr Miller yeah just just really quickly um I think a lot of people would like us to take a vote tonight we can't that I got I know a lot of people would like

327us not to take a vote tonight which is a lot of the parents that over the last couple days to said they haven't heard what's going on so we definitely need to give some more time I do worry about how long time it has we have a lot of people they really concerned on both sides of this issue so the board has to do something and we have to take some action and fairly quick to get some solutions into this I mean I've we've got a lot of teachers I haven't had one teacher that's called me and said no other than one in Draper I haven't had any social workers that said no I've had a lot of parents we need to come with a solution we need to come some kind of Middle Ground

328on this to come what's come to solution because we need to move forward on this uh one way or the other um that because we can't just stand there um so anyway as we as we wait till our next meeting I suggest put this on the agenda for the next meeting we try to come up with some other Solutions we hear a little bit more from our secc's and stuff where people are coming from and get some sol get some comments from parents that we that everybody has that input I don't want to Discount either side of the argument but we need to come together somewhat on this um and we need to do it fairly soon can we also maybe think about s seal or second steps as is without any changes is not

329necessarily a choice no I'm not saying that I'm saying we're to move forward without it to to change second steps in the meantime to to put it under the same scrutiny that the superintendent was talking about as having a locked down under canvas with only those lessons that we approve as a district at a district level if we don't do that no matter what curriculum we use we'll have to do the same procedure okay thank you U Mr millerberg you know I've heard the uh the comment made tonight that our teachers know what's going on in the classroom and they're capable and I really believe the teachers are but I think that we need to be exercise some caution simply because you know our our HR department has done an excellent job of recruiting new

330teachers from all over the nation and I believe that our Community Values here are different than our community than their Community Values are in say Connecticut or New York or Pennsylvania and so I don't want to just open the door or Pandora's Box whichever you prefer and say we trust you you guys teach what you think is right because I want to have a curriculum that has some control in it as to what is going to be taught I would also agree that going back to Second steps would just rip the wound all open all over again and I don't think we would get anywhere if we tried to use that as a solution if you want to know how I really really really feel social emotional learning is best taught in the home I

331believe that just about any problem we have in education right now would best be handled in the home the problem is as I said last time I spoke I don't believe that the majority of our homes are as strong as they were when I was a kid I don't know that most of the homes have the same Community Values that I grew up with and somewhere in the middle of all this I don't want to impose what my personal values are upon somebody else's and what they teach their kids and when we start teaching it in the schools that's kind of what we're doing is we're saying My Philosophy is neutral everybody else is isn't and so you know I just wonder about you know other programs I I've I've seen leader in me used

332in other schools with absolutely Stellar results and I am not aware of people attacking it if you look at what those seven habits are that are basically reduced down to leader in May I would be hard pressed to find somebody that would disagree with any of those and so I know that there are programs out there that are not as controversial as second steps and I I'll go back and I'll agree that you know when when you started talking to me about love is respect and I opened up the websites and I looked at it that's just no option I don't care if it's middle school and I keep hearing that the elementary school it's nothing in there no it's still second steps and that's still part of who they are that's still part of

333their philosophy so I also think that doing nothing is a choice which also carries with it its own consequences of the choice I don't think we can do nothing and I'm a CPA I don't talk people through emotional problems okay they have emotional problems when they're through with me and they look at how much tax they owe but I don't I don't try to I don't Comfort them or or ease the blow I need somebody to tell me how long if we're taking taking what would you call that a brief moment or some kind of moment I want to know how long that brief moment can be before our children in the school start to suffer have they already started suffering in the last two weeks so I'm asking I've got more questions than I

334have answers Rick thank you any anyone else all right well um not sure we gave you much to work with but it sounds like we'll be bringing this back to another meeting to the next meeting um I think that hopefully board members have expressed maybe some ideas that the administration can work with on creating a plan for right now while we get ready for the long-term the more long-term plan um does anyone want to help me I'm I'm trying to summarize but there's really not a lot to summarize here um other than I think we have said it again and again what a tough spot we're in um I think I mean there was a suggestion made that to look at could could the current content in second steps be highly scrutinized and used in

335the interim while we get to the long-term place I think I've heard that as a suggestion I've heard um some ideas for kind of non-conventional use of that time while we get to the long uh the long term proposition I've heard that that the board seems to feel like what you're proposing for the long-term um solution is a is a good approach so help me are there other summary comments here Mrs Nar last meeting Dr Robbins went ahead and put it on hold with a recommendation to discontinue second steps and this would be part of the board discussion so I do feel like it we can still look at options for temporary in the interim but I would like to make a motion that second steps is not one of the options I would like

336us to look at how to help support our children and look at different ways for social emotional and there's a lot of different options but I want to make a motion that second steps would be discontinued at all levels and I don't know if I have a second have this is listed as a discussion not as an action item okay I'm GNA ask to put it on the agenda for next meeting as an action item then okay okay thank you anything else yes Mrs sh so a lot of the emails also asked us why we C why we can't keep second steps in the elementary schools so I just want to ask that because it was in the emails and a lot of people came to speak I mean we taught it for four years

337without one email one concern brought to the board so I mean I just need to ask question I think that's a fair question Amber and I I spoke to this a little earlier about curriculum is built principal upon principle right so the way curriculum's laid out is that you're trying to build a Common Language and a consistency over time right so there's a lot of scaffolding that takes place um now to me you know an interesting facet ofal is that there are no state standards that anchor that right so so no matter what program you bring forward we bring forward there's going to be questions because there's there's nothing that really anyone has agreed on that this is uh this set of Standards other than castle and that has its issues right has its problems

338so um for me the problem lies in the fact that um with that being said right that if let's let's apply that to a different content area if we start parsing out certain parts of the curriculum but accepting others then what I foresee is even in the short term that affects long term is that now we're in this whack-a-mole I call it wacka but essentially we're trying to just adjust you know as it comes and it's something that we quite frankly are not in control of um and I think you know that's that's to Mon's point I for me it's not so much about I think second steps has a lot of value has it has provided a ton of value um with these recent um websites and different things that have been brought to

339our attention uh especially for me since I've been the one out supporting second steps it it for me it has corroded my confidence and my trust level in them at any level that's unfortunate because I I know our students need this support so I mean that that's the problem that lies within curriculum is that it it is built on a Continuum um it's rare with any curriculum that it's isolated only to one you know to one group um I mean you know I again I hate to use Athletics as an example but you know you you usually teach your little league football players the very same Playbook the same principles around blocking tackling catching that you do your varsity players right you use the same terminology use the same language and I know this is

340a sports analogy but that's really how we learn right we build on one principle on another and so for me to just parse that out and separate that cleanly maybe it can be done um but I I struggle with that in my mind like how that would actually play out so thank you that's I mean that's me speaking I may I know others might feel different about that obviously they do okay uh Mr Wrigley just a real short comment U the reason I'm saying to look at an alternative and and move away from it it's it's moving to online and I think what you're talking is once it's going online it's going to be changing and morphing we have a product right now we got in 2011 that's when the book was written that was

341before all this issues started happening uh and all this movement and you know that's only been the last several years but but that's sort of the problem of of looking at it ongoing because it doesn't it's it'll morph as you're saying as it moves to the direction but that's why I'm suggesting temporarily with trying to figure out what else we'd use but not continuing it can I can I just speak to your point Nancy so thinking about this going forward right I mean we have very different perspectives from all seven board members I think a few things in common right that we should work from one is that as far as the curriculum process itself um me suspending it in the first place goes outside of that uh anyway right so that's been I I'm

342assuming if you really look at it um that was with support I don't think there was any disagreement that what was there needed to happen right so so I think moving forward one thinking then about process if that is the direction that we want to go that is going to take time and to Mon's point you know there's there are unintended consequences uh to waiting I would dare say I'm speaking for most of our counselors and our principles and our teachers and many of our parents would say going without um is is going to have consequences with that I don't disagree with Holly with your point that there are things that can feel that void I I also see the risk in that right is that to Mon's point is that without a tier one

343agreed upon instruction because there are no standards that it really is the wild west and it will be open to anybody's interpretation about what that actually looks like I'm one of those kids like if you told me hey 20 more minutes of recess man I'm like all over that like I love that but I think we have bigger structural issues to address when it comes to electives and maybe some of these teachable moments to capitalize on this that in the long-term plan I think we can address to and his point like those are places where these principles can really be taught right but but right now that doesn't solve this problem so so I think process is one thing I also think um being evidence-based and research based has been part of the discussion in

344curriculum adoption in canyons and and that's I hear that a lot from staff right and from teachers I have heard that from some PR some parents that have said we've relied on that process that whatever you've you know done that it it has had evidence and and you know one thing I as I said nearpod is not perfect it is evidence-based it is used by other districts in Utah it is supported by usbe so when you lay that on a metric of what really passes the sniff test I think we're not giving it as much credit as it deserves I mean I'm talking about a short-term from now until next year right the rest of the school year that's it this isn't this isn't a long-term fix um because I I don't I don't see

345you know how in my opinion I don't see how we can we can go back to Second steps although I recognize in the process if we went back to the process itself to Nancy's point that is the curriculum that's been adopted by the board so there is part of me that says the board could say that's what we we adopted that's what we agreed to um and that's what we're going to choose to do other than you know the the points that we've brought up that have caused these issues so process thinking about some of the metrics that we've applied in the past to how we look at curriculum that might be something else that you we overlay that because I know I can bring back to you 10 different curriculums next meeting unfortunately even

346lead in me I've had people in my office say if you pick leader in me this is the worst thing that I've ever right I know I hard it is true though so so it no matter what we choose people are there's going to be disagreement there I think we just have to accept that with whatever you know whatever the decision is but um I it's been a long night I I wish we had more solutions than problems unfortunately so I'll bring you more problems next meeting okay thank you so I I um I think we'll just wrap this up and plan on it coming back at our next meeting with um possible so are those two want to make clear are those two process and the kind of the metric of how we select

347curriculum like what are those guiding principles that you want me to continue to utilize or is that am I going in a totally wrong direction Mr R does it matter that it's endorsed by USB maybe it doesn't I mean does it matter that it is evidence-based does it matter that there's been process around it because if not then it opens up to a million different things I'm fine with that but I I just need to know like what direction you want me to take yeah I I think you make a really good point that um if we if we just you know your your vision of the Wild West right I mean that that could be a problem as well um especially I mean we're talking the remainder of this school year correct right yeah

348can I can I Mrs shill thank you president um I think the board at least I think tell me if I'm wrong I think we want more options it seems like no one's crazy about the nearpod I mean that's no my idea I mean at least that's what I think so I I think if you could come with a few options other options okay but I agree evidencebased well and that also training is another part of that so I'm looking for Plug and Play not like hey we need three months of training to implement right I mean I I don't think that's see our teachers could H you know our staff can handle that right now so that also is a factor in that yeah and I think not too many options but but put

349some options together side by side like you said with those metrics about okay you know which option you know considering training considering you know um the um evidence base you know different things like that put put some some comparisons I guess side by side and and I think we can use hatti as well what clarine brought up that's extremely researched and evidence-based and it it may be thinking outside of the box a little bit but it goes back to what the needs are for the kids and how to really light the fire right this is Oaks and I'm gonna ask you one more question so maybe I'm dense but so this is a usbe approved curriculum although they don't is that correct nearpod nearpod is legislature has bought licenses for nearpod for every teacher in

350Utah okay this Davis uses nearpod but specifically for theal pce okay but we don't have a law that requires or USB rule that specifically requires correct okay it's embedded in certain rules you know that like I said Suicide Prevention bully prevention there there's aspects to them all that are found in many different rules but there are no clear seal standards to follow so that is a glaring issue it is yeah that they really need to consider I mean here we are securing licenses and yet there's not like clear rule attached to teach the teaching of it so I rest my case Nancy yes Mrs Arnold so one other thing while we're talking about this and being what did you call yourself the wild Cowboy former athlete what I don't know which one was it anyway

351whatever the misbehaved child the juvenile delinquent I grew up in cpio I count as a cowo I grew up in County I know all right so anyway um I was just trying to like think through this whole thing right I know that it's like we we have to have a program but I keep thinking well if we have Behavior plans and then that brought me back to Cs and then CS like collie said we have all those pieces in place about how many positives how many negatives how many that the teachers are doing and yeah it doesn't go directly to the kids but the kids hear that all the time and know that there should be more positives going on in the class than there are negatives we also have um um character ad stuff

352that that's available out there that we can use but and just I I guess I'm trying to wrap my brain around um why we we believe this is my question I guess why do we believe that this one program fixes ailion things when we have things in place that fixes a lot of things and so that's that's the little piece that I'm trying to wrap my brain around we have rules we have um procedures we have PB what's it called I'm tired yeah and already Behavior Support and restorative practices all those things already in place so I'm having this hardest time I'm really sorry and it's late and I and please if you feel like you need to you know help teach me some more um feel free to email me I will read those

353emails but um and so I think think I think I feel like we're on the right process of the process and the metrics and something that's like you said plug to play so that the teachers don't have one more training because I'm telling you we're just trained out and that train for training needs to slow down because that's that's part of the the stress and um and so um I'm working on it I just want people to know out there that I'm thinking it and I'm trying to understand it and I'm working on it and you can see all of us are we're we're tired and we're still sitting here going what now what now now how can we and so um just thank you for that but um I just think we do have

354some things in place a lot of things in place that we're not recognizing that we have all right thank you I think we're going to wrap this one up and we will bring it back at the next meeting thank you okay um superintendent while you're there will you um give us an update on strategic planning so do you want I mean just in due respect to Shelby and their time like I don't know tonight if it's can we push that to the next meeting or is that I yeah I just yes I think we're fine with that yes thank oh I'm sorry Mrs Nar has a comment two things on that could you ask Shelby she was supposed to be emailing the board with the open-ended questions which we haven't gotten yet and the second

355was so many of the tables in that last steering committee were not necessarily comfortable with those Focus areas without looking at the open-ended so that was something I wanted to comment on for this particular section okay yeah I I'll I mentioned that to Drew I know they were working on it but I'll follow up on that that'd be great I'd love to see this presentation change just a little bit with that um I think Shelby is on the phone with us go ahead Shelby hey Shelby thanks for staying up I am on line and I'm Happ to the the you are all still open to hearing it do you can you give us like a thre minute just summary sorry sure I think we're um yes I um let's see here I don't know if

356the slides are pulled up but I can do I just um I think in the interest of keeping the project on track I I did and in the interest of the requests that we just mentioned there I think were some important things to cover with you all to make sure that we could get the next steps covered um the I I'm not sure if the slides are pulled up but they are all of those are okay thank you are listed on slide four where it's next steps um there are some action items there that came out of the um uh steering team meeting that we had last week the first of those which was just mentioned is sharing the survey data I have a list here of what we are prepared to share but I

357wanted to make sure that this does the full L before we we sent all of those reports in the morning um we are planning to share those via online report because it's more secure than sending it over email which um I'm I'm hoping is okay with you all but the ones that we have prepared to share are all of the quantitative data and the aggregate um all of the open-ended responses uh in the aggregate as well as open-ended responses grou by school and all of those will be in the format of like we'll we'll just send you a link where you can access all those reports online rather than sending them over email um but I think I first wanted to check if there was an additional any additional reports wanted so we could send

358them all to you at the same time is question number one yes M Mrs Oaks thanks so much for for being here so late I think you're in Texas right so it's almost midnight there sorry um just I really appreciated being part of the last meeting I felt like I learned a lot it was really insightful for me to see what the data was and I agree with Mrs Nar about the importance of us being able to see those open-ended um responses so I'm looking forward to that um just real quick and i' I've brought this up with Rick having one parent represented in that meaning was woefully inadequate and we've Ted about this as a board about the importance of having more parents in those steering committee meetings I'm not going to back down

359on that that really needs to happen there is a um and Shelby you can correct me if I'm wrong there was a a link for us to be able to submit parent names of people that we know would be interested or willing to be able to participate in that is that still available to all of us and and if so can you um email it to everyone so that we can still submit names it is still available I think um to be honest with a little problematic right now is I'd HED what I really wanted to do for you all this evening is give you a full update on where we're at and what those next steps are I'm worried that in the abbreviated version for right now that you're not getting that full update

360and don't have a full picture of what um we can do and really should do I think to address your concerns at this point so I mean the short answer is yes certainly that is still open the but there's a longer answer in terms of what those names will and should be used for in terms of putting planning teams together um that are tied to the focus areas that we we you know as the next step also need you all to approve before we can move forward so the plan this evening was to talk you through those proposed Focus areas give you some of the data behind why we propose them also tell you some of the changes that we're proposing based on the feedback from the steering team last week without being able to

361give that update tonight I I'm just I I feel like we should do that update before we take too many steps forward so you all have all the information Mrs Nar thank you Shelby for that um I I was also looking at your all of your slides before this evening and finalizing the focus areas by October 8th doesn't actually give us a board meeting to be able to finalize it and I would like that to be I mean my personal opinion is that the board really does need to get the open-ended responses those emails and that we would need to discuss in a board meeting how to finalize the focus areas not outside of a board meeting so October 8th doesn't work for that um and then the the only other thing too that I

362was interested in getting is when we have the quantitative data in the aggregate I would like to see how many of those survey questions were appropriated to those topics of focus because some of those it was it was really great how you organize those but some of those topics were very close in their margins and if we had a few more questions on one of the topics rather than the other that may make the difference for that so I just I just wanted more information for the for okay I think if I understand that correctly um you want to be sure that you can see all of the survey questions when you get the report as well do you think that will will that be helpful to you for that one yeah and I think

363that the initial findings that you found that you displayed to us in that steering committee you had that one table that had it broken down into numbers of what the importance was with those Focus items and then you drew from the top four I just would like to even have in that graphic the number of survey questions appropriated to that topic does that make sense I think so um in the report that we send you tomorrow you'll be able to see all of those survey questions so um I mean if if you're asking for additional analysis to list out the number of times that those topics are covered in in the survey is that what you're asking for I think we can do that we'll just I'll need to figure out how to send that

364to you but um but you will have access to all of the survey questions whenever you get the report tomorrow yeah that would be great to actually have the the the number of of survey questions okay okay uh I think Mrs Oaks has another question sorry Shelby um real quick I know we talked about in our in our meeting last week about the idea of doing a word cloud associated with the open-ended responses um have you had a chance to or anyone in our staff had a chance to be able to do that so that we can get a better sense of what kind of um comments or concerns or areas of focus the the people that responded in that way what they had to say we what we have prepared do is all of

365the responses and we have them grouped together by by school as well um we it's pretty easy to produce a word cloud uh actually and qual Trix they'll do it for you I can add that as a visualization I would just caution you and using that for to draw any major conclusions because obviously it is pulling words out of context and so for example you might have you might see the word social emotional learning for example really big um but it might be really big because they are listing it in frequency saying please do not focus on this um but then you'll see it represented really big and and one I just think there's a lot of um room for misinterpretation in the word clouds so we haven't include them but certainly can it's an

366easy thing to do I would just caution you and how you use them whenever you look them over alongside reading through the qu the responses that's an excellent point I hadn't thought about that thank you you're welcome anything else for Shelby um Shelby I just again thank you for your patience and I apologize that that we just kind of ran on and um didn't give you the time that this report needs I think this is a really great report and the board is very interested in it um so Madam president another thing so it would have been really help F if they would have had that information for us like the night before because that day we got there and we were trying to read like pages and pages of parent responses and and responses

367and you can't read it and then fill out a form and you only have a few hours to do it with and so if they could send us whoever the next people are um that's going to meet again because it's not the same people going to meet each time information the night before or even two nights before to give them or us time to review it to really actually have a good discussion okay and then um I was also going to maybe suggest that because we we have you know delayed now things by a couple of weeks that the timeline some of those suggested dates might need to be Revis visited we can definitely do that these um putting these timelines in front of you is all just to to say if we wanted to

368keep our current timeline this is what we would need but absolutely we can we can push things to give more time um so only only put those in front of you just to give you an idea of what it would require if it was really important to you all to to stick with what we originally planned but um can definitely give you more time and we can recommend some updated dates and times for what happens next great thank you any other comments or questions for Shelby um okay again we apologize and thank you for your patience and and for um taking in these suggestions and we will look forward to hearing from you in a couple of weeks sounds good and you all uh we will send those reports to all board members see email

369in the morning and remember they will uh there'll be a link to those reports okay wonderful thank you have a have a good night thank you me too okay board so that concludes the items on our business agenda um I will ask the superintendent if he has a report and then um business administrator Mr willox thank you president not tonight good thank you thank you Mr WX thank you president tingy just one thing I I know the hour is late last couple weeks ago I updated you on the pro process of our current projects I want I need to make one Amendment that's to the Hillcrest Auditorium we talked about the seats being on a boat and not getting unloaded in Los Angeles we've got confirmation they've got unloaded but they have hav't been shipped

370here uh so they're still not here the uh and I had a in-depth conversation today with principal levit what we're going to do is we're going to push pause and we want to make sure the auditorium at Hillcrest is done before they have their fall musical so the musical may not happen in the fall it may happen in December May scheduled for just before Thanksgiving a bit Pro it's almost certainly not going to happen there it may happen any mber I'm even stretching there but probably into January but they will have a musical but the auditorium is going to be very nice Jess mentioned how you know they've got you know for many years gotten all these Awards we want their first performance here to be really memorable so we're not going to set a

371date when it's going to be done yet but uh uh we're going to push the contractor as hard as we can but we'll have more information as we come forward we know a lot the parents are interested in this if they have questions please have them contact either principal Le our we can walk them through how we're what the issues are with the a finishing up the auditorium there so that's all I have great thank you okay um board members I know the hour's late so I'll just ask does anyone have additional comments to make I just have one Mrs Arnold so um on the news the other day like last week it said that we came in second in the nation as the best teachers in the nation the Utah teachers came in second

372in the nation as best teachers in the nation and I just thought I wanted to do a shout out for that and say that that's quite amazing that we would come in second in the whole nation as having best teachers thank you for sharing that Mr millerberg yeah quickly uh had had the director's meeting for usba uh last Friday Friday points that you may be interested in annual conference is scheduled for January 6 through 8 at Little America um usba is will be going through bylaw changes uh they're coming at us uh TOA School District cracked over the 10,000 student Mark which moves them H 20,000 okay you got me 20,000 student Mark which puts them as a uh single District region which then kind of skews the balance between single and multi-regions and so

373they're looking at doing some stuff with the multi-region regions or multi-district regions to uh bring them back on par uh what we've called the master boards award is changing and I really applaud this instead of the MBA which I always thought was stealing a a college degree term they've now changed it to the MB the master board and what's really exciting about it is there's a big push that makes sure that school boards are trained and we will be able to be certified as a master board receive a certification to where we don't claim we're trained or that we're good they certify us as being trained um day on the hill February can you help me with that date I think memory is telling me the 22nd but somewhere through there we'll get you better

374information on that which is unusual uh National School boards uh Association uh will be in San die San Diego this year um and this is where you've got to help me too Christy sweat who is a member of the uh Salt Lake uh Board of Education Salt Lake School District Board of Education will be installed as President elect hopefully hopefully she is up for that uh that move which will take place at the nsba conference um and also I uh I don't completely understand all the legal terms in there usba is joining in a uh and I found out it could be an amicus or amus brief depending upon where you went to law school so you probably know the how that is whether you're on the east or west how they call that uh

375there's issues dealing with the First Amendment Amendment the Constitution and they are looking to be able to continue to regulate what happens and what can be said and can't be said inside of schools basically uh profanity uh threats so forth and so on those type things they're working to make sure they stay in place um also had the opportunity to uh participate in the uh Canyons uh found Education Foundation golf tournament uh Denise once again ordered up a perfect day up at wasach Mountain uh just a little bragging right I had the uh opportunity to play with Gary Hansen our purchasing director uh Nick and Jessica from wesland construction we took second place on the mountain course it was awesome um and I don't know how I can say this in in a uh any

376other way than just straight out thank you for entrusting me with two of the best assignments that a board member can have I absolutely have thoroughly enjoyed serving on the board of directors for usba that has been really a highlight and I was there at the creation of the Canyons Education Foundation when I came back on the board very much appreciated being able to associate with that fine organization and they are just absolutely awesome um and the last thing I have is uh superintendent and I managed to uh find each other at Hillcrest High School last Friday night for their football game and you know sometimes we count small achievements or relatively small achievements I think these were great achievements we watched a field goal get kicked we watched a touchdown get made and we

377go watched a point after the touchdown happen and I have never seen a student body so excited to just be together as they were at Hill Crest last Friday night hey we got a selfie with Harvey the H oh we did Harvey was there we were there we're looking good thank you anyone else can I oh sorry Mrs shield and Mrs nbar sorry sorry H um so I just want to add is to Mon's report about usba so we've created mck has created a website and it's usba DMB foraster board.com and it's an outward facing um website and on there is going to be listed like all the Master Certified boards so we want to be on there you guys yeah I can text that to you or forward it to you anyway um but

378all the information on the masterboard is on there so other people um like Susan was looking for that the other day and I could have just sent her to this website if I knew it existed then anyway so I just wanted to let you guys know that one more time the website is so us usba DMB DMB mb.com thank you Mrs nbow I just really quickly want to thank teacher I participated in parent teacher conferences with a lot of my sons with their teachers and I'm so grateful for wonderful teachers in our district and also I just wanted to publicly thank uh all departments that helped with that Apex Awards I just really thoroughly enjoyed that um I was able to meet the lady in our district that puts together the videos but that night

379you just feel so much uh Pride to be part of Canyon's district and just really love the amount of talent and just what wonderful things are happening in our district with teachers volunteers and all of our awesome administrators at the district level so I just wanted to quickly say thank you thank you okay so I think that concludes our meeting for this evening and I will adjourn the meeting thank you all for your patience and your hard work tonight I was hoping to go on for another two hours Hotel I did you did that well in advance yes I do