SLCSD Board Meeting, November 18, 2025 5:30 PM

001All right. Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining us. Um, today is November 18th, 2025. Um, we are here for the purposes of a Salt Lake City School District Board of Education meeting and we do have a need to enter into a closed executive deci um a closed executive session and I'll look for a motion to uh to make that happen right now. I'm >> I move that on November 18th, 2025, the board goes into close executive session discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation and the character and professional competence or physical and mental health of an individual. >> I second. >> Any discussion to the motion? All right, seeing none, we'll start with a vote, roll call vote with Bryce Williams. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano,

002yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> Excellent. That motion passes. Uh we will reconvene for the public portion of our meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thank you. [snorts] Cool. Examples. >> [cough] [clears throat] >> Thank you everybody for rejoining us. Um I'm terribly sorry that we took a little bit longer in our close session. So thank you for your patience while we reconvened. Um again today is November 18th, 2025. We are here for the purposes of a Salt Lake City School District Board of Education meeting. Um just from welcoming remarks, I want to welcome um our board members who are with us this evening. Uh student board member Foss, thank you for for joining us. I hope your trip was awesome. And then also making sure that we recognize um our association groups

003who are in the room or watching virtually. Um so from buildings and grounds we have President Aaliyah Compo. From child nutrition we have President Tanya Slaughter. For transportation, we have Audrey Benali and SEA the ever president Mike Harmon and vice president Chelsea Aosta. I saw her earlier. I know she's here. [laughter] And then first law of represented by President Tom Luthie. Um and I'm looking at my notes and Tom is here with us. Hey Tom, see you in the back. So, uh thank you for joining us. We will move on to our pledge of allegiance and I'll go ahead and lead us in the pledge this evening. >> [snorts] >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible,

004with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everybody. Uh before we jump in, I do want to note our time certain public hearing on potential school closure, special enrollment program closure, and reconfiguration at 7 p.m. So regardless of where we are at in the agenda this evening, uh we will make the time to to honor that um 7 p.m. time frame. Um moving into our consent agenda, I will look for a motion to um address the consent agenda this evening. >> I move that we accept the consent agenda as posted. >> I second. All right, we have a motion from board member Anderson and a second from board member Longwell. Is there any discussion to the motion? Board member Anderson. >> Um, so I obviously move to approve this because I realize we have

005to pay our bills. Um, but there are two purchase orders which are substantial costs from emergency maintenance and so our board approves a budget that runs from July to June of the following year. So, I was wondering if our business administrator could speak to how we go about funding emergencies when they are not part of our approved budget. >> Yeah. First of all, let me address we do hold in in the budget, if you look in the capital section of the budget book, it's 100 101 something those lines. There's a called a miscellaneous and there's a little over $500,000 in it. That kind of is the hey, we don't know what's going to happen during a year, what might break, what needs to be fixed, what needs to get repaired. So that miscellaneous codes for

006that. So I'm gonna I'm going to answer two parts. We we we eat through that miscellaneous budget first and then in the event that we had emergency repairs that exceeded that um with the capital budget, we we go through phases of building a fund balance so that when we have a big capital project, replace a school, etc., we can then use that fund balance. So, if we exceeded that, there is going to be two things. Either we're going to have to pull from fund balance, therefore not grow it as quickly as as we would otherwise, or we might need to rep prioritize some other projects that were on the schedule and say, well, this project has to get pushed back another year because this was an emergency and we had to fix it. >> That

007helps. And that gives me one follow-up question um for you, Superintendent Grant, which is as we see an uptick in emergency maintenance. You've talked to our board in our last meeting about not having a boundary study until fiscal year 2027, which means all of our utilized school buildings will need to be maintained through fiscal year 2029. What is your vision for sustaining these emergent capital needs without deferring maintenance on the school buildings that we're using every day? >> It's the same way as we deal with them now. some of the buildings are aging, but also the way we deal with current maintenance in newer buildings. So, one example I heard is that we have to spend some money to improve. There's uh one of our elevators has broken down so that we'll need so even

008in a new building those ongoing costs. Isaac gave a great analogy. It's like owning a car and you make the cost, you know, you make the improvements you have to make along the way to keep it running as long as you want to keep it running. And so with each of these buildings, we'll continue to be um providing the maintenance to keep it up to keep it up to a quality that our kids and staff are safe in and can use for learning. So those that stays really steady across the years that way even as I hope these emergency things aren't um increasing. We'll see. But hopefully they're not keep coming at us. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Thank you, board member Anderson. Brian, >> yes, I really appreciated the work that

009went into the detailed teacher and student success framework and school improvement plan. I think that that was a great way to address it, to give us the memo that um gave me the information that I needed. Thank you for putting that together. I also um had just a quick question on the human services report. I noticed that we had had lots of substitute hirings, which to me that was good news, but my question is how are we doing with our substitute pool? Do we Okay, Logan just gave me a thumbs up. Thank you. >> Two thumbs up. >> That was a two thumbs up. >> Yes, two thumbs up. Okay. Any other questions regarding the motion on the table? [clears throat] All right. Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with board member

010FJ Jefferson. >> Five Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Ryan Jensen, yes. >> And Long, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> All right. Thank you, board. That motion passes. Uh, we'll move on to the next section of our agenda, which is our request to speak. Um, the board has asked me to read some guidelines for public comment. Uh, the board enjoys the opportunity to hear from the public during the comment portion of its meetings. Before we begin, I'd 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 during the meetings that

011are slanderous, obscene, or otherwise violate state or federal law. Three, employees and or the representatives may not use the public comment period to address issues that should be raised through existing formal communication channels or established grievance 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. All right. Our first speaker this evening is Dina Robert. >> Is it Dina or Dina? >> Dina, I'm so sorry. >> Please come on up. >> Thank you. It's so nice to see you guys. >> Likewise. [laughter] >> Okay. This I know. Hi, my

012name is Dan Robert. I'm a science teacher at Hillside Middle School. I've been teaching here for about I don't know 14 years, whatever. Taught Logan's kid, Leon's kids. Dr. Grant has seen me in action. Um, I have a bachelor's degree in science. I'm also a meteorologist and I have two master's degrees. So, say needless to say, I feel like I can share data with you, and you can feel pretty confident in this data collection. So, I put a new metric together. It's called teacher time demand. Call it TTD for short. So teacher time demand. So this year unprecedented versus last year your teachers in at least in the middle school. I can only speak to the middle school because that's where I work. We have been asked to work a tremendous increase in time. And

013I want to show you where the time is coming from. And this time is being demanded. It's not asked. It's not optional. And we're afraid of job action if we don't comply. Uh these demands impact our time to plan and grade. Give student feedback, come up with engaging lessons, all that. Okay. So the end of short Fridays. So there are short Fridays. This admit you added 18 hours of instruction at all time. Again, not complaining about working with more time with students. We all really like that. But it is 18 hours of time that's been affected that I can no longer grade or plan or talk to parents or meet with my department. So that's 18 hours. We've also now been told that we must have department PLC's once a month where we have to

014drive down to the district or a westside location. All of that uh culminating with a 90-minute meeting and let's say conservatively from my school at hillside to the west side of town 30 minutes. So that is a total of for the year 14 hours that is 14 more hours of time that I cannot grade I cannot plan I cannot get things done. Uh we are also being told now that instead of meeting maybe when you need to meet with your department hey you guys need to meet you need to talk about your budget do your stuff great it's called a PLC we also talk about student data and achievement. So instead of doing that kind of organically once a month or every other week, we're being told that we must do this every single week

015except for the week that we have this district PLC. So that is an increase of 13 and a half hours 13.5. Uh we have also at our school and this is not at every school the written agreement states that administrators can have five additional days of professional development. Now, at our school, our teachers have been teaching between 15 and 30 years, most of them. I'm not sure how many more times I can write an objective on the board, but anyway, we'll play ball and we'll go to your professional development because we are professionals. So, schoolwide PD, that's 45 minutes for 5 days at 3.75 hours. This is the increase in time that teachers this year are working. It's 49 and a half hours has been requested of our time that I cannot grade and cannot

016plan. And I have never been so burnt out in my life. We have low morale, mutinous staff, mass PTO shortages because people refuse to go to these things. So I just want you to keep in mind that kind of time because we want to use it for the students. That's what we want that time for. Give it back to us. We want the time back. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, our next speaker this evening is Chelsea Costa. >> Thank you, Chelsea. >> Are you ready on? >> Let me drop it to one. [laughter] >> I was hoping so. I love it. Good evening. Chelsea A Costa and I am the vice president of Salt Lake Education Association. Good evening board. Good evening Dr. Grant. Alan Kersley my timer and handler to this evening.

017[laughter] Um I feel a little underprepared after Dena did her fabulous chart. So, I just wanted to make sure, you know, I've sat here through the years um listening as a union rep and as a leader now in our union, and I I'm always concerned about the lack of times I've heard the word teacher in this space. And as I was pulling into the parking lot this morning early and grinning, I still smile when I see the school bus. And I still smile when I see our sped kids being helped off the bus and parents walking their cute kids and little kids taking their sweet time crossing the crosswalk. And I pulled in and I thought, "Okay, here we go." And I knew that we were going to be ending in probably another very long

018board meeting. And I thought, how many times I'm going to keep shocked tonight how many times we actually hear the word teacher, except for when it's being put on one more thing for us to do. Now, like you, I'm here for our kids and probably the most marginalized kids is why I'm truly here for and that's why I love teaching on the west side, but I am concerned that teachers are burned out. I get to the building, I sit down on my computer, usually deal with a student or two on my way in or with a parent. I have to log into my computer. I have to log into email powers school securely for hallroom passes, PBIS points. I have to log on to Canvas. I have to log on to Vista for my online.

019I have to log into about seven different apps before the bell even rings. My students come in and I'm always excited to see them. and they're my ELD1 students and they come in and they bring breakfast and I'm glad to see that they're actually eating and that they're enjoying one another's company and as the day goes on it's one thing after another and oftentimes I don't even know what's happened since the day I the moment I stepped into school and it weighs heavy on us between the trauma that some of our kids have seen their current living environment and afraid of going home because of undocumented status or parents in prison or um food insecurities. There's so many things impacting them that teachers take care of, our paras take care of, our custodians, our ESPs

020take care of all day long. All I'm asking is before we hear about new programs, new initiatives, new things to do, if you just pause and give your teachers and your paras and your ESPs some support in the current things that we're doing and help uplift that. just all we hear is one more thing and we are feeling incredibly overwhelmed and we are here for the students but we cannot do all the things if we have just one more thing added to our plate. So thank you again for taking care of our kids and taking care of us. Thank you. [applause] >> Um thank you for those perspectives, Dina and Chelsea. We really appreciate it um having you come and speak and your presence at all of our meetings. It means the world to us

021and uh we can definitely work on taking that pause and and thinking about things differently as we move forward. So, thank you. Um moving on to our next um portion of the agenda is our report section. The first item on the agenda is an update on CTC building progress and fundraising. Dr. Grant. >> Um so, we've got two different groups of presenters here. One is Isaac speaking about the building themselves and um the work with architects for the CTC center at Riley Elementary and then James and with his team from the Salt Lake Education Foundation. Thank you Maria and Rick for being here. Um we'll talk more about the fundraising. So take it away for us there executive director as >> a little closer. Is that working? >> Now it's working. >> Sorry about that.

022>> They've turned you up. >> Well, good evening. Thank you for the time to talk about the CTE uh project. Um as you can, as you're aware, Riley was the location that was requested for this. Um this is a picture of the current main entry of Riley Elementary and a overview of the property currently. Um over the last few months we've did a uh RFP for an architecture firm. We had quite a few uh architect firms apply for this and pre provide presentations. Uh VCPO uh this similar to the they're the same architecture firm doing West High School. Um they were chosen to do this project uh for a myriad of reasons, but uh the two most exciting were one they were the original architect on Riley Elementary. So they have a lot of institutional

023knowledge and and previous drawings to help us more effectively plan for changes and know what's underneath the skin to make those changes. Um two is uh the presentation that they provided us was about three steps farther than what the other architecture firms presented. They they were excited. They showed commitment to this and excitement to do it. And then three, unbeknownst to us, after they were chosen, they came to us and said, "Look, we want to be a partner in this." And they're they're offering to reduce their rate by 15%. Um, so rather than uh the the their original fee was about $2.1 million to do the overall design for this project, and that takes it down to about $1.8 million. Um we've been meeting with them uh regularly to uh look and look at the

024options and the design and meeting with the different uh the the different entities within our CTE currently and other programs that may be become part of the CTE to figure out what they need in those spaces. Uh again, the the original um plan was to uh move this over quickly. uh kind of make quick accommodations within the building and allow the programs to operate. Uh but working with VCBO and talking with with them in their planning stages of this uh we found that we would be cost costing a lot more money by doing uh multiple phases with um with uh a myriad of contractors and mobilization costs coming and going through this. as well as the cost of moving a program from one location to another temporarily to make to get their area ready and

025then to move them back. So, they came back to us after several months of discussions and said, um, here's here's what we're presenting. Uh, the original budget that we' talked about was near $30 million. uh the initial cost estimate that they gave us after we looked at bringing the kids in and then moving things around in multiple phases and things that was closer to $44 million which is way out of the budget range that we were considering. And then we came back uh they came back to us with this plan said this this will provide this what you're seeing right now is the proposed site plan for the facility. Uh it it's basically removing some walls in area existing areas and then adding a small well a good a fairly small area to the uh

026southwest corner of the property to better accommodate uh the skilled trades areas, welding and construction. Um and that was recommended by them because uh we needed you need so much height to run those on one floor and had we done that inside the existing building we would have had to remove the floor and the the classes above the second floor to accommodate that area which would have reduced the the square footage by about 9,000 square feet. Um so this is what they've presented so far uh to us. You can see the layout. It changes the it does three things. The the first is it changes the location of where people enter the the area. Number two, it it makes it an invigorating identifiable space for these uh students who are actively engaged in these classes

027and wanting to build their skill set in in the uh continuing education. And then um the the third is it provides an accessibility and separation for the different uh for the students and the faculty. Um that is the overall proposed layout right now and the cost budget that gets us uh to our budget. And then um this is just a quick concept of the front face of the building. So it obviously doesn't look like an elementary school anymore. Um it's a welcoming open space for the front of the building. And um I'll turn the time over to uh SF unless uh we we'll wait till questions till the end. Is that okay? >> No, that's fine. >> Okay. Um thank you Isaac and thank you to your team. Um first of all, I want to

028say thank you to the board as well. We appreciate you. Um the last few months we've been working extensively on the strategic plan for the capital campaign. Um, as you can see, this this is really uh an innovative uh career technical center uh that will meet the needs of our students for years to come. Um, some of the structural campaigns that we've established and created and and determined uh we've added our ad hoc committee for the CTE. Uh we've assembled a team of educators, industry leaders, and community members, develop and shared vision uh for the CTE center with stakeholder input. Uh we've created milestones for the project um development, established key project phases, deadlines, and deliverables. Determined cost Riley renovation assessed budget requirements. Uh that's that's been very helpful because we want to make sure

029that uh we understand what the total cost is going to be. Some of the key fundraising strategies we've used uh obviously we've had to cultivate uh for the last uh for several months make sure that we're meeting with corporate and community partners. fundraising events were identifying case for support and awareness uh campaigns, grant application, government advocacy, and definitely looking into alum alumni and parent donation drives. Um so when we take a look at um the fundraising goal for the CTE, the total cost we're looking at is about 3 33 million amount raised and or pledges uh individuals and corporate partners that we have. Uh we're looking at 750,000 so far. uh resources uh that we're looking into grants, private donors, corporate um sponsors, community philanthropic entities, foundations. Uh it's exciting to see this because we've

030done a number of visits also to the Catalyst Center and I strongly encourage you for you to visit if you haven't yet done so. Um the timeline for the campaign um right now I have Maria and Rick as co-chairs of the campaign. Uh they've strongly recommended that we launch the campaign January formally uh uh launch the campaign because I think it will take we're doing a lot of uh preparation and planning for the case of support and really making sure that we have all the information in place as we're identifying potential prospects. uh meeting with prospects between now and 2028, I will be asking to, you know, maybe contacting you to see who you know and who's willing to contribute to this uh uh opportunity. Um and with that comes sustainability plan for fundraising as

031well. So, any questions on the CTE fundraising? >> James, if we could, could we hold those to the end for the going through? We'll do that. Um I have also been asked to briefly share uh our capital campaign regarding the McBride or the Glendel track and field. Um again we've had um we've established a specific um fundraising goal. Uh the total cost for that obviously it's around five to six million but the total cost that in the goal for the foundation is 600,000 amount raised uh so far is and pledges about 110,000 uh inind operations FFN furniture fixture and equipment uh there are there are opportunities for us to work with a number of partners and we hope to bring that as well as in kind contribution. So everything is um we take everything into

032account. We don't you know we want to make sure that uh if they want to do an inind contribution or naming opportunity we work through our district process in policy to ensure that that happens. Uh timeline for the track and field is ongoing. I I don't think it's a a one time thing. There's going to be a we're constantly working for the sustainability plan and fundraising for this as well because this is a long-term commitment uh that we're we're making to to make sure that the track and fields successful. As far as the Highland High School um schematics that we have, you see here, it's exciting to see this. Uh Brian, you were a part of uh the ad hoc committee that we just uh recently met with. Um this is exciting because we are

033meeting the needs of our students. Over 3,000 students at the Westside Clinic and uh and this will be an incredible opportunity for our students where we're meeting their needs. Thank you to Isaac uh and the team and the district. We have about 3,600 square ft, three behavioral health rooms, four exam rooms, one place, uh group counseling with uh potential therapy break rooms. Um that that is an incredible incredible uh opportunity for our kids. Uh I'm showing you the the Highland, but here's the West High School. Um we met with the uh doctors from University of Utah and also their development team. They are excited about this opportunity. They're fully committed to this um I would say endeavor. Uh this is for generations to come. Uh this is not a one-time thing. Uh it's more about

034providing opportunities for our students. Um same thing the design the interior plans the University of Utah has been fully involved. They've given us their feedback. We do have um a number of foundations and philanthropic organizations and individual donors who are willing to contribute. Our total goal for this uh is 2 million 1 million per site. Um the University of Utah will provide the operations FFN and then the timeline for this uh obviously we're starting our campaign again in January. Um so um bottom line is we know the these are incredible projects with a lot of time that we will be investing uh to ensure that uh we have a successful campaign. But I can't do this alone. I have to have each and every one of you working side by side with the Solic Education

035Foundation. I think we're all part of a team and um you know an education is an investment with greatest returns. So I just want to say thank you for your support and um for the time that you've met with me and work with the committee as well. So if you have any questions I'd be willing to answer those questions. >> Thank you James. I saw Charlotte and then Ashley and then Danny. >> Yeah. Well, what um these are very big endeavors, right? A lot of >> a lot of um money to fund raise for, but for very very good projects. Um so, I'm supportive of the of the projects. I just want to make sure that we yeah that we have a good plan in getting the funding for it. And um I do have

036a question about the CTC center. Is part of that the grant that the state is giving and have we applied for that grant? What's the timeline on that? >> Um we're in the process we the the grant just was released a couple days ago. So we're working with uh Laura Dejo to ensure that that that grant's also submitted. But what we have to keep in mind with that grant, it's uh for existing projects and uh potentially new projects as well. >> Okay. >> And then my next question was, so this means that we are going to be keeping the or the timeline is changing now. It sounds like we're not going to be moving in just one kind of peace meal. We're going to do it all at once. So, how does that what does

037the timeline what does that do to the timeline? >> So, working with the architects right now, they're estimating it will take 12 to 14 months to complete the work [snorts] that is designed. Um, so we would be looking at that time frame from the commitment of yes, we're we're good to go. If we are good to go on this, uh that's the time it will take to get the job done. Now, there's other uh unknowns there, obviously, where the budget's coming from, the timing of that, things of that nature, but we need to make sure all that's lined out so we can create that schedule and ensure that we hit that date to ensure that the students can go in when we plan for them to be there. >> Ashley, >> um first, having seen

038the tremendous benefits of the West Clinic, I'm really grateful to see that that's moving ahead at Highland. Um the rest of my comments and questions focus on the CTC but from the district side rather than the foundation side. Uh mostly I want to acknowledge from the outset that I'm pretty frustrated by the CTC update because in board meeting when some of us suggested it was unrealistic for this to be a turnkey project. It was insisted to us that this could easily be turnkey. It would not require a significant renovation and it could easily be phased without a feasibility study. And I'm expressing this frustration because some of us did predict this exact scope of work and cost. And so what frames my questions tonight is we're looking at our board code of ethics later and

039it's our responsibility to guard the public trust and that means having clear dialogues about feasible spending. So I just want to frame that um with several questions uh and probably they would be best directed to our business administrator. um did any soft money uh benefit procurement to date and if so what funds did that soft money come from? >> So there have been no um checks written to the architect any contractor. So if we want to talk about soft money, we've had we have we have had staff time, you know, meeting with architects, uh planning. So there's been staff time, uh there was a site visit going back to South Dakota, North Dakota somewhere. Um and the foundation covered the cost of that site visit. Otherwise, there have been no no district resources spent on

040this. And so I raised that because as we all recall the board's vote was to proceed with a turnkey building that would not use district funding at any point. It would be CTE and SLF funding unless we came back to the board. Um so how is that being observed? Like how do we ensure that no district money is being used as we go through this fundraising process? >> Right. So um when you get so you'll get the requisitions the POS come through the regular approval process and you'll see which fund technically we'll depending on how we decide we may pull those out of the capital fund but then the donations from the foundation will be transferred in. We'll keep track of that. Um happy to look at a way to update the board on a

041regular basis of the status of the project. Um when we do these major projects, we create those of you on the finance committee will know we create programs. So we track all the expenditures within a program so we can do updates on that particular program um as needed as requested from the board just so you can see where's the money coming from, where's the money going, etc. I think because we went from a Z expense or not a Z a pack it up and moving trucks expense to a $33 million expense. I'd like to see um some updates in alignment with how we get our legal updates that maybe something monthly comes to us. I'd like to suggest that. Uh my other question is about long-term capital costs. So, for example, if a donor was

042to contribute to the foundation a bunch of drones for one of the new wings in the building, um what would be the long-term plan to repair and replace those drones as that would be considered a capital expense ongoing? >> Right. So, as expenditures like that, if if there was a drone class right now and those drones got replaced, they would be paid for with CTE funds. Uh, speaking with Laura, they have to do they do have to submit to the state board a three to fiveyear uh spending plan for CTC, CTE. I mean, I kind of use them interchangeably, even though they do mean different things. >> Um, so let's say there was a donation of drones up front. You know, drones are going to have a useful life. It would be up to the

043CTC program to fund the replacement of those drones. >> Okay. In that case, one thing I'd like to suggest is when we open our next budget book that we look at a cost analysis of some of the new programs because it's my understanding that the renovation would allow us to provide programming we haven't provided. So, we don't know what the budget for that ongoing capital would be, you know, numbers of computers, all of that. Um, one of my questions was, did we send someone to the Catalyst Center grant information session? And it sounds like yes, we did. We're um hearing from uh Laura Desazo about that. Uh some social media posts at one point incorrectly stated an architect was contracted and it looks like that was corrected. But my question about an architect contract is

044at what point in fundraising would we see a PO for an architect? Like how much cash in hand would we want to have before we commit to this work? And the reason I ask is we have some neighboring districts who've gone about doing similar projects and they've sort of come up dry in the middle. And I really don't want to end up with, you know, a half completed building and a half, you know, fulfilled PO. >> So, I'd respond. We don't have a specific, hey, when do we I mean, I think there's two things. When do we fully commit the architect and when do we put shovels in the ground? Um, I think when you put shovels in the ground is when we have the money up front. Now, there's things that have to happen

045prior to putting shovels in the ground. So, we haven't really nailed down, all right, is it at 60% of the total goal. Is it at 70% 80%? But those are discussions we can continue to have with um both James and and Isaac. >> That's really helpful. Um my last question for the first round of discussion is probably best for the foundation. Uh we all know that federal funding is an ongoing jeopardy. There's all kinds of back and forth about what's available. Um, how will fundraising at the foundation level for the CTC continue to leave room for the ongoing funds we need for our CLC's, our community learning centers, which are offering more wraparound services than ever before as family see families see, you know, higher rates of hunger, food insecurity, etc. Mhm. Well, with uh

046with all of our CLC's, just like we have a strategic plan for the CTC or the CTE center, we have those meetings on a weekly basis with donors. Uh you [clears throat] need to understand that at one point when the CLC's were created there there's a lot of resistance for that as well uh or questions about that. And one thing that has happened is that the investment that this board made back then was significant. And today, because of that investment, we're in a better place. I just came back from Texas. I went to a school district there. And one of the things that I'm seeing is not what I'm seeing here in Salt Lake City School District. We have committed community learning centers that are providing resources to families. We have 25 pantries that are

047providing opportunities for our families. I'm working side by side with Utah Food Bank. We're also working We're not depending on just federal dollars because I think what we have to do is make sure that we steward and build the relationships with the people that we work with. We we can't sever that. So I got to I got to ask this board to work side by side with me because I can't do this alone. You have equal responsibility on this. So, if we want to question how are we going to this and I think uh Ashley and I appreciate you asking that question because this isn't just the foundation. This this includes Isaac to help me with transportation to make sure the food gets into the schools. That includes the superintendent. You know what I'm going

048to say? Also Christina Kendall who helps me with a lot of theus. So, it requires a strategic planning and this is why I have an incredible board who constantly question and assess all of our plans carefully. So, I I I know it's kind of a long answer, but that that's been, you know, with SNAP gone, with CHIP and Medicaid gone, guess what? We had seven clinics in our district. We have kids that their dental health care needs are being met. uh with food, you know, even the LDS church, we just lost our grant about a month ago, but guess what? We had money from from the donations that we receive that were giving, you know, funding to the schools on a very limited basis, but working with also the Utah Food Bank. So, we are

049carefully working that, navigating that. We know that um the the the federal funds may or may not be here tomorrow, but we have to really make sure that we collaborate and keep our donors in place and and informed. Transparency is really really critical with that. So, >> Thank you Anderson Romano. >> Yeah, thank you. I'd like to commend you for your efforts um from the Salt Lake Education Foundation and the board who have actively taking care of the community as you just stated with the CLC's. Thank you very much for that. Um my questions are regarding um the project at um Riley Elementary. I represent precinct 5 which is um in Riley boundaries and um as you know the the closure of that school obviously affected the community greatly. So my question is um so

050far and in the future what have you done to get active community feedback? Sounds like you have an ad hoc community but have there been other efforts to um engage the community on these design plans? We have not included the community on that at this point. Uh the the conversations have been out of the closed facilities which would be best for this and appropriate and then the input has been from the CT and the director and the teachers of those programs of what they need uh for the facility. Um but there has not been any uh community input at this point. [clears throat] And do you have plans of when that would begin if if it were to initiate? >> Uh, in all honesty, we have not talked about that. Okay. Well, our ad hoc

051committee has discussed that though. This is why we have um you know, we have uh Maria Garcia who works has worked tirelessly in that community. uh and we want to make sure that we address that through through uh an open house to have conversations to get their feedback because that's part of our stakeholder strategic plan. Uh I think we want you know for example for the Glendale track we met with the parents we actually walked around that whole neighborhood delivered flyers uh personally handed to the families and said we want to hear your voice want to make sure you tell us what you're looking for. uh they gave us constructive feedback uh but similar to this CTE center I think what's important is that we will be doing that in January when once we launch

052our formal campaign because what we wanted to do is make sure that we had everything in place to be able to inform the conceptual design that they've just finished now we have that in place and I think that kind of gives us a better uh idea and and more informative actually without you know so that way they understand what's coming into uh the space >> I may add something. This was recently scheduled so it may have slipped my colleagues minds but actually in January James is scheduled to speak to the Glendale Community Council with some updates including updates for the Glendale track and field. Um and we'll make sure this item is included as well since that is the relevant community council. Thank you for the question. >> Yeah, thank you. Um my second question

053um to kind of honor the request to speak earlier from Chelsea and Dina is how have you engaged these CTE teachers? It sounds like Isaac, if you you've gotten some feedback, but so this question is kind of for the superintendent as well as for Isaac. um what are the plans for these CTE teachers and what's their understanding of would they be moving buildings like if they're going to be teaching in the CTE center and they currently do not or etc. So, uh, as far as the CTE teachers, Laura Desel has invited several of those into these design meetings. Um, others, uh, that either weren't able to attend those or, um, had other commitments. She's gotten feedback of what is it that you need in your classroom? What works for you currently and what what do

054you foresee the need in the future? And so, that's it's similar to what we've done with the high schools. We bring in the administrator and then they bring in the key people that they feel uh need to provide that input or have the expertise in it. >> Amanda, >> mine are brief. I do want to say that I did a walkthrough of the Riley site with Laura because I wanted to get a visual inperson perspective of the building and um what's to come. Um, I actually would have suggested that Laura be here tonight because her enthusiasm for the project is bar none. Um, and I'm excited because of her excitement and your excitement as well. Um, and the the location and the concept of relocating the entrance and the layout. Um, I'm crazy excited for

055what this is looking like it's going to turn into and have all the faith in your ability to raise the funds to accomplish the outcomes. Um, I appreciate that board member Anderson spoke about uh the financial piece because obviously the motion was that no um funds from the capital or general fund would go towards a project you guys committed to fundraising this and it sounds like um that's being honored. My one question was in relation to the architect um if they're about a $1.8 8 million cost. Um, and you've only got 750,000 raised so far. How are you um managing that cost element at this point? >> So, as of right now, the contract hasn't been completed. So, uh, back to board member Anderson's, uh, question, we we're in negotiations with them, and that's what

056they've they provided an estimate of what the what it would be, and that adjusts depending on what the design and complexity of it is. Um, and if you know, if it's phase one, rather, if it's all in one phase, that's the cost. If it's if it's broke up into four phases, that could change, but that's with our purchasing department still of negotiating that. Uh sounds kind of weird that we're that far down the road and that hasn't happened yet, but sim similar situations with our contractors on uh the other high schools right now. We're still working some fine tuning out in a couple of those >> contracts. Come up with a preliminary concept and whenever you agree to the concept and uh initiate the contracts, that's whenever the money exchange occurs essentially. >> Yes. >>

057That's when the agree agreements are created and then we bring it to you guys for approval. Any other questions in this first round? >> Brian, >> I don't know if this is a question, but I think maybe I'll just take the opportunity to because I told you in my board member report last meeting that I was on the ad hoc committee for the um health clinics of Highland and West. Well, I did attend one of those ad hoc meetings. It was a week ago last Friday and I thought it was a really productive meeting. In that meeting, we [clears throat] we're developing campaign timelines on when we wanted to initiate this fundraising. We talked about um different approaches that we could take. I [clears throat] even suggested because I had been at my 50-year reunion

058[clears throat] and I think that's an admission on my part to acknowledge that that's where I was but I'm still very young at heart. >> Um in any event um when you're in those um reunions people are interested in their schools and they want to know what's happening. So every year there are lots of reunions that go on in those schools and we talked about that was a possibility to because a lot of those individuals want to give back to their high schools and especially when it comes to a health clinic. Uh one of the things that we also talked about was um sharing the statistics for what has actually occurred. I mean, West High is the example that we have right now. Um, it was amazing the number of physicals that have been um

059performed. And I mean, I'm not going to get into the numbers, but those are the sorts of things that I think appeal to donors that when they hear the work that's being done, um, they will respond. One of the challenges that we talked about a little bit too is the legislation now that impacts because we have security requirements and so those clinics need to be self-contained. You need to have it that you're entering from the outside that you're not getting in through the schools. So all of those things are being addressed as we try and raise the funds for those buildings. So now I'll have more time in my board member report to report on other things. >> Thank you, Brian. Um seeing none, um we can move into the second round of questions if

060there are any Ashley. >> I don't know if these are remaining questions as much as comments. Um the dialogue that was shared about community feedback reminded me that there is really a silver lining to this significant change in scope and timeline. Um, it could give our superintendent and business administrator time to work on feasibility not related to the site plan, but related to student experience. Um, I expressed concerns initially in this process that students on the west side could be faced with things like a choice not to return to East High for athletics, missing instructional time in the morning and or the solution to those things being on a bus up to four times a day in a single day for up to 30 minutes per commute depending on the bell schedule on van size.

061Um, I know that when this board was asked in the past by community members for a comprehensive high school in that area, it part of the ask was reduced transportation burden for Westside students. So, I would like to see that we engage in some type of uh look at feasibility to ensure that this site can serve the students that it is meant to serve without disrupting their schedule actually now that we have more time during fundraising. Um, the last thing is we didn't talk about this in the first round of questions, but we got an update on one of the fields. And I know there's been some ongoing confusion about fundraising for the fields. So, back in September when that confusion was made clear to me, [clears throat] I took the liberty of listening to

062all six applicable board meetings um where it was discussed. And so for my colleagues, I'm going to quickly distribute my notes, which I did send in September to the superintendent, business administrator, and board leadership so that my colleagues are aware of my ongoing request that we also talk about how to fundra for West High's baseball and softball fields as well as Highland High's baseball and softball fields as those teams also really need our support and that was an understanding some of us had from the outset of this process. So I would ask that because I'll distribute those notes, they are attached to the minutes um pursuant to our policy. So, we all have a mutual reference to what I've been referring to, an open meeting. Um, and again, the West High Clinic has just been

063tremendous. So, I want to end on that positive note with my remaining time that uh my kids have had vaccines there. They've been able to get their well visit when their pediatrician retired. It has been incredibly valuable. Um, I have fewer barriers to accessing healthcare than some of my peers do. and that it was so easy for everyone without any kind of, you know, stigma about who needs the service and who doesn't or having to take a bus to get there. It has been an incredibly enriching resource and I'm very appreciative personally uh as a parent of kids who benefit, but also as a representative seeing how many kids benefit. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you, Ashley. Any other questions? Charlotte, >> um just a couple of comments. I've been involved in talks

064with community members who have been pushing for a westside high school and one of the elements that they are looking for are career and college pathways. So this is very much in align with what the community is desiring. And um they also uh they had an envisioning um exercise with what they would like to see in a in a high school. And some of that was were therapy rooms, mental health rooms. Um, so that's all um those those are very in touch with our community's needs. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Charlotte. Any other questions? All right, seeing none, Isaac James, thank you so much. Rick, thank you for being here this evening. And I saw Maria sneak out. Thank you, Maria, for being with us as well. So, thank you very much. >> Thank

065you. Okay. Thank you. >> Our next report um on our agenda this evening is a website update. Dr. Grant, did you want to introduce this or >> Yeah, we got a tag team here. >> Okay. >> Of our director Quants or actually he's our CIO Quants and Executive Director Chapman along with two teammates Jason our PIO and Jordan. I forget the title you've got. Senior network services administrator. >> There you go. There you go. >> Thank you. >> There we go. >> All right. Thank you, members of the board of education, superintendent and business administrator. >> Sorry, Sam. Thank you. >> No, you're good. You're great. Uh we're glad to give you an update on our transition from our previous website content management server to the our new server which is hosted by parent square

066smart sites. Um today our agenda will evolve the following slides. We're going to give some introductions of our team real quick. Talk about the background historically of our district website. Um why we have a vendor change in 2025. Our implementation process throughout this change. the lessons we've learned and how we're going to use data to expand our outreach and what we're doing to look ahead. So again, as mentioned, I'm the chief information officer and oversee the IT department. Um, I've had got Jordan Collins with me. He's the again senior network services administrator. He oversees the team that manages the technical side of the website content management. >> So this is the team that does the backend. I'm Yandi Chhatwin. I lead the communications team. Um this is Jason Olsen, our public information officer, and our

067team's role is to manage the content on um the front of the district website. We do have content managers for departments, but our role is the the district stuff. >> And we just have a couple of shoutouts on this SL slide to Robert Anderson who is on Jordan's team who is our person that we really pulled off of every other project to support this project. Um Dr. Dr. Tiffany Hall and Sally Waricki have been instrumental in uh helping our library technology teachers learn the platform. And again, we want to give a shout out to our web website content managers, which include the library technology teachers, office staff, and others [clears throat] who help make sure that the content on the website is up to date. So before we get into the nitty-gritty of timeline and

068tech and details like that, we wanted to um just kind of paint this picture for you about why our websites matter. Um because for us, websites are more than just uh an information hub. They give families and community members uh an opportunity to connect to our schools. That's especially important given that um for our families that they're they're hearing a lot through parent square, but a community member who just moved in or who maybe doesn't have children in the district might not have another avenue to know what's happening at the school down the street. Um the websites help our parents find the information that's critical for them and for their students. Um it help them understand what's going on in their school community and help them to feel connected to that community. every page, every

069update, and every design choice that we're going to discuss throughout this presentation was made intentionally with the goal of helping serve our families and our students better. Um, and that's our overall goal to make sure that through all these platforms that we're providing clear um, helpful and inclusive communication to families. >> All right. Previously to 2020, all of our district and school websites were hosted internally. Jordan was the one that wrote the code for the engine underneath the website as well as helped with a lot of the pages. As time went on, however, we received a large number of customization requests and desires for design. We recognized that that we would have needed more staff to accommodate those requests. So, our choice was rather either to hire more staff to support it internally or to

070switch to a commercial off-the-shelf product. So, we opted to look at the commercial off-the-shelf product and in 2020 there was an RFP process and that was awarded to our previous content management service called Final Site. Ideally, that was less expensive than hiring additional staff significantly. Um, as well as it freed up Jordan's and some of his team members time to work on other projects that were being demanded of us. So, why a vendor change in 2025? It was our natural uh contract cycle. So, when we entered into that contract with Final Side in 2020 in 2020, it was a five-year contract. Um, we at the beginning of last year, we had a number of uh requests to refresh and redesign that website. As we looked at what that would cost with our previous provider, it

071was a significant cost to do the redesign. And so we opted to go to an RFP process again because that contract was ended um to see what other providers could offer us. And in 2025, Parent Square smart sites won that process. As a result um we actually saved money on our annual cost about 20% of what we were paying previously. So we want you to rec we want to recognize that we engaged that thoughtful process through the natural contract s cycle to re-evaluate our platform to see if it was meeting the needs of the district. One of the benefits of this choice is the unified platform. So parent square is also our communication provider. We switched to that platform about a year ago. Um in the presentation we were able to see the benefit to

072the district of being able to integrate those communications with the website. Um additionally we looked at how easy it was going to be for staff um to manage these sites and parent square came on top of all of the providers for that. And then lastly multilingual support. One of the benefits of the communication side is the automatic translation into a parent's communication language. And so we wanted to integrate that into our website as well. We were able to increase our number of words translated by 100%. So we doubled what we were doing previously. So this isn't just a tech upgrade. It's about simplifying and improving access for families. I'll talk about our implementation a little bit. Overall there were 42 individ 42 websites that were changed and each website can contain a multiple multiples of

073pages. So under final site before the conversion we estimated we had 6,000 pages across all websites that need that were potentially needed to be converted. We contracted with parent square to convert about 2500 of those and it ended up being about 1,900. meaning that we looked at the pages that were being most utilized by visitors and prioritized those and then our teams took on the load of migrating the rest of the for the other 4,100. So to date we've converted 4,200 almost 4,300 pages have been migrated and some of those 6,000 but that difference between 4299 and 6,000 those pages don't necessarily need to be migrated because they're old content and no longer needed. um or were simply there to support the old platform. So it gave us an opportunity to refine and review that

074content. So after we decided to go out to RFP, that RFP was awarded on March 25th. Um after the then we went into the contract negotiation process that concluded and our imple implementation call occurred on April 24th. So the last and then the last week of April, we determined what type of design. So, Parent Square offers some initial templates. We needed to decide what those were and what customizations we needed from that company. On May 2nd, we submitted the design and customization request to Parent Square. And on May 28th, Parent Square presented to IT and Communications what their initial designs were. And it turned out they still needed we needed some finetuning on colors and some other little things. And that happened on June 6th. So following June 6th, we started or we had parent

075square start the migration process. This was after school ended. Our goal with that was to prevent um missed content so schools would have the opportunity to com complete everything and um we would convert during the summer. Um okay. And in in [clears throat] the meantime, what we would have to do if they were doing anything was double post on our website. But parent square also asked us not to touch anything while they were converting. So we weren't stepping on each other's toes. On July 16th, we received notification from parent square that their content migration was complete and we took over on July 17th with a go live date of August 1st. So a little less than two weeks that we needed to do that. There were some challenges that we undertook at that time and

076I'll talk about those in just a moment. But we did meet the go live date of August 1st. And in early August, we provided in-person training for library technology teachers um during those district professional development days. From that point on, we offered two days a week of open office hours where people could just drop in and um receive help from uh Jordan and Robert and Jason at the same time. And we're continuing to offer that support. Additionally, like I said, we we've got I've pulled off Robert off of every single project that he's had and so I have him 40 plus hours a week there to support whoever needs it. Um that's our ongoing support. Now, every project has some challenges. There's never a perfect project, at least that I've been involved in. Um content

077migration was not as extensive as we initially thought. when the provider says here we're going to do content migration for us. We have these images in our mind, we talk about what that looks like as best we can and then there's the outcome. And so we looked at we realized that they moved a lot of content over but didn't focus on the design of the page and things didn't look exactly like we wanted to them to look. So between communications and IT, there were many hours of invisible work that occurred to make sure that everything was as close to perfect as possible. Um so despite those challenges, we still met our August 1 go live date. But then unfortunately on August 4th, Parent Square had a systemwide outage that affected all Parent Square customers. Um

078wasn't related to the website migration. It just was a system outage and um that was unfortunate. um just with our busy time of year, but we adapted quickly um collaborated across teams and delivered despite that unexpected workload during that busy time of year. So specific concerns really revolve around this migration project. Um we understood that to our best ability, we tried to make sure everything was complete by the end of the year so that migration wouldn't change. However, there were some overlap of things that may have changed um during the migration process that didn't get converted over during the migration process. One of those areas were our documents. Documents in general in website management are just a challenge. And so, we've come up with some solutions to help with that. But, um some content wasn't

079migrated like we initially had planned. As soon as we found out about those, however, we pivoted and were able to come up with solutions for those. So, our lessons learned, number one, don't roll out in August. [laughter] That should be evident to everybody, but the August timeline really was dictated by our previous contract. So, we were trying to save be fiscally responsible by concluding this contract and having this other one um uh start. Um I always get a little twitch when I have to go ask Allan for extra money. So um so that's just it's just a bad time of year um is what that is. There people are gone. We don't have time to do professional development because people are off um plus the there there is so much work that needs to happen

080not just on websites during the summer months um that we have to balance a lot. So uh that's not that probably will never happen again. Content migration, we needed to rethink how we store critical documents. So document management inside a website can be challenging like I previously said. Um but those critical documents like board policies, um board minutes, agendas, and things like that need to be probably not part of the website's infrastructure. So what Jordan's team did was develop an application that was able to store those that content and in the future we'll be able to just point to this other source instead of having to migrate it. Um one thing we have learned however is how beneficial specialists are content specialists. So between IT and communications, we know a lot about the website and

081website design, but we don't know everything about community councils and XYZ pages. So Dr. Christine Marriott met with library technology teachers to instruct them on how to make sure that their community council pages were compliant. And I think working with those content specialists and providing um access to them during transitions like this will really help our um content managers. >> Okay. And I'll chat a little bit about how we're working to use data to expand our reach because that's really the goal is to make sure that our websites are helpful, useful, and reaching people. Um so Sam took a snapshot between um August 1st and October 31st, so the first few months of this fall. Um, we saw that our elementary websites each get about three to 400 visitors a week. That goes up to

082six to 700 visitors for our middle schools and our high schools get between four and 6,000 a week. Um, by comparison, Sam pulled um data from a week ago uh for that last week how many visitors we'd had to the district website and we had 65,000 unique visitors. Um, so for us, we we're looking at this and trying to figure out like what is the content that brings families to a school page versus the district page, like what is valuable? How can we u put that front and center for for our families? Um, and then also trying to think knowing that the district page does get a lot more traffic, how can we better leverage that space? Space is limited on the homepage, but how can we better leverage it to provide families with what

083they what they need? So part of our data review is looking at the pages that families are visiting the most. And these make sense. Um makes sense that at the beginning of the school year, families are looking for bell schedules and calendars and the faculty directory. Um and it makes sense that as we're onboarding new employees at the start of a new year that people are looking for employee resources, human resource services. Um that parents are also looking for child nutrition information, that sort of thing. Um, and for us, this is what we're what we're looking at is tracking um each month the pages that families are looking for so that we can better tailor our communications for next school year and the year after that. So, for example, knowing that on our school pages

084that the things that we're most looked for are those bell schedules, those, you know, detailed things for how your kids's day is going to look at the school year. Um, maybe we can collaborate with our school principles to send out proactive communication with links. Parents, here are the links you may be looking for. Here's the link to the bell schedule, the link to calendars, the link to X, Y, and Z. And then, um, again, knowing what people are looking for at a certain time of year, planning ahead for next August, September, October to make sure that those links are front and center, easy to find, and that we're rotating that homepage content, um, based on the time of year. Um, and looking ahead, uh, we're focusing a lot on training and trying to prep for

085next year, working with, um, of course the teams that provide that professional development. Um, our goal is to build staff confidence. Our library tech teachers um have so much on their plates and um and we know that. So, we want to make sure that they feel confident in being able to use this platform um so that they can maintain websites that are inviting and accurate and upto-date. Um, we want to also work on better coordination and strengthening that alignment between our website content managers at the school um, at the school level in particular to better take advantage of some of the features Sam highlighted that are supposed to make our jobs easier. What we're seeing though is that at the school level it's often um, person A who manages sending out communication through Parent Square,

086but it might be person B who is actually managing the website content. Um the idea behind this streamlining of platforms is that if you post um something to to parent square to families then easily you can then post that to the website but that requires some coordination given that it works a little bit differently. Different people do different roles at the schools. Um and also exploring additional innovation and tech tools. One thing that we're exploring right now that came out of a discussion with our family and school collaboration efforts um is an a multilingual AI chatbot. Many websites have these features and um we are are really intrigued in looking at technological ways to improve the way that we serve our families. Um with a feature like that, we would be able to answer we

087would be able to answer questions at midnight when a family member is up uh you know thinking, "Oh my goodness, I have to pay the lunch bill. How do I do that?" and if they're not able to find that link quickly. Again, Sam mentioned that we have um about 4,300 pages across our systems. So, it the information a parent's looking for could be on one of any of those pages, but if there's a chatbot that can help them figure out how to get to something quicker, um their experience is improved. And it also can serve as a resource for our staff as well. Um, we know especially at our school level that our front office staff often get questions about things that might not even be happening at their school but maybe are at the

088district level um as front office secretary could for example um quickly pull up that chatbot, find the relevant information and answer that parent's question without having to refer them to a separate person to get support. Um, and again I mentioned that we're hoping to use the the data and analytics to better plan content for next year. Um, so we're focused on building capacity, coordination across different teams and different roles. Um, and looking for those innovative tech tools. Um, always of course with the goal of making it easier for our families to find the info that they need that will help their students succeed. >> Thank you, Sam. Um, Ashley, just one sec. I think before we jump into questions, we are three minutes away to our time certain public comment. Um would the board be

089amanable just to take a few minute break so that we can pick up questions um collectively and so that we're not staggering those um before and after the the public comment period. So presenters Yandre, Jason, Jordan, Sam, if you don't mind just sitting tight for a little bit while we work through our time certain public comment. Um and we can just take a a brief recess while we get ready for that. Thank you. Motion is motion. That was perfect. And then they'll worry. All right. You should type in computer. Okay. Right. If we could have the board members return to the dis please. I don't know. It's time to get started. All right. Thank you everybody. We're going to go ahead and reconvene. Um, so we are at the stage of our agenda this evening

090where we have a public hearing on potential school closure, special enrollment program closure, and grade reconfiguration. I did see a number of folks walk in who I'm assuming are here to to speak on this matter this evening. Um, so I will go ahead and reread um speaker guidelines for public comment. Um, for those of you who weren't here earlier tonight, um, the board enjoys the opportunity to hear from the public during the comment portion of its meetings. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to remind you of our board rules governing your comments. Um, the first one, which is the time is not to exceed 15 minutes during uh, public comment periods. That is not the case. So, we will hear every public comment um, of those of you that are here

091to speak and wish to speak this evening. So, these rules are a little bit different, but the board will allow public comments during its meetings that are not slanderous, obscene, or otherwise violate state or federal law. Employees and other representatives may not use public comment periods to address issues that should be raised through existing formal communication channels. 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. There is a clipboard um at the front of the room. Since we don't have a a signup sheet, per se, but if you are speaking

092tonight, um will you please make sure to fill out um that form. I believe it's just your name and and other information um just for the public record so that we can make sure to document your participation this evening. Um, with that we'll go ahead and start if there is a speaker to um to come up and please please share your thoughts on this. You'll have three minutes. >> You can choose any microphone there. >> And just make sure to fill that out when you're done, too. >> I already filled it out. >> Oh, perfect. >> And I brought her around. Uh my name is Nathan and I'm speaking on behalf of innovations. Um I just wanted to start with um I've been I've been present to some of your meetings but not all of

093them. Um and I just want to make the first statement that I understand that this is a numbers game. I understand that and I want to say that we do understand the numbers game. Uh me personally, I work in insurance and so we have to gamble the the number of lives of people that we are going to insure, who's going to sign up, who's not going to us to sign up. And last year in particular, it's kind of the opposite side of the coin that you guys are looking at now. Um, we were expecting maybe 4,000 lives to begin at the beginning of last year. We ended up with over 90,000 at the end of the year. And that's the opposite side of the coin because I know you are expecting way less lives or

094students we should say. Um but what we are considering is kind of the same because we have to figure out how to take care of these members, these lives, these people. Um we have to consider customer service. We have to c consider um communications, it everything in order to support these people. And so I understand the numbers game, but what I want to put out uh to you all is that this is not a numbers game with this particular school, the innovations school. It is way under the number of students that we are expecting that you were all expecting because it's a different program and should not be considered to be the same. This program um is completely different from all the other schools. one because of what it offers and uh who it supports.

095And the reason it shouldn't be uh considered just under the Salt Lake City School District is because it uh it should be available to more and has not been offered that chance. And it's being shut down because it's not meeting the the enrollment that it's expecting. I literally do not live in the Salt Lake City School District, but I am sending my son here because it is important to him and the amount that he has achieved has been amazing. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Hello everyone. Thanks for letting us speak today. I want to tell you a story about my kids and it starts with COVID. In 2020, our schools went online. My oldest was in 8th grade and he started drowning a little bit in the size of his school. He was in a

096dual immersion program. There was one junior high that was doing it at the time and it was getting a little full. Then came the earthquake. his school was literally destroyed. Um, I don't know if you guys know this, it was gone. So, they moved the students to a different school and it was a struggle with that. Um, we looked around at other schools, dual immersion. He was starting to drown and just due to the size and innovations was recommended and it was actually recommended by his aunt who had children who had gone to innovations succeeded in innovations. Children who would not have succeeded anywhere else and the reason they succeeded is because they had advisor teachers. They were flexible. They were caring. And the passion that these teachers have and put forward is like unlike

097anything else that I have ever seen. Let me tell you, between my two kids, they've been through a lot of schools. My youngest, he's a senior at innovations right now. He's not going to be impacted by this, but his friends will. The future generations will. The point of innovations and what it was supposed to be has been systematically dismantled. And that is not the fault of innovations. And taking that away from the students is a failure of the school district. That is a huge failure because they have not as uh spoken last time they have not been allowed to recruit. They have changed their rules multiple times. They have changed their setups, their systems. They have changed how students are able to interact. They have to go to outside schools for some of their classes

098and aren't able to make it back for current classes and miss things. That is a failure of the school district, not of innovations and things that they've been forced to do. When you talk about low enrollment numbers, that's we should not be punishing our students for that. Our teachers have tried. They've spoken to trying. We have people who have notes of trying. They've tried to do recruitments and been denied. Please do not deny our students what they deserve. future generations, college, being able to be innovative as a student, being able to be passionate as a teacher and actually do what you care for, and having after school activities that are tailored to the kids and what they need. Honestly, this group of children back here, they are at school Monday through Friday till 5:00. Not

099because they have to, but because they want to. And pulling them away early, it's not going to happen. They like being there. They like being with each other, and they like being with their teachers. So, please really take this into consideration because it's impacting a lot of people. Thank you. >> Thank you. And will you please fill out the little clipboard? Okay, perfect. Thank you. >> Hey folks, thank you. Um, this is repeat information for some of you though. or at the [clears throat] excuse me the uh public hearing or the uh what at the school. So I apologize but I think it's important for our board members all of you to hear. Uh my name is Tim Phillips. I'm honored to have been the SEC chair at Innovations for the past two years while

100all this was happening. Uh this is our 21st and final year in the Salt Lake City School District. Our youngest kiddo was a senior at Innovations and uh we valued our time in the district greatly. you all have fought for the kids um despite pressure from the hill and we as parents appreciate that. Uh less than two years ago, our school community council was told by our principal that the district wanted us to better follow innovation's mission of being an early college high school. Uh that meant that we would be exiting kids to get down to a certain level so that we could be rebuilding with kids who were dedicated to doing concurrent classes. Um, we were concerned as an SEC that that would affect our budget and that would affect our staffing and we

101were told [clears throat] we would be held harmless. The district was holding us harmless. Those words are embedded in my brain forever. You're being held harmless. This is the plan. Our former assistant principal during an SEC meeting said, "We're taking it down to the studs and then rebuilding stronger than ever." So, as we're exiting kids and exiting kids and we're down to the studs, we're down to likeund and some kids um in July I get a notice of a Zoom meeting uh with Brian and uh our principal where they say, "Hey, u for a few reasons, low enrollment being one of them, we're considering closing the school, which isn't being held very harmless, right? Uh, the other reason that we're not really following our mission, um, I think nobody in the district really knows what

102the innovation's mission is compared to what it used to be or what it was for my two kids. Um, so we're exiting kids like crazy, not recruiting, as you've heard. We would talk about wanting to recruit in our ACC meetings and we were told, "Nope, we're getting down to the to the bare bones and then we will recruit once we've gotten once we got to that point. Um, so one of two things has happened. Either district leadership misled our principal, which then misled our school community council, the only voice parents have in our schools, or they saw our low enrollment and swooped in and be like, "Here's our chance. We can close innovations. We don't really understand them. We might be able to use the space. It's 100 kids." Um [clears throat] these are not

103just a hundred names on a spreadsheet. These are kids who have found a safe place at innovations. Uh who at one time were allowed to thrive uh set their paths set their goals and succeed. That doesn't really happen as much anymore. Um but it has the capability to do that. Um, I think the district never really fully understood what happens within those buildings, but it's it's magic. And um, it's unfortunate that this is a possible outcome. So, please think uh before you these kids made a commitment to innovations. Please don't treat that lightly. Thank you. Thank you, Cam. Hi, I'm Trista Emmer and I am a mother of three innovation students. My oldest graduated a couple of years ago, graduated early. Um my youngest just started this year. for my middle child as a junior

104and we ended up at innovations because my oldest was at Ames and was not succeeding was struggling as was not a good situation and a friend of theirs came to innovations and we like said okay let's do this night and day difference thrived started succeeding because of the smaller classes because of the advisors and we saw uh extracurricular activities, things that they joined, they helped um they were part of the the the queer um group. They started the um oh gosh, the name just left. The >> student union, >> the Black Student Union and >> Hope Squad. >> The Hope Squad. Social amazing doing really good work. Over the past couple of years, we've watched that dwindle. We've watched things go. Uh, not understanding why. I did not have the information. Kim had a single

105mom works a lot. But my other two kids have still thrived. My youngest is making an adjustment to high school, but my middle child also went through a rough adjustment and now is amazing, so good. And it's the smaller classes, it's the advisors, it's the the self-directedness where, you know, the first year, uh, that self-directedness I was not sure about. And then he caught on and then he started taking more responsibility. And I do not believe he's, you know, that my kids would be able to do that in one of the big high schools that you have. And so I'm I'm sitting here kind of panicking. I'm like, I don't know where I'm going to send my kids. My kids are I'm worried they're going to fail because of this. The other thing I wanted

106to point out is the location because my youngest actually lives in three different school districts, has three different legal guardians and the location of innovations is right there in the center. You don't have another high school in the same place. Like we're looking at having to go all the way to east, west, highland. What serves the people who are in more central location? It's innovations. And if we could be allowed to build it back up, if those kids who've been wanting to go could stop being turned away, I'd love to see what this school could come back to. But my kids are still thriving even with what's been done to it. So, please don't close it. Please let us build back up. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] Are there any other speakers who'd like to

107to address the board this evening? Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Neil Fischer. um like to I have uh one son who recently graduated from innovations uh class of 23 and another who is currently a junior. Um [clears throat] and freshman year for my middle child, my oldest who went to innovations um that was the COVID year and it was a disaster. The innovations model let him take classes and sophomore year he took 14 classes and got A's in every single one of them. Graduated with a 39 and is now studying aerospace engineering at Penn State. That is what can happen. My youngest son is now in innovations as a junior. Freshman year disaster. Sophomore year disaster. this year first term straight B+es across the board finally clicked and it has even though there has been

108a erosion of resources I've seen over the time there were mentors and you know advisors that students were able to go to they're gone now okay but the small class sizes still help and has allowed my son to you know, get his feet under him and start to progress and start to really, you know, dig his feet in. And he's going to graduate, which we were worried about at one point in time, but he's going to graduate. He's going to graduate on time and he's going to do well. And if that's not success, I don't know what is. Hello, my name is Nathan. I'm a student at Innovations and um this is currently my junior year at the high at the high school. I learned about the school from my teacher in middle school who

109had noticed my boredom with the current rate of the um way that most of my courses were going and had recommended this school to my parents for its rat more self-paced like um pacing And in my freshman year, I had cleared around two years worth of my credits with not too much of a struggle. This was due to the um the mentor system that was in place as well as the support I'd gotten from all the rest of my teachers, including the ones who were in my mentors. This also led me to have the opportunities to take all of the non-required courses such as like programming or gra or like 3D graphics or all ma mainly all of the courses that would have been extremely difficult to to keep up with on top of all

110of my main credits. And with the school closing, other people can't have the same opportunity that I had. the ability to really fly off at their own pace. The ability to graduate early or take take the college classes with the like discounted pricing and among other things. It just feels kind of sad that something like this could go so easily even even with this um even with the lower attendance or not attendance um enrollment. So, I hope that the school opens up for my sister who's going to be a freshman next year and that she can have the same opportunity that I had to gra to be able to graduate early, take more un regular courses among other things. >> Thank you, Nathan. And speakers, don't forget to fill out your information on that clipboard

111um when you're done speaking. Thank you. >> Sorry about that. >> It's okay, Nathan. >> Thank you. Um hello, my name is Oakley. I'm friends with Nathan over there. Um, and I am in my uh junior year at Innovations. I really liked going here. It has helped me a lot. Back in middle school uh near the beginning of 8th grade, my health actually started to deteriorate rapidly and I had to drop out entirely and go online. Uh but luckily my health has slowly recovered. But near my freshman year, I was still struggling a bit. Uh, luckily, this school has supported me a lot in my endeavors to continue my education. Uh, although my grades did suffer a bit due to that, I have been given the opportunity by this school uh to improve those grades

112a lot and I am doing a lot better with those now and I am very grateful for the opportunity to do so. Um, it has also made it a lot easier for me to attend. Um, part of the reason why I was having such a difficult time in middle school was due to heavy bullying and harassment. Um and this school has been so uh helpful for me in a sense of community that it has grown that I have joined several after school clubs here and I have not experienced any sort of harassment or bullying here at all. And I find that to be very very relieving uh in like hopes for other students who would go here as well. I still have another year to go here and I don't want to be sent back

113to any other schools for the next year. Uh it feels a bit cruel that something like that could happen, but I understand if it would. Uh it's just very unfortunate that that would be the case. Um I would like to continue my education past high school uh and do my best, but I fear that if this place were to close, it would be more difficult for me to have the necessary GPA to, you know, go to a good college. Um, I would very much so like to continue having the school open for my friends if they still continue to go here, if they do not like get everything done this year. And I would like for new students to have the opportunity opportunity to attend here because it could help them so much in continuing

114their education and helping themselves just have a better experience in life. Uh thank you for letting me speak. My name is Brian S. I am a senior at innovations and the early college has kind of depleted itself with we started having seven periods a or we started with seven periods a day and dwindled dwindled down to the main school periods. And we had our advisory every day which would help our students and if we needed to go there we would like they would help us with any subject and we could go to any other classroom. But we started going to four periods and then with other schools doing advisory it switched to the flex time which already with innovations is uh bad but uh sorry uh innovations has done a lot for lots of students

115and from all the previous students I've talked to over the past years from my brother to my cousins to people who were there from the start it used to be a check-in system where you would only go in if you needed help and we had the quizzes where we could just do one test if we needed the class and if we passed we would get that credit part of that not or we don't have that anymore which part of removes the early college and for the concurrent enrollment one of the data points I saw that was getting reviewed over innovations is only 8% of the students over about a 100 student population is doing concurrent enrollment when they say uh only juniors and seniors from what I've been told are allowed to do concurrent enrollment.

116That is all I have to say. [applause] >> Thank you again. Any other community members, parents, students that would like to address the board this evening? >> Thank you, Mike. Apparently, the adults go to this microphone and the kids go to that microphone. I'm not sure what's happening. I was going to go over there just to be one of the kids. Right. So u Mike Harmon I am a resident of Papa Grove in district 2 with Charlotte and a number of my neighbors have gone to innovations and I think it's interesting as you look at the history of innovations over time it seemed like we we make these dramatic changes right so we start off as this innovations we're going to have this really cool school and the CTE program and this early college high

117school and then we get a principal who doesn't support that notion and they really focus more on the CTE piece and so for a while the CTE blossoms and the innovations part, the academic high school kind of suffers. Then we get a new principal in and focusing on that part and then in and then the CTE things kind of struggles. And so we've we often times have this eb and flow and you know Amanda talked about how excited Lara is about the CTE program and I'm excited as well but I think we've let innovations the academic part of the high school suffer because of that and I would encourage the board to really like put a principal there who understands who under gets that going in a direction. And I think we'll see kids like

118this just soar. And I think if we're allowed to if they're not we if they're allowed to recruit and get more kids in there, we're going to see that. But it doesn't seem to work having one principal focusing on CTE and innovations and we've seen that in other areas of our district. And so I really encourage you to get them some time. Give them a year. Get someone in there who believes in that already college high school program piece of it. Let CCT do its thing and let innovations do their thing. Thank you. I'll go to the kids side over here. Um, hey, I didn't even know I was going to speak today because I didn't sign up or anything and then I was like, well, okay. Anyway, um so it's really difficult as a

119parent finding a school that is going to work well with your high schooler. Um there's plenty of challenges with high schoolers already. And once you find a school and it's working and and they have a great set of friends and everything is going as more or less according to plan, it's a real punch in the gut to find out that they might close your students school in the middle of their high school education. Like what a gut punch. Did that happen to any of you guys? Can anybody here stand here and say, "Yeah, that happened." Did you love it? >> No, I didn't. It was South High School where Innovations is now. >> Yeah. So, one person can say, "Oh, I've been through that. I understand you may have to close schools. I I understand

120funding is tight." But don't do it when you've got students that are successful in the middle of their program. And like Mike said, there's a really there's a bunch of really good programs that are going on there where students are coming from all over the valley to go. They don't have anywhere else to do that with. That's not actually what I wrote. None of what I just said I wrote. But anyway, that's Thanks. >> Thank you. And sir, please don't forget to fill out the clipboard thing. Thank you. >> I'm gonna [laughter] keep saying it. Um, are there any other folks that would like to address the board this evening on in this uh time certain public comment period? >> I don't think our rules permit that, Neil. I'm so sorry. But if you'd like

121to email the board, we're we're more than happy to to take that on. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I don't have a second comment, but I just want to give a hand of applause to all of our teachers at Innovations for all the hard work and them being the advisers of the event. They are amazing. >> Thank you. [applause] >> All right, we'll just give another 30 seconds. um to take public comment from folks that are with us this evening. >> Thank you, Chelsea. >> Chelsea A Costa, I would like to yield my time to Tim. >> To Tim? Where is Tim? I think it You mean Neil? >> Sorry, Neil. That was Harmon's fault. Neil, >> is the board okay with that? >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> And you can still

122email us, too, Neil. [laughter] >> Thank you, Chelsea. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Um, I really just wanted to summarize what I heard from everyone who came up, which was that everyone seems to universally love this school and it has done some really good things, but the students that go there, including my own, don't necessarily fit well with other schools and other curriculums. And so while maybe it's not a school for everyone, it captures the needs of those whose otherwise whose needs don't get met. And I think that's an important function no matter what size school district you are. And that's all I have to say. >> Thank you. >> All right. If there are no other speakers, I'm going to go ahead and um call our time certain public comment

123period concluded. Uh we want to thank each and every one of you for speaking. Um our parents, our teachers, and especially our students. Students, thank you for coming and joining us this evening. Give us a round [applause] of applause FOR IT. takes a lot of like courage and heart to come up and talk about the things that you're passionate about and to be vulnerable about your experiences in our schools and in your lives. So, thank you for doing that. We really really appreciate it. Uh we will revisit um our report agenda. Um we'll invite back up Jason Olsen, Yandre Chatwin, uh Sam Quants, and Jordan. Jordan, I forgot your last name. I'm sorry. >> Collins. Thank you. And I believe we had uh board member Anderson who had um raised her hand to speak. >>

124Yeah, sure. Um I have two questions. The first is during the roll out, I know we fell out of compliance with some of our administrative procedures or APS um specifically those that applied to the role that our library technology teachers most commonly serve because they are the website managers. So when the roll out happened in August and I was hearing a little bit of feedback from library technology teachers, I had asked the superintendent if we needed to revise any of those APs to reflect new procedures um especially to support those certified teacher librarians and this update has now been brought to the board as the next step in that conversation. Can I just clarify that we are back in compliance with those APS and staff don't recommend changing anything about the documents that sort of

125govern how our website works? That is correct. We looked at the website G I should G29. I should know that off the top of my head, but um >> there's a lot >> right [clears throat] um and we at this time we don't feel like we need to adjust that policy at all or those administrative procedures at all. >> Okay, that's really helpful to clarify. Um, the second thing, and this will take something off my board member report, is that it's trans awareness week, and as part of that week, I always share our LGBTQ resources page for students on my social media because I know that supportive resources save lives. Um, when I checked to celebrate this week, I found that the old link for those student resources redirects to the main directory. And along

126with that, some of the websites that used to be associated with our equity page either redirect to the directory or it's a empty page. My question is, you know, did this migrate away by accident or was it on purpose in some way? Because if it's by accident, I just like to raise it to our attention so that we can fix it. And if it's on purpose for some reason that's, you know, like compliance with ongoing state law to the detriment of students, then I'd like us to have a policy conversation, which would be different. >> I can take that one. Um, I off top of my head don't um recall exactly all the links that were in there. I do know the page you're talking about though. Um, we did make some changes to certain

127links to comply with state policies, you know, from recent legislative sessions. Um, but we'll take a look at that because if there's a link still up, then it should be a working link and it shouldn't redirect to the homepage. So, thank you so much for flagging that. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Amanda. >> Um, just I guess feedback. Um, I I do have to say I like the structure of the new website. it's more consistently friendly. Um, and I'm finding like things like the a toz directory like you're able to quickly go through and um get kind of where you want to go and flipping through a few of the school websites. Um, it's nice that uh like the teachers at least elementary wise, I haven't done all of them so I don't know

128if it's consistently or not. um where the teachers are identified by grade level where in the past they were just identified as an elementary teacher and didn't really have any kind of delineation unless the schools separated them out. The only exception I will say is a consistent area that is a problem is special education. Um, it appears, and I looked at middle schools, some of the middle schools, some of the high schools, but it just appears that they're just broadly classified as special education teacher staff or whatever. And it could be a resource teacher, it could be a speech pathologist, it could be somebody that's teaching certain grade levels. It could be a behavior specialist or behavior teacher. There's it's kind of like for parents of special education students, this black hole of, okay, where

129am I going? I gotta [laughter] hunt this down. So, I would say trying to figure um out how to identify them better so that parents know who to reach out to easier. Um the other piece that I noticed was um so we as a board we know the work chart and how the flow goes down and um on the website it's kind of indirectly implied so to speak in that you you go to the superintendent you see the executive cabinet um and then you'd have to go back to the a toz to like look at Tiffany Hall's department to see who that encompasses. But if it could be you look at the executive cabinet instead of it going to their email if you click on their title actually having that link to their page so

130then you can see who they're over that would help out in that flow. The one exception although I haven't gone through all of the executive cabinet tabs BA Kirstley's team is not clearly identified in his on his page. It just is BA Kirstley where we know that he's over [laughter] >> that might have been purpose dollar sign over Allen dollar. So kind of having that better blow to quickly disseminate who their departments are than as a community member or even easier for a board member instead of me having to go back to my paper chart. [laughter] I can get to that flow quicker. So thank you for your work. May I respond? Of >> course. >> Um so I want to give a huge shout out to Dr. Hall um and all the work that

131she did to align those um faculty directories by grade level. She did a lot of work and that wouldn't have been up there without her. Um thank you for the feedback on sped and also on the the org chart aspect of organizing the website. We'll look into both of those. So thank you. >> Any other questions from board members in this first round of of discussion? Brian, >> yes, I've got to stop the start line. So Sam, I'm hoping that I'm understanding and maybe Yandre chimes in as well. when you were doing this reconfiguration or this new system, will that help with when I'm trying to look at um individual school web pages, there are some schools that when you are like checking on their SEC meetings and their agenda attendance and all of those

132things, they're very up to-date. And then there are other schools where they're really isn't anything there. And I understand how schools are responsible independently, but are there tools built into this new system that would, and maybe this is a part of professional development that would help these schools do this more easily. Do you get what I'm saying? It seems to me like there are some schools that they're able to provide a lot of information. I'll speak more into the mic. Um, sorry. >> It seems like they're able to provide um really helpful information and I can see where there would be parents in other schools that could be frustrated with what they're finding. >> Yeah, that's a that's a great question and I think that's what we addressed in our presentation of these content specialists

133or experts, right? because we again we know a lot of about about the website but I'm not an expert on community council. >> Right. And so having individuals across the district that are specialists in those areas watch those pages and provide feedback. We have systems for example that look for broken links and we work on that all the time. But content is kind a little more subjective and needs to have a specialist eyes on them. So, so the short answer is yes, we want to do that. We want to make sure that we're amassing all of the knowledge that we have in the district to help with that. >> Thank you. I I think that could be really beneficial. >> Sure. >> Okay. Um, so I was just looking at the website on my phone

134because you know a lot of families particularly on the west side. Um, I mean I don't know about the east side but I know that on the west side they use their phones a lot and that's how they may not have a computer at home but they have a smartphone. So it looks pretty good. I mean, have you looked at the the interface or the you've tested that and everything? >> One of our high priorities when we look at a website is mobile responsiveness. You just can't have not have that in today's internet world. >> Okay. Yeah. Anyway, I'm happy with the new website and I will continue to look and see if there are any bugs that I can catch. >> Thank you, Charlotte. Any other questions in the first round? Anybody looking to

135speak in the second round by chance? Okay, seeing none, y'all are an awesome team. You're covering two different worlds behind the scenes and in the community and we appreciate all your efforts and making this a usable and a friendly tool for our families and for us as board members, for employees. So, it really means a lot and for teachers, too. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Uh we will move on to um our discussion agenda. We have three items. Uh the first one being portrait of a graduate. I'll turn the time over to Dr. Grant. >> So um our associate superintendent Ruiz will come up and present. She and Dr. Hall prepared a memo on the portrait of a [clears throat] graduate. Before we start though, I think it's important. Um we've been

136talking about diploma options and and the strategic plan and how it connects with this. But the diploma options, our community needs to know. Our next conversation about this won't be until March to look at diploma options because we are not looking to implement this in the 2026 school year. So, our idea was that we would have freshmen entering in 2026 um and that they would be the ones who would if some changes were approved um live under those new changes because we're pushing this back to the earliest would be a start in fall 2027. There's not so much of a rush. So I wanted to clarify with the community that um there are no changes for this coming year in terms of diplomas and we've just given ourselves some time to speak more and gather

137more information from community members, students, parents, teachers, others. So um wanted to clarify that. The second thing is that is um Dr. Ruis is coming up. Um so the memo was prepared based on board input at our last presentation on this at the last meeting when there are a number of questions. So the memo has those questions um answered and that was a request on the board. And then um another request was to talk about coherence of all these projects together. So Dr. Ree, I'll turn it to you. >> Okay. Good evening. >> Evening. >> Okay. So before we go into questions about the memo, I'd like to highlight three aspects of it. First, this idea of coherence. But before I start, I'd like to acknowledge the comments that were made tonight by our teachers.

138I think it's really important to understand their perspective and that I hope I can convey a message that um a portrait of a graduate is not so much about a new initiative but more about um reframing our language, defining uh those expectations that we have of our students. um being able to map them to our current work because this is happening everywhere. We're just using different language uh for the work the great work that's already happening. So in an effort to build coherence if we could come together with our teachers, with our students, with our families and define very clearly those competencies, then we could all anchor our work toward [clears throat] that. So that's kind of our perspective with this effort. And so with that um when we talk about uh our strategic plan,

139our priorities, our portrait of a graduate, even our um diploma options, it's all about they all speak to what we expect our students to be able to know and do just at various levels of detail. And so when we talk about our strategic plan, first of all, um that is more about um when let me start that again. When we say strategic plan, it describes the work that we do. Okay. When we talk about the portrait of a graduate is it describes who we want our students to become. And then when we say diploma options, capstones, coursework, um, pathways, that really gives students an opportunity to demonstrate those competencies and for us to recognize those competences. I know that the work is not simple. Developing this process will not be simple, but simply put, when

140we bring them together, it's how we unpack the work we do to the level of what we expect students to be able to know and do by the time they graduate. Okay. Now, um the other question was about our Oh, sorry. Before I go to the second question, um I wanted to add that when we talk about the um portrait of a graduate, that's kind of our northstar. So if we think about the strategic plan in terms of our commitments, how we build coherence in our district and then we look at the portrait of a graduate as our northstar. Now we're taking those commitments and we're unpacking them, right? distilling them to the student level and working with teachers, our students and our families to make sure that what we identify and produce is practical

141and is usable in our classrooms because otherwise um why even develop this process if it's not for the benefit of each student in each of our classrooms. Okay. So the second question um was more about the timeline now and this may sound a bit ambitious and it may be but we think with our current structures and resources that is doable. So phase one will take about five months or so and our goal is to uh seek [clears throat] um stakeholder input. We want to hear the voices of our teachers, our families, our students, our community members, our industry partners. Um to be able to tell us what matters to them. Um when we say what is the knowledge, skills and dispositions you would like to see in your student or in your future employee or

142in your future community member, in our future community member. What will that look like, sound like, feel like? We want to gather that kind of information. Um and that will we anticipate may take about five months or so with our existing again structure and supports and resources from our own um staff. Okay. The next phase it will move to taking all of that information, analyze it um and identify um no more than seven competencies um from all of that information. Um to be able to um take each of those and then map to our strategic plan and our priorities. and that may take another four months or so if I'm looking at our timeline correctly. Um, from there uh we want to produce a draft portrait. We want to be able to align it and

143um and begin the work of an instructional integration road map which will take uh Dr. host teams as well as um existing structures that we have with our teacher advisory. Um and then other venues to seek again feedback from our teachers uh to make sure that that integration is what they need um and that we have the supports that they need to be able to implement these in each of their classrooms. And we anticipate that may take another two months or so. And then last but not least um from there from after gathering that feedback and analyzing and finalizing that product um then bring it to you for additional review and adoption. Now I said last but not least because by the by the time you get this final um product it's not going to

144be the first time um that you'll see it or that you'll receive updates. Our hope is that depending on how you choose to participate through this process or when and if um you decide to participate in this process um you will receive you will be part of the ongoing conversation as we develop um these competencies. Um and and then the last piece um as I understand it was how we're going to seek input. And as stated in the memo, our goal is um to use different methods to gather that input through surveys, faculty meetings, um parent focus groups, student focus group, teacher focus groups, um to gather uh meeting with community members, SEC uh chairs. again, not only using our existing structures for that uh feedback, but also going out and as wide as possible

145um to gather um the feedback and um I want to point out that we see um teachers input as I mentioned earlier um and I want to clarify that again um participating in two different phases of this development. The first one is um the feedback from the actual competencies uh that they see their students need to be able to graduate ready for college career or whatever path they choose our students choose. Um and then secondly as we begin the work with integrating those competencies into instructional practices. And those were the questions I had from the memo. Are there any others? Annie, >> I just had two follow-up questions. Um, so thank you for putting this together. It was based on our questions from last session. Um, I just wanted to clarify. Um, it looks like

146it says zero dollars in new funds, but it would take staff time. >> Do you have an idea of how many staff would be involved in this um, development year? Sounds like you'd be engaging other stakeholders, but you know, estimates of number of staff or number of hours, that type of thing. >> Not exactly. Um I've I had a conversation with Dr. hall um and we started brainstorming about um which members of her team may be able to participate um and what other members of uh cross department teams we may be able to engage in this process. Now um as I envision this uh and as we hold different focus groups um we could have a signup sheet and then depending on people's availability they can support us with that effort. Now I will be

147leading those conversations with others. So there will be a few of us that will be in every conversation and others as time uh permits. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, one thing that was expressed um in our last meeting was the desire for the um USBA, not USBA, excuse me, >> USB um portrait of graduate tools to be used effectively so that it could be a kind of a turnkey project um in terms of like we're applying it to our district but using a lot of the resources that they have. Um, in terms of um, this plan, it seems a little less turnkey than I was expecting. But the other, um, thing I would just kind of like to follow up on is the, um, instructional integration in 2026 2027 talks about micro credentiing. Um, and

148we just heard from a teacher saying that they had an additional basically 50 hours added to their plate this year. So I'm just wondering what you know would would that be necessary if it's already integrated into our strategic plan to add additional training for teachers or what's the vision with that? >> Yeah, the vision for with that as I um again had this conversation with Dr. hall is to make it optional. Um and so have the available resources um in the event that they want to learn more about it. Um that um depending on what kind of um roll out or implementation because sometimes we do have other rollouts like curriculum rollouts and there may be other things that they could take the time they need uh to participate. So it wouldn't be mandatory but

149the resources will be there. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Ashley. >> So one of the things that Dr. Ruiz said is we need to come together with our students and families and I've shared this um in email in past meetings and again now that I think a precursor to coming together on any new initiative is actually having a strong method to obtain feedback. Um so one thing Dr. Grant has shared with us is that she's started a teacher working group um to have more difficult conversations with faculty, but also family feedback is another area where we really struggle as a district just across the board. And I think board member Jensen has suggested several times with some verbal support and some visual support from many if not all of us in open meeting that the

150creation of a community advisory group related to a training seminar he attended at NSBA. Um, I would love to see us moving in the direction where we approve something like an advisory group before we start on the pathway of another set of initiatives where then we have to continue teasing out these varied implications with a bunch of different groups that we haven't actually had a mechanism to even convene. Um, another thing that I think is really helpful in the memo is the word streamlined. And so I've thought a lot about the idea that the USB portrait is just not sufficient because our district is so unique. And so I just wanted to share the USB e portrait has a lot of resources in it but it's three words mastery autonomy and purpose. We want students

151to have academic mastery of the curriculum. We want them to have autonomy to govern themselves as part of the world. And we want them to have a purpose, a mission and an identity in life after they engage in the curriculum that we offer. So I'm I'm curious how this will be brought back to the board as part of these larger initiatives. What does a portrait mean if we change our credit requirements or diploma options? What does a portrait mean if we're looking at how to change the strategic plan? I'm curious how those three things will be connected together and brought back to us, but I remain uncertain um about how reinventing the MAP language is superior to saying we can agree we want students to have academic mastery, autonomy, and purpose. And we want to

152make sure our strategic plan enables them to have those things and we could maximize every resource we have. staff-wise, timewise, financial wise to say those are three words we can agree on and we can align our strategic plan knowing that those those things sort of lead us. So, I just continue to have a little bit of healthy skepticism about the idea we need something special rather than we could agree maybe around what exists. And what we could spend more time on is the amendments that I understand are coming back to us um regarding the strategic plan that you'll bring those back and also just how we align resources. I think our strategic plan on paper has so many things we all care a lot about. The resource alignment may not be there. Like one example

153would be equity audits didn't get conducted. They were a part of the plan. I was looking forward to hearing the equity audit results to know are we aligning our resources favorably to ensure students all have you know access to a curriculum that gives them purpose right that would be one example of how I could see those three things relating if we are strategic and I think one strategic decision that we could consider how to move forward as a board is board member Jensen's suggestion that's been ongoing to really have a way that we get feedback from the community on a regular basis Thank you, Ashley. Any other comments or questions, >> Charlotte? >> No. Okay. >> It was more a clarifying question about the advisory board you were advisory group you were talking about, but

154>> I I think we'll get there. So, um, if I can answer that, and it's my understanding based on the updates that we've sent out from board leadership to you all that Brian's going to mention this in his board member report so that we can um, ideally get this scheduled um, for a future board meeting coming up. >> Frank, I will address that in my board member report. I guess I just wanted to um trying to decide whether I would use the word echo or reiterate um board member Anderson's thoughts about ensuring that with the portrait of the graduate and with these other initiatives, the diploma options, I mean the strategic plan, I don't know if that's an actual initiative. That's what is our guiding um light. But to me, it's been really um valuable

155that we have pushed pause as we look at portrait of a graduate. And now we're evaluating h how the strate the strategic plan, the um thoughts about diploma options, the um conversation that we've had about increasing credit requirements. Um we've also referred to board goals. Part of what happens for me when I'm in these meetings is I've got that teacher hat on and we heard about that in our meeting to begin with and I'm just reflecting on my experience in the classroom when there would be a board meeting and well here's another great idea and it really wasn't a question about whether it was a great idea. It was how are we supposed to accommodate all of these good ideas? And so what I'm hoping and I if I am understanding you correctly, board member

156Anderson, that is as we move forward, we're going to be and that's why we have made some adjustments in our agenda calendar. We're going to be looking at all of these different um for lack of a better term initiatives and see how they relate with one another and how they can all be incorporated so that we don't have a pingpong ball going back and forth is okay what's going on here what's on over there um thank you um for acknowledging I mean we've spoken about um taking the time in our agenda um calendaring and I think this is going to be beneficial for us. >> Thank you Brian Amanda. >> Yeah I like the comments that have already been made. um it does cover um a more simple statement that I was going to make

157that basically um I can get behind the portrait of a graduate as long as it's makes things easier and cleaner um with and aligned with the strategic plan and board priorities um and it doesn't add to the demands and expectations of our students and our teachers and our eleas etc. Um I I Brian mentioned in the prior board meeting um kind of um essentially respecting the legislaturator's expectations um in this endeavor so that we can respectfully um show that we're we're a partner in the educational process um for our communities. um I don't I don't feel that there's harm in this concept um as long as it um is developed properly and along the same lines as they have already mentioned. Um, but that's the the key piece that I also land on is tie

158it together in a nice bow that puts everything together in a harmonious fashion versus the ping ponging effect that Brian mentioned because I don't think anybody likes to be in an employment situation where it's and what are we doing to today that's going to change tomorrow. So making it cohesive. So that's it. >> Thank you Amanda. Any other comments or questions? Anybody want to speak in the round two who's already spoken? All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Ree, Dr. Grant, board. Um, I think we've found a really positive thing in and how we're approaching this all three of these topics. Um, you know, the ping-pong effect, getting rid of that. But I think it was something that board member Anderson said um in a recent conversation we had that that makes a lot of

159sense, which is let's clarify and make sure that all of these things are in place before they become operational, right? And so I think that the way we're approaching this next year um helps us in that endeavor. So thank you board member Anderson and other board members for weighing in on this um as we move forward. So and Dr. Reese for all of your efforts. Dr. Grant, is there anything you'd like to to end on? >> Well, just that the purpose of this is to create greater simplicity because we know what we're about. And um the goal is not to define extra burdens for people, but rather what are we doing across the district? What are all the schools doing to help take a child from PTA or K into what we want to have

160happen at the end? >> We don't have that vision right now. We don't have that picture in our minds of what we want or what we want to accomplish in this. How it would define um what classes would take priority or not? What um instructional strategies would be used in the classroom um and things like that? Are we building people who are going to be good civically? Are we building people who are going to be good collaboratively with others and things like that? It's really codifying a lot of what we're doing, but also trying to simplify that and create a vision for what we're about as a district, all of those things. And in terms of the timing, what we have set up right now is the strategic plan is coming to you in December.

161um which we had proposed with just trying to simplify that strategic plan again, make it more usable. Um rearrange some pieces so that they're in better categories for use. Um we'd like to bring this back to you in the new year and talk about um and then start the conversation up again about diplomas in March so that they may not allign about their implementation date, but they're all part of trying to create the word that Dr. Ruiz was using around coherence in what we're doing. We haven't had that kind of [clears throat] coherence for a while and what we're about and that that's the key thing that makes districts good at what they do and trying to get to that is a good part of what we're trying to accomplish with this. >> Yeah. >>

162Can I add one thing? Oh gohead. >> Can I um just to build on what Dr. Grant just shared in order to build coherence, vocabulary matters, language matters. It becomes the glue by which everything comes together. And we're hoping that the language that we end up with um with a portrait of a graduate, our values become that glue that brings everything together in a more simple way. And that all of us from the student level, teacher level, all levels are able to articulate what we're about, who we are, and um in in a simple way. We'll count this as round two. Go for it, Amanda. >> Perfect. I think something that I need um a lot of this to me is a very broad conversation. Um too broad I feel like um we've got um

163the portrait of graduate, the diploma options conversations, the um you know, all of it. And so I might suggest if we're open to it or maybe I just need to sit down with you individually like small group meetings that could really break this down and plot it out so to speak to see what you're you're seeing so that I can try to see what you're seeing to to try to like more um I don't know the right word but just wrap my head better around it because I want to I there are I I have a lot more understanding of it today than I did before. >> Um and I see value in it, but I still feel like there's a lot of information that I personally need to just delve into to uh to

164grasp it better so I can understand potential ramifications. You know, the benefits seem to be there. But anyway, so maybe like for me like a small group like dissection of this to to dig into it might help myself out as we're going down this path because it really seems to be something that, you know, y'all are interested in. And I'm not going to say I'm a hard no, but I do need to understand some elements a lot better. >> Yeah. And I appreciate that because a lot of it could feel abstract right now. Um because part of the process is also letting the process identify what the community sees um in their students, what teachers see in their students, right? And so um I agree with board member understanding that mastery uh autonomy and purpose

165are very worthy uh to pursue. Although I don't know that that's specific to again to who we are as a as a community. And when we say what do we mean by mastery? What do we mean by autonomy? What do we mean by purpose? What would that translate to when we um when we hear the voices of our students, families, teachers in our own context? >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um I just I I'm me mentioned this last time. I'll try to be brief, but I do um have a sense of frustration while I think the board and the superintendent and the cabinet can set forward an important vision for teachers, staff, students, families. I I do feel like there are some trade-offs we're making by including um a lot of our agenda items to

166be kind of these big vision broad topics. And I just want to note, I think for teachers and parents and students who are in the everyday slog of things, there's still a lot of operational problems, things that aren't working well. Um, resource misalignments that I feel like need to be addressed that sometimes get pushed to the side. So, I I agree. I think it's great to have a vision and streamline, but with the limited time and resources that everyone across the district has, including the board, I I do just want to express my concern that that it can table other important issues that are happening right now like sped program, you know, staffing or, you know, transportation or school capital budget issues, etc. >> Thank you. That's valuable. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Roose. Thank you,

167Dr. Grant and board. We'll move on to um our next agenda item, which is our annual board member statement of ethics. Um Miss Kindle, this is something that we pushed from the last meeting to this one. Um she did hand us the statement of ethics that you have in front of you, board members. Um we've done this a few different ways in the past in my experience. Um we've had times where we've actually read this out loud. I'm not going to lie. Um we've we've also had times where we've taken a vote um and moved something like this to action to affirm um our commitment to these standards and these ethics. Um we've also had robust discussions about these standards and ethics with previous boards and we all signed um a singular copy. But I

168think what we're looking for tonight is uh for us to have any necessary discussions that we need. Um ideally move this to action to affirm our commitment to these standards of ethics. Um, I'm open to any which way we want to take this. Um, but and and maybe it'd be a good thing for us to actually read these out loud so that the community knows what we're talking about. Um, you know, I'm happy to to start and then maybe each board member could read um these prompts while we go around the room. Ashley, >> if possible, we do that on the action agenda. If for instance I was to say uh I move that we send the statement of ethics for the Salt Lake City School District Board of Education uh as posted to the

169action agenda to be read aloud and affirmed by the board. >> Is that a formal motion? >> It is. I'll second. >> Excellent. Uh any discussion to the motion. >> All right. Seeing none, we'll start with a roll call vote with board member Romano. >> Annie Romano. Yes. >> Brian Jensen. Yes. >> Amanda Langley. Yes. Bryce Williams, yes. >> Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. Thank you, board. We will revisit this on the action agenda. Um, our next um item of business is additional board norms, and this is specific to safe schools cases. Um, when you're referring back to the memo and the best uh process or avenue to which these cases reach the board, um, I don't know if Miss Kindle is going to come up to answer

170any questions that we might have. Um, but I I'm gonna put board member Anderson on the spot. You sent an email that I think made a lot of sense about your recommendation about how we might move this process forward. And I'd love for you to state that for us. >> Yeah. So, um, uh, for people who are like board norms, what what does this exhibit mean? Uh, periodically different safe schools cases come to the board to be approved. In the past, that was discussed in close session and approved and recently moved to a memo, but sometimes a closed session is still required. So, I would like to propose that if two board members request by the Friday prior to a meeting to discuss any safe schools case in close session that the request be honored

171or sorry, any safe schools case that is appearing on the upcoming agenda that that request be honored. Um, it's my further suggestion that in accordance with such a change, every attempt would be made to have safe schools memos available um when our agenda is available. So, we have time between Wednesday and Friday to make such a declaration. Um, as a reminder, our handbook does say that any uh board member could pull an item or request an item be pulled from consent 24 hours prior to the meeting. The reason this is not preferable in safe schools cases is because we may not have a close session scheduled for the start of the meeting and it would be prohibitive uh to our action on those items. So, if people generally agree that two board members making a

172request by Friday along with staff making attempts to have safe schools memos to us sooner, that that would necessitate a close session discussion rather than a memo, then I would suggest that someone move that we approve general counsel uh draft amendment to the handbook with a procedure uh as named or as described. >> You could say so moved and that would be sufficient. >> Thank you. Thank you, Bryce. Is there a second to the >> I second. >> All right, we've got a motion in a second. Any further discussion? [snorts] >> Uh, I have a clarification question. I didn't catch everything that um board member Anderson said in your um suggestions. Um what was the by Friday? Was that the request for it to go to a close session discussion so we could discuss it

173before we're actually voting on it in the meeting? Okay. Thank you. The only clarifying question I would have would be if general counsel had any objection to that or the direction would be unclear if the motion was successful. >> Uh no the direction is perfectly clear. I did um just want to come back to a statement that I had made um at the last board meeting just to follow up. There had been a question about attorney client privilege communications and I know that board member Anderson had a question about that especially as they relate to safe schools cases um because as sometimes they are um distributed the memo outlining the particulars are distributed um through attorney client privilege communications with the board. Um just to be clear um as these cases cannot be discussed in

174an open meeting um and sometimes it's um board members have questions um that require information sharing. There is no problem with the whole board receiving that information under um attorney client privilege because um obviously with the open and public meetings act uh the nature of that act is to have transparent and open discussions in a public meeting. And so these types of conversations which would be which would occur in a closed session do not implicate that um the aim of the open and public meetings act which is to have transparent and public communications. Um so when board members are asking questions um simply for information gathering purposes um and those responses are going back to the entire board there is no prohibition about sharing that information. So, I just wanted to make that clear. But

175I do 100% understand um the uh request and as u board policy subcommittee is slated to meet I believe next week um and that committee serves also as the board handbook committee um I can certainly bring a revised uh handbook section to that meeting um next week. >> Great. Thank you. >> Any other discussion? And Bryce, just to clarify, is your >> toction >> move to move that to action? Yeah, exactly. Move to action. >> Thank you. Um, seeing no further discussion, we'll do a roll call vote starting with Vice President Jensen. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Long, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nick Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um, we will now move to our action agenda. The first

176item on there is our annual board member statement of ethics. I'll go ahead and read the opening paragraph and uh we'll move uh to my right um Brian and and so on um until we get through all of these these uh these commitments that were we're referring tonight. So, statement of ethics for the Salt Lake City School District Board of Education. Board members are elected officials obligated to monitor, evaluate, and work to improve educational opportunities for students and families in the district. These responsibilities require that board members adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct. Key standards are found in the Utah Public Officers and Employee Ethics Act and Common Law Principles defining ethical duties. To this end, board members subscribe to the following statements and assurances, which will be reviewed and agreed to annually

177in a public meeting. >> I will I will represent the board with dignity and integrity, including complying with all laws and board policies. >> Are you please boss? I will treat fellow board members, district staff, and members of the public with respect and consideration through civ civil discourse, exhibiting both honesty and decorum whether we agree or disagree on issues. >> I will keep confidential all issues discussed in executive sessions, including legal action, negotiations, personnel, and property. >> I will avoid conflicts of interest or the seeking of inappropriate personal advantage as a result of serving on the board. I will I will represent the needs of all students in the district while balancing the concerns of individual precincts and constituents. >> I will endeavor to attend all board meetings, be on time and prepared and listen

178to others opinions. >> I will guard the public trust by spending school funds to benefit all children. I will function as part of a policymaking body recognizing that authority rests with the board in open session, not with individual members of the board. Board members, thank you for reading this aloud with us for ourselves and for the community. Um we were in a unique position where um with a new board member, we needed to come into compliance as a whole board. And so I appreciate um all of you um participating in this and allowing for this to be on the board agenda as we welcome Annie into our mix um for this next year. And um I would seek a motion to affirm this uh through our through our votes. >> I move that we affirm

179the statement just recited. >> Second. >> So a motion to second. Any further discussion? >> Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with Bryce Williams. >> Bryce Williams. Yes. Charlotte Feif Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> Thank you, board. Um, our next item on the agenda is the additional board norms. Um, I will seek a motion. Um, I move that we approve general counsel adding to the handbook a procedure for requesting close session on a safe schools case while simultaneously directing the superintendent to work with staff to try to uh have safe schools memos attached by Wednesday when possible. >> Second. >> Got a motion, a second on the table. Any further discussion? >> All right,

180seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with Charlotte Ferson. >> Charlotte Ferson, yes. Ashley Anderson, yes. Yes. Nate Salazar, yes. >> Annie Romano, yes. >> Ryan Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Long, yes. >> Price Williams, yes. >> That motion passes. Thank you, board. Um, we will now move into our superintendent report. >> I actually don't have a report tonight. >> Thank you, Dr. Grant. Board member reports. Um, I started on that end last time. We're going to start on this end this time. Charlotte, you're up. >> Okay. Um well, I wanted to recognize the um accomplishments of the West High football team even though it didn't turn out the way they had hoped. Um but I it was it was uh a great season and so they should be proud of that. Um, also

181I was able to had an opportunity to meet with a cohort of science teachers um, who meet monthly about experiential outdoor experiential learning and they were at the wetlands near my house and um, got to see them in action and testing the water and seeing different wildlife and Park View Elementary uses um it's the F wetlands and they use that area a lot because it's within a block and so they bring children there and they have a story walk and um [clears throat] but there those all of those teachers were from all around the district and they really are they really believe in providing hands-on outdoor educational experiences for for students and so I hope we can continue to do that. >> Thank you, Charlotte. >> Um just wanted to mention I was able to

182attend the Liberty Elementary School SEC meeting and would like to commend um Principal Barryentos as well as the SEC and the PTA who are working hard to make sure that their school is safe. um and that they're providing a lot of uh resources with the help of the Salt Lake Education Foundation um through the community resources including the dental clinic and health clinics um at Liberty. Um and the impact that that's making on those families is um important. Um also would like to recognize um all of the work that's being done. Um today we talked about the West High Clinics. Um I work for the UVU Health and I'm uh know many colleagues who are working tirelessly to continue the West High Clinic um operations and looking forward to the future. So I'd like to

183thank them and as always thank our educators who are working tirelessly including extra hours Thanks, Ann. >> Um, do you have a report, Foss? >> Oh, sorry. Were you going to I thought you were doing yours last for some reason, >> oh, okay, I'm on. [laughter] >> Okay. I do have a couple of other things that I um wanted to report on before I report on the um what we've previously mentioned. I attended a USBA policy training. Um, those are on Wednesdays. I just want to emphasize I think that those are really beneficial and it was I mean I always see you there when I tune in, Ashley. Um, they have certainly been helpful for me. Um, and for those of us that are on the policy committee, it does give some additional support to

184what we're doing. Um then I attended a Fidelity student scholar program that um we were invited to. And I just wanted to report that to me it was really exciting to hear about Fidelity Investments and their desire because they have one of their headquarters in Salt Lake City to provide scholarships. um to the Utah community. So, there are 25 scholarships that will be available for Utah students. And I won't go into the specifics of all of the scholarship um opportunities, but they're renewable and their criteria make it so that it's available to a much broader range of students, which I think is wonderful. Um, I also had the opportunity of attending the West High Bountiful game with two of my grand young grandsons who are well, they want to go to West High at some

185point. They've got lots of years to um accomplish this, but it was really fun to watch them um watch the enthusiasm [clears throat] that was being experienced at West and I mean the football team, but I mean the cheer squad, I mean everything. It was just really wonderful. Foss, you have a great school. [laughter] Um then let's see I also had the opportunity of um experiencing the open table um dinner at West High. And for you board members, I'd encourage you, I'm hoping that they have one next year at East High. They've had one at Highland High. They've had one at West. So, I'm going to put in a plug for East now that they would have that opportunity. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for um the community and students and school officials to

186engage with one another and have a conversation where you're breaking bread together. Um, one of the highlights for me was um, meeting with the Beacon Heights fifth grade. They asked me to come and share with them because November is election season and they're studying our um, elective process. That process and what it means to be a school board member and to see their um engagement in wanting to hear >> how we're determining their school experience. Fifth graders have some questions about what they're doing in school. Um finally um we sent out um to all of our SEC's the instructions for the school calendar. I was at the East High SEC meeting and I thought that it was really valuable to see how seriously those stakeholders look at those options and the thoughtful conversation that they

187have about what they believe the best options are for their school community. Finally, um, as was referred to in the, um, email that Nate sent from board leadership, he asked me to just share with you um, my thoughts again about a community engagement or advisory committee. To me, as we have worked through things over the last year and a half, I have seen numerous instances where I think that it would really be valuable for us to have a committee that um was made up of community stakeholders that um we could give direction to. um helping us as we look at different initiatives, policies, um programs that are being considered by the Salt Lake City School District. And I know that I have referred several times to uh professional development that I attended. This was at

188the NSBA meeting in April of [snorts] 2024. Uh the title of that um training was harness the power of a long range planning committee community planning committee >> and what I thought would be best. We don't want to have me have a presentation of 25 minutes in a board member report. I thought what I could do, I have it pulled up as some of you might be able to see on my laptop the um PowerPoint that covered this. I thought that I could send it to each of you and that you could look at it. But I guess I would also suggest a request that um and I think board member Anderson was providing a second request that we put this on our agenda to look at how we would go about um um determining

189or um developing that kind of a committee. Those are my thoughts. >> Thank you, board member Jensen and Vice President Jensen, excuse me. Um, I will just interject and I saw some head nods around the room. Um, is the board, you know, in support of Brian and I adding this to a future agenda, at least bringing it to agenda setting so that we can schedule this out. >> I have a question. It's my understanding we can't give direction during the reports section because they're not >> placed on the agenda. I would say it's my understanding that already happened earlier. >> Yes. >> And that [snorts] a call for unanimous consent earlier would have been received, but if not, I will send an email saying I second your request. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Foss.

190>> Um, I would [clears throat] just like to highlight that West High will be putting on a production of Newsies under our uh new director of our theater program. Um, many of my friends from Dance Company are in the in the program and I think it's gonna be great. $5 for students, $6 for anyone else. You can find all the details and information on West High's website. Um, also board member Jefferson reminded me that uh talking about using uh the outdoors as part of classroom instruction. Um my biology class about a month ago went up to SR65 utilizing our transportation resources. Um and that was a great experience. We got to go out do a lab, take some trans sex and um do some really really great analysis in the field. And then also I'd

191just like to say thank you to Maya Kurt who filled in for me last time as my alternate. Um, I already acknowledged that it's trans awareness week, but I also wanted to draw attention to American Education Week, which is when the National Education Association supports teachers and education support professionals. Thank you. Uh, the hour is late, but the jazz hands are here and spirited that you can't see on camera. Um, there are options to celebrate American Education Week from making sure you thank every ESP that you see to entering the subpool to being a teacher for a day. I've published some of those suggestions in the Greater Avenues Community Council newsletter, um, which I can share on my social media. As others have noted, it's been a great run for athletics and activities at West.

192And our secondary schools are now rolling into winter sports, and I wanted to wish West High luck at their first swim meet against Hillrest. I did spend the morning chaperoning Washington Elementary School students to news at West High. It is incredible. Um, I also saw and sign an open classroom students visiting. Wasach has their own Stars in the Spotlight Theater performances this week and they are also requesting science for our judges. So that season is about to kick off. Um again I've posted that on my social media. Um one fun update I got a text message from Amber Schill who is on the Canyons School District board. She let me know that our former colleague Christy Sweat is the recipient of a Martha Hughes Cannon Award for outstanding impact in local government. and other honores

193include my state board representative Leanne Wood as well as representative Angelo Romero who serves a big portion of our district. Um I'd invite you all to celebrate Christie and the other honores on December 1st at the Capitol building. Registration is available through the Hinckley Institute and I will share that link with our staff. Um, as I shared with board members via email, I was nominated um to serve on the National School Board Association's beliefs and resolutions committee. That would require a trip in January, which I have already received support from the superintendent and business administrator. But our um financial policies require board support. So, I would ask that if board members object to supporting my travel um to serve on the NSBA committee, I would ask them to let board leadership know sometime following this

194report by the end of this um calendar week. Uh and we that way we could act on it. If board members do have questions or concerns, you could reach out to board leadership, let them know they would appropriately agenda it. Um, the finance committee will be meeting again before the end of the month for business we've been assigned, but I do not have updates from additional committee work at this time. Side note, after you go see Newsies, our student board member is not um singing his own praises. He is performing with Repatory Dance Theater this weekend along with some other students who are part of an intergenerational performance. So, get out and support our student board member if you can. Well, the hard part about going after Ashley is we often have some of the

195same things that we're going to report, but I'm going to mention them anyway because they are important. Um, I also wanted to recognize National Educators Week. Um, thanks to our teachers, administrators, child nutrition specialists, uh, PAR professionals, etc. Um, that all contribute to quality education for our students in our district. Um, second is last board meeting I reported about some uh, complications with the USBA master board certification system. Um, those have since been solved. If anybody else is having any issues with those, Megan Menddees is great uh to work with to get that figured out. Um wanted to also highlight the success of the West High football team as well. Um I got to attend the quarterfinal and semi-final game with board member Anderson um a great football um partner or to be be at

196those games with. And um just wanted to express the excitement and the camaraderie and really the community um that has taken place this um season. And a special shout out to coach Salui and his team for all of their work um in creating just a great atmosphere and a great program. And then finally um I also had the opportunity to attend the West High Alumni Association board meeting um that they had a couple of weeks ago. Um for folks that don't know, I was the president of the alumni association before stepping onto this board and had not been back um since. Um but they specifically invited me to come. And the thing I wanted to highlight is next year they will be celebrating their 40 years um as an alumni association and give and have

197uh awarded nearly a million dollars in scholarships for graduating West High seniors and just want to thank them for the work that they do. Um since I have left they are a smaller group but they are a mighty group and just very proud of the work that they're doing. So thank you. >> Okay. Um I would be negligent to not recognize our teachers for NA week. So, thank you [clears throat] for your teachers. We wouldn't be here without you. You're very valuable in so many ways. Can never ever express it fully. Um, I did also attend the one table together event with um that Brian was at at West High and I have to point out just the most adorable thing ever. I had a student at the table that I was at and like

198she towards the end was like, "Oh my gosh, that guy was my teacher." And I was like, "Which one? Point him out." That guy over there. I'm like, "Oh, that's Brian. and he's a board member. Come over, let's say hi." And she's like, "No, I'd be embarrassed. He probably won't recognize me." So, I kind of motivated her to go over there and say hello. And he she didn't have to say anything. He recognized her instantly. And she was >> was wonderful. >> Just like so elated that you knew exactly who she was and they had just the best moment. So, a great a great moment to see teacher and student reuniting all those years later. So, it was just so much fun to see Brian's joy on his face, too. Um, with the conversation earlier

199with uh SLF, I just wanted to point out like I never really fully understood how much SLF does and how much they accomplish and it's really quite an amazing feat. Just in the past few weeks, um I was able to participate in a thank you Thursday where they were uh expressed appreciation to a couple teachers at um Highland Park Elementary. Um and that is something that they routinely try to do. Um and then again the one table to together event they contributed to that. Um James was at my table as well and he he's a hilarious soul. Um they helped facilitate the Fidelity Investments announcement of their new scholarship for Utah students. Um and then the internet beyond the classroom uh launch. Um and that's just in the last few weeks. So it's really >>

200found a donor for West High football tickets so 450 students could attend. >> Yeah. So it's just amazing what they were able to accomplish and seemingly endlessly. Um I have to say and I hate to break the news but I have to. Um but the East High School elevator fob project that Drake addressed not so long ago. They're ahead of schedule. Thank you, Isaac and team. So, I am excitedly waiting for that to be ready that there can be um Drake can uh finally accessibly access as well as any other students um or adults that need to as well. So, I'm Yeah, that's that's in the near future. Um and happy Thanksgiving to all. I'm thankful for our communities, our schools, our students, our teachers, this board, um everyone in this room, um and this

201district. We can accomplish great things if we all work together with the common goal of excellence and equity every student, every classroom, every day. So, happy Thanksgiving everybody. >> Thank you, Amanda. Um, I have just two items. Um, the first being something that Brian and I, you know, talked about in our board leadership update. Um, as we've had ongoing conversations and board leadership, uh, we would like to bring back the topic of some Jurassic Parliament training. Um, we know that we can't just implement this, right? We want to bring with your support. Um, Brian, I would like to bring back some options about what that training would look like, the associated costs along with it, and of course the time um that it would take for us so that we can appropriately address this and

202schedule it um in in the most, you know, feasible and reasonable way. Um, so I'll be reaching out to board members um who I think have an interest in this um and would be willing to kind of carry this through the formal um process of agending this um ultimately giving us the support um Brian and me the support like I said to bring back our options and costs and time and everything associated with that as well. Um I do want to thank board member Anderson for bringing um to our awareness transgender awareness week. Um just to reiterate what that week is. What this week is is that it's a week that aims to advance advocacy against prejudice and discrimination towards um transgender folks, gender um non-binary folks. And we have a ton of students in

203our schools um who um who identify outside of their prescribed um gender at birth. And I just want to emphasize to all of our students um who are in this community um that you have a place in our district. I've said it before. Um you have love in this district and we will continue to do what we need to do to advocate despite the ongoing pressures federally and here in our state um that minimizes and diminishes your identities. Um so with that, please know um that we care about you and that we love that you're with us. And to wrap it all up with our teachers, Mike, Becky, um thank you for providing the classroom and community space in our schools um to make this possible, right? to have that warm and safe place for

204our students who are different and who identify in very different ways. Um thank you. Um to wrap that up um we do not have a need to enter close session and with that I will call the meeting adjourned. Thank you.