001problems testing testing one two three testing one two three we have it it is Todd here should I go get him yeah yeah if you don't mind and then I'll call the order for me I'm sorry foreign thank you that's weird all right we will call the order of this regular session meeting of the Park City school board on October 18th at 3 30 p.m um I have 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 strong thank you Todd can we call you up here I know now it's your final now I understand um I mean I guess we could go around I will do I mean just thank you thank you for your service
002to this District thank you for your time that you've spent thank you for being personally and amazing mentor to me when we came in during a really crazy time with a lot of change happening I cannot thank you enough for what you have done to support us as the blind every day so thank you so much for the opportunity to be part of the board of the district it's been a great experience and you guys are easy to teach me it's so easy to talk to about learning so many of the nuances and there are so many legislative finances that are not for some natural um understanding and I appreciate there was never a time you weren't available you always made yourself available you spoken in languages that made sense without being patronizing and you
003really taught me a time I appreciate it so much Wellness here a lot and but I'm excited for you you have big Horizons and we wish you the best of luck and hope that you visit us often and a lot yeah exactly yeah thank you I want to Echo with this tonight but um just being like the steady steady thing and since I've been here a while and you've been here through all the Transitions and always look to you as like the rock like are we where are we and you were always there like you know North Star so thank you for that it's an amazing character quality and the best of walking will be missed and it's really weird having you on that side of the table oh yeah um and in a suit
004I mean I don't know what to take in first but yeah so this is and thank you for everything from the bottom of my heart thank you yes I know so Todd was roasted invited administrators but oh okay yeah um well yeah I know Andrew um [Music] I'll see you tomorrow [ __ ] me I get to see you too yeah I will see you tomorrow president do you want a group picture quick yeah come on overtime let's talk to photoshop Andrew yeah that's true yeah okay one two three one two three thank you thank you tomorrow okay we will now move on to the announcement of the new business administrator so the board would like uh to welcome Jay Randall Captain to the team so we can wait would you like to take your oath of
005office and join us we can just do it down here if that's easiest so let's raise your right hand um I did Randall Upton happened Julia pointed to the position of business administrator in the Park City School District Park City School District do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States to solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Utah and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity and the constitution of the state of Utah in that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity foreign [Music] thank you yeah welcome to my team thank you for being here bye Todd thank you all right we will move on to the
006consent agenda um can I please get a motion to approve the consent agenda that includes regular session minutes of September 20th 2022 special session minutes of September 23rd 2022 closed session minutes of September 23rd 2022 account payable registers is September 14th 16 20 and 26 27 28 October 3rd for 5th 10th and 11th of 2022 Personnel information business administer agreement and September revenue and expenditures on the commotion to adopt any discussion that's perfect all in favor that we will move on to employee groups be here quite yet they're used uh we can put Tanner in the hot seat quickly we have to use the operations update for the 18th of October 22. um covet is uh still on a radar it's low in the county but we are we've got all our back shot mitigations
007in place as we have had before um but we're watching things as people start returning doors we're anticipating some spike hopefully that won't happen but if it does happen we want everyone to know that we're we're ready to ramp up very quickly to the the very strict protocols that we've had in place and we have plenty of PP and tests on the county and if we do experience so we're ready we're hopeful that that won't happen but we're watching it and cautiously from a building to grounds perspective uh Todd Hanson and his team um are finishing up four million dollars in summer capital projects uh and uh notably you've probably seen them working on the high school uh roof above yard also you've probably noticed that the district office here we've got a bunch of
008construction going on the overhanging that was heading off to the north was starting to give away so that's being shored up right now with new supports three done with that in about a week uh we're all ready for snow season the equipment's uh all been maintained it's allowed for you to be hooked up to the trucks have tracks are in place and we're busy finally finalizing the Park City Mountain Resort parking contract getting finishing touches on a bit of draft copy for boards consideration um and we're also working through uh parks and Institute uh to the memo of understandings between its two entities between the district and the PCA uh Transportation rich and his team are still working through a critical Manning situation um that we do have two drivers in training however which should
009help us out one is only going to be a substitute for this but that still helps some one full-time and we have two other applicants potentially in the pipeline so hopefully some some salvations on the way there we also had some coaches uh ask us to uh we can check them out with his drivers rather than hang your coach if they could get checked out as a driver drive to their events as coach and then possibly help us out in the summer so we're going to look at doing that and the transportation will coordinate that train uh bus routes 2 and 35 for now we're consolidating onto other routes and no longer will exist uh our our dispatch Katana there dispatch person did a great job of minimizing the impact on the children and the
010length of roots um that there probably won't really be that noticeable but that will free up to drivers for us which should allow possibly Rich to go back into the office um and uh so we're mechanics have to drive everybody um after school transportation support for Treasure Mountain and Eckerd Hill um today is the last day um I started for high school Treasure Mountain high schools today but we will resume that if the driver count becomes healthy but luckily that does not impact all of these students our driver dispatcher Tana is back from you and she helped us with the group consolidation has really helping us in the office with receiving phone calls our mechanics are driving when needed and our third mechanic our final hire is being checked out as a driver to help
011us bring the flex periods as well the new lift is installed at the garage quite it's quite a mechanical device if you guys want to stop and take a look at it and uh the space available passengers are all All Buses uh we have no waiting lists except for the uh Route 35 in Germany um job attrition service the uh Ecker Hill manager is back after an extended leave um but now is extended further through November but other than that uh John uh I had lunch with him today and he said that they're fully staffed for the first time since last November uh which is um but the morale department is high despite the challenges so they continue to pump out of quality products for our folks and we're very proud of what they're doing
012Human Resources shared this team have been working we've been working on the business office transition with being Randy hired in the contract out there uh downloading things from Todd halver's head into into my head into Kips head getting hired and trained and so we think we were in a good place we're gonna he and Randy um uh when he starts on October 31st uh all the reports the annual reports done in the state of Utah by the time he walks in uh along with the books closed for the preceding month uh so he should have a little bit of a breather space for a month or two to get to feed wet before uh for the onslaught begins so we're we're confident that we've got a good thing to go out and we've been working
013capture notes from Todd uh however he's on speed dial for us right now uh Kip and I have been working together along with the rest of the business office team to to show up uh uh the salary study RFP is written uh the ETR is collaborating with the other County districts to share the expenses and the data with that RFP um and then we'll put the Park City spin on whatever our adjustments um HR also reports a slight uptick in applications last week if you can believe that uh and we are using as we mentioned last week a spark hire uh is the video component for doing the process which is helping student think so uh recruiting efforts continue obviously and mitigations are in place to address any temporary shortfalls but we still are experiencing
014chronic shortages and transportation um usually through the service other than this month with John who knows what happens next week the Aquatic Center in coaches so um on a security front we have Vapor Tech detectors now installed at all the bathrooms at the high school uh Park Cities working with the Summit County Sheriff's Office on the details now we've made a selection of what vendor we're going to use for the instant notification system that will allow teachers to have a handheld device or District device and make a lot down notification from their desktop it's a personal advice and so that's going to take some coordination but it's a standardized product that's going to be throughout all this districts in the county first year is going to be funded by Summit County Sheriff's Office in the
015grant we're working on putting all the details together for that okay can I ask you a question though yeah is that Wi-Fi based um yes they'll be able to do it on their handheld advice to the teachers or staff members are there Dead songs there are some minor debt zones but we've been pretty diligent about working through those and putting boosters in place um I think we've got them all worked at the high school I've learned a couple of potentially um that are going on right now in Poland and we're getting the bill assault but that's that's intention is to have um if we get as many teachers as possible and staff members to have it on their personal handheld device that might be a little bit of an approach but we'll also provided perhaps
016on iPads or anything any other devices they're using classrooms but what it'll do is uh if a distress signal comes from a classroom it'll give a graphic picture of where it's coming to dispatch so dispatch we have a floor plan they'll see it's coming from the 202 High School they'll be able to transmit that picture to a cruiser in a cruiser will be able to respond right to that site with no communication so it's it's a pretty split system it works and we're looking forward to trying to implement that making you get everyone trying to find out we do have fight back training fight detonation training for our teachers this Friday from one to three at Decker on Auditorium board members are welcome to come but basically this is this is a last dish effort
017if you're confronted with an active shooter how can you physically resist that obviously we want to leave the facilities first if we can we don't want to confront the person but if you're in a situation where you have to confront someone helping you successfully manages interface and so really good training that's been well received by people in the local area who have taken it uh taught by military special operators who um the techniques are approval and we also have a second session happening on the fourth November if you can't make the uh the 21st of October this Friday reporting a Park City High School mass casualty exercise with the Park City Police Department I mentioned that last one uh likely we'll be February and the Safety Committee is having the first meeting in the middle
018of November 15th through 10 until now um and as I'd like to remind everyone we'll have the Chevron Donuts there for you know board members who are interested so let me give you a short update under construction uh that's going on as I've mentioned last month we have schools that are under jurisdiction of the county and we've got schools that are under jurisdiction this city so let's talk about the county schools first uh as you know Jeremy we've got the conditional use permit uh secured uh we're a Full Construction right now there uh we now are putting the Geo peers supportings foundation and that work I'll start on the 20th of September so we're doing a nice job catching out there and uh it is working towards the Rebecca schedule Ecker Hill Middle School bid
019package one which is the bus flat if you've driven by there you'll notice that the asphalt was gone that the curve is gone um we're we have the Utah State Board of Education project number we had the on-site meeting with the county yesterday to give us approval we'll just clean up a few details before we have the physical document hand but we've been coordinating closely with the county um and so we're uh progress is going on there bid package too for Edward Hill Middle School is the overall project the actual building of the buildings not just the the lot and so we submit the conditional use permit and lose all the application back in July um we're just about there to get the Utah State Board of Education project number assigned with about 75 of
020the work done with that but we were successful on the 28th of September in soliciting the County Council for at variance for height uh we've got a 3-2 vote on that but at least we're at the variance the package now is moving to snyderville Basin Planning Commission for rezone and conditional use permit consideration then back to the County Council for final approval of both McGregor sometime so uh JD and the mocha team anticipating uh for construction uh on Ecker outside of the bus lot by late November Harley's parked uh in Trailside we're obviously in the first stages of coordination with the counties since those are going to be going on next summer uh we anticipate the construction documents the initial phase of the 22nd of September or December from parties in the 23rd of March
021from Trail side and we're going to define the design phases right now we anticipate construction of both those projects to begin on the 5th of June the city schools of the at uh McClellan the commission only used property application is complete the state project Number application is about 75 complete but we anticipate a restart soon uh with just the state project number uh prior to final CDP approved by the peace parts of the Planning Commission we're working closely with the city to make sure we don't step on any toes and make sure all the kinds of dotted the teeth are crossed and that and if and Park City's credit they've been cooperating nicely with us at full time we anticipate being back in the Full Construction though there on the 31st of October Park City
022High School bid package number one which is the site civil work grading uh utility relocation that network uh we submitted for a usbee project number on the 11th of October we're anticipating a restart soon with the state project number prior to final CP uh by the parks and Planning Commission in again coordinated closely with the city the Park City High School mid tax number two which again is an overall project the conditional use permit rezone applications are complete um we're actually at five o'clock today our height uh various request is being considered by the board of adjustments uh JD from Oak and I will jump on that call since we're done here at the board meeting hopefully we'll get that support tonight and then uh the conditional use permit the result application will be considered
023By The Park City uh Planning Commission on the 26th of October so um the usbe project Number application is about 75 complete disabilities and plan reviews and we anticipate again being back in Full Construction to there by the 31st of October um every week we've been posting construction updates now to the construction tile on the website for people who are interested it contains both in layman's Narrative of the work that's going on along with the spreadsheet that shows graphically where the projects are in the approval process so um you can refer anyone who's requiring information to this site we also do have um GD from our owners rep team from mocha here if anyone has any in-depth questions that I can answer how you doing baby I don't know about in-depth but JJ he's been
024running the coordination for us on a lot of these projects we'll do a fantastic job and uh my head's up to at least he's been he's been beating a lot of crow on RPS so we appreciate that does anybody have any questions thank you for the update I know you guys have to be on a call as well right you guys thank you thank you thanks but do you just want to come join us too sure sure yeah so it's all good I uh easy nothing absolutely I have another mean up here too anyway so it'll be uh quick I'll be in and out um so uh good to see you all again um PCA wants to uh again reiterate our appreciation for the district to school board involving teachers and Librarians in the process
025of navigating policy of 90 15 1951. uh we appreciate having to see at the table we know these policies impact the whole District students parents teachers administrators board members and everyone else and we commend the effort to get the policy right in the context of state law we'd like to make a similar Point regarding the new teacher evaluations uh PCA would like to thank Dr Sorensen and the rest of the district team for taking our feedback about the evaluations and applying it to the new tool we believe this made the evaluation still better for teachers and side administrators we know this has been kind of a long process we just appreciate kind of some immediate feedback we gave got taken into consideration um and to kind of Applied right away which is cool so we
026appreciated that um lastly uh PCA is looking forward to starting compensation negotiations later later this school year um hopefully the audit audits the right word but that's what we're going with for now um of Park City and the rest of summit Wasatch counties smoothly and we can begin the process once the audit is finished that's it for me music today okay thank you does anybody have anything thank you for everything yeah thank you guys for all of your input yeah it's been great thank you yeah have a good night thank you perfect Zack do you have your update you'd like to give it yep um so uh I think it was last week we had it looks like Sam day and then um don't forget all the details for that um well some of them
027but seeing how today was during the week we put up a bunch of like kindness stuff because look like Sam is about like being kind to other people so outside of the student store we had a our bulletin board which we put sticky notes on which was taken taken sticky leave it sticky and you could write kind messages to your friends or other people if you wanted to um so that's well soon come today for that we are also doing a shoe drive at high school right now and we will eventually get to the elementary school as it was Echo we just haven't got around to that yet um we've been a little busy and then so it's for sauce for sauce and it's um donating shoes to uh forward countries and um brief thing
028about that now we have two events going up uh that uh Champions are splitting on we have the Halloween movie night which is on the 25th we managed to get a cinema at Redstone which would be really cool so we have limited tickets so if you want to go get tickets now and um it should really be a fun event especially since we are quoting it at the movie theater in town so should be very cool and then the second event we have zombie night which is on the 27th it is a giant game of freeze tag that Senate council puts on every year it is a super fun event and it's really fun to attend and is that just for ninth through 12th grade you know there was some talk about maybe bringing in
029the younger but you guys have decided to keep it with we haven't talked much about doing the younger grades yet um that should hopefully become a topic tomorrow okay and so that's it yeah I should say that kindness to you guys it was amazing I mean she came home with a bucket of random kindness not two people I didn't even know it was it was amazing it was really cool so that was until the next time it was awesome it was great thank you superintendent excellent type a shorter PowerPoint this month not 25 slides it's maybe only like six or eight or something so it's a little shorter a little more concise um our Collective work of course together is to ensure safety achievement and opportunities for all of our youths go ahead and this
030month I'll talk just briefly about some of our district goals show you one slide from our data dashboard which resides on the district website under data and statistics talk a little bit about policies and then our Equity access and opportunity committee that is ongoing this is National principles month so we're excited to recognize our principles and honor all the good work that's happening throughout the schools our mission of course is to inspire and support all students equitably to achieve their academic and social potential so we try to focus any of our decision making in that vein that's the North Star and our vision of course is student-centered with the focus in emphasis a whole child where students are safe support and engaged challenges challenge company and that is a national definition of whole child philosophy
031and supporting healthy development of our youth our goals for this year include three key areas leadership teaching and learning and operations and resources and we are really working consistently as assistant to prepare all of our students for a production safe career of course peer is a good word too but Career College and like writing success of promoting safe supportive Equitable and inclusive school learning environments and we are aligning our efforts towards that Utah fortunate graduate so that's what I get dashboard is about that's the way the state accountability system is moving it's really about more than just academics and recognizing all those other things are happening in the schools like things Seth is talking about the different service projects the leadership opportunities and that we were trying to grow and prepare use for jobs within
032our community and Beyond once they graduate so last year's senior class reported 80 of our seniors having a job outside of school so really want kids to be able to go into the community and Workforce feeling very confident and being able to interview and you know follow commitment s and visibilities in teaching and learning we are focused on high quality professional development experiences for staff so for instance pcea yesterday came and said you know our teachers feeling about a little bit more training on behavior management or de-escalation strategies and in our district we have two people who are trained in the plant of de-escalation system so they're able to then go to the schools on Fridays when we have afternoon training and they're able to provide that for the team that would like to learn
033more about that so we have things even in-house to help that we give teachers an awful lot of choice in what they'd like to study what they'd like to improve on so they have lots of different options and opportunities we also started letters professional learning that is a Statewide effort to really bolster training in early literacy acquisition as one of the authors of letters is actually a grandparent in our district and her students her grandchildren go to school here and she was able to kick off the opening and she was able to do a PC reads that was really exciting so kind of fun October 6th activities in operations and resources we are always looking at our budget our fiscal management and the first year I was here to have secured a pathway to the
034meritoris budget Award with these last three years we've earned the award and actually he got the notifications you know it's your little plaque yet but um he got the notification that we got that on designation once again so no pressure Mandy but we're on the budget beyond the budget yeah also has experience with that program and project but it's nice to have an outside entity review if the narrative is making sense and if we are indeed aligning our resources towards what we're saying our key goals are and we've been able to demonstrate that that's a great um price point I think for the district and for the business services department for sure but it takes a lot of work to get that done we're also very committed to 21st Century Learning tools and that's of
035course you know being adapted using different kinds of Technologies but we know that personalizing competency-based learning isn't only about technology but we just want to bolster you know make sure our infrastructure is working well and you know all those things make sure the kids that students are the refresh cycle and all of that absolutely those are some of the key goals all right so data and staff let's see that's supposed to have a cute little picture but I don't see the picture it did not show up um thank you um our students would never do that they would actually have oh you know what it won't work because we've got a copy right you don't have a live one of us alive go ahead and refresh Lori how fun is that that works is foreign
036all right let's see if it refreshes but um anyway under the data and statistics tab on the district website there is a strategic dashboard that's updated a couple of times a year so it is not updated every day or every month or anything like that but it gives a good couple of times a year Caitlin O'Connor who's our data and staff person provides the information for this so it talks about things like our enrollment so this year we have 4350 K-12 students about another 150 in preschool so right around at 4 500 Mark we have about sixteen percent of our kids who are economically disadvantaged 13 WHO achieve or who receive some English learner support approximately nine percent of students have identified their differences and about 94 student attendance which is great kids healthy and
037in school say that's just one of the dashboards but it goes into all the different areas of the team learning area and an operations area and you can scroll through those so anyway that's sorry you don't have a visual official form but we'll add it and upload it on board though thanks excellent um Equity access and opportunity we do talk about each month and we talk about different strategies for trying as a school and District to ensure we are working towards an inclusive Multicultural supportive district with lots of practices that help bolster our students so that's a positive feedback from having now Support Office a school holiday and the pcea the Educators have asked if we could consider that and Challengers going forward as well and we did have people talk about why the day
038was in schools and so that was seen as a positive by the parent communities through community and Educators so that was very positive next slide is again just a reminder of what we're doing in that committee we're reviewing three model policies and um looking at what kind of language you want us board above and beyond just our typical Mission Edition statement and really the Equitable practices that looks at you what is our data what is our data's telling us are we making decisions to improve that data so it's keeping it very data-driven so I'm hoping that will help move that right that's Google always for our students we are also in the process of commissioning an external assessment to what does our policy look like from an equity lens where there are student supports look
039like and that's a university that will partner with us and we're hoping to go with a million that's exciting we are ensuring that the state required training modules are deployed there's certainly currently only one module available and then our quarterly meetings do review data aligned to the current state and ideal outcomes for our students the next slide I think you've seen before look at that my my Graphics are not working well today um but that we are safe support is compassionate and hard work so those are the indicators of the high school staff and students selected as part of their PBIS approach so I love it because it still goes with the pchs acronym all kinds of acronyms and education as you know from a policy lens we are working tonight on several policies one
040of them as you all know is um updating to the existing policy 1950 to align that to make sure House Bill 374 is addressed within that confidence policy we did receive about 60 comments um on that policy and those uh comments were incorporated as best as we could with some of the parameters of that policy so that I imagine is still going to be part of our ongoing conversation but again the work is ongoing and I think we might have Lindsay here in case with questions but we have other policies also up for approval tonight updates to employee ethics career and college readiness programming our eligibility for participation in Student Activities uh student search and seizure in case there is every ever anything uh within the school that shouldn't be like drugs or alcohol and
041then employees do communicable diseases the guidelines are always so changing I didn't have my boosters yesterday for both blue and coconuts aren't a little sore but we are here we were all threatened to not not be gone today and then there are lots of ways to learn about the school district we don't use Facebook very much but we do try to push different accolades and recognitions so that you can see the great things going on the students do an awesome job with the Instagram oh my gosh you guys in the senior class with awesome job students also push up to Twitter and the district pushes out some news to Twitter as well but one of the things we do is whenever we do have a news release during information release actually goes out to 150
042news agencies not just locally but Statewide so we try to use those news releases as we can to get the word out it's a WordPress blog but it actually is a range of the news agency and actually One Financial recognition in 2019. excellent any questions no thank you all right that was sure to Shorter rather than looking all right thank you all right we will move on since we already had our facilities update uh we will move on to policies for posting um I'm actually gonna do what we did for our last meeting I'm going to pull uh polish or something I'm not on this one so anyways I'm sorry uh so if you'd like an emotion to uh approve the following policies for posting policy 1991 data governance policy 1995 standardized testing policy one
043zero zero two five homeschool Private School charter school and dual enrollment policy 10090 prohibition of corporal punishment and policy 10115 administrating of medication to students I make a motion to post these policies at stage a second do we have any discussion on these policies yes absolutely a little note I do want to let you know just a quick reminder that I was a teacher and as a parent I always thought my policy was posted something something definitely was wrong yeah and that's why they got posted and I was always concerned about that and then when I got into the administrative world I learned that a lot of these especially these that are hosted today we really have them on a five-year cycle so sometimes there are very non-substantive changes but there's a new legal reference
044or a new caveat that needs to be integrated into the policy so for any of these they don't necessarily have any individual issues that has emerged these are really just notified so that's what they want you yeah they are typically posted for the 20 days okay so all in favor of posting bye all right so policies for adoption this is the one where I'm in a poll I'm gonna adopt all and then we'll pull out 90 50 and have because I feel like it's gonna have a little bit more of a robust discussion so can I get a motion to adopt policies 7005 employee ethics policy 9085 College and Career Readiness policy 10030 eligibility for participation in Student Activities policy one zero zero eight zero student search and policy 10110 employee and student communicable disease
045I make a motion to adopt policies as a student second do we have any discussion with those Perfect all in favor all right so I feel like I'm gonna tight space because uh do we want kids right yeah do my and I'm going to go down to public comment because I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a bit of the public comment is going to be about the next policy ever adoption so to hear from everyone so I will read a statement the Board of Education wants to hear live input from community members at our meetings in order to respect preserve the time allotted each presenter on the agenda each speaker will be limited to three minutes speakers representing a group are limited to five minutes if you wish to address the board please read
046and complete the blue public comment sheet so if you have not done that and you're here um and then test it to bori you will be invited to the Rostrum um to speak in the order in which the form was received please state your name clearly for the record the Board of Education expects that all public comment will be polite respectful and accurate please refrain from specifically identifying Personnel Personnel issues are not appropriate for public comment therefore such comments will not be allowed I will also reiterate because of the book issue if you are coming to speak about a specific book we do have one book up for review if you cannot grant me on the book you cannot put comments out from any of the books we are the final appeal process and if
047you um if you decide to do that it actually disqualifies us from being able to look at that book thank you okay so I will start with Diane Livingston hello again hi guys how are you here I gotta watch the time probably have five minutes so I'm gonna try and making sure are you here for a group or stop myself nope then you're free minutes I know okay okay I've heard a lot about District people who are supporting teachers it's been a lot I mean it sounds like it's really kind of a majority that is supporting the teachers and what they want to be able to teach in the classroom and so today I've decided to support students I'm here for the one out of four who will Pro will be sexually abused by the
048time they graduate from our school district that's the statistic right now and here may have a trigger reading something that is in their live reality here at school I'm here for the student who did knocked out because I didn't know what if they should but wish they have I'm here for the student who struggles with pornography and just wants to get it out of her head but continues to be confronted with it at our school she should have a safe place and Utah law HB 374 was passed to create such a space but when we look at the proposed policy that we have today it which is supposed to comply with HB 374 it almost feels like it's designed to resist compliance let me share with you what I mean first of all our policy
049asserts quote intellectual and academic freedom and books selection but makes no mention of avoiding sensitive content while selecting new books as hb374 requires second appears the district will not be proactively reviewing critically approved books the policy there is to wait for an appeal which I don't feel like is our role as parents to find books and then appeal in order for our school district to follow policy written by the Utah State the pacing would when you look at the policy it would be a handful of books reviewed at a year when you look at the number of books that we have sensitive in our skills today it's going to take about two decades to look at these books we also have a concern concerning the committee structure when you look at the appeal committees there
050is one parent serving on the very lowest level and beyond that it is the majority of District people who are serving on these committees let me refer back to the the overwhelming sense uh sentiment of our district people to support teachers having their choice of books that they want I mean you can it follows this can be really difficult to pull out a book and also um you know they have to look not only at the guidelines of HB 374 but they have to look at first to them at Juris jurisputin so again that's really challenging to get to people when will you stop okay um lastly okay so I am going to give you guys all the three minutes because I have quite a few of you thank you for your time right Tanya
051Keller thanks so much for giving me a chance to express my thoughts my name is Tanya Keller and I have three kids in the school district um I Heard I've heard a lot of negative comments about um parents being involved in the decision making process for the books that our kids read so I just kind of wanted to share my simple thoughts as a mom um but when I'm thinking about taking my kids to a movie um the most Motion Picture Association has created a rating system we all know it we're familiar with it PG is Parental Guidance suggested and under that it says parents are urged to give guidance they contain some material parents might not like for their children PG-13 is parents strongly cautions under that it says parents are urged to be
052cautious some material may be inappropriate for pre teenagers R is restricted under that it says contains some adult material parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them what I find astonishing about this is how many times they refer to parents they clearly want parents to educate themselves about the movie and make a decision if it's age-appropriate for their children they're also not afraid to say some things are not age-appropriate for children so what I'm wondering is why parents when we want to be involved in the books our kids are reading why we're judged or even kind of vilified right now we're told to maybe trust the teachers or trust the school district um that they know what's best for our children but the Motion Picture Association isn't
053asking us to trust the producers or the movie theaters to tell us what our kids should watch um they want the parents to be involved and we want to be involved we should be involved for the parents determining a school curriculum isn't a question of censorship for me it's it's the public schools we're the public we are the public the students are our children we are their parents we should be involved in the curriculum I just wanted to share that today about parents thank you thank you Chad happy sorry if you don't know me my name is Kathy Pratchett um I did have one quick question I just now noticed you guys reposted a 10 18 of the 950 policy what is different from the 10 12. that there was just a typo one typo
054it said three in parentheses okay all right um so my comments this afternoon are in addition to those suggested in my Friday October 14th email I'm trusting that that correspondence will be reviewed and considered in addition to my brief comments today in response to the latest iteration of an edited 9050 policy now while our school district is looking to create a policy to weed out sexually explicit material in our schools let's also not forget to include language in that policy to keep our schools from acquiring more of this explicit material in the future please notice in all the current edits of 90 50 no one has thought to include a bullet point under selection criteria for keeping out sensitive material this item clearly needs to be added to section V Dot C dot free and
055V Dot C dot five why might it be necessary to add it well it wasn't spelled out clearly for someone in the past because this was a past document that would tell us what we'd allow into our schools and now we're dealing with trying to remove sexually explicit material so perhaps you might even investigate how some of the sexually explicit books made their way into the schools in the past and add a line item in the policy to help prevent something like that happening in the future were they donated did they actually go through a documented process of selection these types of questions might shed light on where the current 90 policy has holes and then lastly my final and absolutely most important suggestion related to this policy creation is that no matter what iteration
056you all ultimately select for the policy clear communication with parents and students surrounding challenged material needs to be written into the final policy and it is not currently in here at least not any version I've reviewed a generic disclosure is not enough information this one communication requirement written into the policy and followed could help solve a multitude of problems for the district in the future again thank you for taking time to hear my additional thoughts I hope you will create and Implement policies that will keep our kids safe from the pornography that has been creeping into our schools in the form of literature Andrea hi um my name is Andrea Lee and I have two children that currently attend schools in the district uh the board has repeatedly said they believe policy 90 50 works
057well in regards to sensitive materials in schools I would like to express that the proposed review process is inherently biased it does not allow the district to fleece itself effectively the most flawed piece includes the fact that the voting committee consists of staff that teach the material this creates an obvious conflict of interest in addition there is a great flaw in the library materials Review Committee process the language and the policy states this review requires application of both state and federal law including the law under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and related jurisprudence so the committee is allowed to interpret First Amendment jurisprudence and federal law do they have law degrees what's the guidance for this the policy this allows a broad sweep of bias to be applied even if the material
058contains pornography as defined by Utah state law I'd like to now address the severity of the sexual explicit materials that's in pcsd libraries a lot of parents make assumptions or public excuse me make assumptions that the parental objection to certain books is related to ideologies politics or religion this is not the case for our family we simply do not want our children eating sexually explicit materials in the schools that are not approved Health material um by that I don't mean there should be no sex particularly no reference to sex particularly in high school materials Like To Kill a Mockingbird that's one thing there's references to sex and race however there's not explicit descriptions of those Acts um in contrast there are two books in Treasure Library one includes depictions of child pornography including a passage
059that describes eight-year-old children licking Advanced genitals um another a treasure has a graphic drawn Dimension a couple of couple engaged in oral sex um two two novels I'd like to highlight it ever one it describes many numerous sexual encounters in details and another is filled to the max with excessive drug use that includes heroin has rape and sex in it this is not appropriate materials for 11 14 year olds English schools um HB 374 the usbe and the Utah EG all clearly state that automatic Library material must initially be a collection that adheres to the law on this matter you must step up to ensures like your library and instructional materials followed along primarily on external parental student initiative review process is not a suitable alternative I ask that you instruct District administration to propose
060additional procedures to ensure timely compliance with hp374 thank you Nick Miller thank you foreign want to just add on that um for Utah education rule 277-217-2 this is things that teachers are not allowed to possess number 16 knowingly possess while at school or any school related activity any pornographic or indecent material in any form 17 New School equipment to intentionally view creative distributor store pornographic or indecent material 18 not only use do you create distribute or restore pornographic and decent material involved in the children 19. expose students to material educator knows or should have known to be inappropriate given the age and maturity of the students don't quit your teachers at risk to follow follow into this room I've got four children they've got five cousins that are African-American and two uncles I don't think
061it's appropriate that we have books that degrade African-Americans in related to bestiality I think that's that's Crossing away over the line in an incorporate and that's played out throughout multiple School boards throughout the country please make a leadership decision and get rid of this filth from our public school system thank you foreign nine years is this the best our district can provide for our children for the past nine years this book is defended passionately and I wonder why last month a teacher an English teacher defended it with tears stating this sensitive material stimulates conversation against parents please this sex offending author was invited into our high school look at the write-up in the Park Record in 2013. [Music] this book violates Utah's title 76 sexual explicit act 76-10-1201-1234 and one two three five and one
062two three six it also violations education Rule 277-217 and 2 section 16 17 18 and 19. to possess distribute use store or expose students to indecent material what conversations does a book stimulate that says [ __ ] [ __ ] Buffalo what kind of conversation does a book that says I sit in the bathroom for hours masturbating masturbating masturbating are we rooming future pornography addicts is that the education we're providing pedophilia it talks about teachers hugging students and feeling the erection what kind of education is this why would a teacher cry in an English class an English teacher that this stimulates conversation what kind of stimulation is this teacher seeking amongst my children I have four students that have gotten an education two of them already graduated and on to college and two more coming through and I missed
063it because they read this or were exposed to this back in since 2013. what kind of education is this I have volunteered hundreds of hours of my children's schools if I went into the classroom and I decided more abortion is murder how quickly do you think you would have me thrown out but yet this is violating multiple laws multiple multiple and I wonder where is our Sheriff coming after all of you or is our Sheriff going after the principal where is our Sheriff going after the school district and the Jill geldea my son's 17 year old was fined hundreds of dollars today for a traffic violation and there was no probable cause there was probable cause here you are harming our children you are creating future pornography addicts where is all this who is behind
064these books that's what I want to know because vaping has been just sued for 400 million dollars because they've been ruining our children stop grooming our children thank you [Music] I'm Mara Lusher and I've got a very different point of view so I upset some people but I appreciate everybody's feelings on this um the first thing I want to say is I've sometimes found with the district that they're very defensive of the policies I think what everybody wants here and I know what I would like is to come up with a solution that appeals to the parents and the teachers and everybody else um on that note I'd like to say I'm adamantly against Banning books um I think that's a slippery slope that can lead to stifling open-minded thought um that being said I'm
065here today because I've been surprised by some of the literature that my daughter was given in this English program and I am very open-minded when it comes to books I have a daughter who graduated from the high school in 2022 and a son that will graduate in 2024. I have always reviewed their English class books with them and read the books all my kids were doing so there were two books that my daughter read that frankly I found shopping the first was a book called speak which she read in the eighth grade I believe this is a book about a girl who's raped and then the struggle she goes through in not telling anyone about it um my daughter was only 12 at the time and did not even understand what the book was about
066reading the book with my daughter allowed me to have an extremely meaningful conversation with her about rape and how to handle things if she were ever raped or ever had a friend that she thought may have been ringed I love that we read this book together but it could not help but feel that I would be very upset if my daughter had read that book without an interactive conversation with me that was very important likewise she read a book called Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe in ninth grade this book is about a child who did not want to be gay that was convinced by everyone around him that he was gay and finally comes to accept that he is I really disagreed with this book as something that would be presented
067in a school environment although I had no problem with my daughter reading it so we could have a good discussion about it I think that reading these somewhat controversial books can be very beneficial for opening up dialogue but I worry that in the absence of that dialogue the books can be very harmful I strongly believe that the schools should just close to parents two things one what the agenda is in choosing the books that they choose there is so much good literature out there why are we choosing these particular books two what the book choices are for the children when a book choice is presented a sheet should go home to parents telling them what books their child has the choice of reading and asking for parent approval of that choice if there's no parent
068consent the child should be given a traditional non-controversial book these are two easy fixes that can allow for an open-minded reading program in the school without aggravating our community members who wish to have more control over what their children read thank you Kathy now you're okay first of all thank you again you met me last month so I'll keep this very brief I really appreciate the opportunity to talk like Laura I I sense but my opinion is a little bit different from most of the people commenting today uh I just wanted to offer my comments and support of the adoption of board policy in 1950. as I read it on October 3rd when it was distributed on the question of Parental screening and Advance approval of materials for classroom use it's imperative that our Educators
069Remain the arbitrators of utility and appropriate medicine if a teacher has 30 students in a class that means 60 parents with 60 opinions about what is acceptable and what is not for use in the class all 60 parents would need to read all the materials and express their opinion before the start of lessons this would have to be repeated every time a new set of students registered on the suggestion that some materials scheduled for use in the classroom may contain sensitive subjects or ideas an individual can already opt out of those specific lessons and choose an alternate assignment on the claim that a long list of titles currently in some of our district school libraries should be polled for inappropriate content our certified teacher Librarians are highly skilled well trained and ready to guide any
070student who asks to material they can engage with comfortably the fastest way to get someone to read a book is to announce that it should be eliminated after the McMinn County School District in Tennessee voted to ban the graphic novel Mouse January it Rose to the number one best-selling book on Amazon within days when asked about the challenge to his book the author art spiegelman answered that maybe they want to teach a nicer home it's 20 22. we have worse things to be afraid of and books thank you for your time thank you questions um Jackson Smith [Music] I don't like the board for hearing the Apple book um I am a current student of Park City School District I'm a senior graduating class of 2023 and I'd like to make my opinion known on
071the issue of the HB uh 374 thank you so much foreign we students have tried very hard and have been dealing with um books for most of our lifetime we've been reading material who quite frankly we've been sort of bored with and we've had interesting experiences with tomato piece of literature it is my experience and my peers experience the book of Banning and the institution they're in has caused nothing but harm to The Learning Experience multiple and I mean multiple of my fellows and Patriots my fellow student peers have had Books banned for XYZ reasons many books have been banned across multiple different states for lgbtq topics for topics related to race for topics related to gender for topics related to things that quite frankly Our Generation needs to work out schools are meant to
072teach schools are meant to open up experiences and are meant to teach the student body what they are and who they are they are meant to teach you how to think not what to think I believe that the current bill as uh pardon me the current uh districts um pardon me policy thank you so much I believe in this current District's policy is more than sufficient considering what uh students have to deal with and considering the fact that we are mature enough to deal with what has been given to us next time Miriam hi thanks again for having us all talk and I as I said last month I had a wife had kids in this district for a long time my son brought home a book I didn't like much like Laura Lusher and
073engendered a really interesting conversation I deeply deeply appreciate teachers who have spent on Librarians who have spent careers learning what's appropriate for our kids and I am so appreciative that when my kids were in the system and now it is very easy to opt out if you don't want your child to read a book I never did but I really understand why some people want to and I appreciate what the policy of that's thank you thank you question current ly my name is Kristen Harmon I've lived in Park City with my family since 1999 we have five children two of them have already graduated I also grew up with freshly graduated in 1992 um I am disappointed in the district's response to HP 274 and the proposed policy 9051 which is now 1950. um as
074one teacher stayed in the in the September 25th school board meeting no teacher anywhere is teaching pornography that's not what we do that's not who we are I agree that no teacher is teaching pornography but it has seeped into much of the literature that they're using in the classroom and it's freely available in the libraries um an extensive list of the books containing the sensitive material has been circulating the list that I have seen has 10 books from Ecker Hill Middle School and 50 or sexy plus from Treasure Mountain the sexual scenes in these books do not include Partners in healthy relationships in order they portray any kind of respect between partners or towards sex in general but even explicit scenes of this nature are not appropriate for minors and is against Utah law I'm
075not afraid of sex as was implied in the recent pcw interview on this matter but I am afraid of the damage pornography can cause to our youth the majority of the books in question including five of the ten from at Cricket Middle School um contain repeated explicit scenes as sexual assault and molestation including rape of minors and children violent sex vulgar sexual fantasies masturbation and unhealthy disappointing sexual encounters between consent and minors the general language used in regard to sexual experiences is derogatory energy this kind of material is not necessary it's harmful it's even traumatic it does not belong in the school as HB 374 has established it does not contribute to positive healthy classroom discussions on any issue I am confident teachers can find literature that allows them to have Rich meaningful discussions about
076a variety of topics even sensitive topics that need to be talked about that are not filled with such explicit writing the student laptops filter information that is not appropriate for our miners movies that are really oh and including the books that are in question movies that are really are PG-13 and R are not to be shown in the classrooms the same sensitive materials blocked on laptops and in movies does Not magically become educationally necessary enriching or appropriate when putting written forms pornography is pornography whether it's on a screen or in a book um I just ask you to remove the literature that contains that sensitive material the current proposed 9050 has many flaws especially the significant amount of time it will take to challenge the plethora of books that are clearly invite that are already
077clearly in violation of HB 374 um please do what is right for our children and follow the law read the libraries of explicit derogatory violent and unhealthy sexual scenes encourage teachers to seek out great literature great literature can and often does deal with sensitive topics of humanity create a space for healthy debates but is free of pornography thank you um before we move on yeah if that's exactly what I was going to say if we have any more blue sheets that are out there if you guys especially if it's about the same topic please bring them up and so you just want to name the first one can I use that because I put notes on there okay hi I'm Susan Witt I wasn't planning on speaking today um and I don't know why we
078can't reference a specific book because my daughter came home and read it in a few hours and said that was terrible and so I skimmed it and I was reading you know about the n-word effing buffaloes and then her 12 year old sister we got to have a conversation about bestiality and you know maybe some families aren't ready to have those conversations about bestiality you know I have no problem with talking to my kids about sex I've read them the whole series about it um it's not about that it's about forcing something down our throats that that um is just I mean the book I'm sure you all know which one I'm talking about um glorifies masturbation and I have an 18 year old son who struggles with pornography um and pornography is an epidemic
079in our country that we don't talk about I would love to talk about that but um I don't want to introduce to my kids that being in the bathroom for three hours is normal or okay or that you would win a prize for it um sorry anyway um it's not that I'm a prude and I can't talk to my kids because like I said I have an 18 year old who loves to use the n-word and who um you know we came to Utah to because he was struggling with all of these things and took him to a boy's home there and now here is my daughter coming home with this stuff and um it is triggering and it's not healthy and there's no great meaningful conversation that came out of it my daughter didn't
080I said do you want to talk about this she was like no she's lived through it she doesn't want to talk about it she doesn't want to read in a book you know my daughter who was in dance which you know that whole world struggles with eating disorders and in this book it talks about a guy who says that this girl is a hot anorexic I mean we talk about keeping our children safe and all of these things but to put a message out there that being interacting is hot to a 14 year old girl who's already struggling with image to me is not healthy and is not protecting our children so I don't want to tell teachers what to do I don't want to be involved I don't I understand 60 parents 60 this
081and that I trust that my child is safe and won't come home with this kind of material and um so no I don't want to tell teachers how to do their job and I've I've heard from some friends here that this particular book has been controversial and I just don't know why parents are having to continue to to fight this fight when so many people um have had similar reactions or um opinions about it so and and my daughters love to read and and the comment about hotel kid not to read something well I could tell my son not to read Playboy um and yeah of course he's he's gonna read it but um anyway that's all I have thanks hi um I'm new to Park City my name is Alicia Burger hoarder I have
082a student in Treasure Mountain and thank you for the opportunity to speak today um I've made some notes I wasn't sure I was going to speak um I uh I come from Connecticut which is a different state in terms of a lot of these issues and um I know you come from Connecticut too in Greenwich um what what I wanted to just share is that I'm sure there's political drawbacks for being late to signing on to a policy I'm really curious to see how that affects our district because I'm sure it's a possibility that it will so I really deeply appreciate that you're all willing to put that on Burner in front of the entire State and Nation so that we can discuss this and you can hear what parents have to say I think
083it's really important because we're all stakeholders right like we're customers here too and again so what I wanted to say so thank you for thinking about that in terms of the policy and what it means um as a parent who's written an op-ed to the tribute and maybe you've read it I wrote about um and you can look it up it's under Alicia public order um I'm a mom and I really believe that I can handle anything that comes across my threshold like I'm an author and books are the least of it there's internet there are all these concerns that all these people have talked about and I deeply believe that I'm really good at taking care of my kids and expressing my values to my children in my home and I would never prefer
084to say that I know it's good for any other person who's here like that's their choice in their home over their threshold but what I want to say is this is that um today at the board of ed debate someone said nothing good has ever come of no Society has been on the right side of history when you ban books so I believe that the policy as I've understood it allows me to say I don't want this it's not for me maybe it's for my neighbor but it's not for me and I can opt out am I right about that okay so I feel like we're covered and I also know that teachers see a lot more children of different ages Librarians have degrees in library science that they're probably better equipped to make an
085overall decision maybe not specifically for someone else but at least to bring it in and say this is something we think would be interesting that would stimulate debate it would be wonderful for our kids so I have a deep respect for teaching and for the profession and um so when teachers are deciding I have a little faith in that and then I read the books so I don't let a blogger online tell me what's good for my family if um an author like Sherman alexie is scary I read it if um like The Giver was scary I read it and I talked about it with my kids I know how to read I it's a miracle of my public education so what I'm saying is thank you for just putting on the brakes for a
086second it's a really big deal because there's no state legislator because I said in my op-ed who's ever been in my house during homework time who's helped me interpret anything for my children I think it's a gross overreach and I really appreciate that you guys pump the brakes so thank you and I'm going to move on and we can if we have any other public comment that comes up we can open it up after we move forward so I would like to make a motion to adopt policy 90 50 instructional and library media center materials do we have discussion oh yeah I do um I think the big piece of this and which we've heard real clearly here today is giving the parents a choice and that's what's important is they need to be heard
087and feel like they have a choice in their child's schooling and curriculum and what they're getting at school and I think that this does give them the option to have that voice yeah I mean I just want to say that the opt out clause reading the books being involved ahead of time so you're not treating trauma um because that's terrific empathetic to that um I think the option is huge and I want to just say an incredible thank you to leadership the amount of hours you guys have spent on this and to admin is I've never seen anything like it we have taken this incredibly seriously it's been a huge issue and so I appreciate everyone's comments whether I agree or not I really appreciate everyone coming tonight and speaking it's a really big deal
088and um yeah it's been kind of tough so I just the op out is really important that it's not forced and that you do have a choice I'm so sorry Miller we're in the middle uh degree yeah but what I would say is that you know but one if we all sit around here and we assume that attack from each other which I think we did right just like I assumed good intent from you coming in here representing your interests your child's interests I think you want to do the same for us we're all parents we all kids in the district no one wants to have pornography in schools that's the first thing right I mean hold on hold on let me speak hold on a second you can throw out buzzwords and you can
089and say my tail it ruins having a book is not grooming right if you're a religious person okay abortion is murder you watch how quickly pulled out they won't because guess what you know I'm gonna let you say but if you're going to continue to talk out of the audience you're gonna have to leave [Applause] [Music] we are in a business meeting it is our turn to sit down and get our business done and to make sure that our job is that we are in compliance with the policies and the laws and that is you are child abusers that's awesome I appreciate that what I'll say like again let me start over what I would say is that we all care deeply about this issue and each of the five of us represent the people
090in this room as well as the other voters and the other constituents right this is not about what we think is the right thing it's what you know how we can best interpret the laws of the state and the laws of the country and we're you know some of us are lawyers most of us aren't you know and we're parents and we're trying to do our best right but what I think my colleagues were trying to say and that I feel strongly is that you know the best policy is one that gives parents the choice right and yes children speak but they're exposed to many things including books sadly books are not the only thing they're exposed to because books we could try to control the knowledge but you know they're exposed to the internet
091they're exposed to television they're exposed to things that are far worse it doesn't matter now hold on a second hold on a second you have the choice right and what's not in this policy that I think is important here is and a lot of you guys aren't familiar with how policy Works versus implementation there's policy and then there's how policy is implemented right there's a handbook there's there's the way that the people who are administrators in our district communicate to the instructors the teachers how to implement policy right and so from a practical perspective and there's aren't dates in here right which I think there should be but there aren't maybe we'll amend that later but from an implementation perspective we know what the curriculum is before we let out for the summer teachers can't
092just say okay I'm going to teach a book on you know uh random literature and it's gonna I'm just gonna throw it in the in the curriculum at the last minute right they can't make up classes in the last minute we approve all the classes as a district it goes to the head of curriculum the books that are going to be used are known entities and then it's on us for better or worse as parents to look at those books and review them however we want and decide if those books are appropriate for our families or not and unfortunately not everyone has the time to do that but we have the whole summer right and I think what I'd love to see is from an implementation perspective is the list of curriculum published you know
093early June before the kids get out and then any parent who doesn't want their kids to be reading those books can opt out at any time there's no deadline and then any parent who wants to challenge the content of a book for under the sensitive materials law that exists in the state there's a venue to do so right and there's a way to do it and if you want to challenge one book great you want to challenge two books three books however many books challenge right and as a community we'll review it some of the comments were about the specifics of the policy they say okay you need at least one parent I don't think you probably want one parent I think you know to get parents and teachers and everyone to volunteer to do
094all these books if we have 20 books in order to review it you got to read the whole book right for parents who are working for people you know it's an extra work for everyone so let us you know we'll go through the we'll go through the process our job is to be compliant with the law and operate the law we're not trying to force anything or groom anyone we're just saying okay here's the curriculum here are the books you like the book's great you don't like the books that's okay too read different books and the teachers will make that accommodation and the district will make that accommodation and so I think like you act scary to think that there's bad material that's going to go to your kids just like the internet's scary just
095like everything's scary but I think the one thing you can kick solace in you can believe me or not but you have more control in this situation than you do over the Internet than you do over anything else and that's because this is a school and we're subject to laws but the internet and other places aren't and so you know you may go away and think okay this guy's listening here they didn't but know that we're giving you control whether you believe it or not we're saying you can choose what books your kids read you can choose to leave them out you choose to have different ones so that's that's what I want you guys to know and and just also assume that you know the teachers they're not groomers assume that the board members
096or parents like you guys you know we have similar values to you guys we're not a bunch of creepy pedophiles and I resent being thrown into that category because it's absurd right and in some of our homes we may be more conservative socially or religiously than you are and so you just have to take that into account and know that we care about this as much or more than you guys which is why these women and and the superintendent have literally given hundreds of hours to this issue the single issue at the expense of other things in terms of running the district and it's not an insignificant issue but they've spent a ton of time and effort and like it is it's mind-blowing to me and and all of us like we're here for these
097issues this is why we're all here right and so know that and know that we're not taking this lightly and just like when you were here four years ago you know and we we the origins of giving opt-outs the origins of having committees review these books is from feedback directly from some of the same people in this room and we do take it seriously we took it seriously then we take it as seriously now all right yeah I just want to reiterate thanks to all everybody for bringing in but that's been important in our um work on this both and everybody's input literally everybody's I sympath as a mother and then as a as a as an educator I'm a victim Advocate as well so I recognize the impact triggers out on people and I
098I feel for anybody who gets triggered by anything sometimes you just want to shut the world out in hallways um and I appreciate that our job as a board is not to actually impose what I would allow my child to read at home or what Andrew's family might it's to comply with state law and do so in a way that nuances constitutional law and nuances different demands that are district and Community have we're a public education we have we have options of educating your kids in other realms and if you're not um it's it's not you also have placed a great amount of trust in the Educators here and us and um that support is super important I would just continue to ask that we do assume good intent and know that it is about
099having the um we've been put in a hamstrung place in a lot of ways the the state this this house bill is going to continue to take enormous amounts of resources regardless of the nuanced language in it or not which we vetted with lawyers and I'm a washed up lawyer so I don't actually count myself as one really but I do believe that it is in compliance it talks about the selection and the reconsideration of books it does not talk about going back into the library and vetting out the hundreds I think those books can be brought to the attention for sure under this law there's no limit to that but the amount of resources that will be asked of people who've worked on this and I look out and see Lindsay Heidi there's it's
100it's it's enormous at the cost of a lot of things that also need to be happening for our students right now and it's an interesting it's an interesting um topic that seems to be taking uh maybe it's conflating all sorts of fears and worries and I gosh I relate to the fear of such a kids off to college I have two kids in high school school I'm terrified of what is their exposure could be on the playground they go to the grocery store when they drive down the highway I don't think that we um are we're not against each other we are trying to implement a lot and Nuance something and a policy and Nuance something that simply cannot please every single person it's not but we're here to represent the school district not one
101person and that is an important reminder we want to keep dialogue open I think that makes that raises the you know to do so gracefully respectfully brings us together and we can have good conversations then yelling maybe that is I know the result of feeling a lot but I think that it's really hard to work with um and hard to listen to and and to make action over I hope that people understand that we worked and this is as the law I think there's questions about implementation of this law I think it's all over the state it's not a done deal I think there's lots of legislation and discussion and work groups happening on training on how to do this it's not clear-cut and it's been um and that's that's been recognized at the legislative
102letter level and our level and it's why we put in time or delayed our decision because it's not straightforward and we would be disturbing you if we didn't spend this amount of time on this I I I appreciate all your comments and I hope that um this is you know the the this is this is where we are right now with this and we're we're following we're into compliance tonight and adopting this amendment I agree with Andrew I think it sounds like we probably need to tighten up some operations in terms of posting and what that looks like and I think there's a lot of clever creative ways to do that of posting over a certain period of time but always keeping it open because different maybe somebody doesn't get to read it over July
103we want to limit or infringe upon the time you could challenge um when and because I think some experiences were given the auction sounds like some maybe work or didn't feel like they were or didn't have the time to review the book before your child came home and read it so I think that's a clear message that those operations need to get tightened up um I think that's that's those are fair comments and and I know that Dr gilday and her team will keep that keep that at the Forefront as we move forward with this policy and implementation of it as Andrew said this is not this is not the implementation of it I mean this is the policy that we then Now operate around um thanks for thanks for your job no communication has
104been touched on yeah is there any is there I know we're going on this tonight but or maybe it's something we address at a later date but communication to parents in terms of I know it's been brought up by a lot of parents tonight communication to parents about the books is there anything we want to address on that of giving parents I don't want to say a guideline or a timeline or if that's realistic but something of putting in place of by Upstate you're gonna know the books your children are you know being offered here's your choices here's your opt out early is that too much to post it right so what does exist right now on the Park City School District website it's a newer website we're still working off The Kinks we move
105from WordPress into like a content system not everything forged over not everything is as hub-like as we want fight but if you do go under departments and teaching and learning there is a district Literature list so we do have the list of K5 materials that are on the approved list the six eight as well as the 912. so that's as of this summer so that list is updated and you can pull that if your students are in the secondary grades 6 through 12 you should have received a disclosure form almost like a syllabus at the beginning of the year from your teachers so that should have gone out but operationally certainly we've talked about that you know if we did do that kind of a bridge to the next year you know so as we
106approach the end of the year a bridge to the next year what to expect and here is the kind of list um I think that is helpful as our district does move towards our alignment to Portrait of the graduate and competency-based learning and all the different things we talk about as a state as well as a community you are going to see a great deal more individual voice and choice because that is what that entire port to The Graduate is about is what engages each and every student in uh growing you know in their career interests like PC Caps doing those projects right it's that kind of experience that will drive the students education from the youngest ages all the way through so as we see that you're going to see maybe I would hate
107to say we'll never see a classroom novel because being a former English teacher I really loved having the experience of having um Everybody read something together and I hate to date myself because I'm younger in my mind than in my actual physical body but I remember a conflict that was a very serious at the time time because it was a different time and place but it was about sixth grade novels and almost all of them having a dog that died and it was really upsetting to students and I know that sounds innocent now having the conversation we're having about mature or adult content but you know appearance did come and say isn't there anything we could do to feel more uplifting type of story right so there are always going to be those suggestions and
108that input is very um important another thing to note with 1950 whether you're looking at the old version or the newer version is in the materials adoption process there are parents involved right from the beginning and there have been since like 1995 or something like that whenever the policy originally came through so we do have opportunities for parents to get involved right at the beginning so that we don't have to you know be as concerned with the challenges at the other events um this is going to take time it's going to take time for everybody we do need to talk about um developmentally appropriate I know the group that was reviewing the material that was challenged was looking at a lot of things even some of the comments we've heard today perhaps there needs to
109be specific uh documentation like almost like the mpg reading you know maybe there are certain materials that should have kind of a sticker or kind of a you know an extra acknowledgment so that parents maybe know what to expect you do a little bit more of pre-education of our families so that's something that's tricky I think we mentioned that our last meeting that there are other districts that have adopted a rating system if you will for books have we looked any more into that is that something on the radar I've been trying to get into compliance yeah first things first but isn't that something we can continue to pursue because again when you look at a list of 30 books as a parent I don't have time to read all 30 books I don't but
110if I have some idea of what I should focus my attention on as a parent that's helpful so I think that might be hard I will tell you together so I was again middle school high school I was feeling like feeling kind of larger classes like writing 150 it's a year I don't know maybe as a teacher what would be what you would need to notice that or what you might need to notice that so that's hard you couldn't debuck at someone you watch a Disney movie if you have epilepsy you're gonna probably not want to look at something that he likes right we could get to a point of five or ten buckets of you know great sexually explicit you know and where we could really so that you know don't read it if
111you're if you don't want to expose no that's what I mean if it exists then it's just up front so you're not sending your kid down a path where you can't get it out of it the other thing I wanted to say was the one parent in the policy maybe at some point we could look at differently I mean like okay yeah a real no point is to have more parents on that committee as opposed to just one right at least yeah okay okay um does anybody else do you have um before we go and vote on it I'm going to say the same thing thank you to everybody that showed up here today thank you for all of your comments definitely listen to everybody I read all of the comments that were submitted I
112read everybody's email I've had conversations um the board is listening this is probably one of the only policies we have actually sent out for public review twice ever so we understood we heard you and how important it was to have your input on this policy again I want to I know Andrew called out leadership and um but Wendy has been an amazing champion on understanding because of her law background and nuances of uh the the bills coming in and at us uh and it is our duty as the board to ensure that we are in compliance with state law and policy and um as a result I feel like through the iteration to the conversations do the meetings I have sat in over the past month that we have done that with uh policy 9050
113to address and keep exactly what Andrew said that the parents get the choice that it keeps that choice there so with that being said um can I please get a motion um or do we you know are we already have motion so are we all too approve and adopt the budget or adopt a policy okay that's what I'm thinking about now I'm sorry I love to adopt policy no it'll be all in favor all right searching them so we'll move with the name all right we are now back to public comment now that we're in at five o'clock does anybody have any public comment not pertaining to the policy yeah with that yeah if you want to come up and yeah so I appreciate you know the the board uh you know giving us the
114opt-out options and as a means of trying to accommodate the various you know feelings on on this issue um I'm concerned that that complies with a lot because as I read Sean reyes's letter from back in June um he talks about the brightline rule you're probably familiar with that and how there are certain materials that just absolutely violate this bright line and it's the onus was on the school district to remove that not on the parents to come and make a complaint about a particular book I mean are you addressing that in any way in terms of the brightline rule well yeah I think if you read the admin rules as well you got a delay and i f um review those extensively what the the house bill actually itself does not even say it
115would it asks is that your selection and your reconsideration of books relates to what is defined as sensitive material and then so the way we've amended our policy is that you can refer to sensitive materials as defined by House Bill 3 said well not House Bill 374 that references the definition all of the other laws that reference the definition you are allowing for the selection and the consideration or the reconsideration of a book through the lens of this new definite the definition of sensitive materials that's what the house bill asks you to do and to have a policy that allows for that selection reconsideration our policy allows for that through this committee that we've created or written about designed in our Amendment it is not say like the problem if you take like the lack
116of the brightline rule the issue becomes am I is the house bill did not ask me to go in tomorrow I'm one person and um review every Library every single material before we issue any more reading instructional materials or check out a book at the library to go back and review every single bit of material right now and remove it if the selection and reconsideration of it in line with the house bill and the administrative rules related to that house bill Falls within that then we have to do that we have to reconsider it and we have to um look at whether or not that should be part of our schools there is an argument that not the having a brightline rule and not applying what was the Miller test and traditional um in other
117cases about obscenity and stuff is actually we're nuancing the balancing um the lack of infringement on somebody else's right to have that material path school to have the opportunity to read that um there's a lot of other arguments on the other side of this that we suddenly get to if you start Crossing that infringement line so the fact that and there are questions about the constitutionality of that can I ask one other question yeah yeah um I'd be interested in the words thoughts on on how the First Amendment kind of impacts all of this because I I see other uh not in 1950 but other policy that the school district has there's there's policy for instance on religious and political uh materials and and the way that can or can't be discussed uh in in
118a classroom with the students and you know nobody is asserting First Amendment rights to come into a classroom where the teacher has the right to uh you know makes an effort to convert a student to a particular political view or a religious view so why in this case you know are we it seems like it seems like we're treating this much differently but I I'd kind of have your view on on how First Amendment uh assertions you know play into into this well I think we should probably maybe move this to a conversation with um not in public open public comment I would just say that the House Bill calls upon us to create a policy to consider material at the incense the sensitive materials that's been defined by our legislature and we are dealing
119with that sensitive material definition and they have not done the same in if let's say let's bring up religion outlining what is considered religious or not in the same way we're actually the the in the infringement on First Amendment rights it's an entire conversation that's not actually the what the house bill so it's if you're asking why are we doing this here step differently it's because the house bill 374. it's not because well I just I think that's the First Amendment right I just heard that the district is kind of alleging some of the First Amendment rights that they can't tell teachers no not about what teachers can't offend it no that's not I sorry if that's how that landed that comment was related to the infringement on First Amendment rights by defining certain material
120to be pornographic and so a student by that nature we cannot have any of those books in school that includes language that is considered by a bill to be insensitive material and which is the least of the worries it's actually considered to be pornographic whereas for somebody reading that book very you're not infringing if you're telling me let's just play the role I can't have my child read that book at my public school because um to you it creates porno it's pornography under the insensitive materials at the house bill that says it's sensitive materials and thereby therefore pornographic I you could be friends and that could be infringing on my child's rights who does not read that or it's not it's free language obscenity is that's a problem right yeah so the way that the
121craziness about education is that we're subject to federal laws first and the state laws that and then local laws right which normally isn't controversial it got controversial during Covenant right because the the laws and the guidance were very different from the federal government and the local governments and state governments it's debatable now right and we've already had you know inquiries on the other side which are saying okay there's entities that want to challenge the state law right so here we are we find ourselves trying to be compliant with federal law and state law if we ban a ton of bugs we're going to get sued under the First Amendment if we have books that have pornography according to the state of Utah we're violating state laws and so the challenge that we have which is
122an impossible challenge is to somehow sit on the fence in the middle and make sure the parents the best that's what I'm saying like the best scenario is that the parents get the final say yes right because otherwise it's a decision that's so far removed from your family from my family about what our families should have what our kids should learn and that's why it's a tough situation right it's not that any of us are groomers or we want to promote some kind of crazy ideology it's that we're stuck in the middle of bad laws that we have to try to be in compliance on and that's that's why it's brought up I would just I would just appreciate if you would continue to have even if you're going to pass the policy today that
123you would be willing to continue to have dialogue there's obviously a lot of people that are you know yeah but you guys are different so it's like how do we get this how do we implement it right how do we figure out how to do it and there's going to be multiple iterations yeah and you know there's some people here who are here four or five years ago when we had a similar conversation and it was very respectful you know at times it wasn't but it ended up being a very respectful conversation we were like holy cow we didn't even have a committee actively looking at approving curriculum which is materials we didn't have parents looking at it we didn't have any type of procedures around it and that was raw and we wouldn't have
124known that had had people not come forward and said look guys this is messed up and so we're totally in agreement like just just like we don't want people telling us you know how we should Vote or what religion we should be or anything like we want parents to make that decision so it's going to be boppy but I encourage you and everyone to continue to be involved and get this right so that kids are the ones who benefit right no one wants the kids to suffer no one wants them to have uncomfortable you know moments or few things that they don't want to do or be exposed to things that they're not comfortable with or their parents are comfortable with it's not what we're about we want everything that's why we live in Utah
125right we want families to decide that if I wanted to if I wanted to have someone decide for me I'd live in New York City right I don't live there I live here right because I want families to figure that out all right I appreciate it thank you thank you just put your name down so I don't want to probably comment I want to just ask what everybody's talking about the book was written in 2007 right and the law existed in 2007 defining what the pornography is so how that book got in the support well since 2013. this was a one book one One Way exactly can you explain what that means everybody knows what that means one book one Community or one Canadian one book yeah it was an initiative or a movement Across
126the Nation to encourage reading um and typically a public library would select a book or materials and then all age groups are invited or encouraged to read that book together as a family it and writing there becomes like an author in Residence and that's the kind of program that was um supported in the community by the library and a bunch of other um that supported that bought the book so wide variety of books and this was just one of those and then after the book had been uh talked about in one book one Community then those people that didn't want to keep the book I think probably donated them over and then that just became so that we have enough copies of right that everybody um can then read so someone doesn't comply with the
127law that's cool can accept that as a school well so that's where that's debatable right it's like right but but like all laws right they're open to interpretation by the courts and until someone challenges that specific book and says this is pornography and someone arbitrates that and decides it's it's not you know it's great right like there's there's one family who thinks it's pornography there's another family who thinks it's acceptable content you know and that's and that's that's the that's where we are right that's where the law is in the law that's what the board was talking about the board wasn't saying oh we like this law or we don't like this law what the board was saying is that this is a very challenging implementation because all of us are laying people we are
128not the ones who um work and we're not all attorneys so it's at this law it's a little bit flawed because it's asking every school district to make their own decision on whether something is or is not based on uh training that doesn't exist and I just if that book was written in 2012 usually you're talking about five years you'll help keep something in the school but um typically books do stay longer um anthologies stay longer uh there is a library reading policy however we read through books that typically every 10 to 12 years if something is not checked out regularly it is removed so I know one of the books that people had a question about it was checked out one time the whole time it was here in the library since 2008. so
129it's not even a book that really caught the students interests so on why we're keeping something so then that gets immediated you don't want to remove this book as a if you don't want any material can you just like say this is not outdated and it's not when things are outdated they can be weeded as part of that policy process normal processes weeding materials when something does come up as sensitive though no one person themselves can make the decision it needs to be a committee all the way through to make that decision you know what this book is already here like more than whatever years let's just take it out let's put something new well it is being challenged right now you're going to just go like a full um yeah it's not even within
130one person's purview it's Dr gillay said yeah no one person can do that without it causing a big American civil liberties uh civil rights challenges civil rights challenge so we would not be able to do that as one person but certainly as things age out if people are not checking them out we do but there's a lot of the cuticles it's not mandatory but there's always an option you always have an alternate not everybody loves all of you so the option was like a like a much bigger book which is that those operations up can continue to consider those other opt-out books but I I don't I think education my kids from so many things they really don't like kids and they feel excluded and it's like it's embarrassing for them and they're only in
131the fourth grade so that's where I'm sitting here I don't want to wait five more years from the table being the position I will be opting them on they will be picking on my toe or whatever your mommy doesn't want you to read it you know we're happy some of us are sitting here and answer them and chat with you we also have other board members have to leave so I make a motion to adjourn to our next regular session meeting on November 15th at 4 pm I make emotions second um it has