SLCSD Board Meeting, April 16, 2024, 5:30 PM

001they look like a monster look like a monster I did second ago a monster all right ladies and gentlemen we're going to go ahead and get started um today is April 16th 2024 thank you for joining us for um this meeting of the Salt Lake City School District Board of Education we do have a need for a closed executive session of the board and I will entertain a motion to enter closed executive session I move that the board on April 16th 2024 go into closed executive session to discuss one the character professional competence or physical or mental health of an individual two pending or reasonably imminent litigation three collective bargaining and four the deployment of security Personnel devices or systems a second we have a motion and a second on the table is there any

002discussion seeing none we'll start with a roll call Vote with Vice brce Williams yes Jenny sea yes Ashley Anderson yes Nate Salazar yes moham yes Ryan chenson Yes Christy sweat yes that motion passes we'll go ahead and set up the room for Clos session thank you thank you I think so thank you she wants to make sure you are you know hydrated MH you want anyone to pass out like Cy all right ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us this evening as we uh convene the public portion of the Salt Lake City School District Board of Education meeting on April 16th um I'd like to express our gratitude on behalf of the board for your patience um as we did take a little extra time in close session and getting the room set up

003for for the public meeting this evening so thank you for that patience um I also want to make sure that I recognize um a number of our classified Association presidents um who are with us this evening for buildings and grounds we have Aaliyah compo for Child Nutrition we have President Tanya Slaughter for transportation we have President Chris krog um for our Salt Lake Education Association SLA we have President James tobler and vice president Mike Haron who are with us this evening and for Salt Lake Association of school administrators uh president Bri de Leon um is with us uh remotely as well um so thank you for joining us I will turn it over to vice president Williams who's going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

004United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all all right moving along and to item number three of our opening items um a couple of really exciting um recognitions this evening um the first is our student board member for the 2024 25 school year so we're really really excited to have Lily Tech ladine with us this evening and I'll just read a little brief uh introduction for you Lily and would' love to invite you up if you if you come sit at the table and and you can introduce yourself when I'm done reading this uh so Lily is a current Junior at West High School she has aspirations to enter the field of science specifically in medicine she currently serves on the

005usbe student advisory committee and on the Salt Lake City Public Library marmalade Branch League of Extraordinary teens gcpl no bias there uh Lily participates in robotics tennis and dance and she speaks rri and German Lily is interested in serving on the school board because she has a deep interest in leadership and wants to ensure the voices of her peers and their many identities are both heard and seen Lily thank you for joining us congratulations would you like to introduce yourself yeah um so thank you so much for having me today I'm so glad to be here um and yeah I think I'm most interested in being here um coming and immigrating from Ethiopia um it's been a really interesting experience trying to navigate different cultures here um so yeah I'm really excited to be an

006advocate for my peers excellent thank you so much Lily and congratulations [Applause] and we'll make sure to get you and jiah connected uh before your your term starts so that we can relate all of the important information that you need um as you join our board um and then the next recognition is the alternate student board member is vasy here VY ping I don't believe so but I'll go ahead and read um the little brief bio that I got as well so vasy is a current Junior at East high school she is a state level qualifier in policy debate and is passionate about Music Theater film mountain biking and student activism the main reason vasy wants to be involved as a student Schoolboard member is to affect change build community and advocate for her peers

007U so VY thank you and we know that you're listening and we look forward to you being an alternate for us let's give it up for VY and superintendent I just want to extend the board's gratitude for your team that helps us coordinate uh these appointments to our school board it really is a an important feature that we have and and you know the voices of our students are really really important so thank you for that um I think they'll need to follow in Josiah's footsteps and a long line of really brilliant high school students as well thank you for that um our third recognition is Battle of the books winning teams superintendent you want to introduce this I'm going to let our um director of teaching and learning Dr Tiffany Hall give us an

008introduction here to the Grand battle battle of the book thank you we we decided that um this room is not as fun to bring kids into as our old room is so we're looking forward to being able to um have our students come back but for this one I'm just going to show you some pictures and tell you a little bit about it but first I'd like to thank all of our district teacher Librarians um we have a teacher librarian in every one of our building and I'd like to thank the board for their commitment to making sure that we have a highly qualified individual that help all of our students meet the Utah core standards for media literacy teach them online safety work through research skills and also help them to find read and

009learn to discuss books that they love with people that they know or don't know and that is one of the the key things we would love our libraries to do I'd also like to thank the foundation the Salt Lake Education Foundation every year sponsors our buses our snacks and our trophies and this year spoiler um they really had to sponsor us because we had two ties for first so they had to buy us two more trophies so every first place school could take that trophy back um we really appreciate that so our elementary and I don't even have a clicker Sam I think you're 100% on tonight thank you um for the battle of the books they read 20 books all of our teams we had three brackets we've broken them into brackets 14 Schools

01073 participants um if you would flip it was a lot of fun um we'd like to thank Washington Elementary they hosted us this was a great picture um principal John Kelly always makes sure that the um sound is working and Liz gleon the librarian there puts everything together for us and so we had some very very excited kids and our winners were that dramatic pause um Beacon Heights in our Jazz bracket Mountain View in our Real Salt Lake bracket and Bonville and Indian Hills tied in our be's bracket so we'd like to congratulate those great readers for reading all of those books we [Applause] ALS also have a middle school battle um we just have one bracket for that but we had five schools participate we had um oh I'm so sorry it's not 73

011uh participants it's 27 participants on this one they also read 20 or 20 different books and um my next picture I've got some great we did this one at West High School I'd like to thank West for hosting us Cara budge the librarian there um we allowed some of the middle schools to bring two teams if they had two teams we had a great time with them and the winners for our Middle School are uh we had a tie our Hillside Middle School and our West 78 program tied for first place in our middle school program um and I would also like to thank all of our parents we had a lot of parents at both that were helping us just be ready and to do that and I would also like to um again

012remind everybody on the board that the challenge is out there for next year and the board member to beat is board member Anderson who read all of them so thank you all the elementary are all of the Middle School both really yes okay well I just want to say that Dr Hall didn't provide any things for herself and it's like a huge effort to an undertaking so I wanted to thank her um and I also wanted to say when she's talking about certified teacher Librarians I know we we talk about that achievement but I don't know if we really talk about how unique it is the only three districts in the entire State staff their libraries this way that's right and a lot of them are staff repair professionals or non certified staff and it

013means there's a lot of people who've sought additional certifications who aren't paid that way and it's really important what we're doing and I don't think that that could go unnoticed but mostly applaud for Dr Hall thank you and not just [Applause] because thank you board member Anderson and thank you Dr Hall for all the work that you do on behalf of students and families moving along to our consent agenda um I will entertain a motion for the consent agenda I move that uh we accept the consent agenda as uh listed all right we have a motion is there a second to the motion second any discussion to the [Applause] motion all right seeing none we'll start with a roll call Vote with board member sea Jenny seea yes Ashley Anderson yes Nate Salazar yes Mohamed

014yes Ryan Jensen yes CH SP yes Bryce Williams yes thank you board that motion carries and passes and board president if I may take a point of privilege as superintendent for a moment on that consent agenda was the HR report in that HR report um we had listed the approval and support and ratification of our new East High School principal for the coming school year I would like to introduce to you principal Ryan Oaks if he could come up princial Oaks if I can just have a minute um and then ask you to do a a short introduction here to the board and and to some of the people watching tonight um I graduated from East High School and it has been important since the beginning of the process that we get a principal into

015East High School um that will lead that school with the confidence and the vision that we want to see grow and build there and through this process I want to express my just complete confidence in you as um our principal for that school for the coming year and my excitement for what you bring in terms of your own energy and interest in serving East High and being there in that Community your understanding of the full dis of that Community um of East High School and the diversity there your recognition and experience with that as well as just your deep experience as a leader in in schools in uh as an assistant principal in a couple of secondary schools and as a principal in a couple of secondary schools and so we are excited and grateful

016to have you here and thank you for coming to introduce yourself a moment thank you thank you very much I forgot one important thing I'm not leaving he's done he didn't want it Dr Grant president Salazar other distinguished members of the Salt Lake City School District School Board my name is Ryan Oaks I brought with me my wife she's in the back she would not join me up front her name is Lisa maybe she'll wave that's a big wave we have two uh teenage daughters who both declined my invitation to come with me to this tonight shocker right y um but I just want to very quickly uh say thank you so much for already uh showing me trust and and trusting me to be the the next principal of East High School I look

017forward to the work of gaining the trust of the students the teachers the staff the parents the entire East High Community I truly believe that that work is going to be an absolute blast I can't wait [Laughter] let's [Applause] go thank you principal Oaks for your enthusiasm and for taking the charge and I know the superintendent didn't say which year she graduated from East but I'll go ahead and say that I'm an East High grad of 04 so really looking forward to working with you and all that you'll bring to to Salt Lake City schools and to East High really appreciate it three I was all three right I got a year excellent thank you uh principal Oaks looking forward to working with you and I I do have a just a a little short

018Personal Privilege um I forgot to to mention that um Miss Janelle Rodriguez is representing SLA this evening thank you Janelle sorry that I missed that earlier for joining us all right um moving on to our next agenda item um on is our request to speak we have five speakers that will be joining us this evening um let me make sure I I read what the board has asked me to read before these I know it's in here probably on the other side oh it's not in here there it is okay I got it excuse me for being a little disorganized okay so speaker guidelines for public comment to be read by the board president the board enjoys the opportunity to hear from the public during the comment portion of its meetings before we begin I

019would like to take a moment to remind you of our board rules governing your comments number one the total time reserved for public comment is not to exceed 15 minutes with all speakers or groups limited to 3 minutes two the board will not allow public comments during board meetings that are slanderous obscene or otherwise violate state or federal law three employees and or their representatives may not use the public comment period to address issues that should be raised through existing formal communication channels or established grievance or negotiations 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

020with the speaker on the topic discussed all right our first Speaker this evening is Karen Kemp Schultz careful started great okay um hello my name is Karen kmy Schultz I'm a third grade teacher at metal Arch Elementary I've been a teacher for 11 years I have a Masters in Education and an English as a second language indorsement I'm here today to ask you to change the teacher allocation formula elementary schools with a high population of English language Learners should be allotted more teachers in order to adequately meet the diverse needs of our students our community has seen a huge increase in the amount of English language Learners at metal Arch Elementary 65% of our student population are English language Learners of that 56% are newcomers this is one of the highest percentages in the district

021students are coming to us with very limited English proficiency many are not literate in their native language and have had limited schooling teaching newcomers the academic language they need to succeed as well as other curriculum standards is incredibly difficult and time consuming we need more support we need more teachers currently Salt Lake City School District uses an allocation formula that assigns one teacher per 24 students in kindergarten through third grade and one teacher per 28 students in fourth through sixth grade this formula distributes teachers equally but not equitably the formula allocation should be multivariable and it should take into account how impacted a school is variables such as the percentages of students on free and reduced lunch living in Section 8 housing Ells and newcomers should be used to determine class size reduction support a

022school that does not have a highly impacted population can manage higher class sizes more easily than those in high impacted schools the lack of support for size reduction as part of the reason teachers leave highly impacted schools I have 24 students in my third grade class 79% are English language learners 25% are newcomers a 1 to 24 ratio teacher to student ratio is feasible if all of your students are proficient or native English speakers but a 1 to 24 ratio when 79% of your class are English language Learners is not acceptable our school district's motto is excellence and Equity every student every classroom every day but the current teacher allocation formula is not Equitable we need need more teachers for smaller class sizes to meet the Intensive and diverse needs of our students we need

023interventionists we need newcomer classes we need people to help with Acadian progress monitoring and weeda testing we need help our students deserve more than we have the capacity to give I urge you to revise the current teacher allocation formula so that schools are adequately staffed for the needs of their Community thank you for your time [Applause] thank you Karen for illustrating your your day-to-day and for all that you do for our students in Salt Lake District our next speaker is Courtney Lee that's me and be careful with that chair we had a rollway ball only a teacher would know a rollway ball means somebody in your classroom brought something they shouldn't have well uh I'll be honest now in your pocket my ADHD brain was ready to go pick that up start playing with it

024hi I'm Courtney Lee I teach at Bonville Elementary um I am also a parent of Sol City School District children I have two at Bonville um and I'm here on behalf of our SEC and um going to read kind of a letter that we wrote um in our sic about the start and end time changes in elementary schools um we feel as as though our school um because it's not a busing school and it's a walking school that we shouldn't have a change made to our school um because it's currently working very well for our school uh we'd like to maintain our 840 start time and not have a change be made to that we differ from a lot of elementary schools in the way that we don't have any buses we hire our walking

025School District or walking school um we have uh most of our students are within a few blocks of our school which is a really Ben a big benefit we live our school is located a half a mile from from Uinta and a lot less than that to Clayton who are currently at the 7:55 8 a.m. start time if we add ours into that mix we will add more traffic and more um kids walking in the dark in most of the school year in the dark to school that is a big concern for us at Bonville because we had a student pass away last year being hit by a car when a Fred Wolf Graham and we don't want to put more students at risk at Bonville um we are hoping that um you will take

026into consideration that we are a high Academic School we already have um really high test scores and I know you guys are looking at different um instructional setups for the school dis for next year um and we would love to have our school continue to do what we're doing and doing it well um we are concerned about tardies we already have a lot of kids coming late at 8:40 and so we worry about the 8: a.m. start time being having more kids be late um many families have chosen Bonville because of our later start time we have kids that come from closer schools that do have the 7:55 start time um because we have a later start time we have a lot of parents that choose it because of child care um having a 2:30

027end time adds more time to child care after school um so after speaking to our stakeholders our families our SEC and our sic we are opposed to shifting our start time at Bonville and we would like to keep the start times that we currently have that are working really well for us um when you're asking the question of like what is best for children um I think having a lighter Sun out so they can walk to school less cars on the road to a walking school is going to be what's best for students and I hope that you guys take that into consideration for Bonville thank you thank you thank you [Applause] Court our third speaker this evening is you okay over there Alan our third speaker this evening is Jenny makosi I have a

028letter before I start that's from from baville parents that um because they can not come and talk with thank you Jenny we'll make sure that it's attached to our minutes Jenny um we are here to ask you as the board to get more gather more data before you make a decision about the Washington program later tonight we want to Advocate that you this decision about this program is made holistically with knowledge about all magnet sites before moving forward please ask the district to provide current enrollment and projected enrollment for each grade at all five magnet sites from what we know these numbers are disparate which was predicted prior to the establishment of the area model for example tonight you will hear that Washington has 11 fourth graders for next year at the same time Indian

029Hills is reported to have 34 and one teacher please ask them to give you the total and present participation of identified students for each neighborhood school if there is low participation at a particular school it might mean that the school excels at meeting the needs of identified students and perhaps its approach should be replicated across the district not all identified students are best served by the magnet model ask the district to provide the percent participation of students based on their assigned magnet site this data in combination with the data above may help determine if the public has different perceptions of the quality of your school sites perceived differences in quality will contribute to whether parents opt to enroll at a site or try to transfer potentially perpetuating population imbalances finally the district needs to address

030the following issues First Multiple magnet classrooms are reported to be above 30 students Ting Hills where other sites like Washington have almost half that number per grade classroom sizes should not be vastly different because of site location even if the district thinks this is just a transition problem this upcoming year will be hard and the district needs to set to set up students and teachers for success with this split area model that is being now we've moved to how will the district continue to keep families together if they have more than one magnet student especially if the fourth through sixth graders class rooms are close to being over enrolled at a site third do these site assignments make sense from a logistical standpoint for example many bonaval families live less than 2 miles from Indian

031Hills and Washington's location is a barrier is finally is this model the best use of Economic and teaching resources you need more data to ensure that this new area model with Washington included treats students and teachers fairly this data will also help you decide if keeping Washington open makes economic and logistical sense whatever the decision about Washington is that you make you also need to better address what is happening with programming transitions at Indian Hills at other schools in this upcoming school [Applause] year all right our fourth speaker this evening is Amanda Longwell all right you all know me I don't need to introduce myself I had elements and then as public comment came about there's more elements um one battle of the books wonderful St comments made about that I did not hear one

032thing about um what was done to uh modify that for academic support and essential element students so that could be accessible for those students um so hopefully you can take that into consideration and do better next year um in the consent agenda you had purchasing accounting reports that basically got passed unanimously what's not clearly outlined now but has been outlined in the past that as long as there's a state contract I believe um there's not really competitive bidding for services um so it's kind of a take it at it face value instead of actually being financially fiscally responsible for vendor Services um that needs to be done better um we got a lot of notes Here So Courtney bonnaville start time end time I appreciate what was stated there um there was a lot of

033effort there to make sure that that was uniformly laid out so that when a student with a disability landed at a particular School the busing um structures could ensure that the students with disabilities could make it to those schools on time so it's not just about start and end time light and dark Etc it's also about equitability for individuals with disabilities that at some point may or may not land at different buildings there's a lot of effort there so if that's going to be a discussion please reach out um Washington I would just say um it's talked about magnet program Jenny brought up a lot of great um points regarding it but really um what was brought up in the agenda was vague I didn't really identify what that magnet um program was all about

034um so she dived into things that was not very clear new contract positions um you guys are going to get to that that's over $700,000 in new contract positions that are going to be um proposed tonight not one of them is directly relevant to special education um HR hopefully that will actually indirectly help that problem um but what about our Paras what about you know we did make an effort for 20 full-time pairs with Benefits uh we have over 40 buildings we have um like in one particular building for uh programs that need special education Paris um but they're only allocated one full-time pair with a with benefits so that turnover for the other nine plus goes without saying um the other element in relation to your looking at this 700,000 sorry I'll finish up

035for these new positions you're also um allocating funds towards outside um legal services that are against inclusion and that doesn't even account for our internal um compensation for our uh legal department for their salaries and we also contract out for Legal Services to exclude students with disabilities from an inclusive environment so um it's time do better thank you Amanda for joining us [Applause] our final speaker this evening is Amy felberg good evening I hope you've all had a nice day today and I appreciate the time I have to talk with you I'm speaking to you tonight due to my ongoing concerns about smoking and vaping that takes place in the bathrooms at West High School I've spoken with assistant principal Cully and principal Wright over the school year and while they have been responsive the

036problem continues any exposure to secondhand smoke is dangerous for your health in an article from the analys of Family Medicine researchers state that secondhand smoke exposure causes multiple diseases in children including asthma and pneumonia and results in thousands of avoidable hospitalizations the the American Academy of Pediatrics has conducted research on the effects of thirdhand smoke and found that it is also harmful third hand smoke is the smoke Left Behind the harmful toxins that remain in places where people have smoked previously no safe level of exposure exists I doubt that any of you are subject to inhaling smoke while you use the toilet or have to leave the building in which you work in order to find a smoke-free bathroom and yet our students are subjected to this every day it is not clear to me

037how we can be spending millions of dollars on weapons detectors and yet not be able to provide a safe space for children to use the restroom as some of you may know I work as a clinical psychologist one of the skills that I teach my patients is radical acceptance this comes from dialectical behavior therapy and it's a skill that teaches us that acceptance decreases suffering in practicing radical acceptance we learn that when we stop fighting reality we can use our resources to move forward as such I'm asking that you create a smoking area for students outside of the building while I do not condone support and would certainly never encourage anyone to smoke it is clear that the principles faculty staff and security guards of West High School are not able to manage supervision of

038the bathrooms as such we should accept this reality and provide students who wish to vapor smoke with a location to do so that does not infringe on the rights of those students who do not wish to smoke or be exposed to secondhand smoke I am confident that The Talented faculty of West high will be able to accurately communicate to students that the school does not support smoking in any way while also making clear that the health of students is to be protected and that smoking must be removed from the building with this presentation I'm also letting you know that there has been a case in which a teacher developed cancer and successfully litigated against the school system due to their exposure to secondhand smoke it is irresponsible of this board not to protect itself from

039litigation that could be brought forth due to the harm that is caused by the secondhand smoke exposure our students are experiencing every day thank you so much for your time I hope you have a nice evening thank [Music] you thank you Amy and to all of our speakers this evening um really appreciate you taking the time out of your your days to to join us and share your thoughts and and concerns in various roles and capacities as parents and as as staff members and Educators here in our district moving on to our next agenda item is our report section um the first item is capital projects fund budget um I'm going to assume this is BU business administrator kir ley's domain tonight good assumption thank you okay so today's it's the next uh next building

040block of our budget process and we're going to review the capital uh projects budget just as a noted on the slide the purpose for this fund so the capital projects fund is to account for the resources and expenditures related to the building Remodeling and renovation of District buildings just some highlights of uh the budget we are proposing for next year um so this district office rebuild uh is scheduled to be completed in Fall of 2024 uh the rosin Heights athletic fields are scheduled to be completed May of 25 um in addition we will um complete phase one of the sustainability plan uh that's anticipated those will actually complete this year uh and phase two you know we've had a little bit of discussion of phase two of the sustainability plan because we don't have the

041details of all those yet those are not included in the budget um we do do a revised budget process throughout the year and as we get uh that data um the budget will be revised for those um those activities um several years ago we uh we issued a lease Revenue bond for some building projects um we we actually have two least revenue bonds one for 5 million and one for $6 million the $5 million one is scheduled to uh be paid off uh this year and um the projections so in in the budget sheets we have projections going out several years um so the projections for 25 26 anticipate a recapture of $1.6 million in tax levy uh from expiring debt so we have some debt that's maturing um that year and the the projections

042we have indicate will recapture that now depending on a potential bond election in November and the outcome of that um those what we do with that Levy could um could change now I want you to be able to I'll read these numbers um so what you have here is um the budget uh for the capital projects I'll turn to my page so I can actually read them um so this Sheet's online so we have uh actual you know three years of actual current year revised and uh the budget for next year um just as a reminder so several months ago we uh also brought forth some capital projects a list of capital projects that are planned for next year those projects are created and developed by um Isaac AEL and his team going through um

043with the principles and do doing building walkthroughs to determine um with the principal what items need to be addressed from the capital needs we also have you know we have lifespan of of systems we know how long a roof's supposed to last we know how long HVAC as systems supposed to last so we have that on our continual list so we're keeping up on those things um so we don't uh fall behind on a lot of um uh unrealized maintenance so the budget the revised budget for current year I anticip iate some expenditures of $74 million uh there's also a transfer in there um the transfer is relatively new but just to remind you what that is as the sustainability projects uh have have been built um are Savings in in Energy savings is in

044the general fund yet the projects and and the the debt are in the capital fund so we do a transfer from the general fund to the capital fund of those savings to pay off the um the loan that we got for the the sustainability projects um next year you can see those expenditures drop down to 32 million um that's largely due to the district office is mostly mostly built in the end of those um phase one of the sustainability projects um and the next slide shows the projections um beyond the district office we don't have any significant uh new building projects that are currently approved um we have discussed and will continue discuss bonding for rebuild of um potentially rebuild of Weston Highland High Schools um because those plans are not yet approved or finalized

045they're not included in the budget and as as those do happen um then we'll revise the budget so here's a historical chart of the capital fund um unlike the general fund and some of the other funds that might have a a smoother um line when you look at their historical data because our our big Capital expenditures are when we build a new school or build a new building so we we accumulate funds so that that Gray Line is what's called our fund balance so we accumulate money and then we do a big project you can see the um the orange line is the expenditure line so you can see as we've done these sustainability projects in the district office those expenditures go up and our fund balance goes down because we had the reserves and

046cash to pay for that um and then once that's done the expenses come back down to you know more of our standard year-to-year items uh like uh fixing roofs fixing HVAC systems uh doing um cement and parking lot repairs Etc and so you see it kind of stabilized but then you watch that Gray Line and it starts to grow again to start to replenish that fund balance so as there's um projects in the future that are a bigger scope uh we're getting some revenues to help pay for those going into the future um the next slide's a pie chart um for the 2425 um capital projects fund you see the big orange part are 62 60.2% uh is titled contracted Services that's you know Contracting out to build stuff to to to do the major

047projects for us uh and those other items 14% supplies and materials uh other purchase Services a very small percentage uh equipment 4.3 principal retirement interest so remember we talked about that $5 million and there's a $6 million plus we also have the um the the telp tax exempt lease purchase loan which is how we Finance phase one of sustainability so those are all in the capital fund and that's that green green section of the pie chart and then salaries and benefits we do have uh employees that are paid directly out of the capital fund whose job is it it is to maintain our our buildings and so forth um so next steps on our budget so soon I'll be uh asking the board if they'd like to come in with small group meetings and go

048um through some detail on May 7th we'll cover the executive summary on May 21st in the study session will be the final budget review um where we'll you know go over more details because we've kind of done little chunks we'll have it all in one one document be able to answer any questions and then on June 4th it's anticipated that uh you know following a public hearing on the budget that the board will vote uh on approving both the revised current year budget and the proposed next year budget um with the approval of next year's tax rate which as we discussed last board meeting is going to be the certified tax rate that is my presentation on the capital budget fund any questions member Anderson I don't understand what's going on okay um my question

049is simply that as we get into the conversation where you mention things would change if there was a potential Bond that's something I continue to get a lot of questions about like what would the purposes of the bond b as you mentioned potentially the high schools what's the best way for the public to continue to stay engaged with the potential Bond conversation right so we've contracted with the company Y2 analytics to help us uh gauge public um opinions on on a bond um because any bond would have to go beyond the November ballot and uh pass an election um they recently held some focus groups um we received a draft report of their focus group um information yesterday I believe we haven't had a chance to go through that and at some point we'll when

050that's finalized we'll bring that to the board to try and you know that's kind of our first step of what is what's The public's opinion of uh of a bond um and following that step one then Y2 analytics will continue to do um public Outreach and kind of pollings information to train um really gauge the the willingness of the public to support a a bond on the November ballot thank you any other questions for BA kirley thank you thank you so much for your presentation um next on our report's agenda is our school closure and Boundary adjustment transition activities update superintendent I just wanted to get again give a short update of some of the latest happenings as we are planning to close some schools at the end of this year and then transition staff

051students and families to new schools um our team looks at this every week to see where we are in the process I know that um Isaac AEL and his team are reviewing with principles to make sure that um the schools that will be starting up next fall have the room needed and the spaces needed for instruction and make sure those are all in good shape um Logan Hall and his team with Human Resource Services has placed all of our administrators and all of our teachers in new positions as well as those who are contract employees we still need to place the um our hourly employees so that's the next step is to make sure that they have uh places in the coming year but this again is fulfilling our promise that we we would keep

052all employees even with the closure of schools so are working through that process the other process we're doing is in collaboration with the city um Jennifer Newell is here as our representative and liaison with the mayor's office and the city council um we're looking at safe walking routes of course every year schools are asked to Define safe walking routes this year that changes a little bit because School boundaries have changed for 14 sites um and so they are doing that but also setting up new routes than are typically given each year we're talking with the city a couple of City departments um one is the transportation department that will help us with this information when we get the safe walking routes they help do the striping on the roads and make sure cross crossing guards

053are in place in the new places that they need to be for the coming school year we're also talking with the planning department they are putting together their capital budget for the coming year um some of the walking routes may or may not we're making those determinations now need more substantial infrastructure to um so that they're safe for students and so uh I appreciate that the mayor and her team are open to these conversations and working with us in making sure that the roots are safe for kids um and then we're having a lot of conversations of course about busing and setting up new roots for the new school year and we will have those out to parents I Believe by before the end of the school year um when the school year ends just

054wanted to say one more thing and that is a shout out um particularly to our principles but also to the teachers in these schools um for their management of this process and their attention to people and the struggles in this process and trying to make it as smooth and welcoming um and engaging as possible it's not always easy to combine School cultures and school programs um so I just want to give a shout out to the teams for working hard on that and um trying to make this transition as successful as we can for everyone thank you superintendent any questions from the board to the superintendent board member jenton when you were talking about the safe walking routes and working with Jennifer new thank you Jennifer um you made a reference to crossing guards are

055we talking about actual people or are we talking about devices because I was mentioning people there the city is the group that manages you know this that manages the crossing guards and so they just want to make sure that they know the new spots and all where those are needed I think that's really valuable because I know it's challenging to find a sufficient number of crossing guards um so yeah I'm glad that's part of the conversation thanks board member sweat maybe just to PE back on to what um Brian's talking about with our crossing guards so no matter what in the spring Jennifer already probably knows what I'm going to say is that there is missing Flags those little orange flags and what is the best way for our schools and our students to report

056how to get more of those flags because they just end up missing and so across some of those areas what would be the best way do you know of who we need to contact Jennifer or how that's handled maybe that could be something sent back through the schools because it's always brought up in school Community Council meetings when the kids when don't have Flags you know to be able to cross in those busy in those buckets and so it's just another part of that safe walking route in a partnership you know with the city but we don't know who do we need to call and who do we need to make sure we've got enough orange Flags in our buckets thank you Jennifer and Jennifer if I made just in my experience working for the

057city a number of years ago um SLC mobile app is always a really good tool for parents to utilize um and then contact acting one of the mayor's um Liaisons for city council districts so each um city council district has a a liaison in the mayor's office that also works um hand in hand with the city council U members and their their representativ that's still if that's still the process then that would be great if we could send that out to the schools and through our school maybe that might be something in your school Community Council report that you could give to those chair superintendent about who they contact you know for the flags and Jen I have no idea what to tell perfect thank you and thank you Chrissy for that where B um

058yeah so I love those flags because you know a lot of times it is only half of a flag left while you walk you know um and so uh better yet I have noticed that the city has been putting uh those uh push button flashing uh signs I know huh what are theyes there you go that one yes um and so those actually I know they're expensive they're about 25 to 30 grand per uh but those have been proven to be a lot more you know have been proven to be safer uh than just Flags literally speaking because we noticed like on 1300 sorry on 1700 South and 1,000 East where sadly to say last year we had a fatality of a mother with her kid and she was pregnant and so you know but

059that traffic you know mechanism has been helping lot also I've noticed it like around Emerson and 1100 and that's been like an amazing cross you know adjustment it is so fantastic because you can see families and kids now crossing without being afraid so and uh Jennifer would love to have more of those around our schools thank you and they will require they'll require kind of a study where they'll come out and do a traffic study yeah I got one onest yeah cuz my dream is like eventually like around every school around each school you know the quad and section of the school will have some of those safe lights uh before we have you know some kids die and then we will get on that thank you thank you Mohamed any other questions for the

060superintendent regarding transition activities thank you superintendent and please keep us posted on any new updates and in next uh upcoming board meetings great all right the next um item under our report section of the agenda is our cell phone use survey summary um as you know board this is a revisit to an agenda item that board member Jensen brought to the board um and and board M these are results from from your efforts and making sure that our board and our community understood uh what we have going on do you want to introduces Police Superintendent we have um our general counsel Christina kindall and our director of teaching and learning Dr Tiffany Hall who have gone through these and um thankfully helped us figure out how to conduct the survey and and are presenting the

061results here so that you have some background information can I ask a question before we start I just want to clarify the difference between the report section and the discussion section is the expectation that we're hearing this report and then thinking about it and discussing it at a future meeting or is the expectation that we're going to fully discuss the report I'm just not I want to modulate myself appropriately my understanding of of the reports is that we do have the time allotted for discussion from the board and questions from the board to either the superintendent or the folks presenting um and we also have the opportunity to give direction to ourselves and to the superintendent to board leadership to move this to a further discussion um or action agenda at a at a subsequent

062meeting there's no particular question on the table that we've teed up with this it's more just here are the results and then at your direction do that next step okay thank you that's a great question and so as we begin I would just like to um wow I make music uh to to go over um as the superintendent said we were asked to provide some additional information around the idea of cell phone use in the district it happened to come right at a great time because we were able to put some questions about cell phone use into our stakeholder surveys for parents students and teachers and so our purpose today is to bring that information back to you and as the superintendent said um provide uh any background that you may need and hear direction

063for moving forward and just by way of reminder um in terms of some information we presented when we were here before in January um usbe does provide model policies regarding cell phone use they have two different types one is a permissive and one is a restrictive policy our um administrative procedures are mirrored off of USB's permissive model policy um which allows um schools to adopt their own rules um in terms of how cell phones can be used in their schools through a shared governance process um so on the screen you have the board policy S11 which talks about student electronic devices in schools by way of reminder the administrative procedures associated with this board policy outline when electronic devices May and may not be used um during school and school sponsored events um they also

064outline the common exception ions um which would allow students to use cell phones those typically are um for medical reasons for um parent request teacher permission or emergency situations they also have a section in terms of innovative and creative uses for cell phones um in schools and our administrative procedures also outline um consequences for violating our cell phone policies within the schools just a few words about the survey itself we were asked to include these questions and so we did the survey was open from about mid-February through the end of March and we have um what you see before you is the response from over 4,000 parents 5,000 students and 500 teachers we have grouped those responses by elementary middle and high school so that you can get a sense of the scope of that

065across the board Dr Hall is that true for parents who are representing like Elementary age students thank you that is such an excellent question um we did in fact send this out in the typical way that we survey all of our parents students and teachers so every parent was connected to an email so it was not an open email process so the answer to that is yes um and they are confident they are confidential but not Anonymous surveys which we always do in the event that somebody were to put something in there that we would need to follow up on um you know you know our process for that thank you um in terms of the first question that we asked stakeholders are you familiar with your cell phone policy at your school you can

066see the um Center selection which is for middle schools I don't know if you can see that it's it goes elementary schools middle schools and high schools um 100% of our Middle School teachers said they were familiar with the cell phone policies in that school um and again like an exceedingly high percentage of our students and parents in middle school and really across the board um we're doing well over 50% over the majority of all our stakeholders are very familiar with our policies at all levels we asked how often teachers allowed students to use their cell phones for instructional reasons and following uh what will be a trend throughout this you'll see that very few elementary and middle school students are using their phones for instruction reasons um Miss Kindle has outlined some of the

067reasons that that would be under the acceptable use and then we can see that in our high schools there is a larger percentage where we have about 57% of our students who say they use their phones for instructional uses um one to three times a day not too many students report much more than that with 9% four to six times as you read through the comments you see that there are a lot of students who do talk about some of the instructional things although we do provide onetoone devices in the district a lot of students prefer to use their phones for certain types of work and so um you know when that is is happening then that is sorry one of the things that they indicate in the comments that they like to use we

068also ask again how often do they get to use um their phone for personal reasons and again very low in the elementary um still very low in the Middle School little higher in the high schools and on our comment reflect that sometimes that is for after they finish work or to listen to music or some different things um but we'll also see that they use that for some other communication methods as well so this was a question that we asked parents which was on average how often do you communicate with your student during school on their cell phone and again you'll see that for Elementary in Middle um we have a significant number of parents who are either um indicating that their child does not have a cell phone or that they never contact them

069um during the school day on their cell phone um again as Dr Hall indicated the the numbers transition slightly when we get into high school where we have um 50% or more parents contacting their student at at least one time a day um while they're in high school and you know the vast majority are saying one to three times a day and then there's some smaller percentages for increasing numbers uh the student question again was how often you use your cell phone during class so again we're not asking during lunch or break where our administrative procedures would allow them to be using the their cell phone um again middle and elementary you're seeing that you know they don't have a cell phone or that they're never using it while they're in class um in Middle

070School you do see a a greater percentage a little over a quarter using it um sometimes while they're in class but again in high school that transitions to a significant portion using it um sometimes while they're in class um again student question what are the reasons why you use your cell phone um for all three categories um except for high schoolers because apparently they don't like talking to their parents um in middle and elementary school um they um they're taking calls from their parents um and high school you're seeing that um if you combine the two sections for looking up information in classroom work or assignments you're getting close to uh 50% are utilizing it for um for instructional purposes um for their own um on their own motion um and we do have a

071lot of students who who listen to music you know with one um airpod just um as sort of a filtering studying techniques so in terms of medical exceptions we have a great number of those who use it for that purpose we also included the open response questions which made me glad that we are no longer printing the board packet um I think there were 74 pages of responses um we asked them what concerns do you have about the cell phone policy and we had uh 2300 more than 2300 unique responses and so we grouped those by parent student and um teacher but We examined them or analyzed them for overall themes from all of the groups together and those seven themes were on the cover of the um open response section parents were concerned with

072or or excuse me all of our respondents were concerned with um inconsistency and enforcement making sure that we understand that um what's happening in one class is happening in another or school to school using them for an educational use versus a distraction many comments talked about the educational ways that they they were choosing to use them um and there were a lot of comments about distractions in the classroom um the importance of Parental involvement involvement and communication was noted that when um the expectation was set that a student doesn't use their phone during school that tended to to um enforce that behavior with students um there were also however a lot of safety concerns and we had many parents and and students saying I need to be able to contact my child or if there's

073an emergency I want to know that they have their phone and they can get back to that um our teachers were worried about that ability to enforce those especially um it felt like at the high school levels but then also making sure that we still had access and support in that digital citizenship piece making sure that students know and understand um maybe the risks of uh extensive cell phone use and also some of the the things that we know happen around social media and some of the concerns that we have around those things so that was a lot of very fun reading for you um just a few highlights that I think I saw as I read through that were you know as I said the parents really demonstrated concerns about having um phones in

074class but many also really indicated that they wanted to be able to contact their students so there's that balance of um you know how do we make that happen across the board students this will not be a surprise but they they tended to want more access to their phones um and they had a variety of reasons that they wanted that access and some of it was educational and some of it was distraction but they truly feel and in sometimes I think um one time I was at a conference and the speaker said I want you to take your cell phone and hand it to the person next to you and this was a room full of adults and I'm going to tell you we were nervous like you were nervous until you got that phone

075back in your hand I don't know why um so I I think that that's um a thing to think about how um present phones are in people's lives nowadays and then of course our teachers really feel like that consistency across the campus is key in making sure that um policies are enforcable and they they wanted to be able to do whatever that was but they wanted it to be consistent across the board so those are some of the highlights that we saw uh as we looked at this data what questions do you have Jensen I I know this is a topic really near and dear to you and you hear a lot from constituents in your your Precinct about this too do you mind starting us off in questions no I'm happy to um well

076first of all I guess I just wanted to respond quickly um to the usbe that you were saying we use the permissive um policy guideline um what I'm also thinking that we need to consider is if there is going to be something um brought to them in light of Governor Cox's um request with cell phone usage in schools so I mean I am getting a lot of that from constituents too that well our governor has raised this um question so my first question would be 68 pages uh like you said uh fun reading material it would be helpful because I was really trying to read through it but to keep tally marks on 4,000 responses is difficult is there any way that we could categorize those because as I was looking through it seemed to

077me like there were many parents that were saying I don't want them in the classroom and I mean I'm giving a brief you know theyd give a little bit longer explanation then there would be those that you know I I'd like to contact my student but then many of them were saying well it's in their locker during the class period and then they can get it you know between I saw a lot of things like that I guess for me this information in the survey is enlightening but it's not informative in the sense that I don't know how to process all of that uh I'd like to be able to see how many parents really don't think they should be in the classroom and and how many teachers because it seemed like there were a

078number of teachers that were saying that they didn't want it in the classroom um and I've got to hurry because I've only got you know minute left here um of course the students are going to want more access to this but in that one graph you showed 76% of them are using their cell phone I'm now talking High School um sometime during class um in our previous conversations my understanding has been well what we are doing is we're using devices that are provided by the school for our educational opportunity in order to ensure Equity so some of them are using it for educational purposes but it seems to me like they're being used to a significant ific extent for personal reasons which to me um reinforces this concern that we need to figure out how

079to address this in the classroom the disparity between those that don't have cell phones in order to have good educational access and those that are also saying I'm really being distracted because people are on their cell phones thank you board member Jensen and I have more but I Ed by two board M so thank you I think that this has been this was very enlightening for me and I thought that the way that that the survey was put together also provided information you know that I I didn't know had some guest but I to what Brian's talking about if I'm looking at um the teacher questions that's really telling to me you know I I think that we can see that in the elementary and middle there's not that much use but at the high

080school the teachers are I mean the question was on average how often do you allow students to use their cell phones in the classroom for instructional reasons so not it wouldn't be personal reasons it would be instructional and I was really quite surprised by the percentage 57% % you know so to me we've got to find a balance you know of of of how cell phones are used you know at the high school level you know to a point where they're not distracting but yet obviously um they are being used in the classroom I think what would be interesting to me is to see you know if we could ever break that down by core you know or by class to see you know where that usage is really high you know or maybe it's

081just minimal you know to to see where that is you know in the different um in the different classrooms that would be interesting to me I don't know if that would even be possible to do Dr Hall you know or not but um I I actually found this to be very interesting and I think that as we all know this is a Hot Topic around the country and everyone's trying to figure out you know what their policies should look like and if they should change them and so I just hope that we're really thoughtful as we go forward and that we do really look at the information that you've gathered for us so that we can have you know a good solid conversation about where we want to go with this and you know how

082we want to make adjustments if needed but also make sure that we're inviting the people which I think that you had really great response you know to this this is probably one of our higher response surveys that I've ever that I've ever seen you know before so I was like right on look at all the how many people responded and even with the students you know I was they did it on their cell phone yeah well well they did on their cell pH see yeah right you probably did it on your cell phone right which is fantastic but I Lov that there were that many people that responded you know so anyway I just wanted to say that I found it very helpful and I hope it will be a tool as we go forward

083deciding if we're going to make any changes thank you board member sweat um I have a question um and it's Unique because it's it's I'm stuck on this permissive versus restrictive USB policy um that we have here in Salt Lake which is the permissive element which ultimately leaves it up to schools um right the restrictive one doesn't allow um students to have it on property so that was the more that's their restrictive policy that you can't even have it and so ours is a permissive policy that you can have it on um school property and at school events in accordance with teacher directives or school rules um so we don't completely prohibit them which is what the restrictive policy is um and right now those are both still in effect as models usbe policies um

084and um I spoke with someone at usbe as to whether or not they were looking at them um obviously with the legislative session and so many new bills they have a few other priorities at present um but it is something that they may look at considering and I um I keep a I keep a Tickler to always be looking at updated administrative rules and their model policies they don't have that many model policies so that will be something I'm checking and if they change their policy or administrative rule um I would certainly bring that back to the policy sub committee yeah and I think what where I'm stuck is that the permissive element of the USB policy that we're we're utilizing makes it really hard to create consistency from school to school um knowing that

085this is dependent on a principle or an ideally you know an sic and SEC um component of feedback and decision-making um how do we overcome some of these unique challenges as we move forward you know because it's one thing to say we have a a district-wide policy but the permissive element lends it to this decision being made at the school level site level right and I think I mean I think our only option would be to put more guard rails on on what our permissive policy looks like I mean from the standpoint of um you know it's very similar to I'll just make an analogy to our dress code right that we allow sec's and and sic's to have input on the dress code but we certainly have more parameters um in terms of what

086that can look like that it can't be discriminatory that it needs to be um applied uniformly and consistently um across and it needs to be gender neutral so we have a lot of things so it's not as if and again they're model policies it's not that we couldn't do something different or come up with a hybrid model um it just hasn't been anything that um I've been given direction to do but if the board felt strongly as a whole in terms of um what additional parameters we put the board would like to put into that policy or administrative procedure then um we could ensure that that gets in and that's consistently applied across all levels of our schools thank you board Anderson you had a point of clarification yeah I was just going to no

087not clarification just to add to what you're saying the reason one of the reasons it would vary among schools is our buildings all have really different capacities for technology like if you're in the basement wing of some of our high schools and you can't get Wi-Fi that is one of the things that moves that green column to the right because you have to get on your phone to use the math curriculum if your laptop can't connect because you can use your data so we're asking students to do instructional tasks and I think this makes it not an issue of policy I perhaps this is an unpopular opinion with sub parents I don't think this is an issue you can policy your way out of it's an issue of society and behavior and I think it's

088startling that the majority of the permission given by teachers is for for classwork yeah and if you have to have this to do your classwork I think it's unreasonable to say our technology framework will stay the same and we're going to restrict your cell phone use if we want to change the behaviors people have in the classroom we need to change our approach to our technological framework and provide different tools to classrooms and provide more access to the things you need to use those tools such as Wireless in all areas of our buildings and plugs like these are things we've talked aled about right like that that not all of our school buildings are set up for 21st Century Learning so I just think using this data we could make any policy we could make

089the world's most restrictive policy and kids are going to be using their phones and what's most startling is not that they're going to be using them for the reason that we think teenagers are using their phones that we're all talking about to scroll on reals or what reals is probably for people my age TI to I'm scrolling on reals um but regard if we don't change the technology to guide them toward the educational purposes that's the biggest category they're using them for and that's the category that we're responsible for controlling I'm not responsible for controlling what apps children are allowed to have on their devices sanctioned by their families I am responsible for the Educational Tools they have and so I think the broader question is is this a policy question or is this what

090is our vision for technology as a district question because if we in fact want to change the use of phones we need to have a more Visionary approach to technology the social work Comm says yes and both and I would just like to say that um you know we do have every student has access to a a district issue laptop and um I I think the important thing that you said there is that we do have and we know that there are some places um in particularly our high schools particularly eastn or excuse me western highland where that's a difficult thing um I know that there are coverage maps everywhere where um the IT team has work to make sure that every classroom does have coverage and when students choose to use the phone you

091know as I read this I thought now why would I choose to use a phone instead of type and I realized I was you know voiced to texting a lot more than I ever have right and so maybe if I'm writing a paper I'm choosing to voice to text instead of to type it or but but I want to emphasize that that's a choice at that point that this the teacher isn't saying you know you must use your phone the teacher is saying you may now complete this work and and a student could be choosing to use that phone but but we are very much and and I know that at some point if Mr quantz wanted to um you know was was giving this presentation he would say that that is something that they

092walk around and monitor on a regular basis to make sure that that access and that wireless works it is really hard in a cinder block basement there's just there's no way around that yeah so thank you where bade um thank you uh for that presentation it's actually really good to see um I was expecting it to go the other direction where like everyone the parents and teachers would say uh no we do not want the phones in classrooms uh but it turned out to be you know a bit more balanced because I'm just thinking of u u Val Texas during the shooting and there was a student who was calling and updating of what's going on now my question is God forbid you know uh that's something where the fun can come you know to

093be useful uh in terms of also instructional use um you know I had so many student actually that uh talk to me and they're like they do not want to bring the laptop anymore because of weapon detectors and its sensitivity and to them it's best to have a phone than having to deal with that anxiety and long line of waiting to get into school because of the weapon detectors so there are so many things and then also we talk about the the you know the blind spots uh or spots that are not like we we do not receive you know uh Services uh you know cell phones or techn me just look at us here every one of us has a computer and a phone next to us you know it is a reality of

094life that we are dealing with right now you know uh we could try to prevent cell phones and so but the kids will continue to find ways to get you know technologically connect there are watches now that work as cell phones and and you name it so um and and personally you know this is me as a uh father of um uh two kids that went through one of them that went through high school and one of them that's still going on through high school and you know and I always ask her you know her feedback about what she thinks about cell phones in the schools and she you know she's like I'm not going to lie I use it sometimes for personal use yes but a lot of times you know she noticed that

095there are international students who are using it for translation she noticed it for students for example who cannot take notes and they have the voice memo recording and they transcribe that so there are so many things here that are like so important and I think the best thing that will work for us I'm hoping is to actually have student come sit here and present to us now because we're talking from a uh you know from a point of a parent from a point of a teacher a point of a social worker an art instructor there and you name it you know that's who we are but bring in a student over here and actually have him share with us their opinion and what they think will be extremely helpful hint hint jiah would love to

096hear your opinion I would love to share my opinion thank you um this is a really interesting problem because in my experience I was allowed to use my phone in every single class I was in especially after Co I do not think that I used my phone in any classroom before Co but the rains were definitely lifted after Co and not having my phone with me is kind of like like you said it's anxiety instantly rushes to my body because I have been with my phone since I've had it and especially through Co like coming out of that was very hard I also think that everyone noticed that socially people were more reserved after Co people were on their phones walking down the hallway in classroom not really trying to talk to each other so

097it's more of a like safety blanket for a lot of people but also it's a lot easier for a lot of applications to just use your phone and your phone will save your passwords for you with our um District laptops the laptops um don't save them for like weeks and then once it saves your laptop resets and then it's gone and so your passwords you have to log in it takes an extra 5 minutes every single time and so pulling out your phone you have your passwords you're instantly in it's a lot easier to you and then there are like classes where I would listen to music the whole time like language arts when I'm reading I prefer to listen to music so I'd put my headphones in listen to music that entire class and

098like when I'm walking to the hallway sometimes I'll listen to music so it's just like there's so many different reasons for so many different people that it's hard to figure out where we need to draw the line and where it becomes like an unacceptable reason to use your phone so I don't have like an answer or even close to a solution because there's just so many different factors right thank you I could chime in again to to duvail on on what you were saying board member bait about just some of the practical uses and elements of safety um and superintend I know we've gotten reports on this in the past um but we have the safe UT app um and I know in my experience on this board and working in schools that it can

099be a lifesaver you know for our students um and I can think of a number of instances in my five and a half years on on the board where I believe it saved lives and I'm wondering if we can include um that report I I'm I'm assuming it's somewhat easy to to access through the the app Dr Hall but and super attendant but it would be nice to know what kind of activity and interface we do have with the safe UT app and and how it still benefits students and I just think it'd be good information to have as we continue to to to have this discussion and and ultimately decide you know where the board and and our schools land on this vice president Williams yeah I appreciate uh my colleagues uh comments and

100jiah thank you for giving your um perspective as well I think it really comes back to who um and I cannot remember who said it but someone talked about the the digital literacy piece and and being responsible with the tools that we have I really don't think it's a a black or white um issue when we um talk about this topic I actually read through every single comment and my eyes were very tired I'm reading through those but I did read through every comment and there there are some polarizing opinions and there are some that are you know very neutral I think you know Nate um you mentioned yes and I think that's that's kind of the approach that we we should be thinking about this yes there are um distraction problems with with cell

101phones there's also benefits um to that as well and and speaking to what Muhammad said I think the safety uh piece um and that goes both way safety in terms of an emergency safety in terms of what um folks are accessing on their phones as well but I think as we um continue to explore this further and um you know down the road make a decision about what our policy is going to look like we really I think it's beneficial to kind of to find some Middle Ground board member sea do you have anything that you'd like to oh no I I'm I'm I'm that parent where no phone I well my sophomore just barely got a phone and she only got a phone because she's a hand me down down child so the older

102sister graduated now she's on a mission so now she gets a phone it's not um those things are privileged in where we come from sometimes it it it may look like it's not a privilege but as in our household it's a privilege and so I think um agency matters to me and so I feel like these kids deserve their agency um but with with the intent of Education not ignorance and so um that's what I do with my children is hey you get this privilege but this is why you get this privilege and this is what it's used for um and and hopefully and pray prayerfully that this child goes on and makes these correct choices you know so far I haven't got a complaint from a teacher telling me that my child is you

103know distracted with her cell phone but I think these kids they have good heads on their on their shoulders so I love it yeah thank you boy membera superintendent I want to put you on the spot a little bit I'm sure knowing that this is a Hot Topic across the state um especially with the governor's um you know beliefs and kind of his direction or at least his desire of what direction would look like from a state level um I'm sure you're talking with superintendant across the state as well and then of course in your your interface and work with Dr Hall and Miss Kindle about the survey and um what you're hearing from board members and parents what are some of your thoughts on this survey data and how we might approach this moving

104forward um I think the most difficult piece of the survey was the desperate voices of parents because I think in order for this policy to be successful we have to be in collaboration with parents and parents have different needs um and and because of that I think we're a little bit stuck in a policy that can't be perfect one way or the other in completely Banning them because parents want their children to have them or completely allowing them because other parents don't want their children to have that kind of constant access or use of these phones so um in some ways we're really we're in a tough position it feels to me at this moment that there isn't a perfect answer in this I I sense that it's something that we continue to just work

105out almost school by school at the high school level as they try and navigate the best way to use a technology that none of us have figured out how to master and we are its slaves in ways so it um I think it comes to that what I would like to be clear about is what the district policy is and what each school policy is so that that can be upheld I worry that we put teachers in very difficult positions of trying to navigate that push and pull from parents and from students and from us about policy all showing up in their classroom and they have to particularly police it all of us know how hard it is to police somebody else's cell phone use and um and in that way anything we can do

106to simplify the structure within classes I think is beneficial um but again it's complicated by the parent interest in that feels a little disperate out of that survey there wasn't a clear parent intent that could help us figure some of this out and um maybe in the coming years as we get a little better at handling cell phones ourselves but right now I do think school by school it just but then I think within the school there has to be a coherence around their policy otherwise you know one teacher got one version and another teachers got another version and that always makes makes it difficult um for teachers I think and I think I'd just like to piggyback off that is in terms of that is sort of the expectation of the policy I know

107board president Salazar you indicated that it's hard to have that disparity between schools but the beauty of that also is allowing schools in that Community to decide what that community's values is in relation to cell phone usage at that particular school I mean that's one of the I mean to make it again that analogy to the dress code I mean what certain communities think is appropriate at one Elementary School at one school versus different ones versus middle schools you know it's really getting that parent and stakeholder input from from that school Community to say this is what our values are for this particular school this is what our school rules are going to be and then having them consistently applied and inform all the stakeholders and then um as Dr Hall mentioned that teachers need

108that support that enforcement is going to be consistent that everyone knows about it but they also have buyin at that community and I think that's you know that has value as opposed to a top down from the district we're going to make this rule for all schools because different communities feel differently about how they should be implemented and I think that's what we were seeing in the open responses right and it allows those schools to make the choices for their students based on that community randerson and this is why I think the conversation needs to be about technology not phones because we don't let School Community councils for instance decide their school is going to be a Mac school and some of them would and we don't let elementary schools decide we want to use

109Google Classroom because it works so if if we're going to let people decide about this then we need to have greater options for technology districtwide because people are using their phones to supplant our technology gaps I can use my data on my phone and not connect to the wireless and I'm outside of the screener that goes on laptops because I'm not able to get on my wireless on my phone so I think everything being raised here is a point in favor of the discussion actually being more broad which would make a bigger difference in student Behavior overall if we were providing them with the best options and a real vision for how we want technology to be used remember I'm just going to Echo what Ashley said I think that sometimes we get this myopic

110view of something and it there's there's more to it than just that and so I think that as the superintendent also said that you know we need to make sure that when we make these decisions or when we have these discussions that we're bringing everything to the table as much as we possibly can because I agree I think the technology conversation is probably what needs to be at the top you know and then you go down from there because you know there's a reason why we see cell phones being used at at different you know levels and different schools and different opinions so I would just hope that as we go forward that we continue to do that not just with this issue but with other issues that we're facing to P member Jensen I

111kind of want to ask you a question okay um you know this is something that's very passionate to you like I mentioned previously and it's something that that your constituency has brought to you um specifically um and you've you shephered this you know through the process up to this point um after seeing the results after hearing the discussion from the board and from the superintendent and Miss Kindle and Dr Hall where are you at and what kinds of recommendations do you think you would make to the board about how we move forward well thank you Nate I appreciate that um I wanted to make sure before I tried to interject that everyone had an opportunity to share and I can relate to those concerns s when this was brought to my attention I'm not just

112saying that there should be a complete ban but what I was saying and as a member of the policy committee we need to understand where we are as a board on this when board member Anderson is saying it's a technology question I think that there is a technology aspect to it but I also o think that there's a policy aspect to it and I also think that there is an equity component to this and that was one of the reasons that I brought it up as well um I am anxious that we have students in classrooms that their parents have made decisions that they are not using cell phones in the classroom so those children yes they have cell phones but they don't have access to them in the classroom then there are children in

113the classroom that because of Economics or whatever the situation is they do not have access to a cell phone and to me when we start talking about um educational opportunities one of the things that we have in our Creed is equity and I don't think that you can just gloss over that so when we look at it on a community level and when Christina or um general counsel kindall okay good is um giving the example of um Dr standards and those things she also refers back to the part where there is an overarching um well for lack of a better term guard rail guidelines as to okay it has to fall Within These parameters and for me that's really important when you get to all of those comments I read through those comments too and

114the thing that I saw over and over was consistency um whatever it is we do here we need to figure out how it's consistent how it's consistent on the district level how it's consistent on the high school level how it's consistent Middle School elementary but then with within each of those levels how it's consistent in that Community superintendent Grant brought up uh another reason that I brought this to the board and that is the teacher lens it is really hard in the classroom to know how to deal with this because just what um board member Evans said I mean there are all of these extenuating circumstances so then that teacher now has to be this judge of there needs to be some direction on how to approach this so that those teachers are not spending

115their teaching time trying to mediate cell phone usage in response to board member sea when she was talking about privilege I think that that's a part of the consistency conversation because if we look at it as okay cell phones are a privilege in how you receive your education if you have not used those tools properly you lose your privileges thank you board member Jensen well we've come to a unique point in the conversation oh can I just say because to me what I think that we do have to do is we have to have a further discussion or so that I mean Bryce and I and Jenny we sit on that policy committee I need some direction as to where we are on this particular Topic in board policy yeah that's that's kind of where

116I was getting at for remember Jenson is we we've come to a unique spot where um I don't want to say there's differing opinions but there's a lot of insights from board members um from the superintendent um from the expertise of Miss Kindle and Dr Hall that um kind of leave us in a position of seeking balance of very similar to what we're hearing from the parents in these comments um because I I was kind of whispering to Bryce that it's it's kind of all over the map um what we're reading in the comments um there there elements of consistency that that I saw that is why I made my comment but um it'd be nice to have some direction and the only recommendation that I I feel like would make sense is to one

117sit with it but also have the policy subcommittee go back and kind of re you know have the conversation there um maybe in a smaller focus group um if there's individuals that could be a part of that conversation um you know from a a building um perspective on on what kinds of Technology elements need to be boosted up or added or is this a policy thing and then come back to the board and let us know how that conversation went and maybe some recommendations on how we move forward um board member sweat so I have a question I'm what the end thing that maybe and I'm just going to make an assumption okay because I'm I'm not positive because I agree it's kind of been all over is the is is the end goal to

118have a policy that has flexibility for Sight based decisions or is the end goal for the district to set a policy that doesn't add as much flexibility about cell phone use at all the sites do I re can I respond to this okay absolutely I think that it's really the board that needs to give that direction to I mean we need to look at this as a board and tell the policy committee okay you gave two different approaches how is how do we as a board want to approach this so as I'm thinking about my years on the policy committee that what was always helpful you know was when you get the direction from the board and then you go in with um Miss kindall is what's always been helpful for me was to have

119multiple um policies that she that she Gans from other districts or from and even from out of state which we saw at recently at our conference that this is something that's going on you know State you know um Nationwide that's helpful I mean and she could probably you know recount a couple of those policies where we did that you know where we looked at multiple um ideas and sometimes it's pieces and parts right of things that we that we glean from but I think that you know if we're if we're open as a board to say either or you know that yes we can see that there's some Equity issues but is that a parental decision that we really can't muck into um I feel like what I'm hearing is let's let's turn this over

120to the policy committee knowing that we're kind of all over the place a little bit look at some of the policies that are out there right now that are in place but also at the back of our minds think about how does technology play into all of this because you know there there's a part of that too so for me I I would feel comfortable saying you know to have Miss Kindle you know start the conversation with you as a policy committee by looking at what's there now what we have and then what else you know has been offered or what other districts have already you know tackled because it seems like we're all at different varying right did you kind of get that when you guys we're talking to colleagues from across the United

121States it's all varying different you know of what they want to do and then hopefully as you guys work through that you'll be able to come back and and then we'll have a further discussion report back yeah okay that's good I mean I feel comfortable with that me I I don't know if everyone else does I think it keeps the discussion rolling and superintendent I also think it'd be nice to hear we have you know both s and SLA representation um here in the district and it it'd be nice to hear what they might have to say about um some of the various examples or options that that the board will be discussing as well glad to hear what s and SLA have to say on this it would be appreciated if you wanted to

122write that up or share that with us somehow well and then can we take it one step further and and say that once we start having these discussions obviously our our parent point is our PT pto's and our secs okay superintendent and Dr Hall Miss kindall do you feel like you have solid direction to to move this to the next phase and and we can bring it back to the board everyone's looking at me I got it yep all right perfect thank you um Miss kle and Dr H thank you board that was a really good discussion on a very important topic okay moving to our discussion agenda we have four items here um moving right along uh the first one is the 2024 25 School Land Trust plans um superintendent um do you have

123a representative to introduce us yes Dr Taylor whose team originally explained how the land trust plans would come out and um how to review them is going to just give a short presentation as a reminder um so you have that in hand as um I believe you have the access to the plans yes and so just a Remer about the review and the due dates on that great thank you Dr T good evening everyone good evening evening let's give Sam a minute to kind of tea [Laughter] up and as Dr Grant mentioned this is really just a review we've already done the training on it we've got the cover memo that's included in the packet that gives you online access to the plane and this is just a timeline review no action required tonight we

124will really be building up for the first board meeting in May I think board members were happy with my email last night so they weren't due today Dr Taylor this is so much easier to navigate them the huge packets that we used all the paper that we used to have to go through it's true okay yeah we're ready thanks Sam first of it is the wise what are our wise really what we try to relate back to is our strategic plan and we look at the pillar that deals with prek to 12 transition and the goals that are embedded in it this is strictly elevated from our strategic plan the first goal is Civic competency and communication the second goal is academic success the third goal of access to expanded learning opportunities these are all

125embedded within our plans and the purpose for today's session is just like I said just for a review this is the essential piece which is the timeline you got the plans tonight which April 16th feedback is due by April the 23rd you can get feedback to us earlier if you would like and then you will see that feedback reflected real time so if you're going into your folder that's subscribed for for you if you tell us something on a Monday when you go back in at Tuesday and Wednesday you might see it reflected already within that plan that's why you look when you look at the folders you see the folders in three different colors green for totally good yellow you might have a couple problem areas here and there and red is look out

126the board will uh hopefully vote on it on May the 7th and all our approved plans will be uploaded to the state by May 15th these are our review materials just a outline of those materials that you will see embedded within that folder for the plan also when you look at the one drive folder that's been shared with you you know I kind of gave you a screenshot to show you where the blank review page was and the review assignments are we try to make sure that we keep a consistent longitudinal aspect for the plans that you've been assigned to so if you gotten the plans last year you'll be assigned this year and you'll be sign sign next year so you can see the progress of that plan over time okay that's an example

127of the board member review assignment list and this is an example of the checklist that you have yeah it's just a simple guide if you have any questions about it don't hesitate to reach out to us we'll make sure that we address those questions and we'll incorporate their feedback as fast as possible working with those respective buildings any questions all right seeing no questions Dr Taylor thank you so much for that timeline it's super helpful um I know to the the board to have that timeline um so board we we have a just a few short days in reality to get through these plans and uh Bryce and I will make sure to send a reminder out to everybody uh before the 23rd to make sure that we we have that on our radar and

128are getting those accomplished super Nate I just wanted to mention we um business administrator kley and I were in St George this week with uh all the other superintendents andb to discuss recent legislation um coming out of this last legislative session I mention it just because Land Trust plans came up as a topic that is often brought up in the legislature and these questions about the use of the dollars in schools and such I'm I'm not putting an expectation of you on the review and how you look at that review but rather a sense that this is a chance to become very familiar with these plans and knowledgeable about them so that as we head into the next year or a next legislative session you're you're just very clear about what they are and how

129they're used and what our schools are doing and so can speak to that in case it comes up in those kinds of conversations in the months ahead so just wanted to raise that as an extra benefit of doing this is not only the review from the board's perspective but also the learning about the process and and what the plans actually are thank you superintendent thank you Dr Taylor and I I think you're going to stay right there for the next agenda item which is the weapons detection systems survey summary I think I can take a bit right now we're going to have questions about this one once again reaffirming our pillar from our strategic plan looking at maintaining safe and efficient uh facilities that's where this Falls in terms of this information what's our big

130picture when we look at our weapon detector systems they've been installed at all our Comprehensive High Schools even to the point of now Horizon has one set one set of our weapon detectors these system scan students and visitors that they enter the school and they help identify compact weapons or guns the goal of any preventive program is to create a safe secure environment that promotes a sense of safety and peace of mind for everyone on campus this is not the only tool this is just happens to be one of our tools that we utilize for safety where our objectives we want to make sure that we review the survey responses we talked about the stakeholder surveys earlier when you look at the cell phone survey that was part of the stakeholder survey this is another

131component of the same set of surveys and we also want to make sure we review the related statistical data from the months of February and March of this year survey responses as you can see uh they at least know about the weapons detectors you see an overwhelming response of people saying that they are familiar with the weapons Detectors 94% of parents indicated from those responses 558 parents that responded that hey they know about them when you look at our students you had roughly 97.4 well teachers sorry 97.4% that responded also these are questions that lend themselves toward the perceptions of the tool that we have in place do you believe weapon detectors increase your safety during the school year you see the responses for that our parents we have a greater response that they have

132a perception that it does increase safety student responses are close to being even 36.2% was no 32.7% yes when you look at teachers they lean toward no 31.2% indicated yes 41.6% indicated no Dr Taylor may I just this is just an observation for me that when I look at this graph and I say who's actually in the building it's the students and the teachers who are actually in the building and so the perception of the parents is stra is straight on what you said it's perception but as I look at who's actually in the building it's a little disconcerting what that looks like a little there as we look at some other responses we'll see how they match up or how they may not make how they may not [Music] yeah I feel like the

133school is safer you okay Mike well and it's interesting because as you look at this you'll see that roughly 53% of the parents feel like the environment is safer now there is a component that's your neutral category I neither agree nor disagree I'm going to try to report on the ones that either follow one of the outliers either they agree or they don't as you look at your Student Response you're roughly at 47% of the students feel like the school is safer when you look at the teacher response you're really like 48 49% feel like the school is safer that doesn't quite match up but it it's close in the ballpark for it I feel like the school is welcoming when I enter this was a key question for us because we wanted to see

134what were the perceptions of the individuals entering the building once we added those weapons detectors did it give it a more sterile environment or was it still a warm and welcoming environment and as you can see it's pretty much in line with the previous responses we're running right there 48 49% in some cases right at 50% in other cases next question is I think that people have stopped bringing weapons to school because of the detectors is it a deter is it a deterrence so when you look at that parents have a a perception of about 35 to 42% in terms of their real most of them are like out of neither agree nor disagree they're falling within a neutral category is it a messaging piece is it a perception piece we've got had to work

135on that this was interesting we talked about Tardis even though there's no mechanism that we're measuring Tardis as that results from the weapons detectors everybody agrees that it takes longer now to get into school because of the weapons detectors yeah from working in an extensive process in terms of being at East ongoing and observing the process you will see some extension of time but it's congestion if we got a bus that's running 10 10 minutes late and all of a sudden they pull up you got a bus that's already programmed to be there at that time plus the 10-minute late bus now you got a long line I've also observed at East that mornings where we have bad weather we've got to work on alternative ways to get them in because when you look at

136that land that's outside that building we're maintaining safety but we don't want kids standing in the snow or standing in the rain we just got to work on those processes how confident are you that the weapons detective system has prevented incidents of violence at your school this was a very interesting response because we saw positive responses here they may not feel safer but then they feel like it's deterring violent incidents at school so you look at the student responses is roughly 53% you look at parent responses almost 60% even when you look at teachers responses that's one of their higher categories they're almost at 50% there any questions about that portion or do we want to finish the whole one then okay in terms of our data this common terminology we know what tags are

137screening is what a search is what we mean by an identified alert and an unidentified alert we collected data on the number of alerts the number of administrative searches the prohibited items uncovered by those searches any disciplinary action taken by the school administrates due to those uncovered items and demographic information on students for February through March the beginning of February through the end of March we've had 600 and a 600 135,000 searches screenings sorry the total number of alerts alarms that went off roughly 126,000 the alert percentage 21.01% identified alerts 63533 unidentified alerts 62 that's when they loop back through trying to make sure they have something on they send them back through kicks alert administrative research is required 23 the number of males total 17 six Caucasian males two African-American males One Pilot uh

138Pacific Islander male one Asian male and seven Hispanic males and those were the ones that were searched by administrators for our female numbers just six one Caucasian female two Pacific Islander females three Hispanic females total searches male and females 23 now what were the numbers and the reasons for the alerts that went off as you see almost 40,000 computer alerts Ben n other those are things when you look at categories like the binders metal that's in the backpack as part of the backpack itself roughly 22857 763 glass cases 331 umbrellas seven pocket naves law enforcement sro's support adults with weapons 295 other items that were uncovered canisters of Mace pepper spray Vape unapproved scissors that was a new one for metion medication I had to go see that one what do you mean by unapproved

139scissors but okay alcohol one confetti cannon spray paint pocket knives couple lighters the disciplinary actions we had two kids that ended up getting suspensions and that was for marijuana Vapes and it was one male caucasian and one male Hispanic that got suspended for having marijuana Vapes and any questions board members that's a another survey with a lot of different results um and Christy you pointed out that there's some unique disparities and correlations and and what we're seeing in this data so uh board members open it up to questions board member Anderson I'll just ask one fast question which is you mentioned that there's not been able to be tardy data collected is there a reason why we haven't been able to collect that uh normally what takes place they're excused so they get like a

140little pass or the announcement is made to get them in class and it's not really the weapons detectors themselves that operate in isolation that caused the tardy it's something that's taking place in conjunction so let's say school starts at 8:45 you got somebody that's getting out of a car in the front of the building at 8:42 843 so yeah technically could they run and make it possibly if the weapons detect was wasn't there yes but I thought they going to still be late or they late because of a bus and then we still work it out so we have to find a way to isolate that information to be able to determine if it's just a weapons detector that's causing the everybody we good okay M Evans that was my same question okay thank um

141in regards to uh tness uh it would be great to have like a comparison of like what we have right now and prior to weapon detectors that will help us actually you know determine if it's really causing that delay also there was a number in there of um 200 some for adults and so guns yeah guns for 295 so my understanding is that when an adult comes into uh East High School for example uh with a gun they do not have to go through the detector they just go directly to the admin and show their gun that they are that's what was reported so is that because that's what I've heard from so many you know from East yeah I had oberved it I'm not saying it doesn't take place yeah what I observe is

142they come through they hit an alert and we know that the SRO that they are police or adult and cuz they said even like for adults you know they're not required to go through the metal detector and if they come in with the weapon they let them know yes they have weapon then the security will guide them to go to the admin office you know now we do got them to check in but I'll double check on yeah and so you know because if the purpose of these is to like prevent um you know um weapons in school or crimes or so I mean if some crazy person would go in I'll start with the admin that would be you know counter it really is so and also I do notice that like students and

143teachers are the ones who are at the buildings they're the ones who see what's happening exactly and it appears like unanimously they all see that there is an issue with hardiness um that's affecting you know uh students rival on time um and and also the issue with you know whether they feel safe or not so I mean this is just something that we can think about as as a board because this is um you know it was brought up earlier we spent you know a million plus dollars on weapon detectors and yet we're still dealing with the health issues of vaping and smoking in the bathrooms and so just food for thoughtsit vice president Williams you had your hand up or was your question satisfied well maybe I'll ask it I I think I was

144trying to seek clarification on board member baade's question but correct me if I'm wrong adults do not have to go through the detectors if they are entering the building is that correct H that's what I've observed is that adults come through the weapons detectors so I will follow up on that and say I have um gone to observe a couple of times and there's been at least two times I did not have to go through the detector they're scared of you you no just giv full transparency um Dr Taylor um to kind of duvail on the element of adults um entering schools whether they're sro's or not um who are carrying a firearm um you know with recent state laws over the past couple of years um that allow for adults to carry weapons in

145public places which I believe includes schools is that is that some of the reason why that number is so high yes yeah I I would definitely say that and even in you sometimes we work with law enforcement and we have law enforcement there in more in greater numbers so you'll see Hills and Valleys when it come down to those alerts but yeah we we can't stop them we try to be knowledgeable about them but the law ties our hand when it come down to that is there a breakdown of that 295 number of how many aren't SRO I can find out yeah okay it's just a general category right now but we can always dig deeper okay thank you that's great any other questions for Dr Taylor I I do what does it um look

146like on school campus outside prior to going into the school like you like you know kids could easily leave weapons in their car start fights outside they don't have to you know have we had they can hide weapons in bushes we've had some we've we've had an incident where it was not geared toward harm for another person but self harm the individual bottle weapon they didn't bring it into the school they use they were had to weapon in an adjacent building and it just so happened that through the relationship with the pal American security guards that was brought to our attention because the student dis displayed some observable Behavior that we were able to highlight on and the building level Administration did a great job of walking it down investigating and then locating that weapon

147so the safety pertains strictly to the inside of the building yeah and so what do we do the outside of the building when there's breaks lunches kids are sitting on the lawn like what's like what's the procedure like who do you have to look over them yeah same St doing the regular process those buildings have to provide coverage in those locations and make sure that we have adults that provide adequate Supervision in those respective locations we we work diligently with our Palam security with our student Advocates and with our staffs to do so there are some cases I've observed schools to where they work with the Palam to cover the uncovered doors you know we have doors that are supposedly secured but they don't have weapons detected at them so kids are not supposed to

148come in you get you got to keep an eye on those doors because if you don't people will open those doors and let people in so it just really depends on the needs of the building and how their staff is being employed for that so are you guys determining that we did a good decision or was well okay interestingly and I'm not reflecting on the decision cuz that's not my role my role is implementation uh I looked when the weapon when the discussion came up when this spring window I looked at the five schools and you know we've had a lot of school district that have had these type of shootings but there have been five major ones Coline Sandy Hook when you look at the last one was Oxford High School in Oxford Township

149right outside of Detroit Michigan uh to see what they did after the shooting how did they respond after these shootings took place and they all have comprehensive plans in place which include some type of detection process you know when you look at Oxford which was the most recent one they have the evolved systems in place but they also have the software in place that if you works with the school camera systems that can identify bulges and pockets and stuff like that so though that's a background not saying that we're going to have any recommendation to move in that direction but they all have a comprehensive plan where they they're not overly relying on just one item and one of the major foundations for their plans is collective responsibility everybody working together moving toward in the

150same direction understand that we all have a role to play in safety and that's where we've got to grow and develop to teachers have a role to play students have a role to play parents have a role to play our Administration has a role to play our weapons detectors are not the end our be all they're just going to be one piece if you have somebody who wants to work around them they will devote another time to work around them but that's in any case that we deal with we just want to be as pres prescriptive and as protective as possible so that's political ease for not answering your question sorry thank you Dr Tay you're welcome um superintendent and and Dr Taylor as well uh you know we we talk about this being a

151a singular tool among many other tools in a in and you know around a tool belt so to speak um you know I think about I think about um you know our social workers I think about the interventions that teachers play in the lives of our students um is is there a way or have there been discussions about how we bring those other tools and those other elements to this discussion um you know I I think most recently we've and and even over my time on the board um I hear a lot about seal implementation um whether it's being done to Fidelity or not in some cases yes some cases no students say yes it is some students say it's not or it's not valuable how how do we boost these opportunities and these other

152elements of school safety and addressing things like mental health um among our students um alongside something like a technology um like these weapons detectors we're currently working through revisions and getting input we we had what's called a district U emergency response plan and schools had their emergency response plans we're working to really collaborate with schools and expand that right now to develop a comprehensive safety plan at each one of our sites and then incorporate into a district safety plan so right now we're receiving comments and feedback from the from the building Administration in regards to that and as those things are developed and it deals with harassment bullying mtss our PBIS implementation our use of safety tools as well as schoolwide behaviors that we're modeling and working with those kids on so as that process

153comes to fruition we'll hopefully have a really a plan to refer to from each individual site that's comprehensive in nature rather than isolated in nature okay thank you I think it'd be really good to have that type of information alongside um the information and the data that we're receiving from the surveys and and how these this technology is being used and what kind of impact it's having um I just we've always talked about using them in coordination with um and not as a as a singular element in our in our school safety plan so thank you for that are there any other questions or observations from the board thank you president salar could you ask um board member sea to pass the chocolate it's getting to be that time of night board member sea will

154you please pass the Chate thank you Dr Taylor really appreciate your time I actually if I could I wanted to follow up on Dr Taylor's remark just to put this in again some more context um couple things one is that what will be on the table for you as a board is the decision about the pal Amica contract that's why we're having these discussions to review this and why we wanted to gather the survey data to bring you information so um before the end of the school year our plan is to place before the board the question of do we use another year of to support the pal America team that is Staffing the evolved weapons detector so that's the question we have ahead so your ideas of what else would be informative for you

155would be helpful for us to know we have this on the agenda for the next meeting I believe that's May 5th 7th 7th thank you um to talk again I also want to mention that the state of course has passed the guardianship bill that will will add it's um approach is the hardening approach not the softening seal relationship belonging approach um where we need to have Panic buttons in schools so we need to look at that allocation in the next months I can't remember the due date some of these have different implementation dates for aspects of this um we have to have Guardians in place in January of 2025 in all of our schools um we have to there will be there's a new state director who has um a lot of authority the authority

156of a fire akin to a fire marshal where he will be able to direct us in how we spend money on our buildings um there's been comments that he may require that we put bulletproof glass or at least the The Shield that goes on the glass um that will cost a great deal as well there's I'm sure there will be a number of conversations because this affects every public school in the state um but as we're thinking about our process and what we're adding to this to make safe schools there are also these other pieces to keep in mind that are happening at all of our schools so I don't know that that helps in determining an answer it just this question you raised of it being a a tool as Dr Taylor was saying

157one tool in this array of tools um the array of tools will now be more because of the expectations of the state that we need to begin implementing they also will require that we Implement an early warning indicator system which is a student data system that we are to use to try and identify students who may be at risk um and so we would need to have follow-up conversations with them so there are a lot of pieces in this puzzle I'm afraid it doesn't make the decision ahead any simpler so your ideas to us about what could be helpful to you what what information we can gather or opinions we can bring together um or even some recommendations please let us know so that um we can support your decision making on this one thank

158you Dr Grant welcome board member Jensen and board member Anderson I can't remember who was first I think board member Anderson thank you um it's fast it's simply that when you put a fine point on it that we're talking about pal America we're actually talking about the tools with most of the information we've requested it would actually be more helpful to know are there enough staff do they show up do do you know what I mean none of these questions are actually about the staff but a good deal of the student comments and teacher comments are about the staff and is issues and concerns and that that regard so I think knowing that it's the palamerican contract that is actually being uh suggested we vote on it should be different information that we get because

159how long does the lease last for the detectors regardless yeah detectors are 48-month lease so we can continue to discuss the validity of them and I think there's a lot of Alternatives that we haven't considered like what it's not a secret how I feel about any of this obviously but I one of the biggest things we could control is safety at sports that is where like a huge majority of American gun violence occurs in schools as it Sports we don't use them during that time so and off- campus as people have mentioned continues to be the highest place that gun violence happens we we know this this is not responsive to that but we can have those conversations about how to use the tools during the duration of their lease independent of Palam so I

160think we actually don't have any data on how the staff are received other than the anecdotal comments and that would be helpful Bo member Jensen that was the question I was going to ask to me if we're going to be looking at that contract we need to know those we need to know those answers yeah we'll gather that information that's helpful we'll try and pull some together that from the different schools I think it would be more anodal information at this point but I think that's valuable from what I'm hearing of the experiences of schools and I think to add on that too superintendent is what kinds of supports um Can the state provide and I know there's different opportunities through grants and um potentially even through most recent legislation um that I think should

161be included in the discussion as well I don't there is some isn't there Alan there's some one time money with the application process hasn't been uh developed yet okay thank you right um thank you board um please continue to give feedback to the superintendent and NBA kirley um about what information would be helpful we heard a lot about from you all what that looks like tonight and if there's more that comes up please let them know um item number three on the discussion agenda is the Washington 4-6 magnet program update um this does have a a request from the administration on some potential board actions um but we can get there uh towards the end of the discussion superintendent will you please introduce this sure we've got once again our doctor Tiffany Hall um joined

162by Dr Alex Parson who leads our ELP in the district so thank you very much for preparing this thank you in case you don't know who I am Tiffany will you bring that mic just to touch closer thank you um and this is Dr Alex Parsons who is our ELP supervisor um today we are here to share some updates about the pilot magnet program at Washington Elementary um and we'd like to present some Alternatives or um actions that the board could take at this time with regards to the program so objective slide didn't I just do that oh yes sorry did I'm so sorry sorry it's been too many slides right now okay let me do it again I'll do it again I'm here just had a little more small one yes but no I'm

163back now we got to keep toast toast you want is is smile Corners up at the same yes okay so we're going to we're going to present some updates and some information and and some requested for AC yes uh thank you for having me again um some background that is just refamiliarizing ourselves with the topic at hand um we are currently in our third year of district-wide testing of third grade uh as a result of that implementation of districtwide testing we have an increase of rising fourth graders who qualify or meet the magnet criteria for qualification and inclusion and then as we know whenever I was here the first month I was actually employed here at this District um in anticipation of fall 2022 we opened Washington as a pilot magnet location to accommodate those

164Rising fourth graders that were identified in third grade and we know that this year has been a year where we have seen some significant movement with our families we've seen some changes and and um we want to be very aware of that as we move forward in this conversation one of the features that we are moving forward with with magnet identification and assignment are magnet service area maps we have two separate Maps one on the left is for those who join us in first grade and one uh which does include the Washington location for those who join us in fourth grade uh one of the things I do want to highlight about the Washington program even though it is a two-year program pilot program up to this point the teachers have been very adaptive they've

165been very inclusive they've done an excellent job of bringing modern gifted and talented strategies including a focus on stem on community engagement and on the social emotional learning needs of our gifted students and this is a sampling of the pictures and opportunities that I have received from the Washington program these are the enrollment the identification and enrollment numbers uh as you can see in the top row we have the number of rising fourth graders who meet the criteria and then the number of rising fourth graders who are opting into magnet as a service as previously stated in the other presentations I've provided uh the trend of increasing of an increased number of rising fourth graders is continuing now that we're in year three I think that we can probably assume that as we continue that

166Trend will also continue you um also as previously stated not all families choose to opt into magnet and as I said in last year's presentation that could be for a variety of reasons uh this is our Washington enrollments data Washington specific enrollment data uh one of the points I'd like to point out is in the school year 2425 acceptance and enrollment is still ongoing uh it numbers Change Daily and so this is as of when we submitted the presentation to you last week we will probably have more solid numbers when students register and show up in August so we know that we have had you know as I said before a lot of movement this year and we are moving through transitions with our ELP programs as we settle in new locations and at this

167time we believe that the board um has a couple of choices and one of the first ones would be to establish Washington as a 46 magnet site um we see the trends of identification and acceptance that are increasing we know that the board has always supported providing opportunities for students uh Dr Parsons and I were talking earlier this afternoon she keeps notes on her interviews with parents and she said that when uh a parent gets to or a family gets to a choice between attending Washington or their neighbor neighborhood School in about 45 to 50% of the conversation she has with parents the idea of it being a pilot comes up as a concern we know that students if they are going to move in fourth grade would like to be sure that they have

168that opportunity to stay fourth fifth sixth grade before that transition to middle school that is one of the challenges with the 46 program is that there is that piece of of um moving into another school but that is one of the choices is to look at this and say if we're continuing with third grade identification and these are the trends that we see that this would be a place where we could continue to provide services for our upper elementary students as they're identified some of the other options would be um this is our upcoming third year of the program and so we could continue it as a pilot for another year um giving it three years and for a pilot program that's an acceptable number of years to begin to see what enrollment Trends look

169like if we do that we'd like to come back uh early next year um as Dr Parson said our numbers really firm up around the first day of school um but then we can uh come to you after that has been in play and maybe have another conversation around what that looks like for the 2526 school year but one thing um regardless of the decision that the board makes about this pilot is we would like to ask you to commit to a rolling phase out at any point that if the program doesn't continue that we are able to provide that continuity of services for our students and their families that have committed to Washington thank you all right thank you Dr Hall and Dr Parsons um this is a I'll be honest this is a

170tough one tonight right because there's an element of time um and we're kind of under this element of you know do we we maintain this Pro this pilot program or do we just completely Let It Go um I don't think necessarily the letting it go is on the table or necessarily the wise choice um for particularly the students um and the parents and the staff at Washington um and I think you you were were quite clear and hit the nail on the head so to speak about early next year if we are to approve this I think one of the faults of of us as a board and as an Administration was that we didn't talk about Washington pilot specific speically earlier in this school year um so I'm I'm kind of torn between two

171elements of I I don't think it's wise to necessarily just let it go tonight um but I I do kind of lean more towards let's extend it again but let's review it much much earlier in the next school year any other thoughts or questions from the board number s why don't we start with somebody else okay pass my question so I mean I'll also say that whatever the vote is is tonight I will abstain because I have a child in this program um so I don't feel it's reasonable for me to participate in that way I do want to share some of the community feedback I've received for your reference but also but you've received it as well my question however is um what when you're asking the board to commit to a phase like

172a grandfathering out is there ever a threshold at which that wouldn't happen because one of the biggest criticisms that the community has received about the program which you've given some reasons why that may be true is the enrollment numbers and if a program was grandfathering out and that caused enrollment to dip further this is purely hypothetical obviously is there a threshold at which you'd say these classrooms have to consolidate or have to join neighborhood like at what point would it be considered from the district perspective not sustainable to run a class I think that although I it is above my pay grade to decide what is the threshold to not sustain a class one thing I do want to point out about the enrollment numbers that I think is a testament and a celebration of

173the Washington program is it is only 2 years old um that first class of fourth graders that are current fifth graders those families made a commitment to something when it wasn't there and that takes trust in the district it takes uh trust in the process that although the enrollment numbers are not robust in the way that we would like to hope for I think that we need needs to have a lens of graciousness in a in a place of change I think that all of us in this room can feel feel what it feels like to be in a put a place of change and those families were the ones who were committed to try to LEAP into it and I don't think that we should fault those who don't feel like they can take

174that leap but that could be a piece of the conversation that is missing in this is that it's we haven't even completed our second year at Washington and those are the numbers and I think that that's a testament to the program and I I think one of the things that we notice too when we look at the Washington numbers is that they're consistent um I I believe we've had one family move far from the district but the district or the families that have committed to the program at a higher rate than even our other ELP programs in the district or other sorry magnet programs in the district um they've stayed so I think that's a really very very good question I think that if we were to do a phase out I I think that

175the families who have made that commitment would stay through and and is there a threshold where we would say too low yeah of course there is um I think I mean the reason and you don't have to answer now I think that's the type of information that might help in December for others like I feel again that it's irresponsible for me to vote one way or the other but I do think that having some clear parameters would help people know what they're agreeing to or not agreeing to in terms of also just like the research for kids like is a class of 10 good for kids I don't think that necessarily research shows that right that we would know what a target class number is um and that's the feedback we're getting we're getting feedback

176from families who as you're saying have said we've really invested in this we want to stay in it please you know be conscientious about that choice and then other families who say you know my kids friend went from a neighborhood school with a class of 32 to a class of 14 how can we balance those two things as a district so we just have super dichotomous feedback and I don't envy my colleagues for having to synthesize that feedback but I think in if the decision is to look at it again in December those type of thresholds I think would be helpful numbers for everybody to know like what what are the parameters financially socially Etc that we are committing to thank you board member Anderson board member bade I think go there and me and

177then okay board member Jensen excuse me Nate thank you for your comments to me this is this is a really difficult situation because I don't think there is a good answer to this um I think both options neither option is a good option um the thing that in the best of all worlds we should have been receiving this information in December of this year so that we could address these really low enrollment numbers I understand how those parents have invested and I want there to be um confidence in the programs that we provide um but then on the other hand we have a class with 11 students in it and a class with 16 students in it and now at Indian Hills we have a class with 36 I believe 38 um no no okay

178if you can give me more accurate information um well share that with me now um so first I I also just a couple points that perhaps I should have we we did commit to a more than a a one-year pilot you know we had we did lay that out at that point um the 11 is not yet a solid number as we said enrollment is still happening right and um and it's happening in four five and six we have movement throughout our magnet programs um where our Indian Hills program we know because we have students who moved from Indian from hawthor to Indian Hills H who chose to stay with the program which we wanted them to do because again this piece um and we are identifying some other students there but I I don't

179know where 36 came from no and it's not 36 and 32 34 31 do we have the numbers for how many are currently enrolled at Indian Hills how many have currently committed yeah are committed I mean it seems like we have numbers for Washington it seems like we should have numbers for Indian Hills as well and what I am trying to get to and I appreciate your comment and we did commit to more than a one-year program and we're in the second year um to me at Indian Hills when we have class sizes like that that's very difficult for those children there to be um in a gifted program where they're in a classroom with 38 when a Washington and maybe my numbers are wrong or maybe they're not completely accurate I don't know if

180I want to say wrong but um if you were putting those together you could have two classrooms um like if you put them all at Indian Hills and I'm not I don't know if Indian Hills has that capacity those sorts of things should have been addressed when we were looking at all of this transition and moving programs and all of those things but what I am telling you is for me as a board member I'm in a very difficult position because by voting to continue this program for another year I'm also saying there's going to be real disparity EXC in class size with these gifted programs but if I vote well no we can't continue this program we haven't given those just like you said we haven't given continuity um to those parents to help

181them in this phase out um this is a really difficult um position that that I'm in thank you Jensen board memb what thank you so much I think that um I think it is important that we have enrollment numbers you know for all of our programs I think that you know when we get that really great information from Sam in the fall you know that tells us how many kids are in what program that we need to pay attention you know to those pieces um I I will tell you that for me the conversation around um when we were closing schools and right sizing our classrooms you know and looking at you know the importance of moving towards that is something that we should also take into consideration when we're talking about our magnets I

182think that um you know the the expectation you know that we have at our high schools with our AP courses we talked about this recently superintendent is that you really can't sustain a class of 11 you know in a AP Chemistry because it does affect seat time you know in other classes and so I think that you know as Brian has said you know and I don't know you know if there was a conversation um of whether not we wanted to look at combining you know Washington with Indian Hills but I don't think this is the year you know to do that right now it's because for me we've already opened up the registration you know parents are already in the process of doing this and I feel like if we take that away at

183this point that that's a little unfair you know to the program to the school to the parents you know that are that are um registering but my expectation is that we do look at it again because you know if we need to because I do think actually that it would be better to have two classes of 22 and 24 you know and I appreciate Ashley you know abstaining because her child's a part of that program which would mean you know she'd have to travel her child you know up to Indian Hills if we did that but most of our parents would say if that program is there then that's where I will take my child and so I think that I appreciate actually you saying that there'll be some sort of relook at this because

184um since we're a little bit behind the eightball and we've got a little bit of a hard decision um I feel like at this point because of all of the Transitions and the changes that we're making in the district right now that I would not be in favor of saying here let's just dissolve this program right now because I think that we're too far down the road you know with it but um I my one of my concerns this is more of a speech isn't it than it is a question one of my concerns that I wasn't really clear about was the proximity of Bonville and them being asked to go to Washington versus them going up to Indian Hills so I don't know if that's something superintendent that's for another time or we can

185just have more information about that as we go along because I don't know how that decision was made so one of the things that we were trying to do as we worked with the transportation department was create the most efficient bus routes okay and when we asked the transportation department to map those and see you know where because from Bonville they would be bused to either of those two locations um on the pickup and and swing or I don't know what the technical terms are for that but those those schools are the ones that would make the most sense to consolidate and shorten bus routes to shorten the bus route which was one of our priorities which is boggling a little bit to me to think you know that that's closer in D Hills is

186closer to Bonville than it is you know to Washington and but I understand what you're saying yeah it's the combined schools right it's not the one or the yeah it's the combined schools but if a child wanted if their parent if a parent wanted a Bonville parent wanted their child to go to Indian Hills they still have that option to do that with the magnet program is that is that correct or not um we always have a transfer process that parents can fill out um the full reference is in relation to the ways to manage class sizes um that's the problem with spring it seems like the theme of this meeting overall not just my part is we're in tough spots making tough decisions with communities that want very disperate things and we're having to

187make districtwide decisions for all of them um and that's the problem with enrollment numbers and when specific numbers get thrown around um like I said my the numbers of people who opt in and out change at this time time daily uh I check daily who is opting in and who is opting out and people do that in the spring they do it over the summer uh but to be mindful of those who to be mindful of class sizes that transfer process is something that's going to be addressed in later this spring to be able to see based on those who have opted in how many through that transfer request can I reasonably let in uh allowed to have oh excuse me access to a specific location to be able to make sure that we aren't

188in an over supply of students in one particular classroom that makes sense okay so superintendent I don't know if this is really just my brain thinking too much but one of the things I thought about with this conversation you know with the ELP and then also just looking at the reports that we're getting about you know the closing of schools and and how we're how we're trying to do this transition I can't help it keep going back to the commitment that we've made to keep all of our employees and that this has to have a systematic impact to us in some way shape and form when you're looking at these magnet programs and all these and we have this cohort of people that we have promised will have a job so I don't know if

189that is real if that's also a part of this conversation that we're not really vetting out and to me I think the board knows I'm a fan of small classes because I I know that that kids thrive in small classes I don't know if they thrive in 10 but I know that you know that 20 you know to 22 is is a good is a good number for especially the K through6 so I don't know I mean that's just something I've been thinking about and I don't know if that's something that that has been a challenge for all of you you know when you're thinking about the people that you have we've closed four schools and where do you put them because we've made a commitment to keep them not just where to put them

190but where they can Thrive right that thank you for saying that I take that back because you're right they should be able to thrive and not just be put somewhere so I appreciate you saying that and correcting me on that because that is absolutely true they need to thrive and thank you for raising those things Christie I also want to the board is should be commended for its efforts to increase ELP access which it has done by instituting a fourth grade test so we're not we're saying that we don't believe that all the kids who have should have access and may belong in that class can be identified in the early grades I think that's remarkable to say that and say we are going to offer more later on as kids grow up so um

191what that does do though is it puts pressure in different ways on the system about where where those fourth grade programs start those fourth fifth sixth grade programs start when we were going through through school closure this came up but we did have the discussion about we actually don't know how things are going to settle across schools with all these variables and moving parts and thought let's keep steady for an additional year on some of these projects and see where things fall out over time get a better sense of that enrollment pattern um and the transition patterns and then make some decisions we've also added that Edison program which is another variable here in thinking about where programs should be across the site or across the district sorry where they should be cited across the

192district so it feels like I think you're right there's a number of um questions at hand with this um that in some ways will just take a year or two to sort but we don't want to get into a position where we're putting off a decision that ought to be made um so I don't want to push us in that direction but I think we came into the conversation with school closure assuming that we would keep some things going and then make decisions when we knew how some of those things sorted out maybe just one last just I think it's important because superintendent you weren't here but Nate and myself and Muhammad and Jenny we were all here when we had the discussion about expanding our Alp programs and how important it was to all

193of us and and so this is part of it you know is it's taken a while to get to this point as we know but I think that what's important is we need to have the components and the conversations to help us continue to have this conversation to make sure that we really are providing a thriving program and that our teachers are thriving and that we have the right size you know magn in our schools so that parents you know will look at Salt Lake District and say I want my child to be there because it has a good program and so I just going forward let's try not to put ourselves in this position again obviously we don't want to be that you know and just be a little bit more forward thinking you

194know about how these decisions come to us and see if there's a way that we can maybe not feel as much angst as we are feeling tonight but you know to try and figure out how we take what Tiffany um has said and Dr Parsons that we'll have a better system put in place to do an evaluation of how that looks going forward because we we want that you know we want things in our schools that attract parents but also keep parents thank you board member sweat superintendent board member bid um thank you um uh I just have one uh one question do we have um enrollment data by ethnicity uh in this program at Washington yet or like in terms of how many are minorities how many are not I don't have those specific

195numbers to bring forward with you today because uh the focus of the conversation that was asked of us was about the overall scope of the program and not the specific drill down and so but we could certainly provide them we do have them for yes oh yeah we do have information in the CL we just don't have it right in front of us right now yes because for me that's like a big component okay so because of low enrollment we're closing schools in our district um and so and looking at this program here one you know I last year or last time we opened the program that I did did not vote for it um I was opposed to opening it in Washington and so I'm just looking like at a grade level for example

19622 23 16 and then went down to 15 now we are still at 11 yes numbers will change but I do not expect that to double you know just looking at the trend of how it has been so it is impossible for it I mean I would love to be proved wrong you know at the end that it's going to be 22 or so because the whole reason we are pushing for the program to expand is so we can maintain and honor uh Equity but right now what I'm seeing in this one here uh you know it would be interesting to be in that school and ask the parents who are like in uh uh regular programs and their kids how many of them are in classrooms and then ask them about what they think

197about the e the classrooms you know so there is a little bit of not little bit really an issue of equity here when it comes and it's not fair one to um the teachers for example when we going have the enrollment over at Indian Hills um and you know having a teacher to deal with so many kids you know it is already tasking whereas over here you know if we have a teacher with 15 18 we will say you know that is beautiful that's like you know being at a judge school or something like that you know would love to have every classroom to be that I am talking about Equity you know when it comes to the program you know if we're going to have a school with these numbers here and teacher will

198have like 16 in the classroom or even 20 and then in the other classrooms we'll have teachers with 30 32 or so not even talking about the YP here just across the board and we did talk about the importance of class right class sizing is that right yeah right siiz schools right yes right siiz schools and so and I'm going to add the classroom to that as well so yeah because it is really really important for me I just don't feel comfortable when I'm looking at the program for this period of time yes it's going to take a little while but right now looking at this is just there's not give me U uh hope that it's going to go up in terms of the enrollment even with the way we are R redistricting right

199now on the distribution of the program you know uh where am I standing on this one here um unfortunately I'm going to have to abstain because you know I yeah it just I do not feel right about it personally I really do not feel right I'm like you know thinking about like classroom where like kids are shoulder Tosh shoulder teacher like trying to manage you know so many kids and here you have this few students you know literally speaking you know enough Breeze in the classroom you know for it's just not right it just does not feel right to me personally it just does not feel right yeah thank you um any other I think yeah that's I'll just stop there just stop there anything that you'd like to contribute uh no all right um

200well in the interest of time um because I know it is getting late and we still have another agenda item and reports and the board does have to re-enter close session but can I just make one additional comment yes I know that time is really limited to me it's good that you have in here that you're going to have this by December of next year but you raised a really important question in my mind and that is thriving and it's really difficult for me to think about how those children that are in a 30 plus classroom 34 whatever it ends up being how they will Thrive for me I really think that what we have to consider here too is the impact that this has on this program you said that it's very um fleeting

201I get or you know it changes all the time the so my concern is will you now have parents that will start saying I'm just going to take my children out of the magnet program because there are 38 children children or whatever it ends up being at Indian Hills when we went to all of this effort to create this program and now we have created this environment where it's we don't know what's going on with this program so it's just going to be best for us to withdraw um our or take our children out of that particular program because we don't want to move them to Washington because we don't know if Washington's going to be there the the challenge is there has to be continuity they have to know what they can plan on

202and then the other piece to this is the parents that are at bonnaville that are now okay Indian Hills is closer geographically will they now say you know what we're just not going to have our children do the gifted program because we can't get into Indian Hills that's why for me there's not there's not a good answer here thank you board member Jensen um again in the interest of time um I would seek a motion to move this to the action agenda um where we can continue the conversation further as well and make that motion um I move that we move the magnet uh El uh program at Washington to the action agenda I have a motion is there a second a second okay we have a motion a second on the table any further

203discussion seeing none we'll start with a roll call Vote with myself uh president Salazar yes uh Muhammad um no Brian Jensen abstain Christy sweat yes Bryce Williams yes it's me Jenny seea yes Ashley Anderson yes I think I should go to action although I won't vote on it there okay that motion carries uh we will uh bring this back up in the action agenda U moving to item number four on the discussion agenda new contract position superintendent do you have somebody to present this our business administrator Allan kley also like to invite uh thank you Logan Hall Executive Director of Human Resources um to come to the table as well okay thank you so attached to the agenda is um one two three four five six positions well six positions although more than six FTE

204that were uh bringing to the board for potential uh for discussion and potential approval some of these positions are currently funded with Esser funds and we're looking to for ongoing funds to keep those going um some of them are funded with property tax growth uh funds and some of them are funded with other resources that have been allocated for different reasons that are no longer used for those reasons uh as you can see there's an elementary counseling specialist um social worker for the Reset Program safe School specialist Refugee service coordinator there's 2 FTE uh requested there human resource specialist 2 FTE there and a marketing graphing marketing and graphic specialist attached to the agenda were draft um job descriptions for these positions uh and a a brief paragraph uh explaining the the need for those

205positions um if you would like we can go into detail on any of them um we've got cabinet members that are here to answer any questions if if there's some questions about um what those what those positions do or what what the need is for those positions so um back to the board for further discussion thank you be here's this I just wanted to say we discussed this a little bit in the finance committee some of the positions and my questions were answered there so I know others may have them but I did receive some um constituent feedback about the ongoing balance of the size of our schools and the size of the office and I know that none of the I know that if you look at like a range of average sized offices

206we're not above the average we're not adding like so many employees compared to what are the Norms but there Remains the question of Direct Services to students and I know what we talked about in finance subcommittee meeting helped me to understand how a refugee specialist for instance would be someone who directly serves students and how a counseling specialist is really important and a safe School specialist is a person who has been funded by Esser who really does direct very directly serve students some of our most vulnerable students in our most complex situations so I just wanted to see if anyone could speak to those ongoing constituent concerns or faculty and staff concerns about when we look at these positions and you ask us to approve them how do they fall in the balance of continuing

207to prioritize Direct Services to students versus purely administrative roles I'm going to take up some of that if I could um I'm going to bring in a very different area of work which is nonprofits um excuse nonprofits are also often measured by their level of overhead but what they've actually found is that you need overhead to keep things running you need people in positions in management in administration to keep things running um I have not seen in coming into this organization that we are topheavy in any stretch I have not seen that our people are not running at their Edge to get the work done I think this question of District position positions versus School positions is a false dichotomy actually it's not an either or in my mind it is do we have enough

208people to get the work done that we've decided to do as a district sometimes that role has to be at a district office that's trying to get work done for across the district and sometimes it is at a school for school um the delivery of Direct Services to students I just don't want to fall prey to the question of it that by putting somebody in the district office we somehow cheating the rest of the programs I don't think we are I actually still think we're serving them everything we're doing is serving schools in these roles so I just want to be cautious about the framing that sets that up that way when I just don't think it's accurate they have done studies of nonprofits and they find that they actually need a higher level of

209overhead Than People typically give them in order to run a good nonprofit and so the to balance that out to me seems a little wrong I think there's a legitimate question to say does this is this position a position of need is the is the work being done the work that we want to get done at the district is it something that we're going to prioritize at this time those feel to me a a better framing of the question at hand than this you know a district office versus the schools in in this Dynamic I I don't buy into that picture of things particularly when I have seen the work in the district and as you mentioned we did some just quick math on looking at our size of District compared to others we know

210Utah is lean in its management structure compared to other states we know Utah spends less money out of its Budget on management our um management came out at 3 and a half% I can't remember now Allan I shouldn't name something it's three something yeah um which to me doesn't seem exorbitant to run a very large and complicated District you can tell I'm a little fired up about this because I just think I I think the framing gets twisted a little and I would love the board's um Direction and questions and concerns about the actual work and whether or not there's value in that work um and to look around and say I'm not sure the proper work is getting done or it feels like there's a lot of people sitting around not doing very much

211which I actually just have not seen anywhere in the system just because education is not that wealthy that we um we used to laugh at the Department of Defense and in the Department of Education we would ask for their um their decimal dust if it would come our way because it would help so much that in the Department of Defense there are generals carrying briefcases for other generals because they have so much funding um we don't have that kind of structure and so um I just want to put a different way of seeing this um in these conversations at large on the table and just to consider I think that's why it's the question is not do they work for the district the question is does the District staff directly interface with students is I

212think the priority that people are asking for and what I'm suggesting is uh when I discussed this I found that many of these new contract positions do directly interface with students some do not like a marketing person who's doing Graphics you can say provides more support for our families by getting more information out effectively which we've been told but that doesn't directly serve students necessarily especially if they're on their phones when they're not supposed to be on their phones um way to bring that back up you're welcome but I was feeling confident about how many of these positions despite being what we might think of as topheavy are in fact not that they are positions where you're a District staff member who does work directly with kids in the district and I think that's the

213framing is are we approving positions our constituents want to know at least mine that are working for kids and I think that a lot of these positions do work for kids and I don't know if there's more we can clarify about that to make people feel comfortable when we approve a position that it will benefit students whether it's their child or their neighbor's child I probably jumped too fast then as my apologies on I think it's a good conversation to have because it hones in on what's the most important thing which is actually what people are asking through kind of you know the institutional frustrations that build up over time yeah do these roles serve students optimally and I felt like in our conversation in finance we discussed that so it would be helpful to

214Think Through you know are there do we all as a group feel confident about the student directed part which is pretty much our job I think when you talk about um superintendent you know I mean there was a comment or maybe several comments that were made tonight you know about oh the district and there's $700,000 and maybe it should be used this way or that way I think it's our due diligence you know as a board to always you know be questioning you know how how do these specific positions that you're requesting or that we've talked about because some of them many of them have been through Esser dollars How do they P students and I think it is important as Ashley said that it you know what's the Direct Services for all students not

215just Able Body students but all students you know I think that that's important and so as we look at this I mean I can go through each one of these as we did in the finance committee and say Elementary counseling Specialists when I when I think about that that was a commitment that this board made to make sure that we had counselors in all of our elementaries and we knew eventually that that one person was not going to be able to handle that one job yeah and so to me you know it's it's that historical knowledge it's also the commitment that you also commit you know F further on we need to do a better job of doing that so that when people come and say well the district is topheavy then we can say

216actually it's not to Ashley's Point all of these things that we're putting together outside of one which you could still you know make some connections have Direct Services to kids and so as I look at these as we talked about them in our finance committee you know whether it's the social worker piece you know if they're for the Reset Program you know yes that's a new program but yet it's something that we're all committed to because we know that kids need to be successful and not every child fits in the same square hole you know we have to have different Services I think the safe School specialist goes without saying you know this is something that we all feel really comfortable you know that those are ongoing funds and we've discussed this now for how

217long have we had Sr funds for three years three years for three years we've had this discussion so it's not new and I think that so that due diligence again superintendent is on us to say when people come you know to the school district and and they make statements that either it's out of ignorance or out of you know us not being able to provide information out to our public the way that we need to even though we feel like we've talked a lot about it at this table we need to continue to do that so as I look at all of these things I am in 100% I mean I feel as though it's something that our district needs I think that when we talk about the marketing and graphic Specialists that is one

218area that I think that is important for you to talk about that you you know explain why you think that's an important position because it's not just one position it's two right or is that the who has the two no it's human it's human resources that has the two so I think it would be important because that's not something we've really talked about at this table but is our superintendent you've identified that this is something that our district needs so for me this would be a time where you could talk about you know the marketing piece to for the public and for all of us to understand why you feel this is important because we already know from the finance committee but I think it would be important for the rest of the board members

219to hear you talk a little bit about that please I'd be glad to thank you for teeing that up um so our district is unusual uh being a capital city district we get a lot of attention we have two people in our Communications office and we probably get the bulk of media attention in the valley among districts who have larger communication staffs to deal with that um along with the other pieces of um legislation and things that we have the legislative work that we've looped into our Communications and Community partner work um what has been lost in not having enough bandwidth in that office I think is the story of our district actually I think that has been lost that's the piece that I feel is missing the most um it is the story of

220our individual schools and what is happening in those schools it is the story of The Amazing programs the amazing teaching um and it it just isn't present because I just don't think we have enough bandwidth to get it done nor do we have a lot of great graphic skills and technical skills that could pop things up I have been taking lessons from Jenny zika on what social media ought to look like and I'm not going to be in charge of that um because I'm not going to get it right but uh we need to punch it up we need to punch it up and it's not just it's not a veneer it's not a surface look at our district it is a way of conveying information and people won't take in that information unless it

221comes in the form that they'll take it in with that they attend to that they're reading about that they hear and see and so those pieces um are what we're building into this idea of marketing the other piece is that um I would like to drive some campaigns in this District we have one that we rolled out last week with dignity that to me has to be a c campaign that we sustain over the coming years and that we just continue to remind and expect people to act with dignity that will take a concered effort and I want to see that as a campaign we have um been all in agreement for years and I'm just following your lead on this uh around reading and and literacy and doubling down on that there's been a

222huge investment over this last year and a half or so with our teachers and their time and effort to learn the new curriculum and new ways of instruction and I want to do a more camp campaigning around that and what we're doing in literacy and what this highquality literacy instruction looks like those sorts of things where we are pushing out information in ways that serve the community are how I'm seeing this piece come into our Communications Group and so I'm actually excited about what we can what we can do this way um on top of that we may have some bonding needs that need support as well as over time but um so that's that's the vision behind um this particular position thank you superintendent thank you board member sweat board member Jensen thank you

223for giving a little bit more uh Insight um finance committee members on how these positions impact students I'm still grappling with and superintendent Grant when you were saying that um Utah is lean on management I certainly understand that but I also think that Utah is lean on teachers and uh student support um at this at the school it it's it's just very very lean and I think we do a remarkable job I do too um with what we've been given um one of the challenges that I have is and I appreciate um your um expressing that what you're seeing in the district office you know people are you know on task doing their job got a lot to do um in schools people are on task doing their job got a lot to do and

224they keep getting asked to do more and more and more and more and to me it's a little bit disingenuous to have the approach in our schools with the actual teaching and I see how refugees get serviced I see how um these impact others but to me it's disingenuous to to continually come and say well we just have to have you do this this one more thing um this has been mandated this has been um required through legislation or whatever it is um you're just going to have to roll up your sleeves and do that um I guess sometimes I think well here at the district maybe you're just going to have to roll up your sleeves and do that because we don't have enough money um thank you for talking about the marketing and

225graphic specialist I guess I look at Human Resource Specialists and okay two full-time employees there okay I I'm sure you've got a lot of work to do but when I was in that classroom and I'm thinking how come I'm supposed to work 11 hours a day um I don't get the sense that at the district they're working 11 hours a day and I I don't want I understand what you're saying you know pitting those things but to me that's a question yeah I um this is actually the dichotomy that don't want to have I understand that but it's a dichotomy that's out there I but I don't think it I don't think it's either real or practical to decide who is working harder in the district I didn't say it was a question of working

226harder who may have more to do the reason we're adding two people into the human resources is because of the demands of schools who said we're trying to hire and we can't get this work done because there aren't enough people in the office there actually aren't to keep the hiring going that's needed for the schools everything people are doing in district office there is nothing self-serving the district office is created to serve schools I grant that on days there are times that it doesn't serve as well as it ought to right that that is our role we are created to serve schools every action is built to serve schools you and I should go have lunch and talk about this more CU I'm going to get into a philosophical place here but I I feel

227really quite strongly about this and I and I want to talk with you about it because I I worry about getting into that again that framing um and when we're putting these two HR people out it isn't to simplify some work it's to get work done that wasn't getting done because we have a great deal of turnover particularly in hourly emplo employees and things that we continue to have to employ that just takes a lot of bandwidth to run the processes to get that work done and it wasn't getting done until these two employees came in and then all of a sudden after the HR report said HR is not responsive now people are saying HR is responsive it actually didn't take anything but just increasing the ability of the office to get the work

228done by putting some people in there to get the work done so all of this work is built around supporting teaching and learning all of it is I think um your questions about the value of some of the work we're choosing to put some money behind are good questions but I don't want to get into a position where we are arguing either or in a sense because I don't think that's what the con that's not what the decision making is in my mind is it goes here or here I think we try and get a little bit more and we try and solve all of it over time I I think you have a very um passionate approach yeah very passionate approach and I think that you have a very persuasive argument um so maybe

229I should have um couched the terms differently when you are saying value I just listen to a teacher who to me appeared to be a remarkable teacher that was saying 79% of my students yeah um are English language Learners 25% of them our first year yeah and somehow she's just supposed to do that and uh I it's very hard for me to see there's value in all of these things so how do we prioritize that value yes there's Great Value in accommodating the hiring process but there's just as much value and making sure that woman she should have interventionists paraprofessionals or whatever if we don't have additional uh teachers to help her or we're going to lose a really good teacher um so what I am trying to say is okay let's not get into

230that dichotomy let's look at it as a whole and how do we really prioritize what gives the most value thank you so thank you Brian you have just really brought something full circle for me that as a finance Committee Member I did not do for you and so I apologize for that when we sat with Allan in our committee we looked at multitude of jobs that are not going to be carried on because we don't have the money to do it and they prioritized these ones that are in front of you I'm sorry we didn't tell you that because I think that makes a difference in the conversation tonight that we knew through the eser dollars there was no way that we were going to be able to sustain a lot of those a lot

231of those um jobs and there are multiple departments that are losing multiple people because we just don't have the money to do it and so the superintendent and the cabinet came to the finance committee and this was the priority that they gave to us and I don't think we accepted all did we accept all of them I don't I thought there was a couple that we didn't think you accept all that we prioritized that you prioritized and even questioned some of the ones that they weren't going to put forward and so that's a missing piece we should have talked a little bit about that tonight because really critical piece it is a really critical piece so I am sorry that we did not do that for the rest of you tonight that you weren't a

232part of that conversation that Ashley Muhammad and I were and it was very distressing to see this three was it three-page document that only had this many highlighted and that was it and and that was and Alan said it was very distressing for them to have to go through that list so I just I can't even believe that we didn't tell you that so I'm sorry Bor that we didn't share that with you because there was a process that they went through to look at to prioritize what they felt was something that they that we could actually afford to do when we didn't have those esal dollars any longer I'm sorry about that thank you um that's your role as the finance committee and I trust you and rely on but I need to hear

233that part of it to understand that you have really gone through and have looked and have decided okay these are essential but there are some that we're just not be a we just can't fund it we can't V it yeah thank you for the conversation and I I do have a couple of observations one I I it it's been it's it's hard to hear the dichotomy right like there is this element of frustration out there that Brian's talking about and I I love hearing your passion on us not wanting to get too deep into those weeds whether realistic unrealistic truth or validity or or and or not any right um and us to this element of you know your dignity work and your push there and the campaign there um you know we we should

234all be team Salt Lake City School District and we should all be team you know 19,000 plus students in Salt Lake City School District and each of us from our custodial teams and our Landscaping teams to you know us as a board as individuals we should all be team 19,000 Plus Salt Lake City School District students and um making sure that they're thriving to use some more words that Dr Parson and Dr Hall have brought to the table tonight um I think is really important it's really crucial that we remember that um but it sounds like there's still some work to do um internally and and throughout the system as as adults as teachers as Educators as board members as anybody that's staffed about how we overcome those dichotomies those discrepancies those feelings and worries

235um to make sure that we are serving students to the best of our capability um and this leads me to some of my real question but I just wanted to point that out as um a hard conversation a difficult conversation um but one of Great Value because we we put something out there into the world that um I think has been unspoken publicly um and now that it's reach the board table um it gives more validity for us to actually do something about it and address it um back to the the the topic of new contract positions um how are these priori ized I think is my big question to to ba kirley and and Logan and were these prioritized um through the lens of our strategic plan for student achievement all right so each

236of the cabinet members brought forward their their request um we weighed the requests against the available resources and then we superintendent and I met with every single one that brought forth the request and said here's our limited resources help us understand and of your request which ones are the most essential and so we we met with each one of them and then we we boil it down to a number that we could um we had the money to to address okay and I can add about the part of the question about how does the side of the Strategic plan for student achievement in that the presentation from the cabinet members we wanted to address each of the pillars specifically um I know specifically for the human resource positions one of the the goals on the

237Strategic plan for student achievement is making sure that our classrooms and our schools are adequately staff and in order to do that we need to reduce the amount of time it takes to staff um and making sure that we're have the bandwidth too hire and do appropriate background screenings and those sorts of things to make sure we have the best people in their uh positions in addition the like the social worker position the safe School specialist those tie directly to um strategic plan goals and so there there is a great alignment with the work that these positions will do in helping Drive the district forward in meeting our our uh board adopted goals for our strategic plan for student achievement thank you for that explanation and um I'm really glad to hear that that lens

238was used you know it's a really um important element of what I think this board has has given a charge to you into your cabinet and all the way down into our schools to do um so I really appreciate that that opport that lens and I'm totally in favor of of these positions and um to to other board members points I think they they do directly impact um you know the lives of students and and making sure they're successful so um I just appreciate the work of the finance committee chrisy thank you for the apology on that one too and um and your work and efforts to to help us iron these out and and bring us something that we could discuss in a really meaningful way I think we could probably share that that

239information that we have okay rest cool any other comments or discussion points I with uh with uh Liz's passion this is not to devalue any other department but there has been conversations of the need to um exploit I don't know if that's the best term for it but just you know get Salt Lake City School District out there because we're trying to retain students and we're trying to bring more students because we have we have a lot of people in this District who believe in the district but we don't know how to Market that and tell people we have the best District in the state of Utah and ain't nobody and and she brings me up because I'm all like our social media sucks it does and and if you come at a lens of

240an educator it's going to suck and I'm not saying this to belittle Educators it's just that's not their Forte their Forte is not to Brand their Forte is not to socialize their Forte is to teach these children who actually become social media gurus um the intent of needing to put our district at the top of the map is slowly coming to fruition and I've seen that at the nsba conf conference um by our children of the district we had Tim Shriver there exposing our Highland High School children and their spos because they did something that they knew that was valuable that the district has brought to their attention and they're exploiting it free dollar but we in the district don't know how to do that and unfortunately um my idea if if this doesn't go

241through if we don't support the finance committee and their trust and their educated decision that they made um I don't think we're doing it for the students these students need better and they deserve better and I think we come at this at a lens of an adulting instead of for our kids trust me our kids are like what's out there in the media is not what Salt Lake City School District is doing and that's how these kids you know um put us on the map because they're doing things that Salt Lake City School District doesn't know how to do and I think that this is what um superintendent's trying to do is uh put us on the map some way somehow we're let everybody know that we are that District the flagship District that we're

242in hopes of doing and I am in support and approval of this fin committee yeah thank you board member speaker yeah board member B anything you'd like to add um emotion getting there Anderson everybody deserves a chance to speak I deserved that I deserved that yeah so you know with my uh background in HR you know any person that you add into the department is actually another you know know belt that just kind of help keeps the machine moving forward you know we do not have enough people to work as par professionals or so if we have more people at the HR department will will be able to make that happen so um I'm very confident you know uh in everything that's being provided and dispositions and description that is given I'm a firm believer

243in the fact that you know there is a vision why we have dispositions it's not just oh we need this spot here because they're going to do just this but instead it's like there is a bigger picture why we want that position and uh yeah and I'm going to support this thank you um with that and to board member Anderson's request I will seek a motion oh yes I moved that yeah action move it to action I move that we put the new contract positions on the action agenda second all right uh being that there's probably no further discussion I'll start with a roll call Vote with board member bade Mohamad yes Brian Jensen yes now that I was um educated in the um indepth process you went through to prioritize what was essential for

244our students thank you for that fogging Christy sweat yes Bryce Williams yes yes Jenny seea yes ashle Anderson yes Salazar yes all right that moves us swiftly into our action agenda we have two items on the table um the first being the Washington 4 through6 magnet program update I'll seek a motion to further discussion um if no further discussions we can take a vote if you'd like to before a motion um I just want to make sure we're clear about what we're voting on here so if we could um that we have a pilot program in place what we've come to ask is that because that pilot program was only approved for a year last year that we approve it again for another year that's um my understanding of the motion that we want to

245have taken if we don't approve the pilot program then it ends essentially because it doesn't have the board support to continue then we need to disband that at Washington um look for other places for those families that are there look for other places for those teachers that are there um so it if I'm getting this right that's where we are in this Tiffany help me understand if I'm so to close how would we phase out for those families then we'd have to make those decisions about phasing that out right now and and new placements in the fall if we continue it for another year as a pilot we have a commitment from the Department to look at those numbers closely in December and come to you with some parameters you had mentioned around social and

246emotional and academic and enrollment that we would look at to help provide a framework for making that decision about whether it would continue further or we would would grandfather that out or either end it that single year or grandfather it out as um as Tiffany had suggested possibly as another alternative so um did I state that right board members I want to just be clear that that's the decision do we continue that for this single year or do we end the program right now and then find other op can I ask a point of clarification maybe to our parliamentarian okay um it's on the action agenda do we have to make a motion in order to discuss it further or can we discuss now and then form a motion should discuss so we need to

247have a make a motion first and then discuss I don't want to make that motion don't look to me to make that motion it's late I have too many strings attached to the motion it would be like 17 minutes of talking [Laughter] okay what what what do I have to say what for us to discuss it um ideally a motion if you would like to maintain maintain the the program pilot if you would not like pilot for one for an additional year for an additional year with a review in December if we go everything as outlined on the PowerPoint okay yeah by Dr h i motion that we maintain the pilot program as outlined on the um action agenda okay I have a motion is there a second to the motion I'll second for discussion

248got a second all right moving into further discussion um on the motion I can go ahead and get us started um I I mentioned at the beginning of of the discussion um portion of of this particular topic that we're in a tough spot right um you know it's it's somewhat disingenuous other board members have mentioned to kind of put a halt to a program that is already being requested of parents and families and students to enroll in um but I'm also having the heartache of I'm wishing that the board and the superintendent and and all of us as as her cabinet would have reviewed this um earlier um in this in this school year um prior to uh to where we find ourselves now um so I'm I'm still of that mindset um I would

249be supporting to maintain the pilot for another year with review of U what we're going to do next and what our next steps will be in December if we could come to some agreement amongst us that because the registration is already out there and we're talking about 30 plus families you know that have already registered for this program knowing that it wasn't ideally what we would have chosen to have happen ideally for me I would have rather has had a conversation and combined you know the families with Indian Hills and then had two separate classes ideally that's what I would have liked to have seen because I think it provides more opportunity for kids but that's not feasible right now I don't think and you know if if if you had come to us tonight

250superintendent and said you know we can take this program we can move it right up to Indian Hills without any problem there's space there's this there's but that's not what I heard tonight tonight and I think that what you're saying is that it's going to be difficult if we dispan it tonight to really figure out what we're going to do at that point it's not as easy as me saying let's just move them all up to Indian Hills right yeah so my my angst about this right now is that I'm in the same place that Nate is that I need to have a guarantee which it sounds like what that's what we're getting is that we will have a relook of this program and see where it's at with the ethnicity because that was a

251piece of it that we talked about extensively you know over those years you know that we wanted to make sure I know that's one of the reasons that we said let's have the school over at Edison right I mean that was part of it but it also is something that we we we need to have that in the program districtwide and if we are going to put a Time line that we make that a part of what we're talking about tonight that a timeline will be done that we will have an assessment of the program in December and that a decision can be made about the future of that school in a way where we feel like we actually are having a conversation and that our stakeholders and our parents understand that that's what we're

252asking to have done tonight then I feel like that's the position that I've been placed in tonight you know is that because I'm I'm worried about you know those families that have been signing up with a program that they thought was viable for another year and that was what they were told so that's my two cents thank you board memb what B Johnson what both of you has what both of you have said is what I think that I have previously expressed and the hour is late for me the really hard thing with this is being put in this position where there is not a good answer and I'm sorry but I see this as this should have been brought to the board in December and with the development of agendas and how all of

253those things happened in our um District planning or however I'm relying on some of those things to be anticipated because I'm not aware of all of the programs so for me I I have to abstain from this because I feel like I wasn't given the opportunity um to make a good decision I appreciate completely what everyone has said about those families that are in the program at Washington but I'm also concerned about the families that are at Indian Hills I'm concerned about the families that are at Hawthorn that have now tried to go to Indian Hills and they're now there I mean they've already been disrupted in many ways so then they went to Indian Hills and now they've got I can't say the figure because it's transitory but it appears that there's a bunch

254of children at Indian Hills a bunch of and then we have the babil children and are their parents going to decide to even participate in a program so if we if if the board decides that you know majority of the board decides that they want to abstain then what's the end result if that's what the vote is is that we that there's four people that abstain then what next I believe the motion fails and the motion would fail right and and what would happen the decision would be a no basically per Jenny Sea's motion and we would have to disband the program and it wouldn't exist next year okay at least that's my understanding parliamentarian yeah okay is that correct any other further discussion and yeah so so if this does not move forward so

255it is still uh a bit early in the process that parents you know since it's only like 30 some parents or so uh I don't I think I don't know how complicated it is you know uh to have let's say okay so we have these three teachers or so that're going to be in this program here if they were to be teaching at Indian Hills then we will be consolidating the classroom reducing them from 30 plus to like 20 or so see what I'm saying so it'll have like yeah I just wanted to say I think we're engaging at this point in speculation that doesn't is not real that none of us know how many students are enrolled I mean that's the criticism from the community is that this presentation as it was posted didn't

256include other magnet data so I think it would be wrong for us to speculate about the future of the magnet because as um Dr Hall stated if the motion failed and the program was dissolved The Next Step would be deciding if that would mean the program doesn't run again next year with new students it also doesn't mean that the fifth and sixth graders evaporate into you know she said would the direction be the next step to grandfather it and so on and so forth so we're jumping ahead to where to move students when that was not part of the question or the information we were given and also not our job so if in fact the the motion if the motion passed then it pro proceeds as outlined in PowerPoint if the motion failed then

257there are Next Level Direction there is next level direction to give and it's not going to happen as part of this discussion because we can't as a board right now tell Dr Hall to place the students at Indian Hills we don't have that information course yes absolutely but also again here I go back to what Brian is saying it's like not given enough time to have you know enough information and accurate information for me for me to make a sound decision you know this is where it's hard because we've been dealing with this in our district for so long so many things come at the last minute to our lab and we have no choice but we need to vote or make some decision of some kind and this is something we've been trying to

258correct and personally you know this is why I'm abstaining because I have not had enough time to really you know get some concrete more information that I need like there is no reason for us to be sitting here and not knowing what is the enrollment at Indian Hills for example but I don't think this vote affects the enrollment at Indian Hills no but I mean there's just like information for me that I would like to know because it'll help me in deciding you know what I'm going to do next with the Washington because I'm seeing the enrollment of Washington MH and to me those numbers will help me determine if I want this program to continue or not because it is Data from when it started to where we are right now and what we

259are projecting and and I mean it really is just not enough information for me to sit here and you know vote and say yeah I'm going to move with this program thank you m appreciate it okay I'm GNA and if there's no further discussion I I think it's time to go ahead and and call for a vote on this um we'll go ahead and start with uh with vice president Williams uh so the vote is the one year approval card yes okay uh Bryce Williams yes Jenny seea yes Ashley Anderson upstein Nate Salazar yes Mohammad upstein Ryan Jensen abstain Christy sweat abstain okay that motion does not pass and that brings us into the next elements of our agenda which are a superintendent's report if needed contct oh gosh excuse me look at me trying

260to jump ahead um the next um action agenda item thank you vice president Williams for keeping me on track are the new contract positions I'll seek a motion I move to approve the contracted positions as stated second okay we have a motion and a second on the table any further discussion seeing none uh we'll do a roll call vote starting with board memb Jenny seea yes Ashley Anderson yes Nate Salazar yes moham yes Ryan Jensen yes with great trust in our finance committee and Alan kley thank you chrisy SW R Williams yes all right that motion passes thank you finance committee and ba kirley for your efforts on that now to the superintendent report if needed couple things yes um I did want to say thank you to the board for coming out to Tim

261Shriver I know some of you had heard him before um I'm excited about what this can be and what we can build in the district and to have the opportunity to have a University of Utah impact scholar for the gardener Center Natalie gner to have carved out that time out of his schedule to give him to us so that he could speak to those important issues and and get us started that way um was just actually pretty wonderful and we'll start this again with the teachers in the fall as well um the dignity work and have that set up already for our professional development in the fall to expand that um to teachers we can't have Tim Shriver here he's the best speaker on this issue but um we'll see what we can do I

262know Dr you're pretty Swift on it yourself shall I shall I just roll I'm going to crib his notes and see how we go yeah um yeah I I also want to mention um and this is actually quite important to pay attention to for for a minute um the legislative Bill HB 257 which is called the sex-based designation for Primacy privacy anti-bullying and women's opportunities this is otherwise known as the bathroom bill I want to share with the board and with the community um this bill uh requires it is to be enacted in on May 1st so that is less than two weeks from now this bill goes into effect um I want to thank our general Council kindall and uh our school support team particularly Mindy Holman and um Stacy um Lindsay for getting

263together and deciding how to handle this in our district we have students who are going to be placed in very difficult positions Yeah by this bathroom bill and and what our team has done to roll this out over the next couple of weeks has been sensitive and attentive to the law at the same time so I wanted to share this with you so that you know what the plan is um the law requires of us um first of all the the premise of the bill is that a student may only access a sex designated privacy space within a public school a bathroom or a locker room or a changing room um that is designated for the student use if the student sex corresponds with the sex designation of the Privacy space meaning what you were

264given at Birth is where you can go and use that facility and there is nothing we can do to change that that is the new law except that there are some ways that we are enacting this to serve students um three things that we must do we must notify students of the law this means all students this is like K through 12 that we notifying students and the team put together a very simple straightforward presentation for teachers to give in their classrooms so that the teacher who knows the students best is sharing this information that just States if your sex is designated as this you go to this bathroom and designate is that as you go to that bathroom and if you are uncomfortable about this or need some other accommodation please talk to an

265adult and we'll come up with a privacy plan that will allow use of another facility within the school so um we have that in place those conversations are going on right now in that our ad our counselors our administrators our teachers are reaching out to students who are already on um our G24 plans that we know may need this kind of accommodation and a plan according to the law we are reaching out to them um so that they know ahead of time that this law is going into effect and we have plans in place for them uh come May 1st uh next week our uh as I mentioned people are our teachers and leaders are speaking with students in these in their classrooms to share this information so that we are compliant with the law

266the other two pieces that we need to do are of course develop privacy plans as needed to serve students and then the third thing we need to do is address any violations in order to promote compliance um in this but I I wanted you to know as a board that um this is our compliance process and with all other schools in the state they are to share this information with students and with families so along with the board report this week we'll send a note to parents to let them know they may um they may view all this material and they may have it they can they can take a look at it and all of that so if there are any questions they should just get in touch with their school or they can

267get in touch with us in the district office on that the other thing I can I just want to share sorry I want to share some good events going on in the district um that one is a hard one um again I've got a hats off to our team for the really remarkable way they've they've handled this and they're navigating this in our district I think our district may be among the most affected because we so welcome um a number of different diverse students into our midst and want them in our schools and um we also are paying a lot of attention so that we serve them well even through this process um you should note that our Pre-K students on a whole different note are participating in um a computer science grant where they

268will receive a suite of Lego materials to help with steam um to steam learning and to ignite their curiosity the First on another note the first Earth day was in 1970 a long time ago um Tiffany Hall has called this the largest Civic event on Earth Earth Day the celebration it's on Monday April 22nd and a number of our schools um have Earth Day events on Monday I hope you have been invited to some of those um a shout out to our PE teacher at Hillside Drew Von lintl who presented this is interesting enough he um is teaching archery but he presented at the Utah Coalition for educational technology because he's using technology in PE and helping kids record scores and and figure out the archery through technology and present it in that at a

269state level conference so I am impressed um PE teacher Von lentil for your creativity and use of technology and and PE are um Junior Ry Cadets took fourth place in the air rifle competition just this last week down in Provo um pretty impressive shows they've um it was a state level competition um but they've been um obviously practicing hard and they have to maintain their academic standing to participate too this program the junior Ry program is at West high but all students in our high schools can participate in that program and then um AC day was on March 13th 1,440 Juniors took the ACT test um it is a required test of the state of Juniors that that we put out but that was 84% of our Juniors districtwide and big thanks to schools teachers

270and all who um supported that day and and got people prepared for the test the number will just go up as um more makeups are done over the next few weeks as people complete the act so throw out some of those good news moments thank you thank you superintendent uh board member reports if needed start with firsts hand board member Jensen um well there's a couple of things the first one I feel like I need to respond to um a comment that was made in the public CR uh request time I take very seriously uh the consent agenda I look through every one of those items I read the exhibits that are attached and so that the public knows if I have questions on it I go to that department and ask for an explanation

271so that I can and Allan knows this I I ask him questions and I think that that most of us do that and I want the public to understand that when we get that I think that we that's a part of my responsibility to look at that and when I agree to that Ascent consent agenda I am doing it knowing what I am consenting to and having checked if I had questions okay then I I just have to thank um the district and um Christina Kendall for that um presentation that you did last week with the bathroom bill I attended that and to me when we're talking about how we're a team that was a team effort there was the district that had to respond to uh a challenging um piece of legislation and how

272to properly implement it in our schools the teachers were there too and were I I felt responsive in okay help us understand how we go about this I thought that that was a positive exchange and thank you for addressing it that way and now I'm from what you're telling us they'll go into the individual schools and that will be addressed um third I I want to thank um chrisy for uh wonderful nsba conference I felt like the seminars that I attended were really informative and I have said to some of you other board members that I hope that we will have a Time when we can share those things and Ashley I missed you not being there and understand why you couldn't but I would think it would be beneficial to share some of those

273um practices that are really being successful in other districts maybe we can do that in our Retreat or I would hope that we have a time to share with each other um finally well thank you for trusting the policy committee um you all affirmed those in the consent agenda and I want you to know you reported to me how you were we looked at each one of those policies and we discussed them uh superintendent Grant uh participated with our committee and with Christina thank you finally um in my assignment on the usba I just need to let you know that tomorrow there is a jlc meeting if you would like to participate um I am planning on being there Christie we're going to drive down together if someone else wants to get in my car

274you are welcome to do that it's not going to be here in Salt Lake City it will be in Spanish Fork 350 South Maine at the Neo district office uh starts at 9: in the morning uh the following week I will be at the board of directors meeting for usba in St George and I will report anything that um we are presented there in our next meeting um just so that you can have this on your calendar um on May 15th there will be another jlc meeting and there are significant things that are being discussed in jlc and I think that this will all be leading up to a delegate assembly in June so I think that it's important for you to be aware of May 15th another jlc 9:00 a.m. again at the neibo

275district office um there will be a pre- delegate Workshop in June that is um June 7th at 6 pm. so this is for those of you that are delegates um be aware of that and then June 88th will be the delegate assembly where I think they will be relying on that delegate assembly to determine um position that we are going to be taking um in regards to recent legislative action and things like that I'll also report to you on the executive committee with usba that I will be attending on May 10th thank you board member Jensen board member sweat so um like board member Jensen there it's rare that I feel like I want to address the same comment um from a request to speak but I think that when we're admonished to do better

276um I think that we as a board um have been working to do the best that we possibly can as elected officials it's not been easy the past 3 years and I think that that we have um we've joined together and have done a better job I think that that superintendent goes back sometimes that when uh things are said you know that don't ring true that we do have to make sure that we put out correct information and you know as Brian has said you know consent to genders are important and you know I know what our work is when we come to this board meeting and I believe that every single one of us do that and so I know you are already doing better and so I just wanted each of you to

277know that I recognize that in this board and in this District I also want to say thank you to all of you that came to New Orleans I think that um that was it was it's important um to get feedback from all of you and so I too am looking forward to the conversation that we have about what workshops throw to the top for you because that's something that is good feedback for um for the conference um for Atlanta so I'm looking forward to that conversation also superintendent I think when you talk about being a flagship um district for our district to be I believe one of the first districts to hold that presentation that Miss kindall put together at Highland is an example of us being a flagship District that in all the years

278that I have sat on this board I have never worried about compliance because of Miss Kindle and her expertise around those things and like Brian I heard compliment after compliment from people about that presentation that was given at Highland and and I don't think I'm wrong I think that we were the first to step out front and to do that and so my hats off to The District administration to miss Kindle you know and for our for people who showed up at Highland that night because they care about how this is going to impact our kids and that was that resounded to me um very deeply you know that we have people who care about how piece of legislation is going to impact our kids every single day so I appreciate that that meeting was

279set up the way it was superintendent thank you for making it mandatory I thought that that was really important and for anybody who missed it I'm I'm assuming that you're also having other meetings for the people that weren't able to make it that night so thank you for that um and last thing that I want to say is I I hope superintendent that you know that we are here to help you be successful that is important you know for I I hear us say it all the time I hope you continue to know that that we need to be able to work with you as a team and I I think that tonight although some of the conversations were hard that we need to continue to make sure that we buoy you up and buoy

280up the administration and your cabinet to know that we want you to be successful so how do we find those Pathways to continue to always do that so thank you again and I appreciate your leadership and you know the work that we're doing together as a board and as a as a district thank you I'm going to be as fast as possible as we all know I have committee updates um because we have not had a meeting between our last Finance subcommittee meeting and now so in the finance subcommittee meeting we discussed in addition to the contract positions that we've already reviewed the external audit Cal calendar with Squire and Company um and we also continued to more deeply dive into these srf funded positions uh in the human sexuality committee meeting we also recently

281reviewed the newborn Safe Haven program as required by law as well as Elementary School maturation and bloodborne pathogens materials which we need to review as part of the health curriculum um I also want to congratulate Chris C the science coach at IGN on her publication with Candace Penrod and the National Science teaching ass Association um it was on Project based experiential learning with Urban bird counts and it will culminate in an Earth Day Expo or sorry the paper culminates in last year's Earth Day Expo and I invite everyone to attend this year's Earth Day expo at IGN as Dr Grant mentioned it's on Monday from 1: to 2 p.m. um as I look at her paper I think an important takeaway is that the science department is not operating with simply a structure of capacity

282building but providing Direct Services to kids which we've talked about extensively in this meeting as part of the project Chris had to lead direct instruction in classrooms organize visiting guests and assist with the logistics of running field trips and as I've mentioned many times since joining the board our models in this area kind of run the spectrum of options and I think this is an option for more people to learn about and lean into the success of the way the science department is running their coaching model um I also want to highlight the West hion club which had recently invited me to an event with a visitor from St Dominic in Ghana and you can read more about this in the greater Avenues Community Council newsletter next month um as we talk about the dignity

283index as with others I just want to point out that this new legislation continues to violate the Dignity of our trans students we've had at least one student drop from the roles since the since learning about the content of the presentation and it's just really important for people to know that this bill has caused harm to our students um in addition I want to point out that some West High athletes were also recently the unfortunate recipients of racial slurs and homophobic insults at recent away game and I want to go on the record that this is absolutely unacceptable and I appreciate Dr Wright for swiftly addressing this with the High School Activities Association I think as we talk about dign dignity and prioritize you know our speech we also need to agree to learn more

284deeply about what our students are experiencing and often how their dignity is violated um I think that to not end on a somber note I have a few more congratulations West High just had their choir tour with gold ratings Washington had a well organized and received family night focused on literacy and Community the West IB art show is at the marmalade Library opening tonight and they are also seeking volunteers to help Proctor their AP and IB exams thank you member Anderson stent Evans ni pres William yeah I'll keep it quick keep it quick as well but I do have three uh quick things um first was uh I appreciate the opportunity to hand uh nsba was it been a week already a week a week ago um in the almost three years that I've been

285a board member that was the most um helpful professional development opportunity I've had in my three years so I wanted to share that to you chrisy and I've put that in my evaluation as well um second is uh tomorrow morning I will be participating with the Rose Park Raptor ride that's been something we've been doing every month it's probably one of my favorite things I get to do as a board member um so that's tomorrow morning bright and early 7:15 it's getting late and then the third thing is I was also going to share it in regards to the earth a ex design I will be attending that as well um I don't know where to even start you know especially after hearing about the bill um well first of all I want to thank

286our district for um doing what you're supposed to be doing um and and this is going to be like a very hard week for for so many kids and so many families and I would urge you know our families and teachers and staff um uh to be a um to be a soft spot for those kids where they can land because this disgusting racist xenophobic bill is only violate human rights in this you know in this earth that's all I can say because we've resolved the problems of like homelessness kids being hungry not having health care and everything and last thing we are like focusing on is bathroom bills I mean I don't know exactly um how I should go about this I don't care who's going to be saying whatever about what I'm saying

287here but you know I just hope that all of us are going to be there and responsive to those families whose children are hurting you know so many hearts are going to be broken really so many hearts are going to be broken and it's just not right what is happening and we need to make sure to let them know that you know regardless of all the policies that are out there they'll Always Feel Home in our district and I just you know um and I I I extend that challenge to everyone because it is just despicable yeah I'll leave it at that thank you board member bab board member SEO oh yeah I just feel regretful and I would like to apologize to our Educators for my sarcastic Polynesian humor you guys do not suck

288nor are you boring okay I would like to express my Polynesian love though for everybody especially superintendent her cabinet um you guys do a lot of work and and sometimes we as board members um are put in places to do do really really hard things and um you alleviate that sometimes but um I do want to express my um gratitude to all Educators out there rest in peace to my father who was an educator I I'm I'm finding that I speak ill it sounds like I'm speaking ill of you guys but I'm I'm sorry thanks for hanging in there all five of you who are left behind I'm love all the Educators here especially in the district thank you guys thank you board member SAA I'll also keep it brief um want to extend my

289apology to you Christie and to the board for not being able to make it to New Orleans um I was so looking forward to the opportunity and I was super sick with strep throat and it would have made absolutely no sense for me to get on a plane and just hang out in a hotel room um while I contined to recover but I want to thank you for your your efforts and all of your work on a national level representing school districts across this country um and Boards of education and thank you for your service at that level I also want to um say thank you to uh Debbie roacha at Edison Elementary and the Edison Administration um they invited to a career day um uh that I attended a few weeks ago um but

290nonetheless it was just really great to be with students and with other professionals um from here in Salt Lake City um to to interact and engage with students um about the work that we do um professionally and and as elected officials and in the military and law enforcement and um Construction in the legal field I mean it was just it was a a packed um gymnasium and it was really sweet to see um students in their their uh their career costumes which I thought was also really cute so thank you Edison for the opportunity um with that ends our reports um section um we do have a need for a close session but I've also um just in the interest of time knowing that it's almost 10 o' um the topic that we have to

291discuss in close session could be pushed to the May 7th board meeting close session if the board's amable to that U We'll add that want to talk Jenny I I know what kind of humor that is but uh just kidding but nonetheless um I'll go ahead and and call the meeting adjourned thank you board members for your service [Music] tonight thank you Jenny punch you after you it really y Okay so