001foreign welcome are we online are we live yes all right good to go um today is Tuesday October 4th 2022 we're going to officially call this meeting to order and introduce and start by introducing who's here let's start with Terry [Applause] Julie Jackson Connie Burgess Nicole McDermott Chris Wynn Jared Gardner Rich Nye and Karen Winder thanks to everybody who's coming out here tonight for our meeting and also our online listeners um we'll start with introductions of those attending Gea I see Michelle do you have anyone here with you awesome welcome um guespa have any guests but nope our educational support professionals we love them um gaelp we have several tell us your reminders your name start with gayna President elect Leon Kaplan president secretary Elementary School excellent welcome welcome here um PTA hello tell us
002your name awesome what network are you from current welcome welcome thanks for being here tonight uh Foundation Grant Education Foundation if you have any reps from there no okay middle managers I also know okay did I miss anybody okay good all right we're gonna go and continue on with our Pledge of Allegiance led by Don Adams well the audience please rise thank you please repeat the pledge after me I pledge allegiance of America [Applause] thank you appreciated all right we're going to turn the time over to Ben Horsley to introduce our reverence this evening and I am briefly going to turn the time over to our principal from Kennedy Junior High Ms basso to introduce her students and in the meantime we're going to have him come up here to perform so you guys would
003like to come off the stand so that they can do so that would be great thank you foreign [Music] thank you for this opportunity my name is Mary basso I'm the principal of Kennedy Junior High and we have our administrative team hi I'm Steve Alder I'm assistant principal and I'm Nate Brandon also assistant principal we'd like to talk a little bit about our mariachi band while they're setting up we were fortunate enough to steal Garrett spalka our music director from Reno Nevada where he had a national Nevada state championship for marching bands and fundraised over fifty thousand dollars for his program there in Reno in 2017. we were fortunate to get him in 2021 um and since he's been here he's done amazing things growing our own program he's raised over 80 000 for the
004Kennedy Junior High um music program not just his program but choir uh orchestra band everything so yeah it takes three of us to introduce him he also won a state championship at American Fork High School for for marching band and was also the uh American Southwest Regional champ there he's opened um he started a uh a tri-m National Honor Society chapter for our students and he has created the first uh junior high mariachi band in the state of Utah and now you get to enjoy their music [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] just ice [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so close [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] performance yeah thank you thank you for protecting programs like this as well
005thank you [Applause] okay um can the parents of those students are you a parent thank you so much for being here okay I love that that was awesome well done any more parents wave thank you for being here thanks for supporting your kids yes I love the enthusiasm thank you all right I don't see any granite elected officials in the audience so we're going to move on to Patron participation we have three signed up for today before we begin just a few reminders um comments on certain subjects are not allowed bidding and contract matters employment Personnel issues criticisms or complaints about individual District employees and complaints for other appeals or procedures are available and we just hope to keep things good to Quorum and civil Behavior and throughout our meeting let's see three today we're
006going to start number one is Monica um Wilbur to Haley Foster and three Kathy Melanie and I I know I saw him on Kathy where's Haley oh there you are okay awesome so if you'll state your name and address and take about five minutes and address your concerns I'll give you my name it's Monica Wilbur um a Utah State Board member likes to say that people go where they are LED there's a lot of Truth in this statement so tonight I'd like the board to consider where and how the children attending Cypress High School are being led Cypress high is the school my children have and are going to at this moment for the past nine years the school has been under the same administrative leadership if that's the word I have to use under
007this same leadership Cyprus has seen its academic proficiency plummet in 2017 and 18 language arts proficiency was at 22 percent mathematics 23 science 21 language arts Proficiency in 2018 and 19 went up to 32 percent mathematics plunged to 20 percent science seriously plunged to 14 percent in 2020 2021 language arts went down a percent to 31 mathematics down 8 percent to 12 percent and science went up two percent to 16. in 2020 in 2021 2022 language arts dropped 10 percent to 21 percent mathematics remained at a dismal 12 percent and science went up a point at 17 percent Cypress High's enrollment sits at approximately 2 600 students and during the past five years its graduation rate has hovered between 79 and 83 percent with the last available data showing it graduated about 80 percent of
008its students so to break this down this means that approximately fewer than a fourth of Cypress High graduates can demonstrate language arts skills on grade level fewer than a fifth can demonstrate math and science skills on grade level during this time the administrative leadership at the helm of Cypress highs remained unchanged in fact Cypress highs had the same leadership at the top going on for over nine years now I've heard from teachers who have told me that the school is bleeding good teachers and Personnel that the turnover during cyprus's current Administration has reached into the high double digits I've spoken to parents who characterize School leadership as openly arrogant and indifferent to the legitimate concerns about a hostile School climate as created by the administration and I've spoken to a parent whose son was slapped
009in the head by a teacher in full view of his class and yet did not report the incident fearing the response she'd received from the school I've also raised my own concerns with this school with District personnel and with the superintendent and yet defying all logic and reason the same administrative leadership is back again for the 2022-2023 school year the upshot of this is that Cyprus which is close to a minority majority population is churning out graduates kids who are graduates on paper but who are functionally illiterate and being treated horribly in these School environments a member to Nguyen this school is in your Precinct I'm putting this out there because I believe the public needs to know this information this is very it's very disturbing to know that for a district that claims to
010be so concerned about Equity we are sticking kids with an Administration that is not responsive at all to the needs of these kids in this in this school at this time and now that you know you're accountable for what you know and I'd hope you do something good with this information we need to see change at Cypress high school thank you thank you Monica all right um Haley hello my name is Haley Foster and I live in the West Valley City area I have kids in enrolled in elementary junior high and high school all within the granite School District my husband and I have a son who was sexually molested and assaulted as a kid by two different perpetrators the perpetrators both admitted that they had ongoing pornography activities our son was exposed at a
011young age to keep kids that things that kids should never be exposed to because of this he now struggles with an addiction to pornography as parents we are trying to help our child with this addiction we do everything in our own home to help protect him we have locked down our phones television video games iPads Etc the pool is always there but we help him as much as we can to avoid this so we wonder how you would feel if we gathered your 14 year old Sons daughters granddaughters grandsons at our house and read to them a little story the story for the most part is a good story and has a lot of good things in it but there's going to be a page or two in this book that we're going to read
012to them which is going to talk about masturbation and glorifying masturbation and about viewing pornography pornographic magazines which exploit and object women but it's going to be okay because our Granite School District it is approved Curriculum by our Granite School District and is being read throughout all of our English departments would you be upset would you be angry would you be horrified because that was us our school libraries are polluted with numerous books containing highly sexual explicit material these books are against the law last January our legislator passed a law that made a good portion of these books illegal to even be on school grounds if there was a case of Bear in the Commons area when we leave it there and say we need to get a community a committee together to remove it
013I know that sounds silly if there was a Playboy magazine left in the library on the counter would we remove would we remove it immediately I would hope the answer to those questions would be yes so why then do we need to have a committee for these books that have been identified and brought out to be outright literal literary pornography by just looking at a few of the experts excerpts we understand that Granite District needs to have a policy moving forward but we need to start with a massive cleaning house first I am here tonight because I'm begging all of us to stop pointing the finger at whose job it is to get this material out of our schools we need to stop putting the responsibility on someone else many of you may not be
014aware of the severity of this problem it may be because you need to go and educate yourself and I would be happy to speak to any of you about this subject each of you have signed the Educators code of conduct in and it is in violation by allowing these illegal materials on our grounds the law is clear about what makes these books illegal granite's new policy is not compliant with this new law and it allows Forex exceptions to following the law I take responsibility for being naive and thinking my children could come to school and not be subjected to visual and literary pornography as part of their classroom curriculum I take responsibility for not looking into the types of books that were being read in each of their classes each of you now have a
015knowledge of this problem in our schools as teachers as administrators and as parents we all have the power to stand up and say no there are 82 books currently in the district that have an NC-17 or R rating these are books that go into graphic detail about oral sex and other explicit sexual activities as I understand it I am one of two people who have asked for books to be removed since the law has gone into place as I also understand these deselection requests can be made by anyone including employees of this District my pleas to you will you please join me and my husband and all the other concerned parents in this endeavor to protect our children well you will you take a stand with me to help get these materials out of our
016school please take responsibility for your schools and know what books are in your are in your schools my husband and I are only two people and we could not do it alone thank you Haley and I you sent me an email I just want to say I haven't had time to reply because it was right before board meeting but you'll be hearing from me all right Kathy hi my name is Kathy mulleney and I live here in West Valley I have two children that attend Hunter High School and um two other children who are also school age but not attending a granite School I just want to say thank you to Monica and Haley and and their efforts in being here tonight and sharing their messages because I feel like as parents and community members
017it's just it's really comforting to see other people come out and share what's important to them and I've watched other board meetings and haven't quite seen the participation that I think a school district of this size should have um I also want to thank you all for what you do I know many of you are elected in your hair on your own time and on your own time and and even for those of you who are here because you're paid to be here um I've spoken with you and I've had great experiences good experiences I've fairly knew to this I currently um chapter lead for the granite parents United group I'm trying the best I can to help get families parents involved in the lives of our children because I feel like I feel like
018the balance between community and School Board is very important and when too many too much policy and rules come down the pipeline to our children it's oftentimes maybe oftentimes it's too dramatic but it can at times come down as kind of uncaring on on part of the administration as a sexual abuse nurse for many years I can testify to the fact of the dangers that come down to families and children when they are exposed to pornography I'm not saying that every child who comes across a book that happens to be on the Shelf at a granite School library will be sexually abused or will be a perpetrator of abuse but what I am saying is that our children are exposed in so many different directions social media on their telephones and they're exposed to soft
019porn daily and so why would we need to expose them to anything similar to that even in literary form uh the question for you all so when the time comes for you to form the the committee and form these policies that will come down to protect our children from these books I would ask you to please know that your decision-making it matters to us we we're putting a lot of trust in you as elected officials and we really hope that how you come about those those committees and and the people hopefully you'll have parents on that committee um maybe parents even like me who have kind of some experience with how it affects our children and I've heard hundreds I'm sorry to say I wanted to be put out of work and not have to
020earn my income based on children who've been abused it took a toll on me personally and I eventually left the field but it has my heart has not left and so I just want to express to you um how important this particular subject is to me personally um and I trust that the balance of the community and the board and District officials can come to a solid I would even