SLCSD Board Meeting, January 20, 2026 5:30 PM

001Little puff. >> Yeah. >> Are they good? >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you everybody for joining us. We're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. [snorts] Today is January 20th, 2026. Uh we are here for the purposes of a Salt Lake City School District Board of Education business meeting. I do want to just take a couple of moments to recognize and welcome uh folks who are here with us or attending virtually from our association presidencies. We have our classified association groups building and grounds is Sam Gilchrist. Child nutrition is president Tanya Slaughter. Um for SLEA the Salt Lake Education Association, the Everpresent President Mike Harmon and Vice President Chelsea A Costa for the Salt Lake Association of School Administrators or SLAsa. Um today we have Adriana Pinto, assistant principal at Northwest

002who's attending and they're represented by Tom Luthie as their president. Um thank you for joining us this evening. Um now we will move on to the pledge of allegiance and I've asked President Mike Harmon to lead us in the pledge this evening. Thanks Mike. >> Aliance to the flag of the United States of America >> and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Uh we don't have any recognitions this evening. So we'll move right on to our consent agenda and I'll entertain a motion. >> I move that we accept the consent agenda as posted. >> Second every time [laughter] a motion, a second. Hey, we're consistent, you know. Is there any discussion to the motion or any items on the consent

003agenda? >> [snorts] >> Amanda, >> thank Yeah, thank you. Um I I will point this out later in our hiring process discussion, but I do want to point out that um this is a HR report um for I think it was January. I was just getting ready to pull it out specifically what date and uh it includes 12 special education parah hires. So, we're how many months into the uh school year and we are still hiring for our special education department. So, this is an area we need to focus on to resolve [clears throat] this. So, that's that's my piece. >> Thank you, Amanda. Brian, >> could I just have a followup on that? And I guess it would maybe this would be directed to Logan. Okay. So we're working of course on having those

004for sped. Is it just challenging to find sped para profofessionals? Is that I mean it's not like we're laxed and we're just getting around to it now. No, we've been working on this since before this beginning of the school year. >> It's a combination of all sorts of things. It is a complicated issue. Absolutely. We are not being lax laxidasical. That is not the issue. Um but it's a matter of turnover, a matter of um a limited number of candidates applying for those positions. Um and so just a a mixture of multiple things going on at the same time. Um and timing of the year. Oftentimes we see a lot of turnover at the end of the the fiscal year, not the fiscal year, but end of the calendar year. Okay. And you know, around

005the semester time. And so we do tend to see an uptick in December and January in hourly positions turning over um just because a lot of our um employees in those fields um happen to be college students and they're finishing up a December semester um going on to different things as they graduate possibly or move on to something new in their educational career. So, it's it's it's a mixed bag and so matter of getting hires through um is a matter of getting people to apply and um making sure we've got hiring managers taking action as quickly as possible. >> Well, thank you. I mean, that's helpful to have that kind of explanation. And then just one follow-up question. As I have been looking at districts across the Wasatch front, they all seem to I mean

006this seems to be the bus driver problem playing out playing out in spent or what am I accurate in that? >> Absolutely. I would say >> so we're competing with lots of districts. >> We are. Yeah. I'd say those are the two two of the biggest pain points for school districts across the state and probably across the country is in special education and uh transportation. >> Okay, thanks. >> Of course. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Can I take a second round? >> Seeing none. Yes. >> Thank you, Brian, for those questions. I really appreciate it. I do want to emphasize just we do have an upcoming discussion on the hiring process which I do have uh some additional questions along with what you were asking Brian but then we also um at the

007second meeting in February are going to have a study session around this particular issue and I'm hoping that's going to be a starting point in disseminating it. It's just I I want people to be aware this is and the reason I continue to bring this up is it's not a oneanddone. This is an ongoing issue and as Logan alluded to, there are several factors that play into it. So, if we can chip away at it as a team to um decrease the contributors to the problem, then that's the ultimate goal so that we can better serve our students and our teachers. >> Thank you, Amanda. All right, seeing no other comments on the consent [clears throat] agenda motion, I will do a roll call vote starting with board member Williams. >> Bryce Williams, yes. Charlotte

008Feif Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Snake Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. [clears throat] >> Amanda Long, yes. >> Thank you, board. Uh, we will now move on in our agenda to our request to speak. We have two uh folks who've signed up this evening. And before I get started, um, I do have a statement that the board has asked me to read. Uh, we enjoy the opportunity to hear from the public during the comment portion of its meetings. Uh before we begin, I just like to take a moment to remind you of our board rules governing your comments. One, the total time reserved for public comment is not to exceed 15 minutes with all speakers or groups limited to three minutes. The board will not allow public comments

009during board meetings that are slanderous, obscene, or otherwise violate state or federal law. Employees and or their representatives may not use the public comment period to address issues that should be raised through existing formal communication channels or established grievance or negotiation procedures. I'd also like to explain that unless the speaker's topic is already on the agenda, state law prohibits the board from taking action on items raised during the public comment period. However, if it seems appropriate to the circumstances, I may direct district staff to follow up with a speaker on the topic discussed. Uh the first speaker this evening is Matt Larson. Matt, are you with us this evening? >> Okay, I'm not seeing him. And board members, you do have written comments included in your folder uh for your reference and we'll make sure

010that those are attached to our minutes as well. Our next speaker is Alex J. Robinson. Alex, >> please join us at one of the podiums or you can sit at the table, whatever works best for you. I >> appreciate your time. I've never done this before. Um, this uh idea has been shot down many times before, but I think based on current scientific enhance advancements that uh it is worth talking about again and that is the topic of intelligent design taught in schools. It's a courts have even shot it down. So there's some legal barriers there. But there's a lot of things in science that um support it and give it more support than evolution. evolution um you you're all familiar I'm talking about the origin of life I'm not talking about um adaptation or

011mutation those are scientific facts I I believe are scientific facts but I'm talking about origin of life and there's so many things that point to it I used to believe quite a bit in evolution until I read the book signature in the cell and basically it's a the DNA that's in each cell is like a computer program I used to program computers so I know a little bit about programming but it's very specific and non-random OM and basically uh statistically impossible for it to have happened on its own. And so and I know many of you are thinking wow is this just some push for religion in school. I say it's not. It's actually you need to teach proper scientific principles to kids so it's scientific advancements can be made. If a if a theory

012can't be supported anymore, it should be lessened or another theory, you know, taught also that helps explain what's going on in the world and in in life. Um there's so much about this uh uh the statistics in in this. Um for instance, no scientist has been able to create a living cell from the elements of the earth without using an existing cell. So no scientist to date. Some say that it's possible and that they're getting close, but if they could even if they could do it, it would prove it took an incredible amount of intelligence to create that life. And so this I think it's a very important topic. Um there's so many things too. Um not only would for life for life to happen, uh not just one cell created, but all kinds of

013different cells and all different kinds of life forms. And for them to exist, they'd have to be in an environment like this earth. that it has the earth has life exists here primarily because it's the right distance away from the sun. We've got the right atmosphere, got the right water, everything. It's it's a lot there's a lot of fine-tuning that something or someone has done to make life possible on this earth. And I think it's very important that this I I feel it'd be important for this to be taught in schools. And there, like I say, there'd be some legal challenges. I'm an attorney. I've studied the First Amendment. um it seems that there's some kind of real bias against such the intelligence design being taught in schools. Uh it's there's a real bias against

014it, but it has more I believe it has more um factual basis that evolution does. And uh that's it. U I'll just if you have any questions, I'm glad to talk. I'm sorry I didn't pre present anything in print beforehand. I kind of did this on spur of the moment. >> Thank you for joining us tonight. >> Thank you. >> Take care. All right. We'll move into our reports agenda. Uh the first item there is hiring process update. Um I see Mr. Hall joining us. Dr. Grant, is there anything that you wanted to say before we get started? >> Just appreciate the work that's been done. Um Dr. Hall and Dr. Taylor and updating our processes that way and what we're doing this year differently than we have done before in this district. So, there's

015some good changes that we've already started and glad that um executive director Hall can speak to those. >> Awesome. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and give you an update on what we've been up to the last couple of months in kickstarting our hiring process specifically for our school-based uh administrators. So, the hiring process update really is for um changes that we've made to our school-based administrator hirers. Um, so I'm asking my friend Sam to help with the PowerPoint presentation so we can move through that. So if we go to the second slide, I really just want to give you some highlights, an overview of why we're doing this because over the past few years, uh, I've been asked, you know, why do we hire later on in the year? What is it

016that's holding us up from, uh, moving quicker once we do have openings and things like that? So that's provided the impetus behind creating some changes to our hiring process. And so what I've done in conjunction with uh fellows in my office and uh with Dr. Taylor's team is to make sure that we are starting at a much earlier um time in the in the school year. So in fact in October of this school year, we opened our administrative pool in order to start our recruitment process. So much earlier in the in the school year for looking in October for the following school year to be looking for school administrators for the upcoming school year. the process updates that we've been able to do really allow us to identify top talent much earlier in the system

017um and also improve communications throughout and I'll speak to that a little bit more but really the primary thing and the primary objective is to have much more competitive timing and have a more aggressive um and upfront process and that helps both us and the candidates because we want the candidates to know what the procedure looks like when somebody applies for a job in October. October that doesn't even start possibly until July of the following year. It's important for my office to be able to keep in communic constant communication with these individuals so that they know what to expect and know what's coming so that they don't run away and look for something else somewhere else because we want to be able to recruit and retain that that top candidate. So, if you can move

018to the next slide. Um like I was saying, the intention of the earlier timeline really is to um make sure that we're getting the best candidates. So, so far in the game, what we've done is start the recruitment much earlier and we've also initiated a different kind of screening process. So, my hope there is that it's actually going to um put in more time and effort up front from district office staff and will reduce time spent at the school. And so what happened in November is my colleague Nathan Elkins and a menagerie of uh area directors and principles from the schools did an initial screening of over 80 candidates. And so that initial screening was really looking for people who have the the correct dispositions that we're looking for in a school leader. And so

019they were able to take that pool of over 80 and whittle it down to just over 30 candidates that Dr. Taylor and I are in the process of interviewing. We'll finish those second round interviews this week. And so the second round interview with Dr. Taylor and I is really looking at the individual much more in depth to be able to say what skills, experience, and attributes are they bringing to the job. So then we can place them in appropriate pools. This is only round two of what can be four and what ultimately is going to be four rounds of interviews for these candidates. Like I said, we're having to constantly communicate what is happening, where they stand in the process, and and what to expect at the very next stage. So, the next thing um

020Sam, if you move to the next one, the the next part of the process, what we're going to do is once we have school openings, because right now we don't have any. And so as soon as we have another u as soon as we have an opening in a school we have a vacancy we we've identified we'll be able to tell the school these are top candidates we've already pre-selected interview this group of candidates and tell us who you think are the best candidates out of that. So then they can send back their top candidates from that smaller pool without having to do pre-screening of what could be up to 80 candidates, which is very common for us to get um 80 plus candidates for administrator positions. So it's going to increase the um rapidity

021in which we can turn around the interview or the application interview and selection process. That's going to happen much quicker once we have vacancies uh identified. and then the school selection committee sends back their top two or three candidates for Dr. Grant's uh final interview and and ultimate approval and and placement. So, what we're really looking for is quicker response time at the school level once we have vacancies identified. It's less work for the school level committee, but we still want to integrate their insight. What is that school looking for? because a principal at one school and one particular area is going to be very different than what the needs are at a different school because our school community cultures are very different and we want to be able to honor that with this added

022flexibility. So, it's a push and shove or give and take is a better metaphor there. It's a give and take between, you know, making it a more expedited process with also honoring that our school communities have a lot to say and and we want to make sure we're making the right pick for the right position. Um, so it does give us greater flexibility in that and also I'm hoping to improve the candidate experience because they're getting um much more consistent communication from the human resource office in that they know that their applications have been submitted. they know where they stand in the application pool so that they can plan and expect to hear back from us at certain intervals. So that part's working really well. Um so if you go to the next one, what's

023next in the process? Like I said, the we're in that time of year where people are going to start telling us if they're going to retire at the end of the year and if somebody's else is moving or something like that. So over the course of the next few months is when we're going to start having vacancies identified and then like I said we'll give schools a pre-selected group of individuals highly recommended individuals to interview from and then we'll have final interviews here at the district office with the superintendent for that final candidate placement. So that's going to help us move much much quicker. So Sam, if you move to the next slide. Um there are a few limitations to this. Um and and really the biggest limitation is when we are notified of of

024when a vacancy is going to happen. And so um we ran into issues last year when we had vacancies open in June. And so that made things very difficult because in the middle of June is not the best time that we want to be recruiting our top talent. Luckily, we got some really good administrator uh candidates this last year and we have some good people in place, but it took an extraordinary amount of effort to be able to make that happen. And so we're working now to mo move much quicker and be able to um just act at a faster rate. And so hopefully that will help with those those issues. And also a big goal of mine is to use this opportunity to recruit new candidates whether they're selected or not. Everybody that we

025interact with is a consumer of the school district in one way or another. And we want to be able to cultivate our applicant pools so that as they interact with us throughout the interview process, even if they're not selected, I want to encourage them to want to come back and work for us again later on. So, it's always a a matter of gaining affinity for the district, making sure that we're building ourselves up and and having the best experience for for candidates, even if they're not the selected candidate for this particular position because something else is likely to open up in the future, and we don't ever want to burn those bridges. So, with that, that's all we've got. I open it up to questions. >> Amanda, >> um I'm not familiar with the process

026before. for I'm going to throw out all my questions first because I have a tendency to run out of time and then if I need to repeat anything just let me know. Um but I'm not familiar with what the timeline of the processes were before. So I would love a review of that. >> Um and then um >> let's see. So you said that the second round of interviews is roughly January 23rd. It could be up to four rounds. And so, uh, like what do you estimate being the timing of the fourth round for that individual to know that they're being hired for that position for that upcoming school year? In addition to when would it be made um when would it be posted that that individual will be taking over the administration role of

027a said school so that they um can start digging into whether they have their teacher hires they need their pair supports you name it. Um because that's part of that piece [snorts] is them getting in and doing their hiring initiation initiating their hiring practices in time so they're not steamrolling the problem. Um and then uh when you're saying that that's going to the school for their selection, who generally makes up that um committee? And then also um uh you said some of the limitations on this is when you're notified of vacant vacancies. I'm aware of some past chatter before I was on the board that um principles would uh hold off on their notification because they were concerned about um making sure that their timing they would reach their obtain all their benefit be fully

028benefited. So what could be done to uh mitigate that concern so that um their exit timing doesn't cause that problem so that they're more willing to give that advanced notice to help the process. Um, and then when you're saying administration, just clarity, is this for principles or also for assistant principles for these schools? So, those are all my questions. >> Okay, thanks. I'll try to answer all. The last one is the easiest one. The process is both for principles and assistant principles. Um, a brief overview of the previous timeline. So, and and this dubtales into your second question as well is that previously we wouldn't um nec we had a pool of candidates in the past as well, but what was different is we would individually post when a position becomes vacant. And so that

029that is the tricky part is knowing what position we might need to fill. And so and and so in order to answer your third question about the timeline of when that might happen, it really depends on when we're notified of of potential vacancies and and being able to see like, well, if nobody's told me they're not coming back next year, I don't know that we have an opening. >> Well, how does that differ from the October 22nd um start of this interview process? Wouldn't that still be the same problem? Potentially, >> it is. And so that's what I'm saying is a limitation. So if we don't get any resignations until May, we're not going to be able to take step three and step four in the process until we get those resignations and we know

030that they're actual openings that are happening >> to start that process. >> Exactly. >> For that. >> So we have we have an incentive um that just ended last week where we asked employees if they're contract employees if they're going to retire at the end of the year to let us know. and they receive a a nominal stipen to be able to say thank you for your efforts and letting us know um in advance but like you said sometimes people don't um and whether that's on purpose or because they just simply don't know right now because you know life happens rather fast sometimes and so I might not think I'm leaving this year but maybe something happens in you know April or May that that might change that answer and so um that's why I'm

031saying over the course of the next few months we'll learn more and more of potential openings for the next year. This time last year, I knew of one vacancy and we ended up hiring, I believe, 19 different administrators um in the school year last year. So, that's the timeline really is the hard part of we don't know what's coming. And so, this process of doing more of the pre-work up front is going to allow us to act quicker once we do have notifications. >> So, ideally, if you're starting October 22nd, your second round's the very fourth. You might have a third and fourth. What would that timeline potentially be for the third and fourth? That depends on whenever um a vacancy happens. So if >> somebody started October 22nd >> as far as being aware

032of >> oh if somebody had notified us already we could start that we're in that process we would start that ball rolling right away. So in the in the event somebody sends me their resignation this evening and say oh Dr. Taylor here we are we've got this resignation. If we aren't intending to move a current administrator into that um position, that becomes an opening. We can then turn around and the very next week say I say next week just because we haven't finished that second round of interviews but next by next week we would be able to say here are your candidates call them schedule an appointment as quickly as possible and get the ball rolling so that we would have a one to two time one to two week turnaround time for the school

033to do their interviews and send back their finalists to the superintendent for selection. >> Okay. Okay. So, for clarity, you're you're recruiting candidates and when these positions open, then you've already got a pool that you've got available for whenever these vacancies occur that you're already like kind of staff, so to speak, for the vacancies. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> And then who's typically on the committee on at the building level? >> At the building level, it differs between whether it's an assistant principal or a principal. Um but, uh in either case, you've always got staff members, teachers um and and ESP staff as well. Um the hiring committees for school uh school principles are run by the area director who report directly to Dr. Taylor. Um and so it just depends on there's community members, staff

034members um and the area director overseeing that that committee and they um first develop what they call what we call is the um uh leadership dispositions like what the school values and what they're looking for in a leader. And so that's the work that Dr. Taylor and I are doing is to piece that together and say these are the candidates we think best fit that need and um streamline this the screening so it's it's a already done for them essentially. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Ashley, >> I think this is just a really good step. I know people have been advocating for changes. I know starting this year with vacancies was really hard and I appreciate all your work on this. I want to clarify this only refers to administrative hires, right?

035not teaching hires. >> That's correct. >> Um and with that in mind, are we doing anything across the board to push for sharing that intent to retire or resign sooner knowing that that is a big challenge? >> We we did open that slightly. Sorry to cut you off, but we did open that slightly sooner. Um it's typically like um first week of December, you know, right around Thanksgiving time. So, we have that window open from around Thanksgiving to the beginning of the new calendar year. Okay, that helps. Um, and I ask the teacher and administrative clarifying question because I think moving on administrators first makes sense because obviously it's a smaller pool of people. You can see if this approach works and how we might address it. I know that especially when it comes to

036like retaining student teachers in our district, we have some difficulty where people put in to a pool, they don't hear back. We then lose them to a charter school or, you know, to another district which is open and a lot of those people who've been in our district and want to stay cannot stay. Is there any, you know, our student board member might be able to speak to this having a parent who was a student teacher who is now at a charter school unfortunately for us. But the I mean the real question is knowing that that's been a challenge. We have this you know going through for our administrative needs. Is there any kind of like intent to look at the student teacher hiring process or any you know subsequent follow-up to this that we

037could expect? >> Uh nothing is planned necessarily for that but student teachers and wanting to retain them is always top of my priority list. Um, a few years ago, neighboring districts had engaged in some interesting practices where they were recruiting our student teachers and just saying, "Here's an open contract. Don't you want it?" And they would just make them sign essentially because it's like, "Oh, I'm a fresh college graduate. I don't have a job. I just need something to make sure I'm paying the bills after I graduate." Um, and so I combed that with with having frank conversations with our our student teacher candidates to be able to say you need to hold on just a little bit because Salt Lake is a little bit behind in our teacher hiring process. Usually we're also one

038of the only districts in the state that have started with teachers in every classroom um without classroom teacher vacancies for the last few years. So we we have a good um I guess just a response rate in being able to fill teacher positions for the most part. There are certain pain points, special education, mathematics, um physics, you know, harder to fill positions that just inevitably there just aren't enough licensed candidates in the whole state to fill all the state um positions. So it's that's a huge challenge in those those particular areas. But the um the issue at hand of like trying to recruit our student teachers, Kelly May who works in our office um works directly with the student teacher placements and meets with those student teachers regularly um just in order to increase that

039affinity. I was like I was talking about earlier saying like we want you to be here and helping them understand what that application process is like and so that we don't lose them. The hard part too is that as we've been declining, it's harder to get into the district as a new teacher when we have positions open. It's often that we're gaining experienced teachers over somebody who's novice. And so, um, I've also seen the situations where a student teacher candidate will have to go to a charter school or another district to start and they'll be there for a few years and they will come back. And so my hope is if we lose them at first, we we get them back eventually. That's why I was trying to say earlier about we're never going to

040lose ties with somebody unless we burn that bridge from the start. And so I want to make sure that the hiring process in all of our areas is um a positive one, you know, even if you're not the the lucky candidate. >> And having administrative teams in place will obviously facilitate teacher hiring processes as well. So, I look forward to hearing how this goes. If it worked better, if we see improvements at the start of next year. Is that the soonest we would hear an update from you is when we're looking at these HR reports. >> Um, as is been my practice the last few years, I send out announcements when we do administrative hirings. So, you'll be able to see I'll send emails as um we make any hire for our administrative ranks in

041the next few months. >> So, I'll send those emails out as I get them. >> Thanks, Ashley, Brian. >> [clears throat] >> Yes. So, I appreciate the clarification and that was my understanding that we're talking about administrators, >> correct? >> And I think it's really beneficial that we're now moving that up and you're generating this pool that you were referring to of great candidates that you can draw from, but you don't know what you're going to need yet. You've just got the pool. That's what you were explaining. >> That's right. Mhm. >> Amanda, I just wanted to make sure I understood that. Okay. I don't know the exact process for administrators. I wasn't an administrator, but I was a teacher. Okay. And when you're talking about like sending out the please let us know if

042you're thinking about retiring and all of that, the way that it used to come and I don't know if it still is the same. um if you'll let us know by and I'm pulling this out of the air February 15th um we'll give you $500 as kind of an incentive for letting us know. The thing that I can tell you is there are lots of teachers that are going, you know what, $500 is not enough. And I'm not saying that they're being difficult. they really don't they're not sure >> but I know that there are other districts that are out there offering substantially more um so does that same sort of thing work with administrators? Are they >> okay? So are they being offered $500? Is that what it is? It's exactly >> so to

043me that's part of the problem here. Um, yes, we've got the pool and I'm glad that we've got the pool, but the problem is or where I think it starts to break down is getting a more timely notification as to whether they're retiring, resigning, whatever it is they're going to do. Um, I don't know if you have any thoughts on how to address that. I know because we've got a business administrator over here that's thinking, "Hey, Brian, you know, we just can't spend money willy-nilly. I [snorts] get all of that." Okay. But to me, there's the practicality of, "Yeah, we got the pool, but now we've got a breakdown over here." >> Do you have any ideas on how to address that? I do believe it comes down to money and I would have to

044defer to BA cures. >> Well, I want to be clear on what the $500 is incented to do. It's not a retirement incentive, but a notification incentive. So, it's, hey, if you know you're going to retire, let us know by this time. Not, hey, are you weighing your options? and and maybe you will and maybe you won't because clearly $500 isn't going to um sway that. It's you already know you've done your 30 years, you're going to retire. Just let us know ahead of time. So that's the intent of the $500. Um and I've said it multiple times and I'll say it again. Um you know because you look at these big dollar amounts that some districts pay out. I would rather rather use that money for the people who are going to come back

045next year and teach versus people who are leaving employment. Um that's my opinion. Um but um I I'm I I've held to that opinion for years and I keep holding to it >> and I appreciate you're holding to that and I am not set I mean I agree with that argument but what I am trying to suggest is there's the practicality of and I think it's a fine line when you're talking about like intent to resign and because I think that there are some people that they're going you know what I I think I'm not but I'm not sure. Or I mean, I think I'm going to, but I'm not sure. And the $500, it's like, you know what? I got to keep my options open. Do you see what I'm saying? And that's why

046I I think we have this challenge in this specific area. So, I'm not just saying, okay, we got to throw a bunch of money at it. But I am saying to me that is a [snorts] problem with >> with what we're trying to resolve >> is something that Logan said is we start the school year mostly largely staffed. >> So I think a lot of these districts that are throwing more money at it are tired of starting the school where they don't have teachers in classrooms. >> Okay? >> You know and so uh we don't have that issue. I mean maybe a few targeted areas but as a whole we don't have that issue so um why put money towards it? >> Okay and then one more followup in my time. So have you built

047into this because you were talking about you know trying to get the placement get the principle where they're supposed to be as soon as you can. Have you built in any kind of a like cut off for Okay. What I'm getting at and I you're now smiling. [laughter] Okay. What I have seen happen is okay. You place a principle and you took the principle from somewhere else. Okay. So now that one's open and so then we have this domino effect of oh this reshuffleling. Well, then I got to move over here and then I'm going to move over here. There were some really detrimental situations just a couple of years ago when we've got a new principal, you know, coming to elementary school in my precinct like a week before school is start. To me,

048that's a problem. >> I agree. So I think somewhere in here we ought to be building in because I understand that if you're you know employee of the district and you know you're able to I mean you have priority all of that sort of thing but it seems to me like there ought to be a cut off somewhere because what it's doing it's okay who always gets hurt the students. >> Okay that's my spiel. >> Thank you Brett. Yeah, thank you for um your presentation and for this process. Just a couple comments. Um I I do want I think it's a good problem to have that we're retaining a lot of teachers. I would just like to say that I mean I think we're talking about like they need to tell us but if people

049aren't wanting to leave that's a positive thing. Um, and I'd like to point that out and I'm hoping that the teachers and staff in the district and administrators in the district know that we do appreciate them and that we would love for them to stay. Okay. Um, the other thing is, um, I don't think I do think this, you know, $500 incentive or whatever to notify, um, I don't know how effective that is, but I also don't feel like there's a huge interest in getting into a bidding war with other districts of like just upping our incentives. I don't think that's going to really solve our problems. Um but I do think um my my main point and question is how involved are area directors with administrators? What is their communication channels like? I know

050they meet somewhat regularly or at least communicate via email. I would love for there to be a close enough relationship between area directors and administrators that they would have some open dialogue about retirement time or maybe I'm looking for a new challenge in my career and I want to move up from a assistant principal and my goal is in the next five years to become principal of XYZ. You know, I just think having those dialogues between the area directors or Dr. tailor with these administrators would be key in having a trusted relationship so that by the time a couple years down the road someone is ready to leave they can say hey you know what I think I've I'm ready to move on from here whether it's retirement or not so I'm willing to let

051you know as soon as I can and I'm not fearing some sort of retaliation or some thing because you are a trusted person with me who's helping me along my professional development and my career. What's that like? Is that happening or what's the status? >> I would like to defer to Dr. Taylor on that piece specifically on the conversations between the area directors and the principles, but largely I would like to say those are usually very good relationships where they are communicating. We get into trouble. We had two situations just this last school year where we had two great principles selected for one was selected as a superintendent of another district um later in May and one of our principles was selected for a board created position um here in our district in May as

052well and so we are sometimes our own worst enemies and and so to get back to Brand to Vice President Jensen's questions and point about are we building in a a system to catch anything like that domino effect. We want to make sure that we're always promoting from within because we want to develop and build our own leaders from within as much as we can because that helps sustain our our leadership development. Um but that does inevitably lead to a domino effect too. And so to combat the the domino effect, the built-in process is we have pool what Dr. Taylor and I are building are pools for principles and assistant principles. So, we'd be much faster in filling the holes left by any domino effect there. Um, but board member Romano about your comment about

053the um, you know, how do how do we get to the those conversations, get people to tell us more? Sometimes there are just things out of our control. Um, and so that we want to not be left in a lurch when situations like that do happen. And I'll let Dr. Taylor speak to the other part. Good evening everyone. We have formal as well as informal mechanisms for conversation. So you have your area directors with ro who rotate through the buildings and have those conversations with administrators but we also do so formally. Right now in our letters for leadership we just sent out a survey gauging administrative interest. Do you want to remain where you where you are? Are you looking for an additional challenge or anything like that? So we're trying to solicit that formally

054also. >> Okay, great. And um just a question about in those conversations is it built in that there's a time I don't know how they're structured. Is it more informal that they're talking or is there a time like it sounds like in a survey you're saying do you want to challenge in the conversation? Do they each have like professional development plans that the area director is looking at with them? >> Yes, ma'am. We have professional development plans. We also have situations where we we offer cohort groups. So like with our assistant principles to help develop them into principles, we have a formal strand for them that we do th Thursdays once a month. Also we do on Wednesdays informal groupings so they can come for topics. Let's say if we're working on budgeting, we might

055do a session on Wednesday about budgeting. They come give up their time. They learn about budgeting and things like that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other comments or questions for Logan Foss? >> Um I would like to I would like to echo Ashley. Um I think that it would be wonderful to be able to apply the new administrative timeline to teachers, although I understand that there's a staff limitation to the amount of applications that can be looked at at the same time. Um as she mentioned, uh I my mom was also in the application cycle. It was difficult because she totally wanted to be in the Salt Lake district, but if it's at the end of the application cycle, there are some decisions that have to be made. You know, if you're going to

056take a spot, wherever else. Um, and then in terms of student experiences, I've had some um experiences where we don't have a teacher for the first two weeks of the school year, which is always difficult. It's usually in those specialized positions, you know. Um, there acknowledged teachers for our IB program. Um, uh, we had a psychology vacancy just due to a teacher who had to leave at the last minute. Again, echoing those issues with knowing when staff were going to be retiring, how to kind of catch that information or have a pool ready. Um, I think that your dedication to maintaining those relationships with applicants, um, whether they are coming in in that later cycle or the earlier one to be able to draw on is definitely one of the best ways to solve it

057without throwing money at the issue. Um, because there are not always positions for every person who's trying to apply to a teaching field. So, there'll be people out there and we have had great replacements so far in the times when we do have a vacancy for a little while. Whenever someone does come along, it's a great find. So, thank you. >> Awesome. Thanks. I appreciate that. It's good to hear. >> Seeing other comments, we can jump to the second round of two minutes. If not, uh seeing none, Mr. Hall, thank you so much for all your efforts and um we're seeing some great progress and we look forward to more updates in the future. >> You're welcome. Thanks for the opportunity. >> Thank you. >> All right. Our next agenda item on the reports agenda

058is an update on school closure, grade re reconfiguration, and program transition process. Uh Dr. Grant, would you please introduce us? >> Sure. Doc, um Director Connelly is coming up, our G5 administrator, um on this report. And uh this is in response to the board's motion in December around the closure and what that means. And um I know there'll be questions about that um and [snorts] fulfilling that motion so we can discuss those too. But let's talk about what has been done so far, Brian. Where we are in supporting students in transitioning to new school settings next year. >> Thank you. >> Sam's working on it there. >> Test. >> There we go. Now that's working. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Grant. Thank you, board. Uh, two clarifications, uh, corrections before we get started here on

059the, uh, information that you've already received. They both are, uh, related to the number six and the number seven. And I am not trying to be trendy on this or or [laughter] be um, >> come on. This isn't the middle school student coming out in here in me, but [laughter] do it >> on the back of the memo. Um the back side in the uh paragraph that starts for Nibbly Park School students, the transa transition plan details the processes for supporting current uh seventh and eighth graders and it should be current sixth and seventh graders. There was that um mistake. And then, ironically enough, over on page seven of your document, um there was a um reference to the open enrollment period deadline, which should be February 6th. The uh February 6th, 5:00 p.m. is

060when open enrollment deadline ends, not the 7th. So, I just wanted to point those out before we begin. And um the just like to start with uh we've had um we've had numerous uh we've had numerous opportunities to begin the the discussion of and work toward um and putting pieces in place for the transition for our innovations students and our Nibbly Park seventh and uh sixth and next year sixth and seventh graders. Um the some of those conversations have been in school committee council meetings. Some have been in our uh school collaboration team meetings at those sites. U some have been in one-on-one through emails emails between me and the uh myself and the counselor at at one school or the administration. uh different ways of of talking with each other either through email or

061on the phone as well as the more formal settings as well. Um so with that the uh the docu document that um many helped put together um um all members of cabinet had some input on it some more than others obviously Dr. Hall and uh Logan Hall both with their parts and uh Dr. Taylor and uh Dr. Ruiz really did a great job of uh doing some organizing and I know uh being able to talk with a few of you as well regarding um the document that you see in front of you and um would you like me to go through the highlights of the document or open it up to questions? What would be the best way to have this >> to allow the board to respond to the memo? Okay. >> Rather than

062doing a whole separate presentation on that. So unless the board would like to go to do this differently, we can move to questions and discussion about the transitions. >> Sure. >> Maybe maybe we start with um innovations and then move to nibbly or do them together. Either one. Um we could do them together I would think. >> Okay. and um would encourage people that are watching or tuning in later. was something attached for the to the board meeting agenda. And so the board has had it for a few days and uh and would encourage everyone to take a look at it. Uh especially those uh families and and students of those uh who are uh going to be uh taking on a new um a new path, a new challenge next year. and we hope

063that this will help get that get that started beyond what's already happened in December and January so far. >> Thank you, Brad. Have Annie first. >> Uh, thanks so much for putting this together. I think um it definitely reflects that you took a lot of time for community input. Um, and I appreciate that because it wasn't kind of a one-sizefits-all answer. It was very customized. um which I think is kind of a reflection of this innovations population, the desire for a personalized learning plan. So I'm really grateful for that time that you've taken and so I'd like to thank all the employees who've helped with that. Um a couple of questions that I have in terms of this transition plan for innovation specifically. Um it sounds like there are several events in the plan that

064um would help families or um parents transition their students register and roll to a new school or a different school, I guess. Um ideally within the district, it looks like there's some undecided families. Um can you tell me if there's like any specific dates that have events planned to do these things? A lot of them were saying we are going to do this, we're going to do that, but a lot of them don't have dates. Is that right? >> Uh correct. There has been. Um first of all, I I do want to also thank the staff at innovations uh did 90% of the heavy lifting, the the work that they've put in on this so far. administration, counseling, teachers um have all worked really hard uh to help students start to uh get some clarity

065and focus around next steps for next year. There has been only one school community council meeting since I uh spoke to you all the beginning of December. Um the next SEC meeting, I believe, is in about a week um right toward the end of January. So, uh, we'll have some more there. And so I I bring that up in part because uh and there has been a couple uh uh SCT meetings uh the the school staff me uh school collaboration team meetings, but um a lot of that um getting the final uh dates [clears throat] and times more getting more precise with it is what's going to be coming over the months of February and March. uh much of the work will be in April and May as far as those transitions other than when

066the counselor have counselor has met with all but one of the 52 students um counselor or administration have met with them. So that started. As far as the different events, we don't have a clear timeline yet, but we'll be establishing that over the next uh you know few weeks and we'll be dependent on um any further direction or um information that I gathered tonight and am able to share with innovations too. If I can add to that, Brian, um I think some of your questions were about registration and getting making sure the kids had that information. Is that right? >> Oh, we do have those. Yes. >> Um and we'll be rolling out that registration timeline in the coming weeks. So, haven't added that as deadlines on this because we haven't put that out generally

067across the district. >> Okay. Um great. Uh and then just for this uh it looks like there are about four students who are hoping to go to Slickie and that has the deadline that you mentioned of February 6th. Um I'm just wondering if how we're helping to facilitate them to apply and if they have enough time to do that. >> Sure. Um there are still two and a half weeks until that time frame. Uh parents also received um information. So this information has come through individual meetings with students. um Parent Square, our communications department, also sent out um communication that I sent to them for on January 12th that said um that that did reference it said, "Hey parents, um I've got the actual email here uh that went out to all the ninth current

0689th, 10th, and 11th graders at um at Innovations for their parents that said uh February is this registration time is done here. Here's the link where you can go for it. Um and uh so that information we'll continue to send out and try to get out there so that people know that if they apply by that early enrollment deadline of February 6th and conversations that I've had with um Britney Powell, principal at um as Sixie has said, you know, we do have a lottery system, but that being said, if we know how many people want to be here and they have a registration in by uh by that February 6th deadline. That's what we can build around and what we can plan for. And she feels she feels, you know, very confident that, you know,

069uh that chances are very good. I don't want to say clearcut that everyone's going to get in. there are sometimes extenduating circumstances with a very maybe credit deficient student that we're working on to either build that credit deficiency or get in the right placement may perhaps at horizonte or another option. So I don't want to say across the board. Yep. Everyone is guaranteed to get in because those guarantees have never existed at at a district charter school. I think the chances are she said um the chances are far far better if they get information in by February 6 than if they wait till after and they start applying in March, April, May. So um she seemed very confident that we'd be able to accommodate um uh we're not talking the numbers here of 30 or

07040 juniors coming into her school and not knowing how to really work with that. We're talking in any one of the locations uh fewer than 10 students that have shown interest that that still might waver over the next two three weeks. We might have students who said something in December about hey I'm interested in east and now they're scratching their head and said m maybe I'm interested in west instead of east or vice versa. So, um, we know that these numbers can can change a little bit, but we think that, um, I think we do think that there is for this group of 52 students a wide range of where they'll be attending school next year and we'll continue to try to usher that in with that just giving them and their parents the information

071they need. >> Great. Um, in the memo there's a lot of um different activities and things that will happen including transitions over to counselors, tours of the building, you know, enrollment deadlines, etc., etc. Who is the ultimate owner making sure all of these things happen? So, uh, we've had some discussions around that and and, um, [snorts] our person in school leadership is where much of this resides. Um, Mindy Hol is our, uh, director over, not I can't remember the exact her exact title, but over school counselors, who also has Stacy Lindsay working with secondary school counselors with her. Um, I'd be uh Dr. Taylor and I uh do meet on a uh bimonthly basis. That number might go up as as we get closer to the some of this information needing to get out there.

072But with doc working through Dr. Taylor, which is where uh Mindy Hol is, that's that's her department to be able to do that. So me working with Mindy um continuing to work with uh having that conversation and really the um the innovations administration, the admin the innovations counseling um I I'll be I'd be working hand inand ultimately that does I am the G5 administrator and that transition um does come down to me trying to orchestrate that. That doesn't mean I'm doing every bit of that work because a lot of the work will be what the counselor is doing to contact the counselors. My my role in it will be working with Mindy to say what does that look like? How's that happening? What are the specifics of of where that's going on and how that's

073taking shape? So um ultimately um even though it isn't every um the transition process is um initiated the description of it is initiated in G5. It doesn't go into great detail because what we're going to do for sophomores this year was different than what we did for second graders a few years ago. So um we'll just we'll we'll have that that piece working and my job will be to try to continue And I do know who I'll be working with here in terms of uh our executive uh sorry our cabinet. Um Dr. Hall has been super responsive when I've asked her to work with me uh to to help. What does this look like here? Dr. Taylor, it'll be continuing to do that work and keep the ownership um in our district office of >>

074of the oversight. Yeah. And um but the responsibility for working out the individual transitions for students rests with the principal and the counselor. >> Yeah. And then um as Brian was saying, the oversight of that counselor connection particularly between schools lands with our student services director with Mindy Hol overseeing the counselors and making sure that because this the piece that we've um put in here that I think is so important is that warm handoff from one counselor to the next, helping those students get connected to the new school year and following on with knowing how they're doing as they enter into the new school year. >> Yeah, thanks. Um, I don't want to be too micromanagy, but I'm just a little type A and I'm worried someone's going to fall through the cracks. And so,

075I want there to be a project manager, which sounds like will be you, Brian, who even though you're not doing all the activities, you're tracking that they're done. >> Correct. and you're overseeing and collaborating saying, "Wait a second. We have only 50 students registered. What happened to those other two? Did anyone even talk to them? Did they get a warm handoff to their counselor?" Like, someone needs to be having the bird's eye view is my concern. I just don't want it to be slipped through the cracks because they're oh someone assumes X is doing it the east counselor is doing it where someone else thinks oh the administrator from innovations was going to do that you know I just want to make sure that it's actually overseen by one person who can have like ownership

076and communications across the board >> correct >> yes thanks >> um yeah that that's mainly my concern and and just the communications aspect in terms of the timeline. Again, not to be too micromanagy. You can tell I'm type A personality. Um, but I I think it would be beneficial if there's like, okay, here's one sheet if you want to go to East, the tours this day, and here's the enrollment period. This is um who you should talk to if you have questions about what classes you can be enrolled in, etc., etc., you know, then there's a different little information for each school that they can transition to. >> Sure. No less important, but because it is a smaller scale um hill uh hillside being the the the main school where our Nibbley Park students, we

077have we do >> I was still talking about innovation. >> Oh, I know. But we do have more specificity under Nibi Park just because we've been able to move further down that road so far. That's was my only reason of bringing that up is Nibi Park does have some more specific dates than what we have right now for innovations, but we will be getting those. Yes. >> Yeah. I'm just just generally referring to a quick reference sheet for parents. Okay. >> To be able to make sure they know what they're doing. If they're going to this school, then I need to do XYZ kind of thing. >> Thank you. I did want to make a a quick comment and then I'll get to board member Anderson. Um Brian, I just want to echo and Dr.

078Grant, um, Dr. Taylor, um, Mindy, um, what Annie was saying about this warm handoff and what that looks like, part of my decision calculus, um, when we made this call was kind of this assurance that students who expressed, um, a lot of value in the type of environment, that sense of belonging that they did have innovations, how could it be kind of replicated as they transition to a newer um, choice school um, within our district in particular? Um, and so I just want to make sure that and echo what Annie was saying that um, we really have to, in my opinion, keep track and monitor these kids um, as they move into their new placements next year. Um, so that's just all I wanted to say. You don't need to respond, but just me as

079a board member wanted to put that out there, too. Ashley. >> Yeah. So, I'm going to lead with something I think is concerning about the memo. It seems to indicate that staff do not intend to follow our motion which plainly directed that we create a program equivalent at a comprehensive high school and that motion did not have a metric for required uptake to carry the program. And so this sort of mirrors to me how our board's decision from late start came to be part of a legislative audit when we just did not follow the plain language. And I want all of us when we have this conversation to remember that when we as a board do not require staff to follow the votes that we make in open public meeting, we continue to face undesired,

080if warranted, state oversight. And so because this is a report, we can't act upon changing our original motion because it's now also within two meetings and will be past the procedural timeline to reconsider our initial vote if we follow our procedures. And that means that based on the plain language of our vote, an innovations program has to be creative to follow our motion, even if the scope or participation of that program is limited. So I'm concerned that the report essentially says there's not an intent to do that. And so before I ask my remaining three questions, I do want to understand how board leadership intends to ensure the plain language of our vote will be acted upon with fidelity before our next meeting when we get another update on this. Board member Anderson, I'll have

081to work with Brian and and Dr. Grant and Allen in our next leadership meeting and follow up with the board on that question. >> That'd be great. I just think it's really important that we do what we say we're going to do and if we find that we can't do that that we bring it back within the procedural um timeline. My additional questions are um related to that but a little bit different. One is do we have any documentation of the community meetings where it was determined that a program placement wasn't going to be created as required? >> So uh what we do have um we have school community council meeting from uh December 16th draft minutes because they haven't had a second meeting yet. >> They're still in draft form um for those meeting

082uh for those meeting minutes. Um I would say that um when I it was a Zoom meeting and as I went into that Zoom meeting um my my main intent was to um not try to um [clears throat] paint an already decided on movement. It was very open-ended with how I started with the uh community members, the SEC members when after Laura had introduced me, which is uh let's talk to me about what your students need. Talk to me about what's going to help them, what's going to be effective for them. Not um not try to plant the seed of here's what we're planning to do. Now, you tell me within that plan um the questions that you might have, but just really get into the the meat of what they needed. And so, when

083that opened up, it included uh the conversations. I have those um some of those um some of the notes from that meeting uh that that are on the draft that you'll see is just uh uh was that the at that point our the school counselor had talked about how she had been meeting with all students and their parents to discuss those students individual needs. really basing um students expressed interest in attending schools all you know all that you saw on that data table um uh SEC member that said that said that uh students shouldn't quote be thrown to the wolves as they transition to their new site wherever that new site was uh class offerings were talked about and what could be there uh there um there was and and I did also preface with

084them saying give me your input. I can't promise that all your input will be implemented but we want to listen completely to your input before we start making decisions of where things go. So um talked about the registration process for uh students and and how they'll be able to register for the new process. There were other notes too that again will be coming out after they get approved by their um SEC meeting coming up next week. But really tried to leave it open with just pen in hand taking lots of notes, listening and uh writing what they were what they were bringing up instead of trying to go in there and say, "Hey, we're going to um this this is what we as adults think should happen. Now tell us how what you're thinking fits

085into this. It was really the floor iss wide open. Tell us what it is your child needs. >> Were other community meetings held or just that SEC? that SCC meeting was held and the other meetings that were held were the individual uh meetings with all the students but one which occurred up through um most of them were done before the break but a hand about 10 or 11 10 students I believe right after break was when uh counselor andor administration were able to meet with them. >> Got it. Um my last question about innovations and then I have one question about nibbly is part of the discussion sort of precipitating our action in that meeting was about continuity of training and information for counseling teams like the the belief that you know innovations was the

086only place you could take certain kinds of classes for instance when it should be available at all comprehensive high schools that was part of the logic of counseling teams getting information at a program placement to also build capacity wherever that program was located. um how are we addressing counseling at all of our comprehensive high schools in regards to kind of the inconsistent advice that we hear is given about concurrent enrollment, college preparation, different things that innovation was providing. Has that been talked about at all? >> Uh the only way that it's been talked well with Dr. Taylor if he has some information toward that just because that falls under his department. >> Hello. >> We're working matter of fact tomorrow we have a department meeting where we bring that department together also in the process

087of developing a script that will be uniform throughout the district. They won't have to say the same thing, but they will have access to the same information. >> That's great. Thank you so much. Um, my last question, >> Anderson, before you go to Nibbly, do you mind if I >> Nope. >> Um, because I think you're raising an important thing. Uh, as noted, you sent an email earlier today. Um, in your frustration that we didn't follow the board motion. Uh from what I understand from staff who were part of this um the counselor began meeting with students and their families right away and there was an immediate interest in going to a number of different places. Um, so staff pivoted towards serving the needs of those who want to go to a number of different

088places and dropped the board desire to create a program within a comprehensive high school that would mirror innovations. Um, the reason I wanted to stop and have this conversation is that I don't want to leave it that we have not fulfilled the board's directive even at this date. I think there's still a chance to do that. If the board would like us to follow through, there were um Brian, how many students on that chart are going to East High? >> Uh, five as of that when that information was collected. Five of the 52. Yes. >> For East High. Um you had mentioned there shouldn't be a student level for that of creating that. Um but wanted to get your feedback and thoughts given given the reality of what they found in talking to students and

089their families that it didn't match up with the board motion as well. >> Then it left them I think in a quandry that way but wanted to not um just pass right over that. Yeah, I'm happy um to respond to that before asking my question, although it might put me a little bit over time. Uh to clarify, I didn't say there shouldn't be a metric. I said our the you know the plain language of what we said did not have a metric. So it is de facto required. >> But um I think what would be preferable of course is that if the information gathering led to a different recommendation that that come back within the timeline that we can reconsider it because now it's a report, we can't reconsider it. And so I think it's

090important to remember what we can act on, what we can't, and how that has come back to cause conflict in the past. So I do think it's important that we we do follow through on that and I look forward to, you know, hearing at the next leadership meeting that would be the next step. Um, my last question about Nibi was just a clarifying question, which is this focuses all on the hillside transition and we know there are some DLI students at Nibi who go to Clayton for DLI or to receive magnet services because that program is being grandfathered out for ELP, DLI combined. So, I guess my question is just to clarify, the reason this does not address a transition to Clayton for DI is because neighborhood DLI has not yet reached the grade level

091where they're transitioning to anything differently and the students receiving magnet services never would have stayed at Nibi for the K8. Is that accurate? This focuses on Hillside because that's what the neighborhood transition is. >> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay, great. So if parents did have questions about nibbly there, they would direct those questions at DLI to Dr. Hall's office or specifically to Dr. Rose for that magnet program. Okay, great. I did fit it in. Perfect. >> You made it. >> Wow. Thank you, Dr. Hall. >> Thank you, Ashley. Any >> Thank you, Brian. >> Thank you, >> um, I have something for round two, but round one I'll focus on innovations and nibbly as requested. Um I do um I guess reiterate what all three prior have said as far as um the support for

092these students in this transition. It's concerning um that when you said a letter letter was sent out to families and that um seems to be the communication for those families and students to I guess make their choice um instead of somebody also proactively calling these families and students and really talking through it in depth especially given it's such a small student body and it is a significant change for that um population at innovations um that was uh concerning for me as well. So I just want to re-emphasize what's already been stated basically. Um and then uh kind of again uh re-emphasizing in a way that the way that the presentation read was a lot of it was procedural. So a little for lack of better words dry and not necessarily um affirming how it's going.

093I know it's fairly early in the process considering um when we made the motion to proceed and that you know we've got a few months to really get a feel for how well it's going to go. But um just going back and emphasizing what I and others have stated and really ensuring that we've got people diving in to support these students and these families in um knowing the options how what the different schools look like, what those programs look like so they can try to determine um what would be um the new home so to speak for them. Um I guess two questions. uh three uh what is the good and not so good um in these transitions so far and then um when will the next meaningful update be on uh this process for

094Niblian innovations? So uh the I think one of the biggest strengths has been those one-on-one meetings that innovations uh leadership and administration andor counseling have had with students and being able to answer and talk to those students really uh from that standpoint of not saying here we already have your answer for you but saying um here are some options out here. what resonates with you, what what what are you thinking? What really gathering that input? Um, as I mentioned earlier, um, that kind of conversation with a sophomore in high school looks a lot different than with a second grader when we've had um, when we had those our closures a few years ago. So, um, I think that that's definitely been the strength of what's gone on so far. I think uh another strength and

095on the nibbly uh end has been just the um um the enthusiasm and coordination and desire to um get to know new students from uh hillside administration and the conversations I've had with them. um our Nibbly Park administrators who are on on top of um whatever information that needs to get out. Um having those conversations with their communities has been very uh has been a very positive piece. Um I'd say those are the the biggest. Um, you know, even with the best plans in place, I think the piece that's always going to cause a little bit um of anxiety is until somebody goes and tries out their new school, uh, we could we could see changes in August and September of where students are going to school. This this doesn't um this sure doesn't limit

096them to only going to whatever they said told the counselor or their principal in January or December or January where they're going to go. But I think it's us staying um nimble enough to expect that to know that um and I think the part that is sometimes hard for us to ex to um really want is we want the exact right answer for each of these students the first time out. And it might not be that right away. And I think helping helping the students um keep those other options open if they want if they're not 100% sold where they are is going to be a challenge for us of staying on top of that and working with that. I think um really getting um I do think that the answer is that wherever these

097students go, any one of the seven locations, eight locations that they've um and most of those within our district is really getting them to make connections with the people uh in their new school. They can they can find that that uh that adult or two or three that really will invest in them at their new school. being able to help them uh do that and make that connection with the adults with the other students because they're not going to be going in a group of 35 or 40 to a new school. There will be five here and seven here and that gives them uh the innovation students tons of potential to um really spread out and and uh m and make some new connections and new friends with their peers. And for those that don't

098want to, there is the option of things that that like online school and uh they still have those options not only available at um [snorts] at schools close by in our to our district in other districts with online options, but the state online option. They also have some options within our own district for things like those concurrent enrollment that many of them are already taking. I think so I think it's that un that piece right there of just um that's going to be the biggest challenge is keep students sharing with us when they have that uh change with us. I really do mean the new school they're going to the school that they're at because uh Dr. Grant referred to that that warm handoff. I think uh they're primarily going to be discussing a lot

099of this 90% of the time with students in their own school right now at innovations, the counselor they have right now, Nicole, with their administrators and teachers at their school they have right now. So, um just making sure that that gets uh shared with that next school is uh it's really going to be what happens between schools that matters most than more than than uh those other pieces and also uh them going into it and us letting them know that if they do fail in some way um that failing that's that's a good learning opportunity. Failure isn't the end of something. that is just a new way of learning. So trying to keep that moving forward for our students as well. >> Well, and emphasizing the project manager like proposed concept um so that there

100is that oversight to make sure that no child is forgotten about. And then um my final question is like the teacher transition obviously um with all of these we have teachers that um are their home base is taken away. So what's being done to ensure that they're um being repositioned? >> So I know that uh in the document there is uh some transition support uh talked about by Dr. by uh sorry by human resources by Logan Hall. Um I'm looking for the page that that would be on but um >> maybe Mr. Hall. >> Yeah, thanks Logan. So I can speak a little bit to the transition for teachers and staff. >> Sam, do we get mic turned? >> Sorry. >> Hopefully that's working. >> No, no, >> no. >> Maybe now. There we go.

101So, thank you for the opportunity to come back and speak to the transition plan for teachers and staff at the uh innovations and uh the impacted teachers at Nibbi. I've met with each of the staff at each of those schools and spoke about the process of which that would happen. Uh essentially for career status teachers um at Innovations, let's just use that as the example. If since Innovations is closing, their positions no longer exist at that school. And so they'll be considered as unassigned teachers. And so we have a process that we go through with an assignment load committee in which that committee looks at all the open positions within the district. We elicit feedback from the teacher themselves to say what kind of position would you like to be considered for considering your lensure

102um and your endorsements for what subjects you're able to teach and then the assignment load committee and my staff work together to say we believe it would be best to place that teacher in this uh opening prior to any other openings going out for um public applications. So that part that process will take place over the next month and a half and should be solidified by um the first week or two or March. >> Thank you. >> So on page five of that report, that's where the table is that gives the breakdown of where the different um students were going to be going. Um there's one category when it says outside of district. I was just okay. Speaking of the warm handoff or whatever, I just wanted to make sure that those students once they

103made that decision that they were going out, were they getting a warm handoff or was it like, oh, well, they're not going to be here, so we're not worrying about them. I mean, the thing that I was hoping was that they were getting the support that they needed to do whatever it is they're doing. So to the to the extent that we can anytime a student leaves our district to go to another right >> for for whatever reason uh it's it's um it's more we we try to make it more than sharing a cumulative folder with the next stop. Some places are uh some other school sites are very open. They want to call and talk to uh former teacher or the counselor or the principal and they they look through that and some uh

104work harder at that than than others um in neighboring districts or in different states. Um, for those that that don't work toward that, we're if we know where they're going, we would be able to follow up once they get to where they're going. Um, but until we see where they're going, um, it's hard for us to do much ahead of time unless that information, they know that information, they say, "Hey, I'm going to be out in Herman at this school right here." Um in those kind of CA in those cases for those seven students that we have uh some sort of making that connection is is certainly possible for us. Some does depend on the reception from the school that they're going to to be able to try to spend that time and do that.

105>> Thank you. I think that it would be helpful for us to have that sort of dialogue because it also helps inform us as to why the student chose the school that they're going to. I >> do we know those seven students? Were they students that had come to the Salt Lake City School District specifically for innovations and now innovations isn't available? they're going back to their respective district or is this they've now gone out and looked and they found that your example Haramman has a program that's kind of reflective of innovations or something like that. So they're going to go there. Do we know anything about these seven I guess is what I'm getting at. We've started collecting that for all 52 of the students keeping a you know when when those interactions happen

106with administrator with counselor taking you know the notes and being able to look at the notes and see where those are right now that's at its early stages so we don't have a ton of that information that information um would be more um I I believe we would have more information on most students in March or April than we have in January. because uh literally it's been just less than two weeks since we talked to the last of the students. Uh since you know of you know what are you thinking where you know what um what kind of decisions have you or have you not made and and uh what what direction are you leaning? And so as that information grows, we can make um there will be better opportunities to make those connections when

107we have those as well. >> That's reassuring to me that okay, there's going to be some followup. It's not going to just be well, okay, you're going out of district. Okay. Um check. We don't have to um follow up on that. >> Okay. Thank you. We have Brett who's our last speaker in round one and then we'll move to Annie for speaker in round two. Yeah. Um I don't have a question. I just wanted to make a comment and it was really to um reiterate everything that the other board members have said about that warm handoff. Um as folks are aware, I voted no on the closure of innovations and part of that was I was concerned about the abrupt handoff um that students wouldn't um have what they need to make that transition. So

108I just want to reiterate the importance of making sure there is that warm handoff. And I'm really hoping I think it was board member Longwell that said I could be off, but that maybe doing some individual calls and some individual appointments um moving forward just to make sure that there are those um tools and those resources available as well. >> Thanks, Bryce. Annie, first speaker in round two. >> Yeah. Um, just a little bit back to what board member Anderson said. When I read this report initially, I was expecting a little bit more of a program placement that we had discussed in our vote. Um, maybe because I'm new, I was like, oh, I guess they decided against that. But I would just like to note that it would be important for us to have

109that communication ahead of time that if you do go and the pulse is actually we don't want a program that mirrors innovations at East or Highland or Horizonte or whatever. Um that then there's some feedback to the board on that. Um but also my question is did at that SEC meeting was that presented as an option? the SEC meeting was meant to be a wide openen share with me what and so um did that did that option was that option one that uh anybody said hey have we thought about or we want to do this there are some people that want to do this no that wasn't brought it was um it was very much um people speaking toward the individual needs for individual students Yes. And and granted it was a small it wasn't

110a meeting with um I mean when I say small in comparison with 52 students it wasn't uh parents of 40 of those 52 students at the meeting anything like that. Um it was the SEC meeting. It was um >> small number. >> It was a small number and and so >> okay the reason I asked that is because you know as a parent it's not like there are many many parents who are watching our board meeting proceedings. I mean pre previous to joining the board I maybe watched one or two of the school closure snippets. That's it. Just to kind of get a pulse on what's happening. So, we can assume that maybe some parents and students and families watched our discussion about the closure of innovations, but I do think it's on the district.

111It is the district's obligation to continually communicate those things kind of as board member Anderson said. So, I would just emphasize that we have this information because it was just open-ended. But what if we had said we're going to maybe do a pod where as many innovations students as want to stick together because they have these relationships, they have these similar needs at East how many parents or students would vote to do that. You know, we don't know because we never presented that option. So that's just something I'd like to point out. And I'm I don't know kind of where the breakdown in in that happened whether it needed to be more specific that there was going to be a meeting and it wasn't an SEC meeting. It was a community meeting organized by the

112district or something that we could actually present these options and say every student's different. Maybe you're in West High boundaries and you have a couple friends at West, so you want to go there. But pretend 25 of these kids all want to stay together. I would think that we the part of the the board's decision was to like help accommodate that so that they would keep in their safe school space and group, if that makes sense. Um, I don't know if that can be addressed now or if it's too late, but just a note. Um, >> that's your time. >> Dang it. I have one more question. >> Okay, that's my time. If someone wants to give me 30 seconds, I have another question. >> Thanks, Danny. Ashley. >> Yeah. Um, I want to emphasize,

113re-emphasize that it's concerning now to hear that no program options were presented as was required by our vote. And so, I really do look forward to that response from board leadership about how we will ensure that the vote is followed with fidelity. But as I listened to board member Longwell's comments on faculty, I turned to that page of the memo and I was reminded of something else I'd highlighted that I had forgotten to ask about, which is that on page 11, it says, "Where possible, the district will maintain positions for career status employees and work to find suitable placements so forth." And we were told before voting that teachers and other employees would have ongoing employment and that it would either keep pace with attrition and be no cost or that it was so few

114employees that we could cover the cost like at worst. So I'm a little bit confused by the same um measure how we went from being told we definitely were covering employees to the memo now saying employees will be covered when possible. So I'm highlighting that as another example of my concern that it's important when we make decisions that we use the facts that are in the open public meeting that governed our decision that some people would have voted no if we knew that employees would be terminated if innovations closed and this essentially this memo gives like free license to to riff to say that we don't have enough space and that's not the information we were given. So, I think we knew teachers might not have a suitable placement at the comprehensive high school where

115a program equivalent was directed, but we were not told it may be impossible for them to find career status employment or that it was limited to career status employees. And so, I just want to reiterate that the we rely on the information that we get to make decisions and then when that information changes, it becomes confusing. And the reason I'm, you know, being very like specific and sharing my concerns directly is because we know that the closure of innovations is relatively small compared to the recent closure we went through for elementary schools and the future closure recommendations we may see with declining enrollment. So, it's really important that if we can't, you know, get the details neatly for a relatively small closure, I'm concerned about how that bodess for the future, which is why I'm

116I'm raising it. And I can see that uh Mr. Hall has standing in front of Dr. Hall has uh is hopefully going to address the career status employment part. >> Let me actually just clarify for those listening that everybody that is in innovations Logan will have a job next year >> given appropriate performance and things like that at the end of the year as with any teacher. So I think that caveat was not about that we're changing the way the direction we're going with this. Um so the caveat on the mount you're going to be more accurate legally for this Logan but um we essentially are guaranteeing positions for those who um would have been hired you know would have kept their position anyway in the subsequent year. You're going to correct me on that

117legally on the way to say that, right? >> I'm not sure about the legally part, but yes, what Dr. Grant is saying is is accurate in that um the wording saying that as possible in the memo is is simply in reference to we don't have control over everything. And so not knowing all aspects um like the board study session that we had um earlier before the public meeting, we don't know what the financial implications are going to be. we don't have all of the cards on the table necessarily. I don't see a problem or any issue with being able to have um ongoing positions for employees at those from those schools. Um but there are caveats that it is dependent upon their evaluations and their ability to continue in their position anyway. Um but in

118in terms of having placements for people, I don't foresee there being a problem and and I feel comfortable saying that we have places and we'll be able to find um suitable employment for all the people that are >> and I believe you met with teachers the day after the vote to convey that message. >> I did meet with the teachers at innovations the day after. I met with the teachers um the >> there are only three program teachers uh in the middle school at Nibbley Park. ment with them recently and so it was able to answer their questions and be able to provide them with guidance on what the process will look like. >> I just don't want our memo to look like we're contravening what we did say to you in board meeting because

119I think that's pretty important. I mean we had these conversations with SEA as well >> about guaranteeing those positions as we had in previous closures with the caveats that Logan has shared here about employment issues essentially. But otherwise that that is our that was our intent with this closure too. So I want to make sure that's clear. >> Absolutely. Thanks. >> Thank you Ashley. Amanda >> um mine does not have to do with so it's regarding the G5 for our um prior elementaryaries that we closed a couple years ago. When are we going to bring that back to the conversation so we can continue the G5 conversation regarding those um uh schools? We have a formal presentation on that in February, but essentially um as I mentioned when we got the October one count that

120showed lower enrollment um and significantly lower enrollment than we were expecting, I said that my recommendation would be to bring that to the board in the fall of 2027. Essentially, we looked at closing schools through the fall of 2023. We took the vote in January 2024, but we closed schools essentially across the fall of 2023. We again took it up in the fall of 2025 with this process here that we've just finished. And then I am recommending that we again look at it in the fall of 2027. Um that we begin that process at looking at specific schools in the fall of 2027. So we'll bring that to you in February as well. And I presume you're talking about potential future closures. What I mean is we have three, roughly [clears throat] speaking, empty buildings

121that we have already closed. Hawthorne, Ben, >> Jackson, W. Jackson. >> Um that we still have not completed the G5 process with um so when are we looking at the next step in that process for those three properties? Yeah, Alan can give the update on where we are with our contractors that we're hiring to do some of the real estate analysis and financial analysis for us to bring to the board. Some real facts that you can look at to start making some decisions. Great. >> Right. So, we should have a vendor selected in the next few weeks of uh to do the real estate analysis and the financial analysis. Um from some of the uh responses from RFPs uh we received that process uh could take anywhere from two to six months for them to

122finish that process. Um so not anytime super soon. I mean we we'll update you when a vendor selected and and the process and when they finalize it the selected vendor finalizes the timeline. We'll keep you appraised of all that. Um, but they won't have a presentation until a couple months down the road when they finish their work. >> And I know you'll be expedient, which but I still have to say it, but we need to be expedient with it because we all know that these properties are costing the district monies while we are declining enrollment and we are looking at a serious look at our expenditures. So, um, just my request is let's be expedient while we're trying to get the factual information so we can make quality decisions around these so we and all

123other programming as well. Thank you. >> Charlotte, can I give 30 seconds of time to board member Romano? >> You know, we've been trying to move >> trying not to do that. >> Okay. >> Just in the interest of time, but >> [laughter] >> But if the board is okay for Annie to ask one more question, I think that would be more appropriate to get a thumbs up about that. >> Sure. >> Okay. Annie. >> Um I just had a question. I had brought this um in my email earlier today if it would be possible um since it seems like we're past the point of doing like a standalone program that our vote suggested. Maybe we're not past that point, but if we are, um, I suggested that maybe the innovations counselor retains their position

124for the coming school year and acts as their like person um, their contact in transitioning to a new school. And is that possible that we could allocate either a full FTE or half of the FTE to that um, in guard to make sure these warm transitions happen, warm handoffs. if I could take that one on. Um I think your recommendation around a project manager was a good one and if we could fold that in um in the same way. Um I don't think it's a half FTE worth of work essentially to to follow up on that, but rather something that we're going to have somebody take on to oversee and make sure um those connections happen, particularly between counselors. So um let me come back to you. We've got this on the agenda for um

125next month and our next board meeting to provide an update. So, let me come back to you with some of that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you, Annie. Thank you, board. Um I think that concludes our discussion on this report. Brian, thank you so much for joining us this evening, for all of your efforts and coordination with the superintendent and her cabinet and of course folks at Nibi and Innovations. We appreciate your time and all you do. >> Thanks, uh President Salazar. I in closing I would like to say that the work that the innovations counselor and administrator started to do at the school happened within started within 48 hours after the decision to close innovations took place December by December 4th 5th 6th they were meeting with students to really talk about it was

126it was that um very grassroots we want to help you what do you thinking after this those individual meetings um the intent was not there to try to undermine we're going to put a plan in place for you and so you can go to this place in and and do this. It was tell us what you need, tell us what you're thinking. That process got started right away after the board meeting. And so um it was um it it was a bunch of data collected that you see in that data table and it doesn't share with you the notes off to the side of you know for each of those individual students of uh specific notes for each of those students. Um, but when we started seeing those numbers of, oh my goodness, they're these

127students, they have interests in seven, eight, nine different areas of where they'd want to be next year. Their minds are thinking toward this. That was where the direction went. So, just wanted to add that and appreciate your input. Thank you for your time. >> Thanks, Brian. Uh, we'll move on in our reports agenda. Um, item number three is the 50-year capital plan. I'll turn it over to BA Kirley to introduce this for us. >> Right. So, the the memo uh attached to the agenda had a link to a it's actually a very robust, large, complicated spreadsheet. I know there are some issues opening some of it. Um, I some of it controls so people don't go in and mess it up. >> Um, the actual just downloaded copy of it was sent out uh earlier

128this morning. Hopefully that resolved some of the issues. Um we're going to have Isaac Ael, executive director of auxiliary services, kind of go over what this document is, uh what it's used for, and um then we'll ask for any feedback from the board on what you've seen and what you might still want to see with as far as this project goes. >> Thank you. Um is the connection working? While we're waiting for that to come up, I just want to say um we've been working really diligently on this for two and a half years now. Um and this was a grassroots effort in that a lot of the information wasn't accessible other than through uh a myriad of different reports. Um, thankfully because of the sustainability efforts that we've done over the last couple years,

129Mckin Street did provide about a third of everything in one joined document and then we've had to meld everything else into that. Um, switch to the center. We're going to move. Give me just a sec. [clears throat] [snorts] The purpose of this document uh so everything that McKinstry provided included the electrical, HVAC and plumbing. Um, and then everything else was managed in-house as far as concrete, asphalt, roofing, painting, carpets, all of those things. So, we've had to pull those together and create this one document. Uh, there's still a few little uh challenges with it that we're working through. But overall, um, what I'm trying to show you right now is I I've basically moved the school names to the left so you can't see them. And the goal is that you can look at this

130and this is all of the schools uh rated um the lowest one being a score of 2.1 which means it's in great shape. No not many challenges whatsoever. Um to the highest one of 91.4. Uh there is one higher than that, but uh that's one of the tweaks we're having to deal with because some of the projects we do, we set budgets aside each year to do specific things that we couldn't tie to a location. It's just overall um irrigation or uh painting or carpet and then we disseminate that from there. Um but trying to set this in a 50-year that all shows in the auxiliary services uh line item right now. So that's why that one's scored so high. Um, but the intent is is I want to provide to you as the board

131and then also have a link for the community to to get on our website and click on it and say what are the priorities this year not just for the district but for my school or my children's school specifically. Um, and this is the culmination of two years of efforts to put into this to provide a fair score of saying, look, I'm not looking at the school. I'm looking at a school that rates at 89.6 and 91.4 have the highest needs. What are those needs and how far can the budget go to address those? And then get to the next one. Um, when you look at the chart builder, uh, the overall chart builder, we've tried to create, uh, we tried to break this down so it's manageable, but basically this 50-year capital, um, expenditure

132outlook, if we just address everything that's on there for the next 50 years on the year that the computer says it is, that's kind of what the budget is. The goal is that we narrow that down so it's more of a balance somewhere in the 15 to20 million range, which we're not there right now. Um, and I'm not asking for more money right now, trust me. Um, but that's you can see the trend of where we're high right now. There's a lot of needs and that's because there's been deferred maintenance and things done for about a decade now that things are piling up. Um, we'll need to address some of those and then work that back down and set a more level understanding for everybody to so we can set a budget and say this

133is what we're going to do to maintain these buildings. Um the other challenge is is uh two of the schools obviously we're rebuilding them right now. Um there's numbers in here that need to be pulled out but until we actually transfer over the new information we keep that in there just so we're being honest with ourselves. Um, the other the other great thing that I like the most about this is you can go to the chart builder single single building at the top you put in, you know, whichever school um, and then it'll tell you not only the the 10-year expenditure plan for this school, but you can actually narrow it down by what topic it is, whether it be plumbing equipment, controls, electrical. A lot of people have asked me what's conveying that's the

134elevators. So, um, That's what that one stands for for uh D10. But with that said, um the goal tonight was to tell show you that we are working on this. We've made great progress. Our goal is to have this complete in in the next couple months and provide a booklet to you guys, hard copy. I'll warn you before we print it, it'll be outdated, but it'll actually give us a historical this is where we were on this day. Um the goal is after that that it'll it'll remain electronic. We're working with some software packages that will maintain this for us. So we're not pulling things from eight different directions. Um that but our system doesn't come up until this next year, but we are writing the bids for that right now. Um, but anyway, the

135the purpose tonight was to give you this information and ask you if there's anything specific that you feel like you need to know or want to know or would be helpful for the community to see in these updates that we provide. >> Thank you, Isaac. We'll open it up to the board for feedback. Ashley, >> I appreciate all the effort that went into putting this together and, you know, the amount of time it took to make sure I was downloading the correct document and it shows how much information is really in there. Honestly, for people who go through the whole attachment and what I think would be helpful is seeing like a little bit of an executive summary or some leg work that describes the all the categories in relationship to one another. So for

136example, something might be at its end of life for conveying or for plumbing, but I don't have a good sense of, you know, as board member Longwell has been suggesting, when a school has ongoing typical maintenance costs that are outpacing its ultimate cost and utility, how do we begin to talk about, you know, when is ongoing maintenance in these matters no longer pragmatic compared to making a different decision such as rebuilding an elementary school, for example? So what I think would be really helpful and I don't have a great answer on how to do it would be looking at all of these categories and how they relate to one another in terms of your decision-m you know at what point do you say the electrical has so many needs that we in fact do not

137want to continue reinvesting in the electric we want to consider X right and I don't with with the amount of information it's very helpful but it's how that information leads to decisions that then I would be seeking. Um, one question for you is on the main page there's a column that says equity impact score and I don't quite know what that means and it also still they all say non-applicable. What is that equity impact score and when will that be populated is something else I was curious about. >> I apologize on on the main page of the overview page. >> Um, it well on this sheet. So like right there you can see on that column equity impact score is toward the right and they all say non-applicable. right there. Okay. >> To the just

138to the right of the address. >> Yeah, it's on the overview. >> Oh, yes. Right there. >> Um I'm going to have to do some research on that and figure out what what um there is a purpose for it. I'm just not >> whatever purpose it has that I would like to know. Okay. >> As well. And I think um equity of school buildings is also really important to you know myself but maybe other board members. And that relates to you know how do we make equitable decisions regarding facility use I think is important. >> Okay. >> Oh one more question is so auxiliary services if I'm to understand the scoring correctly like if I was a member of the public looking it's our own auxiliary services building that's in the worst condition. >> No.

139>> Is that what that 298 means or is that the glitch you were referring to? >> That's the glitch I'm referring to because um in the D10 area talking about carpets and things like that. We have a budget set aside for the next year, but it hasn't been assigned to a location, but we still had to account for the budget that comes into our maintenance. >> So that we put it tied it to auxiliary services because they're the we distributed it from there, >> but we just haven't had figured out how to implement that between the four different spreadsheets. >> So Beardsley does not need more services, substantially more services than any school. >> There are some needs at the building, but nowhere near significant as what that represents. Okay, I'm glad to identify that's

140an outlier. Thank you so much. [laughter] >> Thanks, Ashley. Any other >> I just follow up on some of what Ashley stated. Um, yeah, because the document won't say this building's going to replace be replaced this year, but of hey, what kind of data do you use to make the decisions of when you're going to replace it? Is is stuff that we can put in some sort of summary document. Um because this will never say, "Oh, look, I can see from this document that in 2035, school X will cost more to maintain than it was worth and therefore will be replaced." This document will never say that and not intended to because as Isaac often says, I keep a building going forever if you put enough money in it. >> It's true. >> Thank you,

141Alan. Annie. >> Yeah. I would just like to thank everyone who worked on this. I know this was a huge undertaking. Um, so in looking at the the overall replacement costs, that obviously is an estimate and I'm just wondering how you came to that number. Is that based on current labor costs and obviously current lumber costs and everything? Um, and and the square footage like what calculation are you using? >> So what we did is all of this started in 2024. Uh we took the numbers then and we've increased by 3% on everything year-over-year. That's where we were able to come up. We're just trying to factor in an inflationary rate. Uh we were fairly middle ground on that. So just trying to be >> okay >> careful on that. >> Um just because I'm

142I'm looking at these numbers. They seem a little low to me, but maybe I'm not up to date on >> So it's it's a fiveyear. It's not replacement of the billing. Are you talking column K? I'm talking on control notes column D. >> Can you go to the top of that, Isaac? We see what >> Yeah, that's the um >> estimated replacement cost of the of the equipment that's there currently. >> Of the equipment, not the whole building. >> Yeah. >> Okay. That's like this is cheap. >> No. No. [laughter] the highest number for $3 [snorts] million would be great. >> Yeah, that's why I was like, that does not make any sense. Why would that be so low? Okay, great. Thanks for clarifying. >> And there's a lot more to this that isn't showing

143up on this spreadsheet. Again, Lord, need to tweak a few things still. Uh the spreadsheets trying to tie them together and >> um it's we're very close to where our finished product is, but we just want to give you an update and go from there. Yeah, thanks >> y >> Brian and then Amanda. >> So just to comment on that um in all of this material that you provided, you also gave some examples of what's been done in other districts. I mean there was one from Boston and I'm trying to remember the other one. Um, I thought the Boston one was really helpful, and I understand this was a herculean effort to come up with what you've got here. But what you were able to do in that one was you could click on like

144an elementary school and then it would open up with this really nice onepage summary that would have kind of avoided like what um board member Romano just experienced. I mean you know because it's going okay this is equipment this is you know whatever the different things for me that's a really helpful thing that I can just okay I want to know about this school and I know that I can do it through here but it's harder for me and >> just I appreciated you're sharing what other districts were doing >> well really on that one my my intent was I mean the Boston one for example, they did have a nice one spreadsheet, one single sheet, >> but if you dialed into it, it gave you like 55 pages per school. >> And it's going

145to take us a long time to get to that detail. >> But I mean, I was just so happy. I was just so happy with the one page. I thought that was [laughter] delightful. My my intent overall is I guess my biggest ask is I want to show you what the overall expenses for the next 10 years are because 50 50 years is it's a guess, right? >> But I want to show you 10 years and I want to give you a one one page uh score and needs of each school so you have those >> and then we can talk from there. But again, I want to make sure I'm hitting everybody's points and concerns before we publish that. Thank you, Isaac. Amanda, >> um, FYI, Brian, just so you know, I've been learning

146a little bit more about Excel formulas, and there is a way. I'm yet I'm gonna discover it. There was a little sheet that I learned the other day, but there's a way, Isaac, and I'm sure there's some genius here at Salt Lake City School District that can figure it out. I'll let you know if I >> They can make that. Wow. Okay. >> They can. I've been watching that on the feeds lately. >> [laughter] >> social menu. >> Um, you might have already said, uh, is this spreadsheet of data 100% current or what's the oldest lag time on the data on here? >> So, that there's been projects in the last uh, four months that haven't been updated in this. We took the data from October, tied those to two of the spreadsheets, and then

147we brought the final one in just before Christmas break. So, this is going to be something as we bring in this new software, it'll automatically update that stuff as we go along, but there will be some lag time. There's always some lag time because I mean, we fixed it. >> A VFD at a a school today got replaced and it'll take a month before that gets inputed. >> That gives me context for sure. >> Yeah. Um, I've brought this up before, but a lot of the focus on um, carbon impact conversation is around electricity. Um, and I [snorts] think somewhere on here there there was a dialogue around that and obviously we've been putting in solar panels and the return on that's been wonderful. Um and I know that in the um sustainability resolution and

148the AP the main concentration regarding water is for new schools. However, there is um dialogue in the AP about um reducing um building energy and water. This is reducing it not just obviously we're you guys are doing this split um meter so that we're getting metered properly for uh different types of usage but this sustainability resolution was a 20% reduction of water use by 2025. So, um I know that you guys are working towards it, but I guess my general broad question is when are we going to put a strong focus in um water-wise practices in our existing properties? not just usage, but also flipping our strips and like like eliminating grass areas that aren't used and all these different things because again we're in a critical water state and we own a lot of

149property. So what's the conversation been around that and when do we anticipate doing more efforts in that regard and do we need to pass a motion to make it move forward? So bas I mean the sustainability efforts up to this point we have reduced over a million gallons. We've reduced more than a million gallons in all of our across our school. >> What's that percentage equate to? Do you know? >> I don't off the top of my head but I can figure that out. Um but with that said um obviously we along with the bond and these new projects we also have sustainability uh funds in there to do projects. I presented to you a few months ago about several options um where uh it makes sense at some places. Whittier specifically, Enzyme uh was

150on there for for it and the the cost didn't make sense, but the school still had a need. So, we're looking at uh 95% efficiency boilers and and upgrades through that system there that will again make it more sustainable and reduce those uh costs and our reduce our carbon emissions. um not as far as it would had we uh put in for ground source heat pumps, but we will make a significant reduction where we're where we're at right now. >> Yeah. And that'll help with utilities and such, but um household landscaping and things like that. >> Yeah. But there is there is uh you know, we've got a list that we've provided for the next five years of each of those projects that we'll continue to work on. >> I'll be interested in that. like

151as you're as you're looking at these these cost pieces, I really um like seeing um how you've identified Let me go back to the spreadsheet on my side. Um just the level of concern for these to know condition scores. And um I know I'm sounding like a broken record now, but I'll note that the three closed schools are um in the higher rated condition scores. Um and additionally the Okay. Anyway, we need to be looking at those because there's some cost to those as well and a lot of different ways. So we need to make sure that we're we're making timely decisions on these closed properties. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. >> Thanks, Amanda. Charlotte, >> I I was curious why there was a period of time where we were def

152deferring a lot of the maintenance and now we're um spending money. You know, that's why at the beginning of your presentation, you talked about that that we had deferred maintenance for a while. Um, >> I'll go I'll go first. >> Okay. >> Um, the short answer is we do the projects until the money runs out and what's not done gets deferred. And I'll just note that that's going to continue to happen because when you look at, you know, year by year, the amount of money that's required to get all these things done, I'll just tell you all now, there's not enough money to do them all. So part of the budget process, so you know, we'll bring a list of next year's projects to you and so Isaac and I are going to meet together

153and say we need to prioritize this within the available resources and then defer the rest. So that'll continue to happen. I mean, it's been happening for years. It happens in our homes. Uh we often don't replace stuff because it's time to replace it. We replace it because it fails. And can you follow that up with we were discussing in board study session about the budget >> in your work with Isaac? This is a 10-year plan, a 50-year plan, but what's our real plan for maintenance and where that shows up, >> right? So again, in the budget timeline, one of those is the capital um projects list. Uh we bring that to the board every year. So that when we bring that to the board in the next couple months will be the actual these are

154the projects that we're going to do next year. Now let's say something happens and we have a ton of extra money then we can start looking at those deferred maintenance and and start ticking them off. But we'll prioritize the things that are most essential. Um and one of the documents we do when we talk about those budget priorities is you know we look at life and safety projects first and then there's a hierarchy. I don't remember them off the top of my head, but >> so that's kind of what we use to prioritize the projects within the limited resources that we have. >> Are you going to use this document to do that as well? >> Yes. Specifically, that first page of the overview overview showing where the highest needs are. That's the intent of

155that is not to play favorites or or say, well, we think this we think in my mind this is my priority. The numbers are right here to show you what the justifications are that it's a, you know, it's an easy decision for everybody to come to the same conclusion. >> Charlotte, do you have any other questions? >> Can I Charlotte, I >> I've worked for quite a few in uh companies or government agencies that maintain facilities. >> This isn't a one-off. uh we deal with the same in every facilities unfortunately but uh the goal is to keep them safe and functional for as long as possible and we'll continue to do that. We don't have a building that's not that is not safe currently. >> Um let's see. Bryce, did you have anything in the

156first round? Okay. Um we'll move to Annie uh in the as our first um speaker in round two and then Ashley. >> Um [clears throat] This is round two. [snorts] >> Did I use up my gravel? >> Yeah. >> Oh, okay. All right. >> Um, okay. So, I just have a couple questions. Um, now that I understand that it's not $3 million. Okay. Uh, can you explain to me, um, why East's capital replacement costs in the five-year are so high, $18 million? Um, one of the things that has not been removed from this is we did a a a project this last year on all of the HVAC system there and it hasn't been reflected in this completely. >> Okay. >> The other challenge is is there was a remodel or a facelift on east,

157but there wasn't a rebuild or infrastructure changes. It was a facelift. >> Yeah, I remember the facelift. >> Okay. It was right after I graduated. Um, other question. So, um, for example, we had a van, a blue minivan that had a DVD player in it. My kids loved it and we kept pouring money into that van and finally the mechanic said to me, "You need to stop. You need to stop pouring money into this van. It's not worth it. Just get a new car." Everyone was sad, but we did that. So my question is like we objectively speaking obviously this is no judgment on any school community objectively speaking when is there a certain number or a certain year that you kind of start looking and thinking we're pouring so much money into this van

158that we should stop pouring money into it and just replace it. >> The short answer is yes. Um, it's difficult to say because each of these buildings, some were b built in the 50s, some were built in 2012. Um, there's different construction standards and each of those have a different lifespan. Uh, so we try to look at those objectively between when they were built, the current condition, how many remodels have been done, what the rebuild cost would be, and then I can provide you guys a calculation of showing, look, to rebuild it, it's going to cost this much. To refurbish it, it's this much. and to just keep doing this, it's going to be higher amount but a much lower overall for the next decade. >> Yeah. >> Um but it similar to a vehicle,

159you know, there's a there's a break breaking point that we can do a graph that shows, you know, this is the age, this is the cost going into it. And um what I would say is anything that's over 40 years old um from the 70s, there's some impactful things that'll have to happen over the next few years or later than that. But um again, like Allen said and I've mentioned in the past, we can keep something open as long as you're willing to keep it open. that buildings are a little different than than vehicles, but in the the in theory they're similar. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Annie. Ashley, and then Brian, >> I'll give um two more examples of the kind of feedback I think you're looking for. One thing I think would be

160helpful is a crosswalk to the demographics refresher report whenever we receive it because how do these areas and their overall capital costs relate to the student population that we see there? Um, an example of what I don't want, but what you probably want to do that crosswalk is the latitude and longitude. You know, like I see the latitude and longitude columns [laughter] and I'm like trying to hide them and I'm restricted and I can't do it. And um because I think like the Boston example, I like knowing the latitude and longitude are there [clears throat] and they provide you perhaps useful information um and that it's carefully compiled, but then I as an individual board member personally benefit from some strategic interpretation of that data rather than just you know the raw columns. Um, [snorts]

161I think that then that helps us build some priorities and address some of the tradeoffs because doing that with capital allocations will be really important, especially because the tax burden the bond placed on our constituents. Obviously, I think acknowledging that we need to start realistically saving some capital funds that aren't covered by the bond to rebuild at least a handful of aging elementary schools. And ideally, that would happen before I was deceased. So, with my personal mortality in mind, I want to know when this would come back to us with the added elements we've talked about, specifically an executive summary that might highlight some 10-year capital priorities, like when is realistic to incorporate this feedback and bring it back, >> Ellie, to us. >> Do that graph. >> Yeah. >> That you were saying. Um,

162realistically, once we can give you guys an uh the overall spreadsheet or I'm sorry, overall report of here's the score as of today, here are the needs as of now, then we can evaluate some other things that aren't in this. Um, you know, there's a I've been hesitant to s give too much information because I came on as we were talking about closing schools and there's a lot of talk about making decisions beforehand and I don't want to do that. That's the purpose of providing you this data. So, I can give you the hard facts and then let you guys decipher what's where we go from there. Um, but I'm willing to take it as far as you guys need me to to provide recommendations and things. And I think priorities don't only mean, you

163know, obviously school closure follows a specific statutory process. Um, and maybe school consolidation does as well, but knowing simply like this is when this building truly reaches end of life anticipated or it's our capital priority to, you know, rebuild this roof and we think that is a valuable investment to reinvest in the roof. naming what those biggest priority expenditures would be, repairing the areas [clears throat] that flood at east, whatever they may be. I think having those synthesized from the information is really helpful. >> Okay. >> And do we do we have a plan on when this comes back on the agenda um as another report or as discussion? >> Well, along those lines, I like your idea of integrating the um the demographics update. um you know here's the expenses and but here's the

164anticipated student uh count and we should have that that's still going to be a couple months out right Sam will be at the end of February >> end of February so and [clears throat] then once we get that data we need to figure out the best way to integrate it so potentially end of the school year into next school year when we get that data because I think that'll be a key piece of >> of interpreting the data >> [clears throat] >> Okay, thank you. >> I think you'll live a lot longer than that. >> I hope I live a lot longer. [laughter] >> Thank you. And Brian, you're next. This would go to Annie's comment about the formula or so at USBA there was a seminar that was done by the >> Jordan school

165district superintendent Godfrey and you were referring to how you had and I think the name of the seminar was something like rebuild versus renovate or something. >> Oh yeah. >> Okay. Um anyway they went through and explained um how they apply this formula. I think it might be beneficial at some time for us to have that sort of um explanation so that we could understand you know how that works. >> Okay. Um then this would be a followup to and I want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly because this would go back to the study session and there has been this back and forth in the study session about G5 and how we need to remember that there are those three buildings and there is the cost that they're incurring. Alan, when you talk

166about a vendor that's, you know, in the next couple of weeks, is that vendor going to help us understand how those properties can be used? I mean, it seems to me that there's more than just, okay, we can sell these properties. Um, to me, once you sell them, they're gone. But what I'm hoping is whoever we're working with with these vendors, they're thinking outside of the box and all sorts of ways to use those properties. And I guess what my question is getting at, is there an opportunity for some of them to generate income that we could in turn use to help address some of these deferred projects? because we didn't have the money or you don't fix it until it's broken or >> right to answer the first question yes part of that process

167will be generating ideas of what are the options you know anywhere from do nothing to sell it to figure out a way to generate an ongoing income source from it and these these vendors will I mean part of the process is to study and identify those options which will then come to the board here's some options. Um, but yeah, it's, you know, do you look at a one-time large infusion of cash with the sale or an ongoing smaller infusion but maybe last for 50 years of of of a revenue source? Um, those are all the discussions we'll be having with this phase we're currently working on with the G5 process. >> Thank you. I mean, that's what's rolling around in my mind. And when Amanda, and I appreciate, you know, we don't want to just

168keep spending money and, you know, we're not gaining anything. But I also don't want it to be that we're, you know, this mad dash thing. Well, you know, we're spending money so we got to get rid of. I want it to be that we're really thoughtful so that we can use the I mean, to me, this is a great opportunity to district. >> Thanks, Brian. Um, any other questions or comments? Um, you know, Amanda, you haven't spoken in the second round. [clears throat] Um, you know, Bryce, if you have anything you wanted to contribute, Charlotte. >> Okay. I Charlotte, go ahead. Yeah, I'm just I echo other board members comments and Ashley's about it becoming more um strategic for us and in our planning and and it sounds like you want to present the information

169to the board and you want us to weigh in on it as well. Is that what you're saying? So, [snorts] um, but just I'm looking at all the components and best practices of a long range capital planning on my my computer and you know, um, it would be nice to be able to prioritize the projects and use, you know, analyze data and I mean it's very complicated actually. It's a very complicated thing. I did wonder why are did did we ask direct you to do a 50-year plan? Did the board >> the >> I was just wondering why 50 years. >> The ask was to give as wide of a uh table of information as possible. Um >> I I mean 510 15's a standard you know standard >> um I was just trying to

170give you as much information as possible and the sustainability plan showed us for that many years as well. So, >> okay. >> And and some of the importance of a long range, you know, 50-year plan when we did our our bond in the 90s and then we had a lot of uh rebuilds in the 2000s. Those rebuilds are all going to kind of hit end of life at the same time. So, just knowing, hey, 40 years from now, you know, whatever, we're going to have huge capital needs. And so let's start, you know, whether it's putting money away or saying, you know, we will have to bond again for for something just having that for our information. >> Um I will not be in this seat in 50 years. [laughter] >> but but somebody somebody's

171going to want to have I mean look back and say, "Oh yeah, because it it could take 10 20 years to reserve enough money to build a school." And so if they can have that plan or those thoughts as sooner in the process than later, that will be beneficial. >> Okay. >> I'll go ahead and use my time to ask Allan, Dr. Grant, even Brian Connley and Isaac like what is your feedback to the board as we're thinking about this too? and what are the benefits that you all see as administrators implementing policy whether it's G5 or capital needs down the road and how we budget and bond uh moving forward like what are the elements to this that you think would be helpful for the board to know about how you might use this

172document moving forward more strategically in concert with us or what were some of the things that you all like talked about and brought to the table that ultimately made it into this table that you felt like would be beneficial uh for our collective work together as we move forward. >> Uh just to lead, you know, some of the discussions, do we only put the projects on here that we have enough money to cover? Well, clearly we didn't do that. We needed to put all the projects on there so we paint the true picture of where we're at. Um, and knowing that through tax policy or different savings or or adjustments, um, and I I think it'll be integral on our demographics. um you know, if a building needs to be replaced, but we in we

173see there's only going to be 150 kids in the building in 10 years, then that's the question of, well, why would we spend the money to replace that building that doesn't have the student uh counts to merit a building at all? So, um I really think it's just it's long range planning that I think everybody needs to get from this because, you know, planning for next year, it's easy. planning for five years fairly easy. Planning for 50 years becomes a lot more difficult. But we'll set things in place today that will either make it harder or easier for those that come after us to maintain the buildings of this district. >> Thanks, >> Dr. Grant, Isaac, or even Brian calling you guys out. >> I was just going to say thank you for your patience

174during this process and the input. Um, we will definitely come back with a more detailed report of recommendations and uh, but then also any other input that you guys have, we want to ensure that we're meeting everybody's interests in that. >> I do think that the the decisions ahead about schools and closing schools are complicated and hard. This is just one other piece of information to take into account as you're looking as we're looking at them. Um I because they're so hard and because buildings are stuck in a certain part of the city, it can't be the the leading factor. Uh the leading factors to me seem where is our population best served in which buildings closest to that population. Um but this then would come in to think about um what we do with

175those buildings and and things. Um one of the things I think we'll find with school closure is we don't have very many old buildings left, really old buildings, right, Isaac? In terms of I'm thinking elementary schools particularly. Y >> um we don't have very many of those and so it may require actually closing the school that still has quite a bit of life to it as we did last time having to make those decisions. But this lays out some of the tradeoff or at least the things to consider as Alan [clears throat] said in the long run on these decisions. I don't know if Isaac or Brian wanted to jump in there and then we can get back to Amanda. >> Okay, go for it. Amanda, >> you ready for me? >> Yeah. [laughter] I

176just wanted a heartfelt thank you for this [clears throat] work because it's very important information for not only us to have but for the public to have because all of this comes down to money and our our buildings are a significant amount of the um financial piece to it, the maintenance, the ongoing component. So just providing this not only for us but for the public is um essential and priceless. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Amanda. >> Thank you Isaac for your time and all of your efforts and Dr. Grant and your team to to put this information together and a lot of work. >> It's a lot of work. Thank you. >> A lot of work. Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um our next item on the report agenda is a

177Utah School Board Association state conference recap. Um, I believe Sam, you have a a document um that combines takeaways or highlights from each board member's participation um at the I know there's some debate if it was the 93rd, 94th, or 95th annual USBA state conference, but nonetheless, it's in the 90s, which is pretty cool. Um, there were some themes that I think I saw in putting this document together. Um, Brian and I are sorry we couldn't get this out to you earlier. Um, we were hoping to do that. um you know, so you could have this before the meeting. But nonetheless, um I think there were some themes that we saw. It seemed like truth and taxation, getting ready for what that looks like for us in the next couple of years and a strategy

178moving forward long term. Um choose getting free came up, I think, from almost every board member um who attended, you know, the conference and then wanted to bring some highlights and takeaways to the rest of the board. Um, and I also want to thank board member Anderson for um, suggesting this process that we're working in right now to that everybody um, kind of bring two or three highlights um, to the discussion to the table. So, uh, board members, you have that in front of you and I would open it up for a discussion on any takeaways that you really want to share with the public, the community, and some suggestions that we might want to take on as a board. Ashley, >> I would just share that the, you know, four most popular were to

179review attendance policy and the fi the policy committee would do that. Um, all applicable policies really to have the finance committee review choose gang free was I think in third place and second place was the school leadership training and different school leadership and compliance measures. Um, I don't object to doing anything that people recommended, like for example, uh, truth and taxation update. Um, having a different address of the reset program and a presentation on that for new board members. And also, um, there's one thing that, uh, board member F Jefferson said, which is pretty simple, that she was hoping the business office could create an image of some of the unfunded mandates and the costs that we face just to have as like a one-pager or a highlight. So I think obviously there were three

180most popular things which was attendance policy um taking a look at why we don't use choose gang free anymore and whether or not we can afford to reimplement that program and the aspects of school leadership training. But I think we should move forward on all of the items that were suggested by by people. >> Thank you Ashley. >> Any other thoughts or takeaways for board members? Oh, I was just gonna um say, yeah, it's um I'm supportive of moving forward with all of these. Um the choose gang free thing was a high priority for me kind of as it relates to the reset program as well as um just our general wellness efforts and um would really like to look at that and I think the finance committee will generally speaking. I think um the

181the presentation was informative because it was discussing um gang activity across the valley and how often times it is going across district lines of course and how those interactions um with the metro police is are really helpful because um they're tapped into multiple districts and I would hate for our district to be isolated from that resource of being able to um have more activities ities for gang prevention and also more awareness of what's going on in terms of um the entire valley. >> Thank you, Brett. >> Yeah, I'll echo um everything said I support the items that have a majority of uh interest from the board. Um one of the things I really wanted to highlight um in my section was my third example about a uh summary of the meetings that were in. I

182think um some of that was evident in our earlier conversation today um that if we can have um whether it's board leadership or we can figure out who it is, but really having a summary at the end of the meeting, hey, these are the things we talked uh talked about. These are um the items of direction that were given to the superintendent, PA, or other um district employees. I just think that would be uh that would help be helpful in some continuity and making sure we're on track to do the things that we said we're going to do. But I that was a I put it third on my list, but it was probably my number one. >> Thanks, Bryce. >> Dr. I know you had your hand up, too. Sorry. You to go to

183>> Nope, that's all right. I um being the one tasked with them taking this list and doing something with it. Um, I think what we can try and do is bring information back to the board related to these items. There are a number of them. It may take a number of board meetings um, if we're going to do all of them. Right. So, there's a number of things that haven't yet been mentioned that are still on here that I think board members are interested in. And I don't know, Nate and Brian, whether [snorts] or not you want to take this as directive for putting these in agenda setting or we go through and look at memos that we provide or how we want to do some of this to follow up appropriately with board member

184requests in this. >> Yeah, I think um personally I like the way that actually you framed it that there's some themes. There's three significant themes around attendance um around choose gang free and truth and taxation. Um I think those would be the natural places to start um because there's recommendations to push those to policy or to finance committees and and so on. Um unless anybody else objects or sees it differently and then we can kind of filter in you know how we tackle some of these other things um that are mentioned in here um like Bryce's suggestion you know about um how do we do some kind of a meeting summary if that comes from board leadership or if it's through uh our secretary or or whoever that might be um that's helping us with

185these meetings. But um I think the natural place is to start with those top three um suggestions that were made and then we can we can tackle the rest as we move forward. >> Great. We can do that. Let me get some clarification on attendance. I didn't attend that session so I don't know. [clears throat] A number of these statements say things about the attendance coding and things. I don't know what you discussed in those sessions that would help us understand what the challenge is that people highlighted in those sessions about looking at attendance codes and tardy codes and things. >> Okay. in that session and I'm sure Ashley you can speak to this as well but um so there was a presentation by the Ogden school district and I believe it was the Murray

186school district and in both of those I believe they have a PowerPoint that would be benefit and I appreciate that what we're doing now is figuring out how we're going to do what we just said oh that's a good idea um so to me the first step there would Okay, let's look at those powerpoints because that will help define some of the terms that were showing up there because they were new to me when I was sitting there. I don't know if they were for some of you. Um, >> okay. >> But I also, okay, sitting on the policy committee, it's nice to say, okay, we want the policy committee to look at this, but the policy committee needs to know what is it that you want. So, I don't want to put the cart

187before the horse or whatever. Do we and I'm asking for board member input here on how do how do we want to do this attendance and absenteeism because this is really tied to one of our I mean absenteeism is one of our deals. So please get the policy committee some direction. Yeah, I think the policy committee discussing it as a prerequisite to then presenting to staff helps determine which asks are reasonable and which are not. And I think what this presentation sort of elucidated is that sometimes, especially with sitebased decision-m our district can have a little bit of wild west approach to some subjects and that sometimes is included in attendance. So I will hear for example from faculty at a comprehensive high school who say oh well we just don't have to report such

188and such a tardy or it's really hard because we never are reporting these tardies or the absences are not they all just get excused by the parents like whatever it may be that the complaint is there's sort of this amorphous policy that they're pointing back to that I can't find exists because the policy we have written down in the administrative procedures does not have specific speific um codes. And so what people in Murray and Ogden shared is that when you code things very specifically, we can find out why kids are tardy. Like a bus delay tardy is different than I am habitually tardy because I have overslept or whatever it is. And so they've talked about how data gathering helps them make decisions. And it's seems clear to me anecdotally that we're not identifying tardies

189and absences in a uniform way. And when we don't do it in a uniform way, which admittedly can be frustrating for people to like adopt a specific procedure, that that is what the coding refers to from what I understand. >> That's great. Thanks. And I think again if the policy committee talks about what would be ideal in a revised attendance policy and also discusses the specificity of the administrative procedures then there's kind of that um toggling between the the policy committee which drafts the policy and also makes recommendations for some of these changes to APS where staff of course could then say it is not [clears throat] reasonable to put that in the AP. We would not ask schools to do X. But it seems like our student board member would like to speak also

190about attendance and this topic. >> And then I have Amanda and I'll chime in. Go ahead, boss. >> Um I agree that uh absenteeism and um attendance is very important. Although I would also just like to highlight when the policy committee does talk about making some um advice and further policy on attendance that we remember that presentation that was given by a parent talking about uh policies on makeup work. I thought that was interesting. >> Thanks. Amanda, >> um to add on to what Ashley was explaining regarding that presentation, um a key component that I took away from it was just the clarity of how coding was defined to ensure the consistent accurate consistency of it. So you're actually like measure or comparing apples to apples versus somebody, you know, anyway, you get it. Um

191but then I believe the other pieces that I explained regarding attendance were pretty clear. Um because you know it was a parent that emphasized that the attendance policy does tend to um push students to come up come to school ill. My daughter was even dealing with this where it was coming end of term and there were tests and stuff and she was sick and she's like I have to go home mom. if I don't go, it's gonna hit my grade period. Um, so we have to figure out a balance to it, especially when our children are ill. Um, and then like I emphasized in here, if we are um, well, I guess I kind of emphasized it, but if we're if we're doing attendance in a in a way that penalizes them for things are

192out of their control like illness and other things that's more harmful than not. And also said this before, if part of the reason is lack of engagement because our teachers are absent, our substitutes are not providing meaningful like educational um materials as they're doing their substitution work. Um uh taking too long to fill positions. um not having enough meaningful options that kids are just taking classes just to fill a credit. So, they're not really engaged in the material that they're um taking. Um those are very well and being in environments like elementary that the kids are miserable in and they're not given a choice to be um in a different classroom, not just general education students. Um, but we really need to be looking at the core contributor to all these things as well to

193help fix the problem instead of just they didn't show up. Shame on them. So, it that's a piece of the policy that we also need to dive in so we can drive more meaningful efforts in trying to resolve our attendance in my opinion. >> Thanks, Amanda. And I'll also just dubtail Dr. I'm not going to repeat any thing that's already been said because it's starting to get laid on us around the coding piece. But I do want to highlight that um the presentation, for lack of a better word, kind of had some qualifiers for what a good approach to reducing chronic absenteeism would look like. And you'll see it in my notes and takeaways is that we've taken a lot of really good steps. So, I want to congratulate the board and your team and

194you um for coming up with a really solid strategic plan because that was one of the things that they talked about that there's a goal like a district and a board goal that it's embedded in your strategic plan. Um but the policy element is something I think we could take a couple more steps further in based on what we discussed. Um and then of course that all of these best practices are being shared and I do want to like acknowledge that Murray and Ogden are are smaller than we are too. So the wild west things easier to have happen sometimes. And so anything we can do to continuously like say, hey, these are the best practices or those best practices become like practice generally across our schools. Um I think are things that would be

195a benefit to to our goal here and maintaining that and getting closer to it. >> Thank you and thanks everyone for contributing ideas so we know at least a starting point on that. Uh just know for the board for the public. So several of the presentations from this conference are on the USBA website and this attendance one is one of those that's posted. >> Right, >> Brian? So I just want to make sure that I understood the direction that came to the policy committee and my understanding from what board members have stated here is you would like us to look at that coding piece. Um I mean that's part of it. So we can refer to those different the Ogden's powerpoints, the Murray PowerPoint, rely on some of those as we develop some of this

196stuff. Is that >> a piece of it? >> Yeah, that's a piece of it. >> Yeah. And I think some of what we heard from our our parent who spoke with us about the nuances of missing school due to illness and makeup work and credit and recovery, all that type of stuff. I also um in mine and also a couple of other board members we specifically talked about sort of the aspect of rewards and incentives and we have a policy about that and I don't know that we always ascribe to that policy as board member 5 Jefferson has heard me talk about >> at length. So that would be another one where >> they give they give some best practices and suggestions for rewards that obviously would not be drafted into policy, >> but perhaps

197the policy document does need a crosswalk to that general wellness policy because it appears that many of our incentives contradict our other directions at times. >> This is helpful. Thank you. >> Um Dr. Grant, do you mind if I ask Dr. to kind of share her takeaways from we attended that session together and you were like super excited Dr. Ruiz about kind of what they were talking about. So I don't know if there's anything that you feel like we should add or contribute to the policy discussion on this >> just the idea about building a system and processes. I already shared that information with our director Dr. Brie Connley um and looking at the coding, the activities, the incentives, everything as a package and how they're not only utilizing their administrators but also their students.

198So being more attentive about how students are driving uh some of these efforts with their peers um I'm super excited about. So that's something that we're wanting to start conversations about as well. >> Thank you, Dr. All right, a good conversation. Thank you board members for attending, participating, and for sharing your takeaways uh with the community and with our team. Um, thank you. We really appreciate it. We'll move on uh to our discussion agenda. Uh Dr. Grant, we have the portrait of a graduate. Um based on the memo, it looks like we're just looking, you're looking for the board's approval to to start the process. [snorts] >> That's right. Dr. Luis is going to introduce this again. um the board specifically asked that we bring [clears throat] this to um enough board meetings that it

199can go through the proper process and so that's why we've brought this back. >> Yeah. Well, I want to start this discussion by sharing a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education. So when we talk about the portrait of a graduate, we're talking about that same vision. The portrait of a graduate brings a balanced approach to education, one that includes strong knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This language is also in our mission. In our mission, we state the academic problem solving, social skills to help our students thrive not only in college um but in a career and in life. So we want our students to graduate with these essential knowledge skills and these positions. And we also are hoping that the portrait of a

200graduate help align our schools around a share understanding of what success looks like beyond grades and beyond test scores. So tonight we're asking for your approval um to be able to develop the Salt Lake City School District portrait of a graduate. What questions do you have? Ashley, >> these sort of reiterate questions I've asked kind of throughout this process, but I remain a little bit confused about how this is different than the multiple years of work groups that led to the development and approval of the strategic plan like what will be different about this process compared to you know the many years ded where staff dedicated themselves to identifying all the pillars of the strategic plan. >> Yeah. So this wouldn't be taking away any of that work. On the contrary, it will be unpacking

201what that means specifically. We will be giving it language of what we mean by the academic, the dispositions, the um durable skills that we want them to walk away with. I know there are [music] um a lot of skills that we could develop in our students and when we approach our work from um a variety of skills that we think are best of our for our students, that approach remains a bit fragmented in that one student can move from school A to school B and may not receive the same level of education in terms of those durable skills because it's not consistent, it's not well identified, it's not um defined for us. And what we would love to do is be able to define that with stakeholder input. So then when people say, "What do

202you mean by the academic or the problem solving or the social skills, we could say, here's what we mean? Here's our standards for academic knowledge. Here's what our standards are for our durable skills. here's our standards of what we're pursuing in terms of character and dispositions, those qualities we want our students to walk away with as graduates of our district. >> So, if we're trying to make academic experiences more uniform, will the portrait of a graduate address curricular scope and sequence and make that uniform across our schools or will we still have schools doing their own scope and sequence? >> So, that's part of that work. Once we identify what those skills are, then we'll start embedding that with our curriculum and instruction or what we call our viable >> Dr. Hall CVD uh >>

203guaranteeable >> guarantee and viable curriculum. Thank you. That's escaped me for a minute. but where we guarantee um standards for academic knowledge, where we guarantee standards for here are the durable skills that our future employers are looking for in our students and we could teach that or embed that in our instruction. So then all students have access to learning those more explicitly rather than doing that by chance or leaving that to chance. We're doing that by design. So we don't do that now. >> We [snorts] don't have guaranteed whatever the acronym stand. >> Yes, we do have guaranteed and viable curriculum for academic standards. However, to my knowledge, I haven't seen a set of durable skills that we currently embed um in our instruction uh or these positions in our instruction that is um uniform

204across the district. It's happening. it's just not uniform or define the way that maybe as a district we could define it uh with stakeholder input. >> So for example, the citizenship scores that a child receives on a report card, those are uniform skills and dispositions that we hope kids have, but you're saying we're not actually doing those things. >> Well, I don't know to what extent those are taught explicitly in the instruction. And maybe Dr. Hall can correct me if I'm not providing correct information. [cough] >> I [clears throat] actually think that's a great example. um our citizenship skills and and when they're reported on an elementary report card, one of the things I mean we do have, you know, when we talk about the instruction side, literacy, math, social studies, science, we have pacing

205guides, we have materials, we have support, we have coaches, we have professional development. Those things in terms of a guaranteed viable curriculum are laid out. Um, and one of the things though that I like to think about in our pillar is we've been working through our strategic plan is not just what students do, but but why we think it's important to do it and what they'll become as a result of that. So when we think about things like the CI or the uh I always go to civic readiness but our civic attitudes and our citizenship scores. What does that really mean when we say that we are preparing students to be members of their society to be civic ready? Does that mean the same thing to me that it means to you? Does it mean

206the same thing for all of our teachers, students, parents across the board? and and how do we talk about how we tie that kind of civic readiness or that ability to be a good citizen into why is it important then to be literate because knowing how to read is a very important skill. I know that, you know, that's why we're here. That's why we're doing that work. But when we really want to think about what does that mean if we're preparing students to be responsible citizens, to be active members of their community, why is why is literacy important for that? Why is data literacy or mathematical and statistical understanding important for that? Why is an understanding of science and social studies important for that? Those are the connections that the portrait of a graduate will

207help us make. not just the what of what we do, but why it's important and how that's going to help us be able to define what our students are doing to themselves and to their parents and to their teachers. And so it it hopefully, sorry I'm taking way too long, but hopefully what what we're trying to do here is center the discrete work that we do in terms of phonics and math and can you multiply? I mean, I still can't do my six times eights, right? like I don't have those, but I feel like I'm a good citizen because when I read the newspaper, I understand what statistics mean or I understand why we have the headlines that we have and and what that's doing to me in terms of the media literacy that I

208have because I learned that from a librarian somewhere. So, those are the kinds of things that this will do, not just the what. So again, I think your example of do those grades, are they the same across the board or are we looking at that and saying, >> "Well, this is a student that enjoys my class and I enjoy having them in my class, so SSS." Or are we really thinking about what that means? >> Yeah. >> For why we're teaching what we teach. >> Thank you. Um, my last question is, we've asked about this in previous meetings, but what is the cost of doing something like this? So initially as as we go and seek input from our stakeholders there will be no cost because it will be except for staff time for seeking

209that input from our stakeholders. Um once we have those identified and well defined and we start embedding them into the instructional practices then there may be some cost associated with professional development um to make sure that that's um integrated into teachers work and is is taught to our students across the the district. Um I wouldn't I don't have a dollar amount at this point. Um um but in the future I could bring that uh in terms of what that will take. Now in sorry can I add one more piece in conversations with Dr. Hall to um we talked about providing in the future providing also um this as an opportunity for um teachers to be able to use their professional hours or the professional plan. um that we could also offer something like these in

210the future for them to be able to develop um these plans moving forward. >> Um I I think as with other items we've recently discussed, I personally am not comfortable moving forward with an item without [clears throat] a budget of knowing the long-term costs of a project. Um so I do have some concerns that we still can't anticipate what costs there will be even if those costs are just trade-off of staff time. I personally am more comfortable seeing people invest in the strategic plan and unpacking the why of the strategic plan without creating a new program that may require training and costs. But thank you for answering those questions. >> Okay. >> Um I have Amanda and then Bryce. >> Um so I want to emphasize that I init before I sat down and talked

211with Dr. Ruiz um I was it was not clear to me. I struggled with it. I did not see the valid validity the validity of it. Um all of that it was very enlightening having that conversation to really understand what was being proposed and really how uh I don't want to like undervalue it but how simple this concept actually is. um in our dialogue and as we were talking through it like and correct me where I'm wrong. The biggest challenge in relaying what is being proposed here is that it can't be shown what's being proposed because there has to be the motion to do the work. But the examples that were shown to me really um showed how it's a clarification of what we've already got >> and not a grand um expansion of or

212a new program. And >> I don't know how to even share this but we have our our vision statement excellence and equity every student every classroom every day. And so one of the main points that was explained to me would be expanding clarifying what that means. So that's a piece of it. And then um adding a values section, a commitment on how we um do this operationally I think was my scribbles. Can't read my own handwriting. Um and then uh so having that values but then getting to that point where then we have our four pillars that we've established but it's kind of a simplification of it turns into this lovely little onepage breakdown that clarifies how we're going to get from what that means up there instead of having just a lovely lovely statement.

213What does that mean? um clear down to our pillars that we have the strategic plan that expands on it, but that's 15 pages. This is a lot easier to um disperse out versus a 15-page document. 15 page document is I guess the way that I take it is kind of like an AP where the uh the the um portrait of a graduate is kind of that broad overview of what we're trying to accomplish. So um when [snorts] I after I had that meeting it was like it was it's an easy choice for me. I really like made how clear this is really a simple ask but a very relevant ask that provides clarity top down as we're pushing our initiatives through the district. So, um I I just wanted to try to I guess add

214to the explanation and just um emphasize that I'm I'm grateful that I was able to um meet and really discuss it out because like I said, I was not behind it before um and going through that conversation and understanding it better. It um it's a no-brainer for me. It's not this big complex grand ask that it it sounds like as you're trying to get the ask before you can present what you're proposing. >> Thanks, Amanda. [clears throat] >> Um I have Bryce and then Annie. >> Yeah. Um I do have a question. I apologize I didn't send it ahead of time. I thought about it in the five minute drive from the University of Utah campus and jotted some notes down when I parked my car. Um kind of going back to some earlier comments

215from board member Anderson. She asked about the consistency or incons inconsistency around the academic components. My question is um does that also align with um different services or opportunities as well. Um I did share um some frustrations this weekend with the superintendent, number of members um from the cabinet that I I sorry I am observing some in inconsistencies with um counseling and particularly guidance around um college or higher education. Would the portrait of the graduate um streamline or make consistent efforts across like comprehensive high schools when it comes to that sort of thing or we looking at something completely different? So let's see if I understand your question um by answering this way. Um the portrait of a graduate is for every student. We want every student to have every opportunity available to them and

216we want to make that possible. We want to provide access to not only the academic knowledge. We want them to walk away with strong academic knowledge but also durable skills. Right? and whatever they decide is up to them, but we want to offer the full menu and opportunity to every student in our district. So, I don't know if that answers >> I think that did. >> Okay. And another way um maybe to think about these um growing up I wish I had been taught how to communicate more effectively or how to collaborate or problem solve or critical think in ways that were more explicit and that's not something I was taught in my schooling um in Puerto Rico. That was not part of what they did. And when we started implementing that as a state

217and in other states, I was like that's amazing. Um because not everyone comes to us with all of these skills fully developed. And um some of the books um written by Dr. Eric Jensen. Um one of the things that I will never forget is how he compares kids to the keys of a piano. thinking that and I'm not a musician so I may be butchering the the analogy so forgive me for that but what I walk away with is that um we think that kids come to us with already the soft skill or what they used to call soft skills um skills and dispositions already developed and we know that that's not the case and so we need to teach them explicitly while they're learning content knowledge or better yet as a method method to

218better learn content knowledge. So, it's more of the how they learn and why these skills and the the identification of these skills is so essential for our students. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, that perfectly transitions into my question. So with the portrait of a graduate, I'm understanding that you're going to identify, you know, like whatever >> collaboration or citizenship or something as the as one of the elements that when someone graduates from our district, they have had this and that is through their social studies class and some academics and it's also through these soft skills we're teaching. Right. So, it sounds like within the district, within lesson plans and curriculum, there already are some um elements of the academics that are being filtered that could easily just be tweaked or maybe even not even

219touched that will be part of this portrait of a graduate. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Okay. And then the the newer part, the integral part will be the soft skills added to the curriculum that are going to be like negotiations or something like when you're a sophomore in high school, whatever, in one of your social studies class, you have to negotiate some deal or something. Whatever. I'm just kidding. >> But but that that those softer skills can be integrated in different pieces in different curriculum. Okay. So, I think that makes a lot of sense and I agree. I think that's really important and I think the the presentation and the simplification of the portrait of graduate is the key here. I think we've talked about this many times, but like short and sweet, understandable,

220>> like maybe there's going to be a little bit of lingo in there that needs to be explained, but pretty legible to the average parent or anyone saying like, "Okay, I get it. This is what my student is coming out with, and they're getting this in math and reading and science or whatever." Um, so I'm very supportive of this effort and I think my my um thought would be is it possible for us to move like to vote on this and say yeah go ahead with it um and then have you come back and then we can discuss um like phase two. So we'd be like approving phase one but phase two would be discussing the costs of training or how this will actually be implemented >> or or can we not decouple those things

221at all? >> Yeah, even in previous uh presentations we also asked for how the board wants to be part of this development or conversation. So any of these steps could be broken into phases. I think mo more importantly the first part is being able to seek stakeholder input and identifying and defining that and then bringing that back and have a phase two of the conversation. >> And stakeholders includes board members. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So stakeholders would include teachers, board members, parents, students, maybe some potential employers or community members. Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um the timer that went off wasn't Bryce's time. It was the acknowledgement that we've reached three hours of our public meeting. Um so Bryce, sorry about that. Um if that threw you off, but um I think in

222the interest of time um if we could go ahead and and hear a motion um to move this to action and then we can continue the conversation if the if the motion is successful to get it to action. >> I move this item to Sorry. Do you want to do it? [laughter] >> Go for I move this item to action. I make a motion to move this item to action and approve the initiation of the uh Salt Lake City. Wait, do I just move to action? Reading the whole thing. Just move to action and then I'll finish the formal one later. >> There a second. >> Second. >> Okay, Charlotte, you got the second. Any discussion of the motion? I mean, Ashley, excuse me. I would just say again to act on an item for

223which we've been presented no budget continues to be sort of unprecedented behavior that we continue to engage in. >> Thank you, Ashley. Any further discussion? >> Okay, seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with Charlotte. >> Five. Charlotte F. Jefferson. Yes. >> Ash Anderson, no. >> Nate Salazar, yes. [clears throat] Annie Romano, yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Long, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> All right, that motion passes. And we do find ourselves on the action agenda uh with this particular item. Is there a motion to begin the conversation? >> Do you want to make the motion for approving it? Is that what you're saying? >> That depends on the person making the motion. >> Um, okay. I move that we discuss this item or I move that we move forward

224[laughter] with this item for the initial stage of stakeholder input. >> Okay. And in moving forward are you asking to approve or not to approve the particular >> well I approve the first phase is that >> yeah let me yeah I don't know >> we're going to get confused if we do phases. I second the motion >> if the board. >> There's a motion and a second on the floor. >> Will you restate your motion, please? >> So, I move to move forward with phase one of the portrait of a graduate plan. >> Can we clarify for my sake and for my team's sake what that if I can describe The plan as presented in memos was to get moving toward creating a portrait of a graduate. >> Yes. >> It sounds like the board

225would like to have a second conversation, but I'm not quite sure what you're describing as the second follow-up conversation. If it's you want to be able to approve the portrait, which sounds like maybe that would be what it is, or you want something sooner than I just need direction. We're not going to be clear about >> Could I offer a suggestion? >> Yes. >> So, page two of your presentation, it suggests the language that I I move to approve the initiation of the Salt Lake City School District portrait of a graduate development. Um and I think what Annie is saying is um up to the point of procuring stakeholder input >> through procuring >> okay >> through procuring stakeholder input for maybe the the the way it could be stated um is for the uh

226vision statement and mission recommendations piece of the portrait of graduate is that wouldn't you want to be more >> sorry I'm not trying to make this complicated all I'm trying to say is I move forward with starting this process up until we have to spend money I'm moving forward to like sure do a small working group get stakeholder input put together an outline come back present it to us and we'll say yeah this is a great outline now how much would it cost to implement this to with the teachers and training and whatever. That's what I'm saying. But sorry if my motion was unclear. >> Perfect. If you could restate that, that would be awesome as your motion. >> We're still discussing the motion on the floor. So, I don't know that we can restate

227the motion that was made, which I mean, you can make a substitute, but to discuss that, Dr. Ruiz was very specific. She said phase one would be stakeholder feedback and that phase two is when there would be costs of implementing. So, I understood exactly what board member Romano said, which is why I seconded it because my objection continues to be that we move forward on items without a cost. So, if we move forward with collecting the feedback and then reporting that would allow us to then make a subsequent better decision. Um, and I do want to also just share before we vote in the motion that I will support it based on that and finding the common ground of ensuring that we're not spending resources without further discussing it. But I do think, as I've

228shared in prior discussions, personally, it would be great to have seen board member Jensen's community workg group recommendation established before we continue to move forward on items that require community input. We continue to put the cart before the horse uh rather than finish the actions we've taken. And also, to be honest, sometimes I leave these meetings, I feel a little bit like I'm in the emperor's new clothes, where no one can pin down exactly what it is um we're talking about, voting on, and we just change the verbiage. And I think in our study session, it was impressed upon me specifically that we have very significant challenges coming to us in terms of cost and policy implementation. And I'd really like to see us focusing on the basics of governance, keeping the lights on, keeping

229our employees from collectively reaching the precipice of burnout that many of them are reaching. And I don't really want to see anything added to anyone's plates to that end. Um, but if we have no budget and it's feedback collecting, I can I can get behind that. But I want to ensure the feedback collecting identifies not just the cost, but how much work this is for teachers to implement things that I think we're already doing. I think we do have shared academic standards and shared citizenship standards. And so I can support it to the extent that it's exploratory, but I continue to have some real concerns about not having a uniform understanding of of what we're talking about and if it will help with the day-to-day problems that we each hear about as board members. So,

230so my my motion phase one to my understanding was collecting feedback of the I don't know for lack of a better term from stakeholders of what the pillars would be and what that would look like in like if the pillars are citizenship or something soft skill that is maybe not clearly outlined in curriculum what those pillars are and everyone's thoughts on how those could be integrated into the curriculum and then an outline of like okay portrait of a graduate. It's these simple four things. Citizenship, academic provisions, whatever, whatever. And then um come back to us and say, "This is kind of what we came up with. What do you think?" I don't know. Is that the same thing everyone else is thinking? I don't know. [laughter] >> I think we're all thinking something similar, right?

231My understanding of this, Annie, and and my colleagues on the board is that um this just starts the process, right? It starts the process of us developing something that can be ultimately brought back um to the board for final approval. So, I anticipate, Dr. Grant, correct me if I'm wrong, that this will probably come back again and and maybe even after that again and um until we ultimately have a final product um you know that brings in all of these pieces that Ashley mentioned and other board members have mentioned around budget and around the scarcity of funds that we have right now in our current times. Um teacher burnout was examples that she raised. Um, but by no means am I working under the impression after reading the memo and having the discussions that we've

232had tonight that we're moving forward with, yeah, go go produce a portrait of a graduate that's going to be the final product. Right. That's not my understanding based on what we've talked about, but to initiate the process of developing a portrait of a graduate that will have multiple decisions that we need to weigh on and make over time. And I would like to say in that exploratory process of getting stakeholder feedback, perhaps the stakeholder feedback from teachers is I don't want any more of this. Or perhaps parents are like actually I'm still wrapping my minds around the dignity index or how you know maybe stakeholder feedback is like put pause on this. My whole my whole thing with this has been I don't I'm fine with having a portrait of a graduate as long as

233it's simple and it gets to the point and we all get this is what a graduate looks like and this is beneficial for all of us to have this shared vision. If it's not that and it's ownorous and timeconuming and all these things then I don't think that's kind of the what we want. I don't think we want all these additional tasks to do, right? >> Okay, >> Charlotte, >> I agree that it's the shared vision and the shared values that we need and that's part of um getting stakeholder feedback from everybody in our district. What do we really value? And and how are we getting excellence and equity for every student in every classroom? You know, it it's about the how and the and the why and clarity around that. Um and and having

234a shared shared understanding of what we really are about and what kind what we're trying to help our students um what skills and dispositions and um what were the what was the other thing? >> Knowledge >> and knowledge. Yeah. Um so yeah I I am in favor of that but I I if if this has been done in other districts is there an idea of cost is there an idea of the training involved or or if it's time you know we should know a little bit about that. Okay. >> Any further discussion, Brian and Amanda? >> I really appreciate that we're authorizing the district to at least move forward with this first phase. I think I mean Charlotte when you brought up other districts are doing this. I think that it is important for us

235to remember that the legislature and okay USB They have encouraged us to look at portrait of a graduate. And to me, I want to demonstrate to the legislature that we're not rogue out there. I mean, we hear what they ask. We're now grappling with how to accomplish this and we're going to take it in phases. To me, that demonstrates a good faith effort on our part. Thank you, Brian. Amanda, >> um I was just going to ask what do we need to do to get this motion done? Just does it need to be restated for clarity or what are we seeking to get this done? >> Should we ask our parliamentarian for a clarification about where we are? >> Call the question. >> Yeah. I mean, if someone wants to stop discussion and vote, you

236just call the question. >> I'd like to call the question. Okay. In my understanding, called a question parliamentarian is that that does require a vote. >> Y >> and my question is what is the motion specifically? >> I think >> the question has been called we have to vote >> have to vote. >> Can you voting on I so I have >> we're voting on call question >> all you're voting on Amanda is to end the discussion where we are right now. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> I can't make a motion to a >> item >> Amanda. can't vote on something that the motion is not clear >> and I think we're going to get >> so the pending motion is calling the question. What following the question means is just ending debate. So you're

237voting on whether or not you want to end the discussion on this topic. >> Thank you. >> So that's the only motion right now that you're voting on >> is ending discussion on this topic. >> Thank you. >> Um thank you parliamentarian for that. Um, so we'll do a roll call vote on the call to question starting with board member Anderson. >> Ash Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Ryan Jetson, yes. [clears throat] >> Yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> Charlotte F. Jefferson, yes. >> All right, that motion passes. Um, now we will revisit um our vote on Annie's original motion. Um, Annie, I think it would be valuable for you to restate your motion. Um, and we have a second from Amanda on that. Just for clarity sake, >>

238it's me. We have >> a second from Thanks, Ashley. I missed that. >> I will restate my motion. I move to to approve the initiation of the portrait of a graduate plan through phase one, which is the exploratory phase. >> Thank you. And we have a second from Ashley. Um, the debate has been closed and so we will now run to a uh roll call vote starting with Vice President Jensen. >> Ryan Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> All right, that motion passes. Um we will now move on to the superintendent report if there is. >> Yes. Just to um everybody should note that January is school board appreciation month >> and um

239just wanted to take a moment and recognize our school board here and um recognize you for your service because this takes a lot of hours and a lot of attention and a lot of care to schools and to our community. Um, and also thank you for your hard questions and your pushing on things and uh making [clears throat] us better as a district. But to share appreciation for you individually for stepping into these roles, I think at a time when our world can be pretty tough on people in public service. Um, but to step into them and to take them on is impressive and I am grateful for it. So, thank you for that. Um, I wanted to also mention that uh more formally wanted to say out loud we completed our audit requirements for

240the office of the legislator auditor general. Um, these requirements were that we had a number of recommendations in our audit from December 2022. We had a number of recommendations from the follow-up audit in October of 2024. we have officially met all of those expectations. Um, and many of those sat with the board to complete and the board did. A number of those sat with the district to complete and we did and so we have fulfilled our obligation that way on the audit. Um and the last thing is just to note on Wednesday we have um the Capitol Rotunda as a place for all of us to gather and fight for public education to advocate for public education and um in these times when the notion of a public itself seems at question and certainly the

241idea of public education and the sufficient funding for public education is a question. I encourage people to attend. We will have along with other districts a table there showcasing a couple of our programs, but more importantly, it's a way for us to stand behind public education as we enter into this legislative session coming up. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. BA Kley, do you have a a report this evening? Just quickly, so um prior to the beginning of the USBA conference, the the UASBO nerds met and discussed um legis upcoming legislation largely >> largely which was covered in the study session. Uh some of those slides that we covered in the study session about uh potential um budget cuts or changes to to funding rules or tax policy coming from the legislature. So, uh,

242we'll just keep an eye on what happens of the legislature and keep you updated on any pending bills that come forward. >> Thank you, Alan. Charlotte, will you start us off with board member reports? >> Sure. Um, I wanted to report that I um spent some time at an SEC meeting at Mountain View at the at the Mountain View Glendel CLC and that's always wonderful to see students who are being recognized to see parents getting involved in their community and they we heard from teachers at at some teachers from Glendel about um to they were talking about what kind of opportunities there are at Glendel for Mountain View students and I think that they're I don't know I have a really soft spot in my heart for Glendel because I think they're amazing and it

243was great to see those teachers and hear what they're doing. Um, I met with Dr. Katarini Ruiz um to talk about the portrait of a graduate and we had a really great meeting and talk and it's nice to get to know to get to know our associate superintendent better and um I am gearing up for the legislative session and planning to um attend the capital our our USB BA events at the capital and all the GLC the JLC meetings and >> [snorts] >> um I've been talking with my senator Senator Esamia about legislation that she's working on and shared it with um board member Longwell and um also Lexi Cunningham with the the US with the JLC. so that we can give them her feedback before she actually opens the I'm sorry before she It's

244a draft bill. Anyway, before she >> Drops the bill. Okay. Yeah. Um, I know I've done other things, but I I'm not feeling well tonight. So, [snorts] um, not thinking straight. Anyway, that's all for now. >> Um, yeah, I enjoyed uh the USBA conference. It was my first time. I learned a lot. Um, also I uh was able to attend the Utah Health Policy Project uh conference last week for my full-time role and was able to discuss um several converging factors on social determinance of health as well as education uh with many people there um including some of my U of health colleagues as well as legislators who were there for a legislative panel. So that was really interesting and I tried to highlight with them the work that's being done at the West High

245Clinic and um other community centers including the Liberty Elementary Clinic which is in my precinct. Um I also was able to attend a couple of school community council meetings. um like to highlight the all of the great work that the Emerson Elementary School Community Council is doing and they're um trying to um involve more community members um and and plan for the future. Um also the East High School community council which was very informative. Um and uh they're they had a CTE presentation from a district member. Um and uh I've been encouraging people in the East High community to participate in their upcoming career day, which is February 27th. Um they're hoping to have about 65 um professionals from the community have um small groups of students go through and discuss um what they do

246for work and help inspire the students to explore what career options they have um whether it's vocational or professional or whatever. Um, and then also would like to highlight um that East High had their AP diploma night which had great attendance and um also like to say great job to all of the basketball teams within our district. um some of which will be moving on to the playoffs, some of which won't. But the importance of um the skills of team building and resilience and self-discipline are valuable regardless of um your record loss win record. Sorry, I didn't get to get that word. Anyway, that's it. Well, I had the opportunity as well of um visiting with several SEC's and I without singling them out, I appreciate um you know I have um five elementary schools

247in my um precinct and they work hard on those SEC's and I appreciate the work they're doing and I do at the middle schools and two of those and at two high schools as well. Um, board member Romano has already talked about the AP diploma openhouse. I think that that was really a great opportunity for the East High, not just community, but for the district at large to see that there's another opportunity besides the IB program. I think that the IB program is a wonderful program, but for some students, they may be looking for something else. And the AP AP diploma program is a really remarkable program. Also, I believe there are only eight schools, eight high schools in the state of Utah that provide that AP diploma. Um, we're really fortunate that we have

248one of those schools in our district. Um, and I want to thank them for their work there. Um, going along with those SEC's, I want to thank you. Um, Dr. Grant, I understand that you're having an SEC chair meeting. Is that coming up? >> Yes. On Saturday. >> Yes. >> Oh, there's an SEC training on an SEC training meeting. And I think that's coming up this weekend. Saturday from 10 to >> 2. >> I think that that's valuable for the community to hear because I think that's open to >> anyone, isn't it? >> Yeah. And >> I have um individuals in my precinct that ask, well, you know, how can I have a voice? One of the ways you can have a voice is to participate in your school's SEC. here's an opportunity for you

249this Saturday to find out what's entailed in that. So, thank you for providing that um training. Um going along, I guess I it ties to SEC's, but Clayton Middle School will be having their open house not tomorrow, but the next day on January 22nd. And for those of you that are listening, I think that that's a great opportunity for those um elementary schools that are in my pre precinct that feed into Clayton. And there are students from around the district that have an interest in Clayton. Well, here's your opportunity to find out what's available at Clayton. >> Thanks, Brian. Thoughts? [snorts] Um, I had the opportunity to attend the USBA conference with Dr. Ruiz and we attended the presentation on student board members. Got to meet some of my peers from around the state. Uh,

250and there were some interesting ideas on how the student board member position could develop as we're starting to uh board members in the next uh year. Also, uh, West High School transitioned to their new pack schedule, which is, uh, flex. So, you can go to any teacher you need, uh, to get extra help, uh, to make up quizzes, to, um, participate in activities with your peers. So, that's been an interesting new addition to our schedules. Um, although I'm not aware of how that is progressing at other schools. Um, also our IB program is starting to highlight some of our students in the halls. In particular, uh, Adi Umama Gaswaran, who was recently recognized by ISF for her project on aven vocalizations, um, to visualize their vibrations, um, which is incredible. Uh, she's a good friend

251of mine and an incredible student. So, we're happy to be highlighting her along with students in all different sorts of subjects. Um, and looking ahead, uh, West High is working on making, um, a program or a pathway so that every student can experience IB literature. Um, although as you were saying, our AP classes are also wonderful. Um, that's a moment where they kind of combine. So, we are co-seing our IB literature classes with our AP. So the students get both of those. Um, and I I think that's great because it really builds your critical discussion and analysis skills by really applying those global issues with international um, texts so that you can then apply that to your local experience going forward in the community and I'm excited about the future as we move further into

2522026. >> Thanks Ash. Um, fossing up ISF is a good segue to the start of my board member report because for those who don't know, ISF is the international science fair and we have many high schoolers who attend um, on the years that it's offered. But in your board email, you will see an email from Kristen Bonner who's the science teacher at Indian Hills Elementary. She is contacted but contracted by the district to coordinate our district science fair. And as the schools we each individually represent wrap up their school fairs, they need judges to support their attendance at district. So, please share those signup links. Um, in precinct 3, I know Wasatch and Washington have wrapped up their fair, but NSING is also still seeking judges for this Friday morning. I want to thank the

253many faculty and parents who make those events happen, including, but certainly not limited to Mr. Hlam at Wasace, Mr. Talbett at Washington, who had an especially heavy lift to reinstate affair this year after many years. Um, and also Christelle and Harry from the PTA at NSING. As we discussed amply in the study session, finance committee will meet shortly and we'll take all the items that have been passed to us. Um, part of my service is on the county parks and wreck advisory committee board and there will be some new members cycling on and they discuss the process of their budget cycle. I would like us to consider how we can pursue supporting pathways to summer employment for our district teens with the many opportunities that are offered in parks and wreck. Um, there are so

254many accolades that come out of West High in academics, athletics, and activities, but I specifically wanted to offer my appreciation for Red Rocks Robotics because they've been taking a traveling robot to elementary school STEM nights in the precinct um, and other events. And seeing the pictures of the our littlest kids playing with these robots is just wonderful to see. Um, I enjoyed the chance to join West Wasach and Washington at recent school community councils and also thank the Greater Avenues Community Council on their contribution to lunch fund debt which was recently recognized by our foundation. Um, I know I miss positive news from time to time. So, if anyone is still listening to this meeting, you can tell me any big achievements or topics that I missed. >> I have a pretty lengthy report, but

255I'll be quick. Um, so I also attended the West SEC meeting with uh board member Anderson as well as the Slicky uh SEC meeting. I wanted to thank both SEC's for their active involvement and thoughtful consideration as they start to discuss the land trust uh process. Um, similar to the science fair report, I signed up to be a judge for the middle school level um because that's the only day that worked. I wanted to do every day, but that's the day that worked. Um, there are a number of committee meetings that I'll be attending this next little while. There's a SLF board meeting tomorrow, a human sexuality committee meeting on uh Thursday, and then next Tuesday, as board member Anderson mentioned, is the finance committee meeting. Um I know board members know this already. Uh

256but for the public, I've been elected to the Utah School Board Association Board of Directors for the next two years, uh representing Salt Lake, Murray, and Provo school boards. So, I will continue to do what Brian used to do and provide lots of updates with USBA uh moving forward. As folks know, the legislative session started today. Charlotte mentioned this as well, but JLC starts this Friday. Um, and I plan to be at a majority of the JLC meetings um, every Friday afternoon through the end of the legislative session. I think I have to miss one, but planning to be at the rest. Um, January 30th um, which is also a day of the second JLC meeting is also the Utah School Board Association Day on the Hill. So, I'd encourage folks to come and participate

257in that. And then as the superintendent mentioned, tomorrow is a celebration of public education from 3:00 to 6:00 at the Capitol Rotunda. I plan to be there between 4:00 and 4:30 after I get off work. So, um, hope folks will join me there. I think I have one more thing. Uh, the other thing, um, going back to the board of directors, there is a board meeting midFebruary. Um, I am sure that I'll have more info about this year's goals and, um, professional development, a variety of things that will be coming up this year. And I'm sure that I very um soon will be bugging you all about completing your master board certification for 2026. Thank you. >> All right, I'll try and be fast. Um so already mentioned USBA celebration of public education on Capitol

258Hill. Very important. Uh plan on being there. Brian, you just gave me a heart attack because you talked about Clayton's open penthouse. Well, tomorrow's Hillside's open house for my youngest. I'm going to figure out how to be there and the other one and then another thing all within a very short period of time. So that's yeah. Um and then the SEC leadership training I'm actually I'm planning on attending it and looking forward to it. I'm grateful for it as well. I don't recall it ever being done before. I participated as a parent on the SEC's and it just felt like very um uncertain as to my role even though I served on it for a few years. Um so I think it's a very helpful tool. um to give people that are really wanting to

259make a big difference in their um school communities. So um that is amazing. Uh not school board related, but I'm well it actually is. The legislative um committee uh sorry I'm going to say this wrong. Let me pull it up. Uh legislative coalition for people with disabilities. They are um doing a uh meet and thing at the at retenda at the capital on Monday from 4:30 to 6. The reason I bring this up is they advocate for all disability policy including um education. Um so that's something that individuals can show up and do that and it's not um individuals just born but have developed later on. Um so that's super important. um the finance committee coming up, JLC, and then 30th USBA day on the hill. Um so, as we've all talked about, but the

260main thing that I wanted to uh emphasize and share, I gave everybody, mostly everybody in the room, a copy of the Highland High um rambler. I came across this yesterday in my daughter's room and it is from December. They do such a great job with their um articles. Um but the the article in front obviously caught my attention. opportunity for all. Highland High School is creating more ways to include all I'm not going to go through and read it point by point, but I really hope that everybody takes time to read the article in full and really think about it because um it they did a really great job of um doing a comprehensive uh discussion I guess of it like how one parent kind of made a huge difference on unified sports and we

261just approved um supporting basketball, soccer and track and one parent is now introduced unified dance over there. So, she's keeping us moving on doing more for our students. Um, and another parent's comment um was just the emphasis on it's the parents are usually the ones that are taking the lead on these initiatives. So, um my ask and why I ran for the board is so that we as a district can start taking the lead and not um uh leave it for these parents to make such a huge difference. I do also want to point out that Highland High School um with the work that they are doing with their special education program. Um last year, last few years I said that um they had 30 to 40 peer tutors. Those are neurotypical students that um

262help support students with disabilities. Um and this year they had around 80 um sign up to be peer tutors. So they more than doubled the amount of um students that are wanting to participate in this program, which is huge. Um I guess I'll just leave it at that, but please take time to read this and really digest it. And if you have any questions, you can know where to find me. >> Thank you, Amanda. Um I'll just be really brief. Um a number of you talked about some things that um that I had the chance to participate in or I'm looking forward to. Um but I do want to highlight um my attendance at the NAACP's um Dr. MLK lunchon yesterday with district leadership Dr. Grant, Dr. Louise and members of the SLE board. Um

263it was just a super fun experience. Um I had some big takeaways about um you know fear and faith and what you choose in times that are really really hard. And so um I will always choose faith you know and that's the faith in myself faith in others faith in the future and faith um that we will we will prevail you know all of the fears that are ahead of us and as we look towards the horizon um about what's possible. Those are the takeaways that I I took away from that event. We honored um some really significant leaders in our community. Doc or excuse me, Senator Loose Esamia, our minority leader in the Senate, was honored with the Dr. King Award and former Salt Lake City School District employee and all-around educational equity bad

264a person. And Michelle Love Day um was armed with the Rosa Parks award. Um and she um spent some time with us. um I know she's super connected with people in this room and in our schools and so it was just a really cool honor to see Two Pillars in our community um honored at that level um for their work um that has either directly impacted our students or currently impacts our students um here on a day-to-day basis. So um thank you for that. Uh we do have a need for a close session and I'll entertain a motion. On January 20th, 2026, I move that the board enter close session to discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual on pending a reasonable imminent litigation and that the board adjourn

265immediately upon the conclusion of close sessions. >> I second. >> We got a motion, a second on the table. Um, we'll do any discussion to the motion. Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with Amanda Longwell. >> Yes. Amanda Longwell. >> Bryce Orange. Yes. >> Charlotte 5th Jefferson. Yes. >> Ashley Anderson. Yes. Salzer. Yes. >> Annie Romano. Yes. >> Ryan Jensen. Yes. >> Thank you everybody for joining us this evening. [clears throat]