SLCSD Board Meeting, July 15, 2025 5:30 PM

001All right. Thank you everybody for joining us. Today's July 15, 2025. We're here for the purposes of the Salt Lake City School District Board of Education meeting. Um we do have the need for a close session and I would entertain a motion to do so. >> I move that on July 15th, 2025 board enter into executive session to discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual. I'll second. >> All right, we have a motion on the table. Is there any discussion to the motion? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call motion or vote starting with board member Jefferson. >> Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nazar, yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. >> Motion passes. Um, we'll go

002ahead and prepare the room uh next door and uh we should be back out by 5:30 for the public meeting. Thank you. [Music] Isaac, will you say something? Why are you >> Can you hear me, Sam? Yes, we can hear you. >> We can hear you now, Isaac. >> Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna turn the camera off till you absolutely have to be on. >> Okay. >> Thanks. That must be it. >> Okay, that makes sense. Oh, Sam. One sec. >> Check your camera. All right, thank you everybody for joining us. Um, we're super sorry that um, we went a little bit longer in our close session. Thank you for the opportunity um, to allow us to to continue that um, a little longer than we had anticipated. Um, again, today is July 15th, 2025.

003U, we're here for the purposes of a Salt Lake City School District Board of Education meeting. Um I want to make sure that we welcome everybody who's uh joining us either in person or online. Um I'll go ahead and read um our association presidents who are um watching um or here with us. So we have uh buildings and grounds president Leo Compo. Uh child nutrition is president Tanya Slaughter. Uh for SLEA uh they are represented by President Mike Harmon and Vice President Chelsea A Costa. And for SLAsa, the Salt Lake Association of School Administrators, they are represented by uh President Adrien Labatoto. Um we will move into the pledge of allegiance and I'll go ahead and get us uh lead us in that as well. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

004States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. I do want to note um that board member Bade is participating remotely. Thank you uh Muhammad for being with us this evening. Uh moving along to our consent agenda. We do have a request to pull item number eight um to the action agenda per our board policies. Um so I will look for a motion to um the consent agenda um regarding items 1 through 7. I move that we approve the consent agenda items 1 through seven as posted. >> Second. >> All right, we've got a motion and a second on the table. Any discussion? >> All right, seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote starting with board member Williams. >>

005Bryce Williams, yes. >> Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. >> Ashley Anderson, yes. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Mhm. Yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> All right, that motion passes. Thank you board members for that. Uh moving on to our next um agenda item, we have the request to speak portion. Uh the board does have um a statement that they like me to read uh before we begin which govern um the public's uh request to speak. 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. The total time reserved for public comment is not to exceed 15 minutes with all speakers or groups limited to

0063 minutes. The board will not allow public comments during board meetings that are slanderous, obscene, or otherwise violate state or federal law. Employees and/or their representatives may not use the public comment period to address issues that should be raised through existing formal communication channels or establish grievance or negotiation procedures. I'd also like to explain that unless the speaker's topic is already on the agenda, state law prohibits the board from taking action on items raised during the public comment period. However, if it seems appropriate to the circumstances, I may direct district staff to follow up with a speaker on the topic discussed. Uh we have one um request to speak and that's Tara Tui. Thank you Tara for joining us this evening. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, >> I think uh yeah, go for

007it now. >> Okay. Oh, that's better. Thank you. Um hi, President uh Salazar, Vice President Jensen, uh Superintendent Grant. Nice to see you. My name is Tara Tui. I am a parent in the Indian Hills Elementary uh school uh area. I have an incoming fourth grader and an incoming kindergartener. And let me start by saying we love our school. And I just saw President Luffy here who we know has moved on to a different school. And he's just done such an amazing job with our school. And I really feel like it's part of the our school is really a whole community. And I know that's what you try to foster here in the district. And I really feel like this school is um really uh community centered. And I appreciate that. Um I I am

008here today to hopefully get clarification on a process in your rules. Uh we have recently had a reduction in school bus service that has impacted our community. Uh our community is not very walkable. Um and I do have some concerns about the elimination of a bus stop. I did read your procedural rules, administrative rules, and there was a process outlined for hazardous bus routes, which will come to the board for consideration. So, I was hoping to get clarification on what that process was and how I might be able to participate. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Is that something that we can follow up individually? >> Yes. >> Can I follow up with you on that? >> I would love Yeah. Is that >> okay? >> Should I reach out to your office on that?

009>> Sure. Because I don't know that I have your contact info or >> Yeah, it's on the request to speak. >> Oh, there you go. >> I'm happy to follow up with you with a summary as well if that's helpful. >> Okay. >> Yeah, we can talk about the process because there's a difference between roots that were created for convenience >> and roots that are created for hazardous conditions. >> Sure. so we can talk through some of that as well. >> Great. I would love to follow up with you. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> All right, moving on to our next portion of the agenda is the reports agenda. Um the first item there is an update on construction progress and athletic fields fields. Dr. Grant, do you want to

010introduce this please? Yes, we decided and um you had desired as a board to get regular updates on the construction and so Isaac Ael has kindly is kindly phoning in from his vacation spot to go through the memo and and provide some updates that way so that we give the regular we make this a regular feature of board members of board meetings, excuse me. Can everyone hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you for the time to present to you tonight. Um, I've provided a uh a detailed list for you guys to uh preview beforehand. I also included a presentation today just to give you a couple highlights of some of the projects that we're working on. So, I think we'll go through those first if that's okay. Uh, if we can go to the

011next slide. This is deal with elementary. This is the completion of the asphalt project that we uh had planned several years ago and had approved for this uh previous fiscal year's budget. Next slide. Roslin Heights. This is the exciting one I'd like to share with you guys tonight. Um we are making much needed progress. Uh the tennis courts are complete, the field is complete. Uh the contractor was working this week on uh prepping the parking lot so we can get asphalt laid and that should be done sometime this week if and early next week. Um and then we'll uh be talking with you shortly to uh schedule a groundbreaking. Uh but we are going to be able to meet the deadlines for uh girls tennis that will start at the end of the summer. Um

012and we've committed to being prepared for that. Next slide. Uh and then East High School also uh they were scheduled uh to have their football field replaced and this is just a quick photo of that that was completed last Thursday. Um so the the property is back open so people can use the track. Uh we did close it temporarily uh cuz we had a lot of construction equipment and uh staff along there and we had some security concern or I'm sorry some safety concerns along there. So it is back open and and running. Uh we're excited that for these three projects to being completed or near completion. Um the other that that's the last slide of just the photos that I had of projects that were completed this last week. Um I know the one

013that most everyone is interested in uh discussing and hearing about is the high school rebuilds. Um just to be make sure everybody's uh clear on where we're at. Uh there are three steps in design. The first is um conceptual development and then design development and then schematic de development. Uh those are the three phases as we work with the architects to prepare for the projects. Um we are in the uh design currently on both of those. Uh we'll be having a few more uh discussions with with you all and others within the district to talk more details uh coming up very shortly. Um but we are in progress of those uh along with the high school rebuilds. Uh we are working fiercely with the city to get the uh agreement completed so we can start

014work on the baseball and softball fields on city property so we'll be prepared to have those next spring. Um, we did work with we have discussed with the contractor and architect of Highland High and they think they're going to be able to uh postpone work long enough that we'll be able to get through the uh spring season of baseball. Uh, so May 26th, I believe, is the last day of the season. Uh, we'll start the groundwork there right after that. Um, so we're we're still working on getting those fields prepped for so they can be established next summer. Um, but that's uh the plan going forward right now. Um, we've got uh also working with the architects on the Glendel track and field. Um, I mentioned Rosland Heights already. Uh, the East High baseball field.

015Uh, you're aware that we've had some irrigation challenges. uh we did have on the uh on the list for this last fiscal year to make some irrigation improvements there. They're about 80% done with that work right now and we've been watering those lawns manually uh until we have the new uh stop and waste installed so we can turn those sprinklers back on. Uh but things are moving very smoothly with that right now. We're excited to have that project done this fall and be ready for spring baseball at high or at East as well. Um, we have quite a few other uh asphalt parking lots that are in process right now. Uh, Highland Park, uh, Highland High and Bonavville. Uh, we're doing the asphalt on the playground of Bonavville. Uh, redoing that right now. And then,

016uh, two of the larger projects we're we started this last fiscal year was the Northwest Middle and Bryant Middle roofing projects. Those are full re-roofs of those, uh, schools. Those are just over $500,000 investments uh to extend the life of both of those buildings. Um before I got here, uh my predecessor had ordered a bunch of safety locks for schools. Uh we went through all of those and got those installed last summer. Uh there were two schools that did not get those and those are on order currently. They were supposed to be here the end of June, but we're still waiting on those. But we planned we intend to have those installed and ready for the the new school year. Um, a lot of smaller projects, uh, playgrounds, surfacing equipment, uh, checking the playgrounds, making

017sure they're safe and and, uh, getting those, uh, taken care of. We have several mechanical and utility projects. Uh, the the larger ones are water heaters in several of the schools. Um, most people think of a water heater as a, you know, 2500 to $5,000 investment. These are large ones. They're $150,000 a piece. And, uh, we're getting those done at Horizonte Park View in Washington currently. Um, a lot of technology and audio visual items that we're working on right now. Glendel Hillside, we're uh, installing wireless microphones. Slicky, we're installing new audio mixers. Backman and Whittier. Uh, stage lighting is uh the big projects there this year. Um, the other one that we've received a lot of input from the community that I want to make sure you guys are aware of is the Wasatch Tunnel.

018Um, this is something that we've been working on for about a year and a half. We had to go through a process with the city and their uh historical appropriateness committee to get approval to make imp uh to make the repairs there that that are needed. Uh for the new board members, uh the tunnel is something that the school district paid for 60% of it to be built and installed and the the city paid the other 40%. But part of the commitment is that we maintain that tunnel ongoing. um inside and outside the the white uh surface was uh spalling because of bad drainage. So, the new project is to uh fix the landscape around this the two tunnel entrances to make sure that we're pushing water away from from there. And then we're uh

019uh removing the existing liner and putting a new one on the outside and internal that will be white like it is now. that has to do with the historical appropriateness approval. Um, and then we'll be installing some uh frames inside that the school will be able to hang artwork in. Uh, and they can change that out as often as they please. That's the majority of the uh projects. If you guys have any questions or concerns on any of those, >> Isaac, I'm not sure. Can you hear us? >> Yeah. >> Okay, perfect. We did have a couple of questions and I'll turn the time over to board member J or Vice President Jensen. >> Okay. First of all, Isaac, I really appreciated in your cover letter when you said that you were trying to outline

020an update to keep the public informed and to um ensure their trust. And I thought that bullet point um approach was really helpful. As I was looking at it, I had a couple of questions. And the first one was on the Highland fields. Maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but you said um our goal is to start No, wait. Um let's see. We are a few weeks behind where we are at West, but we've received confirmation from the contractor that the fields will be ready for the 2026 spring season. And then the next sentence says, "Our goal is to start construction in late May 2026 and work around the sports." So to me that creates some confusion as to are the fields already right now and you're talking about future construction or because it seems like

021when you're starting construction at the end of May, that's after the season. Do you see what I'm getting at? Yeah, absolutely. I apologize for that confusion. Um, so the intent was is as soon as we got approval from you guys at our last board meeting to start the work on those projects, the intention is that we will start that right away as soon as we have the design done. >> Okay. >> Um, but as we've worked through that with Highland, the contractor said, you know what, we may be able to hold off on that uh well drilling until after the baseball season if that's needed. So, we appreciated the effort from them to try and coordinate that, but the the intent is still to start those fields this year so they're ready for next year.

022Obviously, baseball is in the spring, softball starts a little later. Um, but our goal was to have them done before the seasons next year, but with that confirmation last week, uh, we have a little bit of flex room with the Highland fields. They're still going to go away. uh unfortunately uh where we put the ground source heat pumps in uh but our intention is to have the fields at Dworth and Clayton ready as soon as possible and we need to keep keep that on task through this year. Um but then the actual construction of the ground source heat pumps the contractor said we could may be able to wait until May 26th. >> I think that clarification is really helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Then I just had one other quick one and that one was

023and you covered Roslin Heights at the very beginning and I think it's wonderful what we've been able to do there. Um, and I don't know if this is directed to you specifically or to maybe um the communications um Yandre I don't know maybe you but I think that it would be helpful on the board web page and I know that you can go in and you can find Roslin Heights if you kind of look around but it's hard to find it. What I'm hearing from that community is they just like um information on when it's going to be available and I mean you've kind of reported that but then how the public will be able to access it after the school's needs are met. And I think Yandre you know how on the web page

024you have the like the things that just slide by I don't know if that would be a place, but I think that that would be helpful for people right now because the people in the neighborhoods, they can see that it's getting close to being finished and they have some questions. Those were my >> We also did a survey, didn't we, of that exact neighborhood and maybe we could send out a note to them. >> I think that would be really helpful. >> Is that right, Yandre? Um yes, we worked with the Sugar House Community Council to disseminate a survey and we emailed directly the families whose contact info we had who live in that area. Um we can't get all the residents without help from outside partners. But um Jason has been in communication with

025Landon Clark who is the chair of the Sugar House Community Council to make sure that we're pushing out that information. Um I also asked Sam if he could pull up the website. Um will you click on that please Sam? Thank you. So the first slider is beyond the bond uh campaign slide. If you click on that there's a um a section for bond projects and if you scroll down just a little more. >> Yeah I did that today and I mean I found it but you know >> Okay. Yeah. then the there's a whole section on the Rosen Heights complex, but we can definitely add that to the to the homepage to call attention to those other projects, not just to the bond project. So, thank you for that suggestion. >> Thanks. >> And can

026I piggyback off of that if that's okay? That's regarding Roslin Heights, but um it's not just the community members. I know that like tennis is in preeason right now and the the team is currently going to a private facility while they're eagerly waiting for Rosland Heights to be accessible. And if I heard you right as Isaac, um it sounds like they can't go on that site for a couple more weeks potentially. that aren't we've worked with the coach and the principal and explained to them that we will have that the first week of August for them and that's why they had made uh temporary arrangements at a private uh facility until that's ready >> and that would be good cuz if we're and that would be helpful having that on the website because the community

027notifications doesn't necessarily get to the sports teams and such cuz like my daughter's impacted right now and we're trying to figure out how to even get her to the practices. Um, so and I'm sure she's not the only one. Um, but they've gone over there and kind of done little peeking and stuff and Isaac, they're the kids are ecstatic. So, um, the field is looks impeccable. So, they're definitely excited to be able to access it and get going on it. So, well done in that regard. >> We can add that information as well. um for these future projects as well. I wanted to let the board know that we are working um and by we I mean Emma working on um designing some signage that we can print um and have like lawn signs in

028the area where we're having these projects saying um thank you Salt Lake Salt Lakers for supporting our bond projects and then with a QR code to the website where folks can get more of those updates and hopefully that'll help us get more community members in the area in the vicinity of those projects so they can stay um up to speed as well. >> Thank you. Thanks. Um, I do have one more question if you're if you're done, Brian. >> Yeah, I'm done. >> Okay. Um, regarding Highland Park Elementary, I was looking at your breakdown of that you're going to be working on that um north parking lot soon. Um, and yet you the comment in there was you're going to do your best to have it ready by the time school starts. Um, regularly accessing

029there whenever the parking lot is not not torn up is a challenge. So, um I am I'm nervous for the kids and the families and because it serves a portion of um students with disabilities and busing and such. So, um, I guess if you could give me kind of some input on how that timeline's looking and if that school needs to be working with busing and stuff, coming up with alternate solutions to pick up and drop off so we're not impacting kids arrival to the classroom and such. >> So, our our intent is always to have these projects done before school starts and we're doing everything we can to do that. Um, I just there's always that ambiguity of dealing with contractors to make sure things get done, but they they are in process over

030there. It's looking good. Um, and I haven't heard of any concerns at this point. I just don't want to guarantee something until until I have a final inspection and say, "Okay, we're good to go." >> But our best to communicate with you guys and the and the principal and the community to make sure they're aware of where we're at with the projects. Do you know when they'll start the tear up of that front lot? I noticed that back lot looks pretty good, but yeah, that front hasn't been touched yet. >> So, the the major project is the one to the to the west. Um, I'll have to get back with our our uh project manager and find out what the rest of the details on the north side. Um, but I I can follow up

031with you on that right away. >> That'd be great because I think if we can give the principles a heads up if they need to start preparing sooner the better. >> Yep. >> Thank you. Sure. >> Hi, Isaac. Um, hi. >> I'm wondering if you know when the >> excavation of the Glendel track will begin or has that already like are people still able to use it right now or >> current? Currently, uh, we're just in the design phase of that. Uh, we walked it last week with the architects. Um they were having a meeting this morning with the uh team that will do the the tarquette is who does our field our turf fields. Uh they were having that meeting this morning. I haven't gotten an update on that. Um, but we will have

032a timeline and we've definitely already had some concerns from that community saying, "Hey, when's the work going to start and what, you know, what what will we know?" And as soon as we have the project laid out in a timeline, we'll definitely work with everyone to make sure they're aware of that and make sure we're not uh causing too much uh heart burn for others that utilize the fields. >> Okay. >> Any other questions for Isaac? Ashley, >> I have two questions. Um, the first is, and I apologize if I missed this, I heard you talking about the Wasatch Tunnel and your plan, and I appreciate all of your email communications about that as well. Have we been able to update the school community council yet, who's engaged in a lot of internal dialogue about

033this, but also with varied city and mayoral liaison? >> So, I I discussed with Jennifer on Friday last week, uh, make sure that she was aware of it. she was going to pass it on through the city council and the council staff that were asking from their end. Um we're we're doing our best to communicate with them. Uh but we do have uh we have them reaching out to multiple entities that don't coordinate these things together and that um kind of shopping for answers. So I'm trying to be careful about making sure that we have the full details and that we get those to the right people. But the principal is aware and the city uh Jennifer through the city is aware of the final details. >> That's great. And the second question um for

034the projects that you've referenced where we approved them recognizing there was an intent to seek philanthropic donations. Do we have an update on the success of the foundation campaigning for those funds or is that pending the design process that you referenced? >> It's pending the design. Uh I've been working with James uh who's the executive director of the um foundation. Uh he's working on some documents to uh share what it looks like. He was waiting on us to provide those initial designs though so they could he could advertise those to those willing. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Any other questions for Isaac? All right. Seeing none, Isaac, thank you so much for joining us. uh while uh during your time off. I hope you enjoy the rest of your your trip and

035uh we look forward to seeing you next time around. >> Great. Thank you guys. Uh if I may say, I just want to uh give credit to my team. Uh we've got a dedicated group that's there Monday through Friday working. Everybody else says, "Oh, you're off during the summer because it's school time or school's out." And uh they're not. They're here every day working hard to get those done. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Isaac. >> Thanks, Isaac. All right, moving along uh to our second report agenda item, update of federal title program funding. Uh this came to board leadership through the formal request process. Um I'll turn the time over to BA Kursley to uh to introduce it and answer any questions that we might have. >> Yes. So, um, as is attached to

036the agenda, uh, last week we received a, uh, email from the state board of education, uh, laying out some funding that's been the the official federal term is embargoed, which means the funding was, um, appropriated by Congress. However, uh, it's been embargoed. >> Can you um give a little more context on what type of funding uh, when it comes to title funding, just so the public is more aware? >> Yes. Thanks. >> I'll get there. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. >> Again, since it this is funding that was uh appropriated by the United States Congress, so it is federal money. Um the the embargo is it the these funds or these grants are being reviewed by the Department of Education um to see if they meet certain criteria of of the administration. Uh the grants

037that are affected are title one part C which is migrant education, title two part A which is supporting effective instruction, title three part A English language acquisition, uh title four part A student support and academic enrichment, title four part B 21st century community learning centers. Uh and the final one is federal adult education and family literacy act. uh listed out in the memo are kind of as the the grants that we have budgeted for the current fiscal year 202526. That's the the grants that we're talking about here. Um money that was appropriated before is not affected in this action. It's the the new money that was supposed to be released on July 1. Um and in total, all these grants for the Salt Lake City School District amount to about $2.6 million. Um, and in

038the memo I kind of lay out how many staff are paid with this and kind of a brief explanation of what we do with these funds. Um, I do want to point out as I do in the as I say in the memo, um, we don't want people to panic. We don't want people to think, is my job secure? Is my child going to have after school this year? Um, my heart of hearts tell me the money will at some point be released. I can't guarantee that but but I hope uh that will be the case. If it's not again we discussed through the budget process about having a healthy fund balance. So we would use fund balance to keep those programs operational for this year. Um if if by chance the funds are rescended

039and they're not available, we'll have discussions throughout the year of okay now what do we do um to to do we cut those programs? do we um move money around? Do we, you know, how do we prioritize? And one of the things that uh I'm working on that I'll present in August to the board finance committee is a list of all the programs that we have on the district in the general fund. Uh again, I want to say this is general fund issues. Um Isaac just really talked about capital issues. Uh we don't get any federal capital money. Um we don't get any state capital money. That's all local property tax that has to be used on the kind of projects that Isaac was just listing here. We're talking about general fund monies. So, I'm

040in the process of preparing a list that shows every program that we have, how much money is in it, how many FTE are in it, and kind of what's the general purpose of that program. And as a board finance committee, we're going to become familiar with those and maybe look at, okay, what are our non-negotiable programs? Like, this has to happen. and it doesn't matter what happens to funding. This has to happen and then maybe prioritize. So in the event hopefully the the event that doesn't happen, but in the event that we do get federal funding cuts, we've kind of already done some homework, some background work to say, all right, how do we rep prioritize? What's what's most important and and what's maybe stuff that we could um do without? Again, I want to

041say everything we spend is important, but you also have to spend within your available resources. Um so I and I just want to emphasize for the 2526 year our plan is if the money does not come through we will cover that with our reserves and our fund balance of the general fund. Um if it does come through great it's it's business as usual. Um, but as far as the the the afterchool programs, the the adultled programs, I want the patrons who use those programs to know we don't plan on pulling out the rug. Uh, if in the event that the feds don't come through with their money, we don't plan on just yanking those programs. We will continue through the year. We will be um very open and have open discussions if the money is

042cut of what do we do going forward so people will not be caught unawares when when things like that happen. Any any questions, Ashley? >> Um, I really appreciate you talking about how the finance committee can be proactive about this rather than reactive if funds are cut. So, I think that that's really important, but can you just describe the process of how a one-time allocation from fund balance would occur? like is that something that would come to the public meeting for example? And then assuming that everything you outlined in the memo was not reimbursed by the federal government and did have to come out of fund balance would we still in your opinion have what you've referred to as a healthy fund balance? >> Yeah. So first question if the if the funds do get

043cut so the board approved a budget which show has both expenditure and revenue. Really what would happen is the revenue um would have to adjust. I mean we do adjust the budget throughout the year which is why we do a revised budget. Um and I would present to the board this funding source is is gone. We are replacing it this year for fund bal with fund balance and then we will continue to have discussions throughout the year and then next year's budgetary process of what do we do next. Um so that would be a public discussion if the funds get cut and that we replace that with fund balance for the current year. Now the next question, >> get your calculator. >> Short-term memory problem. All right. Yes. >> But you don't actually need the

044whole number. What I was just saying is if that lump sum did in fact have to come out of fund balance, >> right? So >> your best judgment would be it's >> we do have a fund balance uh of reserves in the tens of millions of dollars. And like we said, the total amount that we're looking for for the district is 2.6. So even though I don't want to say 2.6 six is a insignificant amount of money. Um the fund balance would still remain healthy even if we had to use 100% fund balance to fund these programs for this year. Um we wouldn't be able to continue to fund these with one-time money ongoing which is why we would have those hard discussions throughout the year if the funding gets officially cut. >> I have

045one more question. um if we were to assume that there were cuts to other title programs because we know that there are other changes happening at the federal level every day, right? Would other cuts to title programs like title one for example or title 4 go through this same process? Yeah, the trick with this process is the money was allocated and then it's being held um in the event that happens with other title programs because what because this year we do have a cut in title one. It's gone down from the previous year, but we knew about that ahead of time. So, it was built into the budget. If we have this surprise and oh sorry we're not going to give you what we promised we are going to give you then we would have

046these kind of discussions about those instances if they arise. >> One more followup to that. When you said the board would go through program by program and prioritize, could we add to that list other title programs like title one and title four and put that into the calculus? Yeah. >> That they're not a program we operate, right? But we have title one schools. So that would be part of what you're >> they will be all I mean all those are their individual programs. They'll be included on the list and as we review that list and and this isn't a a one time I don't expect us to get through the whole list in one meeting, but I think maybe that's what our goal is for the year. we kind of look and say we want

047to get through all this. We want to prioritize these and have a really good understanding of what our different programs are doing. >> Thank you, Muhammad. >> Um, thank you. Um, I just want to, you know, take a second here and just, uh, thank, uh, Alan and Liz for, you know, uh, thinking of the well-being and also, you know, helping uh, comfort the concerns of uh, uh, of families, you know, given all the challenges of the cuts that are taking place. Um, and I just want to make sure that I acknowledge that and um, and I want to say thank you. That's uh, uh, that means a lot to those families and uh, those staff. >> Okay. Thank you, Muhammad. Are there any other questions for Allan Brian? So, I just want to make sure

048that I understood you were indicating that um in August in the finance committee, you're going to start that process of reviewing the different programs and prioritizing those that are essential and I guess giving them a rank >> basoretical at this point. What we actually do with it, we'll kind of discuss when we have that meeting. Um, but just if we we don't want to have to react today on something without having all the information. So, it's kind of give us a really good understanding of what our programs are and if we do get a unexpected and sudden cut, we've kind of done some background work on where this has to happen and and maybe here's some more, you know, extra enrichment type things that if we didn't have the funds, we could go away. So

049we if we know if we need to switch funding around to support some programs that got cut and maybe let some other programs go away. >> Yeah. So I just want you to know that that was reassuring to me to hear that that is your plan because I think that that is what the finance committee would be doing and I would be relying on you know your work on that because you're going to have to there's going to be a lot of things you're going to need to weigh there. I imagine Thank you. >> Yeah. And I I do want to note we have no idea when the Department of Ed will complete their process. Could be tomorrow, could be six months from now. We just don't know. >> And the other part of this

050is there are a couple of lawsuits already. States have filed suit. I think 11 states got together. >> And then also the NAACP teamed with the National Education Organization. So or association. So there are a couple of those that may affect the outcome as well. >> Sure. >> I was going to ask about any what alternatives we have, you know, since that money was allocated like what are our legal what are the legal um legal options, you know, if we were to consider it. But it sounds like other states are doing it. other states are yeah they've filed suit um to release the funds. So um with the political dynamics of all this I don't believe our state would participate in that right now but um the there will be some ramifications of those of

051those lawsuits over time. So we'll see how that comes. >> Were you going to give the >> I just want to give an example. Um I believe and because I also don't remember if I officially ever communicated this to the full board. So remember when we got the letter from the department of ed that says the carryover er funds we are not going to receive. Well there were states who filed lawsuit and that went through a process um and then those funds were released. Our we had already submitted our final reimbursement request on those funds to the state board. Um and those have been approved and we anticipate to receive our final esser payment. uh at the end of this month. So, that's kind of an example where they said you're not getting it, but

052then there went there was a a lawsuit process and the courts ruled that no, this money has already been promised and you need to send it out. >> Okay. >> Or whatever their reasons were. I I mean, I didn't read the full agreement. I just said, EA, thanks for giving us our money. >> Thank you. Any additional questions? Great. Thank you. Um, Liz and Allan, I definitely echo Muhamad's thanks and, uh, would extend it to, uh, Charlotte, Brexen, Ashley for bringing this to the agenda. Um, really, really helpful information and then also hopefully provide some reassurances to our community um, that we're in a good position that we're not losing any programs or or um, funding for resources that are available through these um, these title program fundings that we have uh, for this school

053year. So, thank you for that. Um, moving along to our discussion agenda. The first item is the strategic plan for student achievement revisions. Uh, this is our second reading. Uh, Dr. Grant. >> Yeah. Just quickly, I think you have printed out versions of the two plans. I don't know if the side by side got printed, but it's on the agenda there >> um to look at. I also Yeah. So, and then um one of the things that we're working on is direct oversight of the strategic plan. We've accomplished a lot. We need to accomplish more in order to hit those outcomes in 2029. So, um, with our brand new, uh, associate superintendent, Anelise Ruiz, here, uh, one of her primary roles is overseeing implementation of this strategic plan and the and working with, uh, our

054executive directors to do that work as well as with our principles and schools. So, um, she's going to give just a short look at what her plans are for implementation so you understand how that tool is going to be used. And then you have a copy of um our first draft of that implementation tracker. And this is again a working document. The tracker is um and it'll change depending on what actions we take and what um challenges are ahead and implementing the plan. So this is um separate from the actual plan itself that we're asking you to approve, but wanted to give you a sense of what's on that tracker right now. Thanks Anelise. Take it away Dr. Ruiz. >> Thank you poor members Dr. Gran Allen uh for the opportunity to report on our

055implementation plan. I want to thank our cabinet members for um and their respective teams for finalizing this work. Um first and foremost, can you see that? Okay. >> Okay. We have screens up here. >> It looks funky on my side, but that's fine. Um, yeah. First and foremost, we designed this plan to follow a clear and logic sequence from vision to action and ending with reflection and feedback. So, this will allow us multiple opportunities to engage in feedback loops and continue to adjust it accordingly. So the strategic plan is anchored on four key pillars that guide our work and which you are all familiar with. Um they are educational equity, student achievement, family school and community partnerships and communication, learning environment stewardship and sustainability. And this sets the foundation for our work moving forward. Now

056the first step that we've taken is to align board goals, our goals to each of the pillars and in doing so we also identified a lead honor that will move this work forward with their teams. This will allow us to do a couple of things. One uh ensure alignment and second ensure accountability. Okay. We also finalized a progress monitoring tool. Um, this tool will allow us to uh track our accomplishments, our student opportunities as well as our areas of growth. And within that and within each of the pillars, we will track goals, board goals, objectives, action steps, measurable outcomes as set by 2029. Um we added a new uh feature to that and is resources. We are purposefully looking at our resources to make sure that they are maximized and aligned to each of our

057goals um and realize those and then um just progress toward our action steps and make sure that things are working according to our goals and moving those forwards. Okay. We also put in place a timeline. Um so each of these checkpoints um will allow us to understand where we're at and where we need to go. Um, and we'll come together, as you could see, um, quarterly, uh, to review each of our goals in relationship to our data and then have an opportunity to come back here and report where we're at with you, informed by our data. Okay? And then our next steps um, will be to continue to clarify kind of our baseline. Where are we at? Now I want to make sure that um I point out that much of this work is already

058ongoing. There are a lot of things that are on track and then other things that will further will be further clarified and then we'll need to put in motion as our teams and new people come together and they understand their role and responsibility um in working around each of these goals under each of our pillars. Okay. So we'll look at that. Um we'll align our resources. We'll continue to foster team coherence and we'll execute our implementation. So that's kind of our next steps with that as of this point. Any questions? >> And maybe we open that up more broadly to the whole conversation about the plan. Um >> as you guys want to. >> Okay. I Ashley Charlotte. >> Oh no. Ashley and Amanda. Sorry. I have a series of questions, but before I start,

059I just wanted to share something that is a little distressing. Um, when we have agenda items like this, I usually use social media to solicit constituent feedback. And I will hear often from a lot of teachers. And within seconds of posting about the strategic plan, I had multiple messages from teachers that said things like, "Do you actually want feedback on this?" This is a quote. This plan is pretend, right? So, it doesn't matter what we say. I want to put it out there that there are some real boots on the ground staff that we have who do not always see that we take the plan seriously. They see it as a box that bureaucrats check. So I think the most important thing that we should consider in the discussion that we have about this moving

060forward is have we obtained really good feedback from the majority of our workforce who works with kids every day and is this plan actually something they see working for kids. And with that in mind I I have a series of questions and I was able to say no this plan is not pretend. Please, yes, send your feedback. Thank you. And um the first is equity audits were removed from this. So we no longer have a way to access information about that first um pillar and goal. Uh we only have things like tests and enrollments and nothing procedural. Did we not do the equity audits this year that were in the plan? >> No, they were not completed. And um we have a different tool that we're going to go forward with that does a very

061similar thing. What is that tool referenced in the plan somewhere? And I just can't find it. >> I don't know. I don't know that it is. Um Dr. Taylor has that as um one of his plans. So I should look at that and see whether it is in the plan, but that's part of his um goals in working with his team is to work with a different tool. This may answer my second question then because in that same um pillar and goal it talks about fidelity to MTSS which means multi-tered systems of support uh and it says you know we'll have 55% fid fidelity but it doesn't say how we're measuring it without the equity audit. So is that something this new tool would measure? >> I don't know because I don't know the tool

062directly but we'll be following up. Those are the sorts just the sorts of things that our associate superintendent will be overseeing so that we can meet the expectations. >> Um >> the other piece though on this just is there are so many different ways to get that information. >> Um but what we're trying to do is look at the implementation piece and put together the baselines for that. So we will be getting that information and that data to try and bring back to you as board members. Um I just am not completely clear of the tools we're using at the moment. >> I think um before we have the third reading of the strategic plan, it would be helpful to know those tools. One of my questions was about if um discussion of panorama had

063stalled because that came up in the last cycle of the strategic plan, but it sounds like maybe we just aren't sure yet. Unless Dr. Taylor can speak to that. I is he um we will have a similar tool in place that does the work of um panorama. I don't think we've confirmed that decision yet, Sam. We have internally. Have we shared that with the community? >> Okay. But we will have a tool in place that will do those sorts of things that would um that the panorama tool would do. >> Okay. Knowing the tool I just think would be helpful before the third reading so we can, you know, see how it's aligned. I have a couple more questions. Um may I just follow on that because I so this is the piece that I'm

064trying to understand is >> so the implementation plan has some action steps that we'll take >> but the strategic plan itself are the goals that you're approving and the objectives and things. So trying to get a maybe an understanding of um what you want to understand before approving the goals and objectives because the tools can always change that we use to get to those. Um and they probably will over time. So I want to understand >> I guess well this is why I asked the question equity audits were removed because the old plan did tell us what the tools for measurement were >> and so I wanted to know one did we do the thing we said we would do. >> Um it sounds like we didn't do that >> but now we want to

065replace it with something different. So where the equity audit is erased I would prefer to see the new tool added so that I can refer back to just exactly like this. Did we do the equity audit? The question would be different. did we do X you know whatever that tool is which we don't know >> yeah I think thank you for explaining that that actually helps because I think the the manner in which we go about reaching the goals will change over time and but I think your interest generally would be in are we getting closer and closer to those goals >> well if I don't know what the tool is I don't know what the outputs of the tool are so I don't know what would be measured So I don't know what 55%

066MTSS fidelity looks like. >> So kind of getting at the data collection piece particularly. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. >> Can I add to that? Oh >> Ashley had more questions and I kept stepping in there. So that's okay. >> That's fine with me if the timer. So it's >> just another thing that could be helpful for the community to go along with um what your comment is Ashley about the community saying is this real. Um, having that clarification as to what tools we're using also helps the community um, tangibly know how this is playing out versus theory. So, just adding to >> that they see the actions too. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um, no, no, it's okay. To go back to my original um, set of questions, some of the action steps for

067students with disabilities are removed in the new copy. Do we know why those action steps were removed for students with disabilities? Which ones are you speaking about there? >> Um, I'm trying to get to the side by side because we don't have it printed out, but it was under that same first goal. There's like a huge column of steps regarding students with disabilities and their specific testing outcomes, and all of that's removed in the new plan. >> Okay. >> Um, I can just speak to that. we were con uh consolidating and since our goals numerically were the same whether they were gened or special education students then we um thought that taking the specific test names out of that would simply mean that I wouldn't have to say arise aspire rise act um dynamic learning

068maps so we just consolidated that because they were the same they were the same for each content area and they were the same for our general education students as they were for our special education students. So, in making a shorter plan, that's kind of what happened there. >> That's really helpful and I bet you have the answer to my next question, which is that similarly to students with disabilities, many of the items for multil- language learners were removed and now it's just one WEA outcome. Is there a reason we shifted to one to outcome rather than the list? >> Because I put them in the action steps. >> Got it. in another in another I don't know which document you're looking at but they are they are outlined as >> so I would find those

069here but not >> we still have a ton of action steps around WEDA yeah >> that's really helpful >> versus the side by side document >> um there's also so basically there's a couple of things where similar things were removed like prek or observational uh use of technology and but you're saying all of those observational or assessment components are going to be found in the new document we got last night rather than how they are in the old document. Is that accurate? >> Um, no. Because I don't know actually and Tiffany if you can speak to the early childhood too. Sorry. >> Um, she has a great many of the goals under her purview. Yeah. >> Um, but I the >> the items you're asking about are again those action steps. So those change and

070one of the things we looked at in deciding whether or not as we consolidated some of the goals to make it just simpler to read and get your arms around this whole document. Yeah. >> Um and things was are these the right things that we're going to do? And again the accountability rests with the associate superintendent and the executive directors to get all that work done. And so they'll report to you on the progress toward those and bring the data that we have and we want to have good data for you to to really dive into on a regular basis. So you can check on how we're going by take taking a look at those >> and I can data points. >> Yeah, I can give you the early childhood is a good example of

071one that changed as we looked at observational data. Um, one of the things that Audrey Powell decided would be really helpful in their early childhood classrooms would be to use our swivel um, protocol, which is a camera that follows the teacher and records the teacher and then can be used for feedback um, and observation post that. And so, um, that changed some of those action steps just a little bit for us, but still gets to that idea of collecting observational data about what's happening in those early childhood classrooms. So, we are making some of these um changes as we kind of cross-pollinate with ideas that have worked in other content areas. >> Okay, this is my last teaching question in case you want to avoid going back and forth just in case. Um so, one

072of the goals says we would have 50% of CTE pathway completers and I've expressed in the past that the CTE pathway completion kind of competes with the IB diploma program. So I'm concerned about how we get to the number of 50% and reconcile that with what we're promoting and funding in terms of IB especially for students out west. >> So um and and Miss Dazo and I have talked about this a lot kind of looking at you know what what would that look like school to school because there's West but there's also Highland. We also have students in the AP capstone. Um we also have a real push toward those concurrent enrollment classes which are the classes that earn you know those it's the the third leg of that early college triumvirate and um so

073I think as we look at that some of the things that we know are some of those completer courses are also CE courses and so that's uh a way to do that and we also have fewer than half of our students in the IB program at west So maybe it is only 20% of students that are completing an IB diploma, but it might be 60% of of the other students. So that will be one that we may watch over the next several years and kind of see what those numbers fall down as. Um, but as it stands, we we have plenty of students that we could we could hit that 50%. And of course, that's not forcing students to take those classes and certainly not forcing them out of an IB class or another class

074that they've chosen to take. >> And I'm not sure how much time I have left. I am done with teaching questions. You can tell I'm going in an order >> 29 >> of the document, but the metrics for community involvement were also removed. So, is that another thing that would be found in here? >> We'll get you metrics on them. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And the last question on community involvement is what validated surveys will we use when the Y 2 contract elapses and what surveys are being created by Y 2 now? Do we have any update on that? >> Yeah, so um Y 2 we're still in this is the group that we uh contracted with to do the bonding survey. When we did that bonding survey we added a couple how many questions?

075five five or so about perceptions of the community of the district and our communications and how we were doing that way. Um those were part of uh their more professional survey. They weren't um a great baseline for us for this measure actually because it went out to all ele all likely voters >> which may or may not overlap completely with our community >> right >> that way. So um we've been in conversation about what could we do with our stakeholder survey that we could add things to or not to try and get at within our community what are the perceptions and how's the communication going that way. So we'd probably go in that direction to get the information we need for that baseline and the measurement. >> And to go to the first part of

076my question then is the stakeholder survey validated? >> No. >> So so just as one individual opinion I think it's important we have a validated survey so that we know the responses are actually significant rather than just you know giving us information and we make decisions based on information not knowing its significance. One of the challenges with that is you know there's as you know there's different kinds of validity. >> Yeah. >> We run on face validity of the surveys. Um to go out and validate surveys actually takes a time and money to do. Um and because the questions we're trying to answer aren't predictions or causation or um those sorts of things. We have not typically done a validated survey be because of that cost. And I know that in asking other districts around,

077they don't typically do validated surveys either. These are tools to gather data and information um not to answer a more particular question that may be closer to a research question. So, we've typically stepped away from that kind of thing. if we were trying to um prove causation that somehow what we did X created Z outcomes and we're trying to create greater proof on that then we'd maybe want to go in that direction. Um if we were trying to to um kind of scientifically get at some of these answers, we may go in that direction. Otherwise, we're trying to go the more expedient route that still gives us really valid feedback and input to our decision making. >> Do I have like four seconds? >> 11. >> Oh, with my 11 seconds, I guess I would

078just say I do see that objective 3.1 is asking that we prove our communication is having an outcome specifically. And I do find that research departments and other districts are doing that. So, I just be curious to mind that a little more >> Amanda. >> Um, thank you for Ashley with all of your great questions are excellent. Um, I do see this this document seems like it's better laid out and clear. Um, so I'm hopeful that it will be seen and functioning as an effective tool. Um I do have um concern with two pieces of it. Um expecting our kids to have quality attendance, expecting our kids to be educated by highly qualified staff, um treating them with dignity and such. Um, what is lacking in the highly qualified staff section of pillar 4? It

079says all students will have access to qualified, experienced, and culturally competent educational personnel. Which great, those are great characteristics. But um the thing that I have been struggling with is where's the requirement for a person to have um basically be the caliber of employee that we want around our children. You know, these are vulnerable kids, young to, you know, older. Um and so basically what I had landed on was you utilizing some language and another part of the document um adding on to that but basically saying all students will have access to qualified experienced and culturally competent educational personnel who reflect the dignity based indicators eg mutual respect listening across differences recognition of identity. basically taking the language that is utilized in pillar one um goal two objective 2.1 where it talks about that dignity

080is upheld in all aspects and the usage of the dignity indicators but transferring that over into the hiring expectation of our employees so that you know we really are not just looking at resumes of quality we're looking at people with high quality character um and are the people that we want in our district and around our children. So, that's something I would like you fellow board members to chew on as we're getting ready to like move on this. And then additionally, um also in this pillar, um it's actually in the action area, I believe. Um but it talks about how in the wrong area we have 75% of the district's grow your own program participants will obtain lensure yada yada and then student enrollment in the teaching as a profession pathway will increase by 200%.

081Um and then the swift filling of human resources service department. I've mentioned this before but and I recognize that special education grow your own is facilitated through um USB. However, by not representing this interest and priority to support our um special education >> um grow our owns grow as a whole. Like it's not necessarily showing our special education staff that they are also important in that grow their own um path. Um, and so I think we should be working on adding that to that as a priority as well. And then there's more focus support for those individuals trying to do that pathway. >> That's your expert on that. Are you following up? Because >> I'm just wondering. >> Yeah. What where is that in the >> It's in 4 goal to objective 2.1. It's >>

082okay. >> Second to the last page. Page 12. >> Yeah. I want to provide some clarification on the Apple S program for specifically for an alternate pathway to lensure for special education teachers. We as a district cannot sponsor them uh directly for a special education program. So that you're correct. They do have to go through the USB in order to have a sponsorship through um in order to obtain an Apple S lensure. However, we do provide direct support for those individuals. we're required to provide them a mentor um model teaching assistance with lesson planning and and stuff of that nature. Um it's just that the program itself is run through the USB whereas we are the Apple sponsor for all other subject areas that are subject to uh alternative licensing routes. And so we as

083the the district will recommend lensure for our our Apple sponsored uh program participants whereas the Apple s program participants have to u be recommended for lensure directly through USB but the support network is very similar. We have a large number of uh current Apple candidates um currently have around 45 grow your own educator candidates. We also have uh probably around 55 to 60 depending on what's going to happen in the next month and a half before school or the month next month before school starts. Um we'll have 55 to 60 Apple candidates currently in our program where we're supporting teachers who have provisional licenses um or associate educator licenses. We have to provide additional uh supports and mentorship to in order to get a professional license. while at the same time we have a grown

084your own educator program that's also supporting individuals such as a par educator working in a special ed classroom working on getting a college degree in order to obtain lensure through that pathway as well. So there there multiple routes uh that we're supporting individuals in in getting that lensure sometimes also getting the degree associated with it >> and I get that it's just whenever it can be a focused area then that focus on how well that program is running how well their supports are going because I've heard some situations where um teachers aren't getting the support that they need under Apple. So, one, we need to grow more special education teachers. So, figuring out how to make it time is up, but I'm so sorry. Figuring out how to >> to make it more successful. Great.

085>> No, that absolutely makes sense. One thing I'm very proud of this coming year, we in our PAR program, our peer assistance and review uh program, which does a great job of supporting new educators, we have a special educator who's going to be working with um uh new teachers specifically in special ed. So, that's going to be a nice benefit that we're going to be able to provide additional supports for new educators. Um but I hear your concern, too. It is it is a large ask of candidates going through the Apple program of what supports are really needed to be successful in that. So that's something we're going to continue to work to build. We definitely need resources to do so. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions in

086this first round before we jump to a second? >> Right. >> Okay. Okay. I guess I I'll speak to some of those teacher concerns that you were uh referring to as well, Ashley. This would go to um object objective one. Two >> under pillar one. Um okay. And it's talking about enrichment activities. Okay. And I guess I need a little bit of explanation. And I got to excuse me, I forgot to click on me. So in my mind, I've got to take off 15 more seconds. But anyway, um so when I look at this document that we received, it doesn't have like all of the action steps in it. Correct. Because when I look at what the exhibit is online in the agenda, like it's not talking about well, >> if you if you go

087to let's see um objective 1.2, it'll say one enrichment activity per quarter. Okay. what is what constitutes an enrichment activity? Um how are we ensuring that those costs are covered? Because I'm now as a teacher thinking, okay, enrichment activity that's going to be a field trip or it's going to be I don't know some other maybe you schedule a speaker to come in or something like that. But it would be helpful because when we get to that that teacher question, the teachers are going, "Okay, you got to help me understand what this entails because you're telling me that I've got to do one of these every quarter." And it if if it is a field trip, field trips are expensive and you only have so much money as a teacher to allocate to something like

088that. So I would like a little bit of an explanation there then hurrying down another example would be and this is on page four of the exhibit that's attached to the agenda not in this one because I didn't have this um it talks about PBIS score and I don't want to take my time explaining to the public what that is but it's a positive behavior thing And um it says that we're going to have a score of 18 plus. I think that it would be helpful to explain what that means. I mean, I see that and I'm going, I don't know what that means. And I think that there are other people that are out there. Um then when you get to page five, now we're under SEAL, okay? social emotional learning and it talks

089about signature practices. Okay, you've got to help me understand what a signature practice is, too. So, on the back of this document, we have like a glossery of terms, but I'm thinking that we're probably going to need a more extensive glossery of terms. Then like a final example would be under the SEAL. It talks about okay and I'm now down to 5 seconds. It talks about the dignity index and how the teachers are going to be trained in that. My time's up. I had a question about that, but >> you can use some of my time, Brian. Well, my question would just be when teachers are required to have training in that, how how is the time allocated for them to get that training? I mean, we're, you know, looking at their schedules and we're

090looking at Fridays and I mean, we're doing all of these things with teachers. We also need to figure out when we have those expectations in there, how do they get that training and are we providing a way for them to get that training that's not >> putting negative? Yeah. Putting more on them. When I look at this, that's how I'm, you know, that's part of my outlook. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Brian. >> Uhuh. >> Would you like Tiffany to speak to some of those things for you or That would be great. I know that a lot of them come under Dr. Taylor, but I can see that Dr. Taylor >> the enrichment activities. >> Okay, that part. Um can speak to >> Okay, great. >> Sure. >> And that is a great question and

091I know that when I put that in and Mr. Ael looked at it and thought, "Oh my goodness, I'm going to have be asking for buses all the time." I thought he was going to lose his mind, but that's not what it is. Um many of those so first many of our um place-based learning opportunities or field trip opportunities aren't expensive. Um for instance, some of the best science lessons I've ever seen are when kids have walked to the Jordan River to collect data and they do that on a regular basis and then track that data and learn to read those charts and graphs over time. I know you have. I've seen some fantastic opportunities for that. So um sometimes that might be walking to a business or walking to a library and collecting data

092along the way. So these um while we do have some and our foundation helps us um exceptionally with things like our Wasatch Mountain Institute which is an expensive piece or um you know maybe some of our secondary uh students that go to a university engineering day or other things like that that do um some of those can be expensive but we are really trying to balance that knowing some of our schools have more funds for that some of our um teachers have more funds for that as you pointed out and so I Just want to say to the board and to the public that not all of them require a bus or require additional funding to be able to create that place-based learning. Place-based learning, for instance, could be um when this is one of

093those education phrases, but it it's really about how do I get a real life experience. We've had students on the sustainability piece counting collecting and counting the leftover food that has been thrown away so that they can figure that out. We would consider that a place-based learning experience. >> Okay. >> Is that okay? And I don't know if there was another one. I think that was the only one I got from my pillar. >> The others that I brought up were the PBIS and the SEAL and yeah, those are other >> areas, but I mean I was trying to give examples. >> Thank you, Brian. Any additional questions, Charlotte or Bryce? Okay, we'll move on to the second round. Ashley, >> um I asked a lot of questions and I have a few more, but

094there are also things later in the plan that I really like which I wanted to reference. And one is that the the tracker we got that is a crosswalk of resource allocation is one of the things I asked for when we approved the original plan. So I'm really excited to see that resource allocation is an important part of how we're moving forward in some way. Um and the other part I really like is the backlog on deferred maintenance being addressed in the sustainability section. I think that that's something that's really been missing and it specifically impacts schools in my precinct. So, I appreciated the uh redress for deferred maintenance. Um, I do have a question about that pillar, which is that new builds having genderneutral restrooms were removed as a new construction requirement. Is there

095a reason we removed that expectation? >> Yes, and Isaac could speak to this better than I could. Um what we're doing is looking again at um the restrooms within the schools. There was there's a different community um feel for what ought to be the bathrooms in our schools. And we were going to try and provide both kinds of settings, those that have a gender recognition and those that don't, so that they'd be available in the schools that way. But the different floors would have different arrangements. So, you're saying it was removed because the first floor component is no longer accurate, but not because new builds would not have genderneutral restrooms. >> I don't know what the first floor one was. >> Okay. I'm I'm just comparing them side by side. It it in total is

096removed, but your response makes it seem like there will be genderneutral restrooms, but they would be on different floors of the building. >> Yes. Not all of the the restrooms will be gender neutral. Some of them will. I guess one thing I'd like to see is if that's in the plan, then we can be accountable to it. But if it's erased from the plan, we can't be accountable to it. So, I would like to see that added back in with whatever new language >> we do have some general genderneutral. >> Yeah, >> we can add that in. It's also in the building plans and Isaac would be better speaking to this, but it's already in the architect's plans, I think, because we spoke with them about that. So, It may be already accomplished because it's

097in the plans, but we could put it in here if you would like as a board. >> In the document, it says all new build. I recognize that between now and 2029, we are unlikely to undergo more new builds than we have already undergone. At the same time, it seems like having that touch if we remove the touchstone, we remove that that was important to members of the community, especially students and staff. So, I'd like to see that. Um, the only other question I have before my remaining time is elapsed is giving given the growing concerns about school safety, is there a reason that all the sea stag components were removed from the amended plan? >> Oh, they're up in pillar one. >> So, they're just moved. >> Yes. >> Okay, let me see. >>

098So, all those pieces we moved from pillar four to pillar one. >> Now, I can see where that is. >> Okay. So, that um those are still there. Let's see. And that's where they're bumped up to 100%. I thought that I was losing my mind, but now I get it. Objective 2.2, but it's just higher up. >> Yep. We wanted to put them in pillar one because they are to us more about educational equity and student support than they are about sustainability issues and things like that. So, um, that was a rearrangement of the goals, but not taking them out. >> That makes perfect sense. Um, so to to kind of reiterate between my first round of feedback and second round of feedback, there are some things that I think are gone by way of

099tools that is really helpful to inform us on to make an educated decision about do we think this is achievable? Because if I don't know what the tool is, I don't know if it's achievable. It sounds like other things that I was curious about, some of them have moved to different spots and that's really helpful. And then just adding that component back in to represent that we heard community feedback about restroom access. I think those are kind of the critical takeaways for me but before we hear about this again. >> Thank you Ashley Amanda. >> Like I'm going to try to not talk until I've given that direction. I just want to support Ashley's bathroom request because it goes along with my comment regarding the hiring practices. If it's not in there then we don't

100have that expectation and that is a really good expectation. that also shows our our students that we care about um them in simplest terms. Um and then just I'm going to emphasize again my request for and that hiring piece to improve that language so that we are hopefully focusing on um just a high quality not just quality resumes for our hires. I'll work with Logan on what a possible statement would be. I know you thoughtfully gave some language on what you'd maybe like to see. So, I'll look work with our HR director and see what we can put in. It's a hard one to capture this idea of just being a standup person who's a really good person, but we'll try and >> Right. And that's the goal. >> You guys get to put together

101your action steps to honor the goal. The action steps don't have to necessarily be concisely what the goal is stating so to speak >> that you want >> but basically integrating know that this is what we are after. >> Yeah. I mean we should really be looking for employees that have good ethics, good integrity, like you know represent like the district well are >> safe for our students just and so ensuring that that language encompasses that. So that focus is always there is yes is their resume great awesome now what kind of person are they and that is I mean we do try and get at that particularly with the recommendations from people that usually speak to the candidates's character a little bit more but we'll try and come up with we'll present some language

102next time we talk or try and run that up the flag pole with you all. >> Thank you. >> Any final questions? Sure. >> I I just to comment that it it is a lot more digestible for me as a new board member. So >> that's one of the goals >> and for us folks have been here for a minute. >> Yes. >> When I'm hearing from Bryce. So >> I mean compared to this thick >> I would agree. Yes. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Thank you Charlotte and thank you Dr. Grant. Dr. Reese, welcome to Salt Lake City. We're super excited to have you here and look forward to working with you more. Thank you. Great feedback. I'll take these back to the teams and we'll come back to report where we're at. Um

103unpacking some of that language and being more clear about the language as well as having some responses to your questions that you raised tonight. >> Thank you. >> All right. Our second item on discussion is diploma proposal. Dr. >> Ah, >> Dr. Hall, we've missed you. Please come back up here to the podium. my computer just projecting. I'm certainly glad you asked me to send that to you as a contingency earlier this afternoon. And sorry there's quite a bit of clicking. I apologize in advance. I didn't realize it was that low. I must have been using it very hard. I have a lot of tabs open. >> Okay. Thank you. So, this is our diploma proposal. We um talked about this at our last board meeting and I had uh questions and comments from some

104of the board members. I've had questions and comments from some of our teachers and students who are also listening. So, I feel like there's a lot of interest around this topic and the kinds of things that it could do or might do for us. Um, next slide, please. Thanks, Sam. Oh, yeah. So, this is just a little review of what we talked about last time, and I'll got kind of go quickly through these. Um, again, our state minimum to graduate is 24 credits. Students can earn 32 credits over four years if they take and pass every single class. And many of our students miss out on a lot of educational opportunities. We've talked about tonight alone. IB, AP, concurrent enrollment, CTE, opportunities to learn things that they may not have an opportunity to learn again.

105Um, I'm always going to be sad that I did not learn how to change my oil when I was in high school. That would have saved me thousands of dollars by this point. So, there are a lot of things that we could do in high school and that would just make us more learned people. So, that's kind of exciting. um throughout districts or throughout Utah, there are 41 districts and only six of our districts in the state still require only 24 units to graduate. They have many different ways of looking at those diplomas, but most of our districts have in fact increased the rigor of their requirements for their own graduates. >> Can I ask a question of you? >> Yeah, certainly. So, I just quickly wanted to um you gave the six districts that

106require the 24. What are the remaining districts? Where where are they at? Like those that are surrounding us? >> All all of the other districts not on that list. So, David, >> I understand that, but are they like 27 credits? Are they >> So, if you'll look at the very very Did I attach it this time? I was just going to look at that. >> I attached it last time. I thought I >> attached see it in this one. And I think it's helpful for the And maybe I didn't see it, but >> I I I know I attached it last time. We went to the very bottom. If you pull up the So, we've got it's here. If you >> Yeah. The very very last. >> Scroll all the way down. >> And they

107typically range >> from 28, Beaver 32. >> Yeah. >> Cash 25, canyons 26 or 28, carbon. So they range actually quite a bit. >> Okay. And and that's a great question and we also tried to put on that chart if there was um a specific requirement. So you'll look in that last column or the column to the right >> and it will so if they require 27 units then it might say three units of electives. That means students can choose any three classes they want. Could be calculus, could be accounting if they were crazy, could be fine arts if they were, you know, enjoyable, creative people. Oh, I'm sorry, Ellen. Um, but all of those things um could are are on that last list. And so some of them just electives and others require certain

108classes. >> Um >> I think it's helpful for the public to understand what >> um districts surrounding us that are Yes. um similar >> and we thought that was very important too and and so that was you know going through everybody's website and and graduation handbooks and and really trying to figure out what that looked like for them. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Um we also know that in our board goals that we are interested in attendance and improving uh student engagement. That's one of the things that we're looking at in terms of really helping kids find their way into interesting classes that they want to take. And of course that as they are ready for college and careers and anything else that happens. Um I think one of the things that I've gotten

109very passionate about is I don't care what a student's plan is but I want every student to know what they're doing the day after they graduate. They need to have a plan. And perhaps that is changing oil in my car and perhaps that is going to MIT. There are a lot of variations in that and we want them to be ready. So, um, I, you know, I've always got to have a little story when I present. So, I want to think about from June 17th to now and all of the comments and questions that we've received. And I was just kind of thinking about something that I find really, really interesting. If you ever want to just kind of get into the weeds of portrait restoration, it's fascinating to me because they have to do

110all kinds of things. everything from fixing damage to a canvas because somebody threw a dart to years and years of smoke to sun damage. All of these different things. Sometimes they they even see they're able to x-ray and see things that are beneath that original thing and and find like little little dogs or other things. And when they're done restoring it, you get this this the same picture but with a lot better clarity. And I think that's where I feel at this point around the conversation that we've started that we have started a very um deep conversation that has actually um morphed out into other conversations that we're also currently having in this district. And I feel like it's something that there's a lot of passion around. There are teachers who would love to have

111additional units added. There are teachers who worry about kids graduating. There are ways that we could set these things up. So, as I bring this to you today, I I just I feel like this is a a portrait restoration and we're pulling layers apart and really looking at things and um that that we'll continue to have I hope these conversations so that we do get to a place that we are all very comfortable with what is happening. So, in looking at that, I have just a few summary pieces from last time, and you can tell it's time to click because I look away from you. Thank you. So, our time, our discussion tonight is this. Um, we know that we have um we we had talked about an honors diploma, but I want to come

112back as board members, Vice President Jensen just sent us back to the sheet that has all of the different districts and the things that they require. And one of the things that is a typical piece that we might see is they will have a basic diploma. And that basic diploma is 24 units, but it may not list the name of the school. So I might graduate from the Murray district. Well, this is a bad example because it's the same, but I may not graduate from Murray High School or I might graduate from the Jordan School District, but I may not graduate from Haramman High because I have 24. And then I have a standard diploma which requires more units and that's the unit uh or the diploma that is awarded from the school. Um for

113some of you this may sound familiar. I believe we had a conversation similar to this about West um when board member Kennedy was on the board several years ago. And so in thinking about all of the different ways that you could lay out a diploma in a district, everything from keeping a 24 as an option to increasing um rigor and opportunity with a higher number diploma to setting um different criteria for an honors recognition of some kind. There are a lot of different ways districts have looked at these units. So, we have a couple of things that we could consider. Um, and we can do that in a discussion. We can continue to think about this. But the first one is that question, do we want to begin to think about requiring additional units for

114graduation in the district? And if the answer is no, then we just stop here and I'm done talking till the next time there's a teaching and learning question. But if the answer is yes, you know, we kind of want to think about what does that look like for our students to to really bring that home to them, then we need to think about maybe what those extra units would be. Would it be two? Would it be four? Would it be three? Would we um place them in electives? That was something that board member Anderson um was very concerned about at the last meeting because as students get into any of a variety of pathways, could be any of the CTE pathways or AP pathways or or IB pathways, if we begin to require other semester

115or uh year-long classes, that can that can really begin to impact some of that. And we can look at that and see what that looks like. Um, so, uh, let's see. These are some of the questions. I'm going to have to turn around, you guys. I really apologize. I did not think my computer was going to run out of juice that fast. Um, but last month or at the last meeting, we talked about how requirements would affect classes like AB, AB, or IB or AP. I can never kind of get those right. So, um, we spoke with several people as we researched this and our answer is, um, that if they're designated as general electives, they wouldn't have any impact at all on those other programs because many of the classes that students are taking

116as a part of those programs are already counted as elective. And I know in June we talked about for instance a student takes secondary math 1, secondary math 2, secondary math 3, then they take calculus, that's then an elective. That's not a math credit because it's more than required. Um but if you if we decided that we were going to assign them to things like in California, they require um for some universities two years of world language. If we began to say you've got to have two world years of world language, then we would begin to have an impact on some of those programs because it would take a spot in students schedules. Um, our next question, um, does the question of weighted grades need to be addressed first? Um, I heard this in the

117board meeting. I've heard this from other people, um, that have emailed me directly. I'm sure you have, too. And you know that is Okay, we'll hit the answer on this one now. Um because students already choose what courses they take, it wouldn't have an impact on that weighted grade thing, weighted grade process. So for instance, if we chose to weight grades at a school for early college, APIB concurrent enrollment, perhaps those have a higher weight when you're counseling uh calculating your GPA. Well, a student could have chosen not to take those classes as well. So, as we think about this, again, it kind of goes back to what are the classes that are being required. And if they are an early college class, for instance, if we required every student to take a CE class,

118that could have an effect on a weighted grade. But if we just said all of these are electives and students may choose those things, then it would not imp the the additional units for graduation themselves would not impact the weighted grades. What would impact the weighted grades would be what classes students chose to take as part of their high school diploma? And then how would changes to the district requirement um really look at school specific awards or recognition? This in and of itself would not have an effect on that. Um a further question just to add another feather to the bird would be whether or not we chose to say as a district these are district kumasum how do you say that again? Huma sum >> sumakumlad sumakumlad >> suma kumlad. Thank you very much.

119Like if we wanted to say here are some things that we say as a district we're going to honor. Um we already have several things like our CTE pathways. Those are state and district recognitions. SILA civic readiness is a district recognition seal of biiteracy. Um, we have different national honors societies and each of our schools have some different awards that they also give that are part of their culture and their community as a school. So, um, we could look at some additional pieces that we were adding, but um, this in and of itself would not conflict with those honors programs. Okay. Um, timeline. I I received that question a lot. I'm sure that possibly you did. Um, we never like to make changes going uh retroactive for somebody unless it's a a positive thing, unless

120it's something that increases their access or their ability. So, for this, we would be looking at rolling it out no sooner than the class of 2030, which would be not this year, but next year's freshmen. So, if we rolled out any changes, we would want to have plenty of time to make sure that counselors and families and teachers and um everyone was aware of what that was going to look like so that we could communicate that across the board. Um so, what are some recommendations as we look at districts across the state, as we look at our own? Um, a recommendation would be to perhaps look at those additional units and and say perhaps, you know, 27. Um, that seems to be the number that many districts have found to be an appropriate number. That

121basically um adds the requirement for passing classes to seven classes um instead of six for their freshman, sophomore, and junior year. They still have some time in their senior year with some flex in their schedule, but um so it's not it's not a 32 where they have to pass every single class or not have any um work experience or seminary or any of the other releases that you might have. Um and that we might look at that and say this is where we would like our district to be. We would still like to grant a basic diploma. Um, and that still leaves on the table a conversation about an honors diploma. Do we want to do something on top and say for students that take certain classes or exceed 27 or um have focuses in

122certain areas that they might also be recognized. So, there are still some conversations around this. And last, I believe this is last. Oh, sorry. This is my my future conversations. That idea of district honors or graduation. Um you'll see on that sheet um the very last sheet that some districts have diplomas that include things like an attendance requirement or a GPA requirement. And so as they list their advance or their honors diploma, those things all um are incorporated in in what that looks like in their district. >> Okay, >> that was my last slide. So >> thank you, Dr. Hall. Bryce, let's open it up. Yeah, I don't have a question, just a comment. And I had uh every intention of emailing you this morning in my day got away from me. Um I am

123mostly hearing positive feedback um around this. A lot of um folks that I've spoken with are excited about the different opportunities and uh different experiences that their their students can have. Um, last night I was out watering my parking strip and a neighbor I had never met uh recognized me as a board member and asked a question about this and it it has been answered in this, but um her concern is that she has two kids that are um about to enter high school and one um and these are the words that she used is one is high achieving, one is not. And she was worried that the 24 credit the basic uh would go away and I reassured her that's not what we're looking at. But um I just wanted to share that I'm

124mostly hearing positive feedback. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Thanks, Bryce, >> Ashley, and then Amanda. >> I also heard a lot of positive feedback, including like, yes, why did this take so long? But all of that feedback was from adults. Um just to say uh one AVID teacher specifically mentioned that alumni come to her class to advise students and they regularly mention that they wish they had taken fewer free periods and that it's in retrospect that they think about like oh I could have done more concurrent enrollment. So I think this is responding to the needs of a lot of adults in our school building. I did get a few messages from students that said this really won't address the the root issue which is kind of intrinsic motivation and general apathy of students and

125they thought we should do something like a student survey in a pack class which is pack is just what West calls it and I'm sure other schools call it different things um to get students opinions before moving ahead and I do think we're anticipating having a study session on this. I want to make sure we don't schedule that until we know we have a student board member who will be present because I think having a student board member is actually probably the missing um piece especially given that the if we voted on this today and it moved forward it still wouldn't roll out until the class of 2030. So, I think we should take the year of runway we have to actually get it right. Which leads me to one more piece of feedback I

126got um from I heard from many peer board members in other districts um because as you mentioned peer districts are mostly doing this absent five and one in canyons mentioned they're actually working to scale back the number of diploma types they offer and streamline their process. So, I think there's a lot of support, but we want to make sure there's a very clear plan before it's rolled out so that families have like crystal clear communication about what the expectations are. I think a study session is one way to start engaging in that process with the amount of runway we have, but I do want to make sure we have a student board member available and the option to engage students directly because this is about their experience. The one question I have, which you can

127probably predict, is that many West parents have opinions on long-term issues, but they have some short-term issues with credits, specifically concurrent enrollment credits. As we go through this process, um, and anticipate further discussion, are there interim measures that families can expect for other things that come up between now and a new process? Like you said, this isn't related to weighted grading. It's not related to this, but if things come up that are not part of these larger discussions, are there interim measures families can expect for something like the accreditation of a concurrent enrollment class is incorrect in the system? Does that make sense? >> Um I I'm Are they talking about the amount of credit that is awarded for CE classes? >> Yes. >> Same deal. Um uh Mr. Dazo and I and Miss Mia

128and I and Mr. Quanza and I, we've all been talking about this, okay? >> Um because we do have some classes that for whatever reason were set up not the way Yushi usually says that they would the uh Utah higher education system for higher education um sets them up and again we never want to harm students or not give them sufficient notice. So there are a lot of things already. Um for instance, we're adding another 0.5. The state has added another 0.5 requirement to social studies rolling out for the class of 2030. That looks like um kind of the place where we're we're looking to have um several changes that we'll we'll roll out. So we wouldn't expect changes whether they're small or big to happen until the class of 2030 >> unless something like

129we found something was wrong to the point of we need to fix it immediately. So I don't want to say that is across the board. >> Um but if it is something that is that um can be phased out in a comprehensive way that doesn't hurt kids that is always our first choice. Um, okay. You know, as long as we don't find something like it was this type of credit, it shouldn't be it should have been this, you know, things like that. So, I I don't want to say we would never change something if we if we had to, but um >> Okay. >> Yeah. If if that's the issue, we are we are aware of that and having conversations about that. >> Thank you. That's really helpful, >> Amanda. Um, so I've sent you

130the feedback that I've gotten and it's everywhere from students up to administration. Um, got a good array of feedback. Um, generally everybody's excited about it. They do not want to see the 24-hour credit one go away. We don't want to penalize the students that that's a good fit for. Um, and then as we're working for this, like a lot of the concern, um, is if there are even enough options to handle the potential influx of requests because, um, already students are having to take classes that they don't want to because they've run out of options for various reasons. >> Um, and that contributes to disengagement and attendance issues. Um, so I like how you kind of presented this. Let's do this in steps. Do we do it yes or no? Um and so you know

131I it sounds like we all are progressing towards a study session that we could really sit down and work through the nuances and really ensure that we're encompassing all the areas that we need to to consider students the principal experiences and and I would actually say an add-on to um a student board member being there but actually um bringing in some other stakeholders too. Um and that like study session group conversations so that like principles of high schools like counselors the people that are like living and breathing this on a daily basis that you know we can hopefully flush out um as many holes as possible. So I won't go into all of my questions but for the community know that I've provided all of the feedback that you've given. Um >> it was very

132extensive. Thank you. I she is not kidding. She did provide all of it. >> Yes, I ensured you were heard, but I agree with a lot of what was being said. So, I wanted to make sure that I didn't muddy what the points that they were making. Um, so yeah, whatever we need to if we need to make a motion to move it to study or just by saying we agree, you just tell how we need to do that part. >> I think that we need to um just knowing that it came out of the agenda setting process. Um, I think we were kind of waiting to see how the conversation tonight went. Um, to see if that's what we would be doing at our August meeting. Um, but it sounds like there's a lot

133of motivation and um, and I don't know if we can get our student board member there for the first one that >> he's in town. >> Yeah. Reach out. >> But if we could, we will work to do that so they can participate um, in that discussion with us as well. So um, so I think we're good to go. it seems like we want to dive a little deeper into this and and be ready for it, but um also be cognizant of some of the timelines and time frames that uh board member Anderson brought up as well. So, I think we're in a good spot. Ashley, >> I would just add that school does not start until August 18th. So, if we intended to honor student requests to go through a process like pack, we

134actually couldn't study it with just one student board member. We wouldn't have all the information. So the question is if we wanted to take that suggestion from a student to talk to a bunch of students, we would actually need to wait until school is in session. >> Would it be doable given one study session? We're probably not going to be able to unless we do like a four or five hour meeting. It's probably going to need to be probably a multiple event occasion that we can I mean I don't know how you feel Ashley but like kind of sit down and work through some of the nuts and bolts, work on that other bit as we can and then just build on it versus it going stagnant. >> I mean what do you think Tiffany?

135Um, >> I well I I was thinking about kind of that drop dead like when when would when would really it be best for our communities if if we had an answer. And when I think about registration beginning in January and counselor visits sometimes in December and January to middle schools because that would be the main audience we'd want. pro probably October would be our outside month >> which will happen pretty quickly. >> It will happen very quickly but um perhaps we could I mean we could launch a survey fairly shortly after the beginning of school >> and maybe to prevent any conrnation send a rough draft of that survey to the board members to see if there's something that >> like captured packet before I launch a survey. Hang on. >> Only if it

136falls in those categories. And it doesn't >> 182. I'm okay. Right. >> Okay. Never mind. I'm sorry. I had a little survey panic there. But our data steward and our general counsel have reassured me. I'm not going to jail tonight. >> Okay. >> And to be clear, I'm not saying we're mandated to do what a student suggested. I'm just pointing out that if we were to have a study session, move forward with some potential decisions, and then we got radically different information from students, it it's helpful to identify what timeline makes the most sense to actually be able to get feedback. >> Um, Amanda had gotten some feedback from students. I think it's important you share all that with the board, the feedback you got as well. >> I can, if you would like me

137to cover it, I can. Or actually, we could actually just cut and paste all the information that you've sent because you've sent them in just chunks of emails. >> Three emails. Yeah. Yeah. So far, >> because some of that included student feedback that would be useful for the board because some of the student feedback um was really positive about it wanting this thing and um but they did bring up some nuances and maybe that's valuable. Um I'm wondering if for the board's benefit getting some conversation down in study session um would be useful just having the time and we've got the time in August >> to do that and then >> waiting for a board vote until you have some more student feedback that's more >> directed or something would be okay or if you'd

138prefer to do a study session later. This is all of course up to you guys about how you want to go about this. I'm just trying to think of how >> that but that but that's a really good idea. It might help us frame the questions that go to students. >> I was gonna ask great idea. >> Okay. >> So, we'll move forward with the 15th and >> keep it more specific to time. >> August 5th. I'm sorry. Today is the 15th. >> Keep it more specific to timelines and how we might survey and what kind of questions we might be wanting to ask not only of students but community members and other stakeholders as well. To >> to your point, Amanda. >> Wow. Do you mean a a study session. >> Okay, >> very

139good. Thank you. This is very exciting. Thank you very much. >> Oh, Brian, >> I'm excited for it as well. >> I just wanted to interject. I mean, we have received responses from lots of people and I Ashley got the same email that I got from an extended learning well, an ELP and we now have a different name for that. But um I think that this is a really um valuable opportunity for those students too to um have an additional opportunity for them to be validated for what it is they're doing. The concern that was raised in that was exactly what you have addressed this evening. I think in what Ashley's concerns were in the last meeting and that is that that elective aspect to it so that we're not creating problems with IB programs

140and AP programs and >> CT all of those others. >> So thank you for >> I think answering a concern that was out there for people. it it really does look differently in a in a high school that doesn't have kind of the the types and breadths of programs that we have in our high schools. So, yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Paul. >> Right. Moving along to um our third topic. Uh we have the board self-evaluation process. Um we are in the part of the timeline um where hopefully we can adopt um the evaluation criteria that's been floating around for the last you know four sixish weeks or what have you. Um what you have um printed form and what uh Brian and I sent out

141this morning um is just the final redline version. Um it didn't really change a whole lot between the last meeting other than a suggestion from board member 5 Jefferson to move um number 10 advocacy to um community engagement and collaborative relationships. Um so you'll you'll see that represented there. Um but nonetheless I I feel like still that we have a pretty good um set of criteria um to hopefully approve tonight. I don't think we need to do that through a formal vote or anything like that, but mostly just a thumbs up. Um, and just to um review the timeline that we had discussed um in the last meeting um is that we would um ideally finalize and adopt the criteria today at this meeting. Um, we would then send a clean version to uh Richard

142Stole with USBA um who would ideally get us an evaluation tool to fill out independently as individual board members on July 19th or 20th. Um that would be due by the 29th of July. Um and then Richard would present the results at our board retreat on August 2nd. Bryce, >> yeah, I'm uh fine with the materials in the tool. I had a logistical question. As we fill out um the survey, are we filling out filling it out as a lens of I as exo member, yes, no, or is it the collective board, yes or no? >> Um I think that would probably hinge on the different questions. I was planning on doing this as an individual board member. Okay. >> Um and and moving forward in the process that way. >> so clarifying it's not

143I as a board member >> participate in school board and educated uh education related training. you're >> I I think that's like a lens, you know, from an individual, but there's also the like I said, some criteria probably elicit a different response as individual or as a observation of the group. Um I looking at it and trying to understand your question a little bit more as I'm talking out loud, I think that it probably is more sense through the lens of the board as a whole. >> Um based on your experiences as participant, as a board member. >> I think that's clear to me now. Thank you. >> Sorry for that. >> No, that's okay. And >> Amanda, >> thank you for that question because I think that's something that we've run into in other

144things since I've been on the board in January that if there could be a introduction paragraph that explains that. Okay. >> Um then we can ensure hopefully that we're all um >> looking at it the same way. >> Yes. Because otherwise there's Yeah. You get it. So yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Charlotte, did you have anything? >> Just that it's the board as a whole. We're not we're answering for us personally. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> I only have one question. I only have one thing that I just noticed when it was on paper, which is the orientation question does not specify that the board leadership provides orientation. The full board was not permitted to participate in the initial orientation process because we would have established a quorum. So I think that that question

145should be framed differently >> as not all of us were able to. >> Yeah. What number is that again? >> Um >> six >> orientation. Yes. The board conducts comprehensive orientation. Yeah. >> To familiarize new board members with their roles. >> Okay. And are you comfortable with board leadership? >> Yeah, I think that's great. Cool. >> I'll make that change before sending it to Richard. All right. Are we good to adopt and move forward just through a thumbs up? Speed things up a little bit tonight. Okay. >> Maybe we should clarify one other thing as we speak to Richard because when you look at the >> okay like the superintendent evaluation or the um BA evaluation that's provided through USBA, there's like a ranking. Okay. And so you have Like one, you strongly disagree. And

146five, you >> strongly >> Agree. Okay. And then three is you're just ambivalent or whatever. Okay. But then >> neutral. >> Yeah. You're neutral. But four, the way that they word it, I mean, I'm just aware of this having been on that committee or whatever. Um, four is like you're leaning toward agreeing and um to you're leaning toward disagreeing. Do you see what I'm saying? So that >> and maybe we can have that in that paragraph explanation that Amanda's talking about. So that >> when we're saying a five, we're all thinking about, okay, this is what a five means and this is what a one means. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. >> And I uh pulled up the original tool um that Richard had sent to us. Um there's a couple of different

147um introduction paragraphs and there's an an introductional paragraph to each section. Um do you want me to read them out loud just for clarification or I could just send them out later? >> But okay, I'll send them out later to you. >> But otherwise, I think we're in a good spot. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, >> cool. We'll get these cleaned up and sent out and then I'll send out those introductory statements um hopefully tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. Thanks, guys. Um our third item tonight is property use next steps. Uh Dr. Grant or BA Kley, I'm not sure who's doing that one. Alan. >> All right. So, just following the process in our G5 uh APS. Um, a few months ago, uh, we brought to the board some district needs, uh, for our properties for schools

148that have been closed. Uh, that was addressed with the Riley, um, the Riley site and we're moving forward with process on that. So, the next step, um, let me get there first. uh states if the district determines it has no immediate need district need for the building the district will conduct a feasibility study to understand the best uses for each site. Uh study can include a real estate analysis and then a financial and economic analysis. So those are kind of the next steps we're faced with. Um we're we will start the process to go out and find a a vendor to do those analysis for us. Uh we haven't started that process yet, but we're just kind of really looking at okay now what do we do and per our policy those are the next

149steps. >> Other questions Ashley? >> Yeah when when schools closed we had some reporting in the Tribune about what would happen and it actually said before we determined district needs we'd conduct a building evaluation of each site but we've never received results of those building evaluations. Was that process completed? Do you know what those building I mean what >> it just says you know a comprehensive evaluation of the sites will be conducted before we determine potential needs. So did we did we do that before determining district needs? >> Yeah. Not knowing the exact um you know purpose of the quote or nature of the quote that that you're sharing. Um part of that analysis analysis was also done through the whole closure process. you know, we were all constantly looking at the age of the

150building, the condition of the building, you know, is is this one going to take a lot of repairs to continue to to serve any purpose or is this one a newer building? And so, has there been an official start to end? Here's the report uh analysis. No. Um but has there been a constant review through the whole, you know, last several years process? Yes. >> Okay. That's it's I hear what you're saying that that was done before, but because this was specifically what happens next, I guess I've shared my concern in the past that we don't have a comprehensive needs assessment. And so when I was going back through documentation, I thought maybe this building evaluation would be what I was looking for. Um, but people have regularly been asking for a comprehensive needs assessment.

151And I went through past board meetings and I did a little tally and there were seven individual board members, both current and past, who requested a needs assessment. more than 20 times in open meeting between school closure and right now. So, I'd really like us to see before we move forward with a real estate evaluation or other aspects of this that we do hear from employees about what they feel our district needs. Um, there's a lot of tools. The California School Boards Association offers one and it asks board members to ask themselves specific questions. And I think that's really important because in state code, we're the stewards of our school buildings. And I feel like if we jump ahead without doing the needs assessment that's been asked for, we really miss some opportunities. And I've

152posed some frustration about this in the past. And um the superintendent shared she wasn't sure what opportunities we may have overlooked in kind of the limited ask of of various uh you kind of executive director level members of the district office. And I do have a short list of things that community members including faculty members have asked us to consider in past meeting that have been referenced. And those are an early childhood hub in central city, expansion of community learning center services in central city, potential reduction of the total number of programs operating in horizonte and expanding to other. >> Was that me? >> No. Yeah. And and we do hear things. I mean, I want to I'm just gonna hone in on one of the words you said, comprehensive needs assessment. We've heard a

153lot of wants. Um but wants aren't necessarily needs. Um and we also don't want to expand our programs beyond what we need to expand them to just because the space is available. I mean, I've heard departments, hey, can we use one of the closed buildings? It's like, no, you have sufficient space to do what you're tasked with doing. So, um I just wanted to kind of comment back on we have heard some of those same things that you've heard. Um and a lot of them been reviewed and says your current space is adequate for what your what your duties are. >> So, I guess my followup to that is that if there's been a review like that, we haven't had access to it. And so again, because we're charged with the maintenance of school buildings

154in state code, I would think if something had been distinguished as a want that was superfluous rather than a need that was critical, we would have had access to that in some type of report. Um, and not having access to it means that we can't always manage the maintenance that is our role. So I guess I would say is there some way you could document what you have shared that some of these suggestions that continue to come to us have actually been rolled out and here's why and we can kind of review why we're ready to move to this next step rather than just determine as a blanket we are there. >> Yeah. I think as C because cabinet kind of had a lot of those discussions. So we we ought to bring it back

155to cabinet. I mean, it's superintendent's cabinet, so we're not going to um direct them and say, "Do we have the do we have the information we already need to put it together in a report to send to the board or like you're suggesting, do we need to reach out and do additional work?" And we can have that discussion. Um I would suggest we have that discussion in cabinet. >> We can do that. It's a good suggestion. I want I want to also mention a lot of those things that people raise are things that the board has to direct us to do to spend more money on adult education to find the funding for that or to increase which would be great the prek program right which we're already the board is quite generous in funding.

156So a lot of these things are desires that would have to be directed by the board in that way in order for us to move forward. And so we were working on the premise of what we have now, not any future needs that might come up. >> So I guess my response to that would be this is exactly why we need a comprehensive needs assessment because the board can't direct to allocate resources to something if we don't hear that it's a district need. So when we hear there are no additional district needs or we've ruled them out, we can't in a vacuum determine that we should allocate more resources to preschool without first having an objective assessment that surveys all of the stakeholders including the people who work in prek to determine if there's sufficient

157space or to determine if additional space is needed. So that's when I think those documents from like the California Schoolboards Association are really helpful in terms of what would a needs assessment of facilities look like. And so other school boards are engaged in that work. And I think that that's kind of the critical thing that it can't be a chicken or an egg. Well, we didn't ask for it so we can't have it, but we can't ask for it if we don't do the needs assessment. So I I think that's where it comes back to me. The critical component is it's been asked for over and over again. and maybe cabinet is one way to initiate that or to retroactively do some of that work and documenting it as our business administrator shared. But that's

158that's where I land. >> I think our board giving us direction on that would be good too. >> Yeah. And like I mentioned, we haven't we haven't started the procurement process for the next step. So if the board wants to direct us to, >> hey, let's do this first before we move on to the next step, then um that'd be great direction. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. Um, I would just echo everything Ashley said. I think that's a step I would like to see us move towards before these other two that are on the agenda tonight. But >> Dr. Grant Allen, does that work for you now that you're hearing from a couple different board members to go back >> if we get direction from the board as a whole? Happy to do it. >>

159And and uh would us be giving you direction in this setting or would you need a formal vote? >> No, this would be good. >> Okay. >> What I would love is so what you've seen from the California if you could share that out just that' be awesome. I'm happy to send it myself that to the whole board and also then we could request to attach it to the minutes. But the thing I would add is >> saying is giving direction good enough rather than voting is how we ended up in this place because we did actually give direction several times about having a needs assessment for facilities and we haven't done it. So I think documenting clearly what we mean is actually very important. >> Yeah. And it could be that um if you

160want to give direction, say, "Please put it on the consent agenda for our next board meeting." And then that would document a vote. Um that we want this to happen >> like a memo, >> right? Just a memo. Here's what we're here's what the board's approving or directing us to do if you know that's important for the full board to get that on the record. And I think understanding across all of us here on what you mean by needs assessment because we did do what we thought was an appropriate needs assessment at the time. It's not appropriate. It doesn't meet your needs and what you want as a board. It sounds like um but that was the needs assessment that we did which is working with cabinet and they understand their programs and what the

161needs are in their programs. So, um, that was part of our process as we went through this, but it's, um, I think clarifying what that needs assessment should entail, um, from the different programs. Um, >> I also think we're going to get into a little bit of a jam when we get this information because we'll haveund and or 150 different answers of what people would like to see. Um, and I think it'll be helpful for cabinet as the executive directors over these different bodies of work to help sort through some of that for you and provide something to you. We can give you the raw data, too. I'm not trying to hide the ball, of course, but um to give you a sense of what actually would be a priority that cabinet sees it because

162they're looking across the whole district at what the issues are. So maybe some clarity on the actual items that you want in that needs assessment um would be helpful. >> Ashley, were you suggesting that this California does that >> that covers what you >> does that give direction? It's just one example of a struct you know like these are questions board members should ask these are questions principles should ask so forth but I think the thing that we were really missing was a comprehensive stakeholder feedback that yes the idea is there's this hierarchy right and cabinet speaks for everyone um underneath and I don't know that people in school buildings feel that their opinion about facilities has been heard in that in that model so So I think stakeholder feedback is the most important part

163to me including people who live in the neighborhoods, right? That most people who work in this district do not live in these neighborhoods. We do. So what we hear about neighborhood needs are really different than what a cabinet member experiences about a school's needs. >> What do you mean by neighborhood needs in this context of these buildings and and the district needs ideas? >> I mean if I live down the street from Mary W. Jackson, my opinion is really different than if I work in school leadership and I don't live down the street from Mary W. Jackson >> in terms of how you want to see the building used. >> Yeah. Uh that's Yes. And that's why we've built into the G5 all these community meetings to get at that. I'm wondering, are you wanting

164that in this survey of district needs that you want the community because it seems it's not quite ready for the community to weigh in on how the buildings are. But I don't I might be getting what you're saying. >> Would it be helpful if you look if we look at that California thing and then use that as a starting point to flush out what that could look like? I think what the superintendent is saying, if I'm remembering the policy right, and I could be getting it wrong, >> is that there's I I think what you're asking for potentially, board member Anderson, is a step or a process that takes place after these two steps that are highlighted tonight. Um, just in the sequence of how the policy and the APs are written. But if we

165need to go back and flip those to get the information that you feel like you need, um, we could look at that, too. >> I don't have a response because I don't understand what we're talking about in the order. So, I'm just pulling up the policy language because it's not attached. But, >> yeah, I was I was trying to um pull up the policy as well and couldn't find that exactly, but I recall that being >> very bottom there. Do you recall that being a >> Let me read what a real estate analysis is defined as and then what a financial and economic >> Are you reading from the policy or the APS? >> The APS. >> Thank you. >> Uh so the real estate analysis says an REA will assess the current conditions of

166each site such as assessing the existing condition of buildings and development allowed under zoning and other regulations. This phase could include an assessment of the development potential of each site should it zoning be adjusted. A real estate market analysis can inform land uses that are in demand near each site such as housing, retail, and smallcale or creative office based on the development that is legally allowed, physically possible, and market feasibility. A baseline land value will be identified and a financial and economic analysis using the baseline development assumptions identified during the REA. The FEA will define a creative and organized land use plan for each school site that meets the district's goals, is market feasible, and ready for implementation. This phase of the project will refine potential commercial and community focused uses of the sites and

167consider their impacts on the surrounding community with a goal of adding value for both the neighborhood and district. A detailed financial analysis and risk assessment for each proposed land use plan will validate that the plans are financially feasible. And then it says, "When the feasibility study is complete, the district will present to the board the recommendation for each site to either repurpose the site or declare it surplus property." And can I just inter Helen? I appreciate you're reading that because as we've been discussing this I mean I looked I pulled up the G5 policy you know because >> I'm on that committee and I wanted to look at it >> and to me that B language is really important where it says determining site eligibility for repurposing or surplus. So those to me the way

168that is worded those are two separate things. There's repurposing and there's surplus and this is what helps us determine whether something is eligible for repurposing or whether it is surplus. So, I'm just asking for the board's direction on that because for me, when we talk about how like an additional program, that's like repurposing that building. And so, that's where I just need direction as a policy committee. >> I think I understand what you're saying. Now that I've pulled it up and I can read it in order, I understand what um the superintendent was saying. When she was talking about the opportunities for public comment, that's if a district need has been identified. >> So, we're talking about something different, which is that we feel like we haven't necessarily been given a report that shows there

169are no additional district needs. To me, repurposing is about there's no additional district need. we're choosing to repurpose a building for X thing distinct from the district. Having an early childhood hub is a district need. So, does that make sense? >> Okay, that's how you're seeing that. Okay. >> Yes. So, I think we're talking about between those two things. And I guess what the hitch and the giddy up is that you only get to comment as a member of the public or a user of the school or whatever if a need was determined and no additional needs were determined. And that's where the question is is were there really no additional needs determined? And if so, how do we come to that conclusion in a way that the board can see all of the, you

170know, the work that went into making those determinations? So, it sounds like um because I've just gone over the conversation in my head that there's a a big value Dr. Grant Allen, um, for you all to go back to cabinet and kind of reassess the work that you've done collectively about determining need or non-ne for the sites. And it sounds like bringing that back to the board for further discussion would be super helpful before moving forward with what's on the agenda tonight in these next two steps. Is that what I'm gathering from this discussion? >> I think it was more than that. >> Okay. >> Because that was the cabinet's um summary >> of their needs determination, but you're asking actually for a survey of stakeholders in addition to that. It sounds like is that

171I mean that's if that's the board's desire, then that's what we'll do. >> Stakeholder feedback. >> I certainly think stakeholder feedback is important. I think it's been absent and if it was done and just not reported to us, then that's a different thing. So, I can't say what you would need to do moving forward to collect it because I just don't know what work has been done. Does that make sense? >> We have not done a formal survey of stakeholders to ask what they think the district needs. I'm comfortable moving ahead with a stakeholder input and then we're at least assessing that feedback whether or not they are tangible things that we can actually do because of money and stuff. That's obviously its own thing. But giving the public an opportunity to be heard I

172think is the bigger point that's being made I believe is engaging the community in that feedback before we potentially sell off the properties. Um, >> yeah, there's lots of steps before we'd get to that decision. >> So, what we're really looking at is an internal district stakeholder survey of what people who work in the district think our district needs. That's what I'm understanding we're asking for, not a broader community survey of neighbors and community members about what they think the district needs are. >> Yeah. That comes later after we've determined needs. >> Yes. And then we know which buildings we might surplus or repurpose. And then there's built into that process the expectation that there's informal and formal community feedback opportunities when we get to the point of trying to decide those options. I think

173the way this conversation goes again is kind of why we ended up in the place we're in where what everybody means right now might be different and we're not able to hammer it out. And I think Allan's suggestion continues to be prudent, which is compiling what the needs assessment could look like in a memo and then agreeing to what is in the content of that memo could be more valuable than agreeing to an amorphous thing right now that we don't know what it means and then in two months one or more of us asks again for the same thing that we didn't feel we got. Was my distinction between internal employees and external community was that accurate of what you want? >> I think so. >> Okay. >> For me, yes. >> Thank you. And

174I do have to say like I don't think anybody's crystal clear about the ask that's being made. So, we're all just trying to be respectful and flesh it out. So, if we're getting there and you feel like it's been disclosed and that's comfortably where you're at, I think we're all supportive of it. But, we're all just trying to make sure we're on the same page. Yeah. >> Well, that because I had mentioned on consent, but maybe it's more a discussion when we write the memo says, have we have we gotten what the board needs in these things and then an opportunity to say, well, could you add this or I don't think we need that. And that would give us a chance to discuss it more >> because it does. I mean, it makes me

175a little bit uncomfortable that I'm being looked at as one person who's supposed to say what a comprehensive needs assessment is when actually a lot of people work here in research, assessment, and evaluation who know what a needs assessment is and how to design it. And that's not what my it's not my role to say what the every component of the needs assessment and its delivery mechanism. It's just to say we've never been given a report of a needs assessment that's been asked for. And it's really our job to hear the report after being given the direction of establishing a needs assessment. So I would like I mean none of the people who do that work are here right now to speak to that. And so it does make me a little uncomfortable pointing to

176me specifically to identify what are the components of a needs assessment when we really have professionals employed who could take that direction and then present as you're saying some type of memo of clarity. Is this what you want in the report? Yes, it is. And then we have the report and we're able to move forward from the outcomes of the report. >> Yeah. And I'll listen note we're not in a super hurry to get to the next step. So we can spend the time to get the board the information that that they're requesting. >> Great. >> The house is not on fire. >> Correct. >> All right. >> We have plenty of other fires. This isn't one we need to know. >> Tuesday. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Some big ones. >> Thank you, Alan.

177Thank you, Dr. Grant. Um, we'll look forward to the memo. Um, moving on to the action agenda. Uh, we have one item, which is item number eight from the consent agenda, the superintendent's contract. I'll entertain a motion um to move forward. >> I make a motion to approve the superintendent contract date July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027. >> Second. >> All right, we got a motion and a second on the table. Is there any discussion to the motion? All right, seeing none, uh we'll move to a roll call vote uh with you, Amanda. >> Amanda Longwell, yes. >> Bryce Williams, yes. Charlotte Fe Jefferson, yes. >> Asherson, no. >> Nate Salazar, yes. >> Mhm. Yes. >> Brian Jensen, yes. >> All right, that motion passes. Congratulations, Dr. Grant. >> Thank you. We look forward

178to working with you for another two-year contract. >> Thank you. >> Great. Um, moving on. Uh, we've reached, uh, the superintendent's report. >> I had a great vacation. >> District relate. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Do your thing. Um, I actually don't have anything for a superintendent's report today. Wait a minute. Hold on. Let me just I'm sorry. I was not prepared because I typically write these things down to remind myself of what to bring to the board. Oh, I just wanted to highlight again for the board um the OLAG student performance dashboard that we sent out to you just so you had an idea of that. I think it'll be part of the conversation that the legislature puts together. So, the office of legislative auditor general has done that report. They sent to

179you an electronic copy of that report. I just wanted to highlight it because I think it'll come up in education interim sessions and all uh and may direct legislators as they're thinking about what to do next with education. >> Thank you, Dr. Grant. Alan, do you have a report this evening? >> Yes, I do. Uh so last week we held our summer UASBO Utah Association of School Business Officials conference and I just want to highlight a couple things that are uh most pertinent to the district. Uh we had a presentation from the state board of education. They had done a reconciliation. If you remember on your tax notice, there's a a piece a levy that goes to fund charter schools and that's based on the number of charter schools from our b or number of

180charter school students from our boundaries. They did an audit of the boundary reporting from the charter schools and realized that the reporting isn't 100%. So, they made some adjustments uh those adjustments for the Salt Lake City School District. And I don't know the timing if it'll be this year because the tax rates are already set or next year. Um because that really is part of it's just part of the local levy. We'll put $400,000 back into the school district revenue we get that does not go to the charter schools just for that reconciliation between actual district of residents for the charter school kids. So um that's a bonus. Uh the other thing so the architects from that are doing the Highland building uh presented up there uh to to the BAS and one thing of

181particular interest to us is they said particular in masonry is what they had uh talked about that it might be a good time to be bidding masonry because as as these contractors look for work they like to plan out several years in advance and it looks like right now there's not a ton of work out there in the future. So they they're hoping I mean they said it looks like prices maybe will come down a little bit. So that's always a bonus >> that the the projection of down is always better than the projection of up. >> And if I can amend my superintendent's report to let the board know that we're working to get the architect meetings set up and we'll have two of those sessions so that everybody can attend. >> And I

182think you said that they would be recorded too in case one of us wasn't able to make it. if you want it. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. That'd be awesome. >> Thank you for the amendment, >> Charlotte. >> Okay. Oh, the only report I have from the summer is uh that I attended I was invited I think we were all invited to attend, but I attended the Central 9th Youth Coalition um event. So that is through the county, but um uh and it involves SpyHop and there are students from Glendel Middle School and East High School who are on this youth council and they they planned the whole thing and it was called um United We Thrive, one heart, many roots and it was really great. Uh it was a nice way to for those

183students well student they they recognize their diversity and how that's a strength but how when we're more united you know that we give support to one another and and um so students aren't just going to swimming pools and I don't know doing like they're planning and they're thinking and they're being, you know, engaged and I got to see a former student from Glendale who is on that council. Um, and it was really great. So, >> you do good work. You do really good work, >> right? >> Okay. Well, first of all, I think maybe I should clarify when I said um in response to Allen's um fires, when I said big fires, I was thinking about big fires at the north rim of the Grand Canyon and our family business. So at Jacob Lake, but

184um my report would be just focused on um USBA and we um got a request for the board's input on how we feel about joining with the Tilla district um as they reconfigure the different regions. So, I'll give you just a little bit of background on this. And I mean, I haven't been there for, you know, the last seven months or whatever, but when Salt Lake City School District fell below the 20,000, we then moved to a region um and we aren't an individual uh board member. Uh the region that we were assigned to was Provo and Murray and that has that made sense. Um I think that what is happening not having confirmed this with Richard stole um in the last little while but Towilla District they had they were a single school but

185Towilla has it appears is going to fall below the 20,000 student. So, and the reason for that would be they gave up an online program that increased >> their enrollment significantly. And I don't think we need to get into all of that, but what that does is it now creates another district that needs to find a place to be. and not having been um a party to those conversations. I think that and we received an email and I think Ashley you responded to to that that um you know we're doing some realigning and that sort of thing and so Salt Lake City and Tilla they would make a region. Okay. What the board or what I suggest the board does is consider how we feel about that. >> Um, are we okay with that? Because

186USBA has reached out to us and has said, please tell us how you feel as a board about that. That's my report. >> Thanks. Um, Ashley, before we move on to you, let's jump to Muhammad. >> Oh, okay. Muhammad, do you have a report for us this evening? >> Um, uh, no. Except for Congratulations, Dr. Grant. Uh, thank you for, um, your amazing work you've, uh, been doing. You know, our district is, uh, uh, you know, definitely has been experiencing some, you know, positive outlooks just from the community that I talk with or teachers or staff. And I just want to say thank you for uh everything you're doing and looking forward to working with you longer. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Ashley. >> Yes, I have one pleasantry, two concerns, and two committee on

187business updates. And the first is that I just missed Charlotte at the ninth uh central ninth youth coalition event, but I would reiterate that was really great to be there, especially to talk with the staff from Horizonte who were there promoting adults education registration, distributing free books, and joining all the community partners in Liberty Park. Um, I wanted to share with the rest of the board that there's been an ongoing concern in the avenues about the playground at Open Classroom. And I know the superintendent looped into this and the principal has responded, but for your awareness, the open classroom has locked their playground and there's some avenues residents who are distressed by not having access to this play area, especially because of where the other elementary schools are located. Um, the reason for locking the

188playground has been um vandalism and misuse by the community, specifically dog owners. I'm sorry. I know there are more dogs in the county than children and we have to respond to that reality but our schools are not dog parks and it does cause a lot of problems. So, I know that in the short term, Principal Pitts in working with our auxiliary services has chosen to lock the playground and communicated that via the Greater Avenues Community Council, but there have been a lot of community suggestions and concerns that NSIN and Wasatch have faced similar challenges, but do not have the option to lock their playgrounds. And so, I'd just like to say moving forward that I've heard the community concerns. I continue to pass them on. And I'm hopeful that despite these short-term specific measures, in

189the long term, this space could be more accessible to the public. And some of those suggestions provided seem really reasonable. Um, the second thing is I just wanted to say I'm really eager to see the fly through rendering of West that has been made available to some staff. Because it still hasn't been made available to the board members representing West, I'm not always able to answer community questions about where we are in the process. As we look forward to meeting more regularly with architects, I would like to say that I do want to ensure that board members representing the public have full access to these materials so that we can do our work effectively. Um, my two business updates are I'm part of the Salt Lake County Parks and Rec Advisory Board as my committee

190assignments for this board. Uh, I did have the opportunity in a discussion to raise requests. I've heard about aquatics teams in high schools and some of their needs at our rec centers and also wanted to promote their continued work with the my county rec Pass. If you are not aware, students or children the ages zero until their 19th birthday can get a my county recass and visit any rec center in the county at no cost through the age of 19. So I think that's a really incredible resource for our families. And I did want to add on to what Brian said, which is when I sent my request about USBA, I did hear from a majority of people who agreed that they like the current alignment that we are in and would have some concerns

191about the the, you know, future alignment. So I did forward that to Jennifer Partridge who does represent our region and she is aware of the feedback from a majority of our board. Thank you, >> Grace. >> Yeah, I have a couple. The two things I have are kind of dittos to what other board members have said. Um, in regards to the West High renderings, I'm getting a lot of concerns and hearing a lot of things that I cannot speak to as a representative of West. Um, and that's creating a lot of uh discord in our West High community. So, it'd be nice to be apprised of those in a more timely manner u moving forward. And then in regards to the um USBA alignment uh potentially with Tillaa, um Jennifer Partridge actually reached out several

192months ago um about this and I spoke with her then and expressed um my concerns as well. And in regards to um Ashley's email, I was one of the um folks that also expressed my concern around that. So So I think it's a good idea that we have a conversation and give a response here. >> Amanda, >> um I do want to state that it has been we district has been trying to have the meetings with us regarding West High School and highland high school. So I want to ensure that that is being stated that that effort is being made and they had to reschedu so they could figure out how to include everybody. So they are trying. Um, and the only thing that I wanted to say is just it was, you know, thank

193you Tiffany for pushing us to reach out to our community members for the strategic plan. It was really fun to um, engage with them and get all the different feedback that we got back. There were a lot of things that I was aware of that I support and there were things that I got educated about and um, broaden my understanding of some areas that I was I was grateful to have that process. Um, so thank you to the community that engaged in that. >> Thank you, Amanda. Um, I don't have a report this evening and we'll go ahead and call the meeting a journ. >> Charlotte, oh my gosh, >> actually, can I amend mine? I had one more thing to add. >> Um, following up on a while ago, there were some really grave

194concerns that came up about the the state of safety um near Bachman Elementary School. And I don't know if you've known that for at least I don't know month or two that the >> Jord Jordan River Trail right behind Bachmann has been closed off while they addressed safety issues there of you know drug activity and um crime. And so it was recently reopened on Friday. They and they they built a new section of trail to make it even better. They're building a big um playground there, too. A really big nice playground. and community members um specifically members of the Westside Coalition are working with um state policy or policy makers and government and parks department to make sure that that is safe going forward and that we are activating the trail in positive ways. So

195really positive activation of the trail and I I went there. It looks really nice. Go ride your bike there. >> Okay. >> If we're able to give additions, I did want to clarify for the um perspective of Amanda that I'm not talking about the meetings with the architect. I'm talking about a rendering that was circulated in May that was requested by myself on May 21st and Bryce on May 23rd. So it's a different matter. Just wanted you to understand I wasn't talking about the meetings. >> Thank you. >> And with that, I'll call the meeting ajourned. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. >> We're done before 9. >> That's good. >> I'll get you your certificate. >> I mean, I had my little clock on and I was like, "Oh, come on. Let's do it.

196We did it, guys.