001so [Music] maybe go out and go back in all the way can you hear me thank you [Music] okay i think everyone's here um this regular business meeting of the edmond school district board of directors for august 10th 2021 is called to order uh dr balderas would you please administer the land acknowledgement yes president kilgore we acknowledge the original inhabitants of the of this place the snohomish people and their successors the tulaila tribes who since time immemorial have taken care of hunted fished and gathered on these lands we respect their sovereignty their right to self-determination and we honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water by acknowledging these homelands we commit to working with tribal nations to further the education aims they have identified in our classrooms and schools thank you thank you
002thank you next we have our flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all next uh would anyone like to make an emotion about the agenda for tonight this is ian move to approve this is karen second it's been moved and seconded to approve tonight's agenda is there any discussion hearing none i'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda please indicate by saying aye aye any opposed say nay any abstentions and the motion passes and the agenda is approved next we have uh school board minutes for the june 24th at study session june 25th study session and the july 13th business meeting all in 2021. do
003i hear a motion i move to approve the minutes from the june 24th june 25th study sessions and the july 13th business meeting in 2021 a second it's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes for the sessions as stated is there any discussion hearing none i'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving the minutes for june 24th 25th and july 13th 2021. please indicate by saying i any opposed say nay any abstentions and the motion passes and the minutes are approved next we have our public comments section the public comment item on the agenda is an opportunity for citizens to address the school board items brought forward during this portion of the agenda will not be acted upon by the board at this time questions may also be referred to the
004superintendent or staff for examination and later response due to the pandemic we have been accepting written comments only until further notice and we have a few comments um we have uh okay i i apologize so we have two commenters tonight um typically we allow three minutes during our in-person meetings one of our commenters left a number of comments so what i'm gonna go ahead and do is read about three minutes worth of their comments and of course their full text will be added to the um the public record but the first comment comes from kelly spence and it's on the topic of vaccinations for teachers and staff my question is around whether the district will be mandating coveted vaccinations for all staff and teachers who will be around children this year this school year particularly
005for those who will be in contact with elementary school students as you know the delta variant is proving to be more infectious in children than previous ones and since vaccinations are not yet available for under 12 protecting our children who are in the classroom is vital will the district be mandating all staff and teachers who are medically able to be vaccinated and if they want what precautions will be taken to ensure a staff member does not infect a child uh our next uh comment uh comes from cami kine k-i-e-h-n and i'm not sure if i'm pronouncing that correctly but as i said i will read about three minutes worth of these comments and the full text will be attached to the public record i am a parent of two students in the edmond school district
006and i have concerns we have had many amazing teachers and staff people that have come alongside us in our combined 14 years of experience in our district your buildings and facilities are top-notch and have provided us with comfortable and clean places to learn and grow in children and young adults are raised by their parents at home but a lot of their influences come from their school environment teachers other students and administrators that they interact with on a daily basis this is where my concern lies a lot of teachers principals vice principals administrators superintendents school board members do not seem to think that an education rooted in truth and establishing established by proven facts is the main thing i want to tell you that it is not your job or a teacher's job to pressure my
007children into taking on your beliefs about the current political climate or what your opinion is on historical events this is not teaching or educating students it is indoctrination worse pressurized indoctrination the refrain is quote if you don't think the same things we do the same way we think them then you must be racist or sexist or religious or white or cisgender teachers need to develop critical thinking in their students not basing everything you think about a person on that person's color race sex sexual orientation religion apprecia oppression uh or societal level racism and discrimination are bad don't divide students up and separate them out based on these narrow things that is describe that is discrimination again racism and discrimination are horrible things to have in our society and they don't belong in our schools either
008it very clearly says in the preamble to the declaration of independence we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed with by by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness i have seen critical theory or critical race theory promulgated in the edmond school district in october of 2018 meadowdale high school presented an equity summit that spent a full school day focusing on speakers and seminars discussing race sex and a variety of social issues when i tried to talk to the teachers involved in putting it on i got very limited response and i was told that because traffic was going to be bad that day that i was not invited to come to the equity summit students were
009encouraged and this is in quotes encouraged to pick three different seminars that they thought would be interesting to them if a student had not chosen seminars they lost their at time which is free time they received for doing well in all their classes for that day at first student attendance was mandatory but after some complaints it was again encouraged i spoke with the vice principal at meadowdale as well as the superintendent of the school district at that time they were both very kind but said that it was really up to the individual teachers this is not really how things work or at least it should not be the way things work in a school district school board members and especially the superintendent have more say in school practices rather than just playing the blame game
010if that isn't true why do we have a school board that are elected by the people in that district and why are we asked to call the school district when we want to review a particular curriculum this is what it said under a couple of the seminar descriptions uh that were given out to all the students and um this is about three minutes um but the the parent does go on to talk about some of the sessions in the at the equity summit um they go on to talk about uh whether max masks and vaccines should be mandated about this new sex ed curriculum approved by the state and um and the fact that we are still reading comments and not having in-person uh public comments um and so uh the additional comments as i
011said the text will be attached to the public record um and uh and that is the conclusion of our public comment section uh of the agenda tonight uh next we have our consent agenda do i hear emotion emotion and move to approve the consent agenda i second it it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda is there any discussion hearing none i'd like to go ahead and call for a roll call vote director mcmurray hi director noble hi director chase aye director cadams aye director kilgore hi the motion passes and the consent agenda is approved next we have some reports um first our business and finance report with lydia sully take it away thank you director kilgore so shirelle if you want to open up the jews there you go thank you i
012spoke too soon so i have to say that june looks an awful lot like may if we go to the next page you'll see that the fund balance for the general fund is holding steady with previous budget status reports and we are still using that for our 21 budgeted figures that is coming in um over 26 million as an ending fund balance uh the debt service fund uh the final payment on bonds was made in june so there will only be a little bit of activity in the revenues that's property taxes for the rest of the school year i also wanted to give you a little bit of an update on timeline for budget status so in september we will review july august 31st is the end of our fiscal year there are a lot
013of bills that are paid in september that relate back to august and need to get posted back to august so the september 30th payroll we will determine which are 2021 costs in which stay in 2122. also we'll pay some bills in september that are for 20-21 so as a result um the books close um they're due on october 25th and so you won't see the final year and close until um the first november report and at the same time we'll also be presenting the september report so it's kind of uh waiting for everything to close out and you will again see july but the big activity will come later in the fall so that honestly we can scroll through but that honestly is my uh report for the month because it is like i said
014very consistent with me um unless you've got any specific questions that you've identified or will identify can get back to you that we will close out the month of june questions or comments from the board okay thank you lydia next we have a report on summer school and our fall planning update dr balderas thank you george kilgore if i can get uh the powerpoint of trail harmony oh shirelle i did share it with you at about five o'clock i'll look for it now i'm so sorry sir thank you wouldn't be a digital board meeting without some some sort of something hopefully about that could i interrupt a second um allison there are people in the waiting room who are trying to get into the meeting who need to be let in i don't know if
015you're the one but somebody needs to let them in we're having some technical difficulties it does not give me the button to start and move from practice session so they are able to view it on youtube i can't so chris bailey just allowed him in and he was able to uh do that oh fabulous no thank you thank you and we had a glitch we we have been live on youtube the entire time but we just were able to let folks in um we're broadcasting we have five attendees and the first few minutes of the board meeting will be available via youtube for those folks who just were able to come on we apologize for the technical difficulties here so thank you and again as we start i kind of want to reflect back a
016little bit on summer school and just relate to the board what was occurred during summer but also as we prepare for the school year next slide please we send out an intent form and uh we raise a little bit so we have 92 percent of kids that want to that will participate in inline in-person learning so that's up by two percent six percent of the kids will be participating remote and uh two percent you're not enrolled in districts so we do have a couple more a few more kids coming in two more percent that are coming into in-person learning this this based on the intent form that was just recently submitted next slide please to resort to dana she's been keeping track of this with uh with mata yes good good evening everyone dana gizmo
017assistant superintendent so i'm sure you've been watching with the news and the information around the delta variant also this is our snohomish county picture we are as of yesterday about 1 30 at 279 cases per hundred thousand which is a significant increase over last week which we are 199 so that is not the trajectory we were hoping for a 4.3 positivity rate of all the coba tests that are done which is also an increase and is concerning because there's a lot of tests happening um tests for um when people want to fly somewhere and some people are having to test before they they go other places so a lot of tests are happening and that rate is increasing which is is concerning the delta variant is is the one that's out there 92 to 95
018percent of the cases in snohomish county and it's it's incredibly contagious it's it's sticky it is very transmissible um it's it's just concerning um the common vaccine of course does provide protection against the delta variant but we're seeing breakthrough cases also what um we are told though is that when they are breakthrough cases that it's um you do have some protections um from the vaccine so it is of course preferable to be vaccinated um so that if you do have a breakthrough case it isn't as significant as if you're unvaccinated unvaccinated people are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized due to the delta variant one in three eligible individuals have not received a vaccine in snohomish county that's 226 000 and then there's of those are um the next thing is that there's 124
019000 children under 12 years not eligible yet we're really excited because we thought that the vaccination was going to be approved for five to 11 year olds in october and that's looking like mid-september and we have some dates set aside that we're working with the department of health to have on-site vaccine clinics so very excited to have that available for our families and community um in the next few weeks as soon as that is we will have the clinics regardless we are hoping that is approved for five to 11 year olds so we can offer that to um to our students next slide dana um i i just would like to ask you to clarify on that previous slide when the the bullet about unvaccinated people 10 times more likely to be hospitalized this does
020not mean that our children who are unvaccinated or does it mean that our children who are unvaccinated are 10 times more likely than our adults you know nationwide study that was information given to us from doh from the cdc so if you are not vaccinated overarchingly the whole the whole gamut you are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized due to the delta variant okay all right next slide please cheryl thank you so we are getting updates from doh really almost daily little bits and pieces we had information on sunday that changed to even yesterday which even changed to today so our guidelines from um recently as recently as july 28th but there's some new guidelines now um is that we are working to encourage vaccination promoting vaccinations among teachers staff and families and for
021eligible students um it is expected that will the fda will approve vaccines for 5-11 years like i talked about in september um we have vaccine clinics scheduled on september 13th and 15th and then another piece is consistent direct mass use this this other information right here came out today so as of 8 12 indoor mass directive from the county for all public spaces all public indoor spaces so um we will be messed up um in stores and other public um spaces for for all individuals in snohomish county um outdoors dinner masks are not required outdoors however people are not fully vaccinated are encouraged to wear masks in crowded or congregated settings next slide physical distancing is another mitigating strategy that we will continue so vaccinations mask wearing physical distancing um it's been reduced to the
022the importance of in-person learning but three feet apart in classrooms is what we're aiming for and six feet in common areas hallways and lunchrooms and those kind of things so those are the two guidance pieces from doh and from ospi another mitigating strategy is of course hand hygiene it's a great mitigating strategy for contracting anything right it reduces on colds and flu and valve of those pieces also so we will continue to use our district videos and have lots of hand washing stations sanitization stations and then of course um washing in restrooms and classrooms next slide now there's other mitigating strategies remain home was sick that's we we are not doing um daily attestations anymore but we do have signage at all of our building and entrances um around staying home when you're sick or
023you're presenting with cover-like symptoms um kova testing which is what we we have um implemented at all of our sites and we will continue through the 21 22 school year and maybe beyond but we have that available if people are presenting with symptoms and we've talked about that before at board meetings it's an excellent mitigating strategy people do not have to leave and go get a test somewhere else to see if they are not covered positive um and then responding to positive cases and contact tracing contact tracing um is is critical so we know if people have been exposed even if um they're vaccinated or not we work with doh and take their guidance and and go from there um we work very very closely as we've met mara marano bianco our our student health
024manager she is in contact with doh daily next slide and then cleaning and disinfecting again routine cleaning procedures um cleaning high use areas and um and spaces that have bodily fluids and then lastly our ventilation our hvac systems were adjusted back when we first returned to some in-person learning uh changing filters regularly and and running our hvac system um and bringing it outside air 24 7. [Music] any questions on those uh what are the guidelines if any for buses so kids kids will be masked on buses and we'll maintain as much distancing as we can um it's it's buses have always been the challenge right because the seats are about you know just about that three feet um so we're working on on that the the guidance is really about getting kids to in-person learning
025and maintaining three feet whenever possible so as much distancing as we can get on our school buses is what we will shoot for all right next slide our summer learning update i think i'm gonna turn over to rob good evening everyone rob gartner executive director of student learning um this is uh what will probably be our our final summer learning update outside of some data we'll collect and share with our board directors likely via a board memo but last week included several of our summer programs so our k-8 programs both online and in person as well as our multilingual and extended school year programs uh wrapped up last week and by all accounts um it was a success and um really i'm hanging onto several anecdotes that our staff have shared and one in particular
026is about some of our students that were really experiencing some significant behavior challenges once they settled in and got comfortable um in in the summer school environment and um you know even following some conversations with families and and really talking about the importance of you know getting the most out of the opportunity uh even having to deal with a little bit of consequences i was really struck um by um that the students kept showing up and remember this was a voluntary option and when um the administrator of the program had a chance to talk with the teacher um just really found that it was all about that relationship um peace that opportunity to come and see friends make a couple new friends um to have that place to go um and uh you know we
027know that uh some learning happened there so um when we look at our goals that we intended for our programming uh one of them was really that social emotional that whole child peace and to know that many of our students are really benefited from having a place to get out of the house engage in some learning and have a social experience as part of their summer was really important so um we will be concluding our 912 summer school and ecap summer program this week so just a couple more days of those programs and of course there's been a lot to celebrate and and we'll we'll share some more data as i said later but um one thing that we're super proud of and um you know for our teachers our administrators and most importantly our
028students our high school students have really worked hard to take advantage of the opportunities available to them in our credit retrieval program so as of today um students have completed 1 356 classes so that's quarters or semesters and when we break it up and do the math that's 668 and a half credits that students have earned and so we still have to do the analysis of who participated and how many students are still carrying incompletes or no credits from the last two years but we're really hopeful that this has made a significant impact on on that problem and we have a lot to celebrate there and especially our students engagement so really proud of them and uh i know they're looking forward to wrapping things up this week um a couple of other things we
029are um collecting some data from our teachers particularly around the curriculum that we used in our ka program as well as getting some input about how the teachers in the high school program saw the grad alliance tools we have plans to continue next summer these extended learning opportunities and want to make sure that the curriculum that we're providing is really rich and relevant we'll also be providing schools uh with attendance data for their students that participated in summer school particularly in the ka programs and um while we didn't do any pre and post-testing just didn't want to give up time we only had 19 days with students we'll really be looking at how those students have fared re-entering school and what their assessment data looks like in the fall so we will be tracking those
030students that have participated in summer learning program and hopefully we'll be able to draw some conclusions about the benefits um beyond just the social emotional but did did we support um uh do we minimize learning loss that's the that's the term we don't like to use but that's the one that rolled off my tongue here so with that if there's any questions i'll wrap up rob i just wanted to make a comment i had the opportunity to visit the middle school program at college place middle and i was really impressed the kids were engaged it was project-based learning um clearly within the projects that they were working on they were practicing and reinforcing you know basic skills but in a environment where they cared because it was this bigger project within which they were doing
031it um while they seemed you know very quiet and shy to start with as soon as you know i asked him a question they opened up and they shared their work and this is my poster and this is my pictures and i did this and i care about that and it was it was really super to see them um and they were doing some cooperative learning uh you know and clearly there were connections being made uh and it was several weeks i think into it and so this like you said it was all voluntary they clearly had been there they were coming back and so i just wanted to say it was it was very positive it was a very positive experience that i got to observe so thanks for all the work that everybody
032has done in in making that happen yeah this is ann i was able to go to mount lake terrace high school with dr balderas and be able to watch that program in session the thing that that really stood out to me is that the students there they were actively engaged in learning if they were taking advantage of the time it was um it was quiet because everybody was learning and i was just impressed by the by the the staff who were there to support and and help them uh with with their studies but i really thought it was uh great to see that number of students involved and glad to hear that we can offer this kind of support for our students next year as well well thank you for those uh comments i know
033that the staff will be delighted to hear them there was a lot of excitement particularly at the middle school where we did implement some project-based learning units this was a new curriculum that our secondary team developed with our partners at ed northwest and um some of the anecdotal i haven't read anything in writing yet was that the teachers were really enjoying the units and were finding that once they got students into them and and really let students have some choice voice and agency about what their learning looked like it was a really positive experience so so thanks for that right i think that's the end of our slides i'm going to wrap around just real quick i know there's been questions regarding the fall program i know we again as as stated we have 92
034percent of our kids coming into our brick and mortars we do have some few kids in a remote we will have a high school middle school and of course an elementary option and there's some questions maybe from community regarding and why is it look different than it did last year well you know we have 92 percent of our kids coming in and last year roughly was a 60 40 split right forever rate those numbers in terms of 40 percent of the kids not wanting to come in so we had more capacity to be able to do more to be able to have remote programming more associated to their local schools if you look at the the uh the percentage it's it's it's very difficult with the staffing that we have to be able to stand
035up a uh different sites for remote schooling so this is a very different model so i want to make sure people are clear i know we made it clear to community but uh it's a very different model that we had last year so it's a it's a standalone it's a standalone not associated with their local schools it's a stand-alone program it's an opportunity and we're very fortunate again i'm i'm very happy that we're able to offer this program because there's many districts that are surrounding in the area that haven't been able to stand up a remote option so we've been able to give that opportunity to our families and you know roughly 1200 families are taking advantage of that this year so again just really fortunate that we were able to staff that and have
036that option for our families again and uh but it is very different from the model that we had last year because again we have roughly 100 kids per case for uh for grade level that are coming in 100 kids per grade level you know that would we have uh we just can't have a standalone first grade a specific elementary school with it's just we're just not doable but love to have that but we don't have the capacity to be able to do that so i just want to make sure that i'm able to answer or just make sure that i have that comments has been asked of staff here of late from community if i could add just a school specific example dr balderas when we looked at the intent data one of our elementary
037schools had 11 students selecting the remote option across grade levels so we really have to ask the question what would that look like to provide an online learning opportunity for those 11 students linked to that school given the staffing models that we have the way that we've organized curriculum and those pieces and so it's just it's going to be a much richer experience for those 11 students in a separate online learning program than we would be able to provide at that school so yes there are other schools where the numbers are higher but even in those cases the spread across those seven grade levels is not even and it would be really challenging you we'd have we'd be hard-pressed to find a teacher wanting to teach a four-grade split in an online environment uh given
038the uh the new constraints so we partnered really closely with our [Music] edmonds education association through the bargaining process to come up with a model that we think is going to work really well and um you know and we've hired great administrators to help make that happen now so lots of potential there it's something i think we're going to be very proud of i just wanted to add one last piece that we took we sent out intent forms to all of our families as you know in june and then we asked people if they needed if they wanted to change because there has been so much new information and data so i'm really thankful that we were able to do that and got if there was intent changes at the beginning of august then now
039we've incorporated those so we've given families a couple of opportunities to give us feedback and to choose which model they would like to have for their for their students for this year i just want to commend you uh going back to the summer school model that you used it's clearly a a huge success and a huge benefit for at least our secondary students so far and i'm sure we'll see some really great benefits for the elementary students who participated and um i'm glad that it sounds like we'll be able to offer it next year but i hope that we'll start thinking now about how we can offer something like it because you know just it sounds to me like uh you know in the out years um it sounds to me like um the opportunity
040to work together with a cohort and to be you know to to be supported in that respect you know continually can really help these kids to succeed in retrieving these credits so um and i also heard some good things about graduation alliance um being a real important element there and so kudos all around it sounds like it was a great success and and i also had an opportunity to observe kids uh you know being engaged and so that was great thank you any other comments or questions before we move on okay um thank you next we have unfinished business um we have a second reading our one and only item under unfinished business is the second reading to approve resolution number 21-26 adoption of the 2021 to 2022 budget is there a motion i move
041to approve the 21 22 budget i second it it's been moved and seconded to adopt to approve resolution 21-26 is there any discussion yeah this is in i just had a question for lydia about the enrollment numbers can you remind me uh the enrollment numbers that are that are uh factored into the 2122 budget uh looks like twenty thousand two hundred and fifty what that compares to uh the enrollment numbers that we have for this year the 2021 that just included so originally we had expected about 67 more students than our um our low point this school year it's possibly coming in a little bit lower as some students have elected not to attend edmonds school district next year um perhaps um 80 or so and we'll keep a good eye on that and continue
042to utilize sr funds for enrollment loss where are needed so just to clarify you're saying that our current estimates for the 21 22 school year that we're at about 20 250 looks like it's coming in about 80 students less than that so 20 170. so we didn't get the additional um 67 you're right it's it's about 80 80 80 down from where we're at where we're projecting and and we have esser funds that we can use to make up that budget difference that is correct comments or questions well i just want to make a comment i appreciate all the work of putting this in put this budget together and it's probably the most difficult budget i can ever imagine somebody putting together with the uncertainties on funding uncertainties on nasr funding and everything else yeah
043we have to buy the end of august decide exactly how much we're going to spend so and how much we're going to get in so thank you sally for putting it all together considering the lots of uh things you actually didn't know and still don't know exactly what's going to happen thank you okay uh are we ready to vote then i'll go ahead and call for a roll call vote please director mcmurray aye director noble aye director chase aye director cadams aye director kilgore aye and the motion passes and resolution 21-26 adoption of the 2021-2022 budget is approved uh next we have new business uh our first item is a single reading to approve move 60 interlocal agreement with sohomash county public hospital district number two dba verdant doing business as um is there a
044motion i'll second it it's been moved and seconded to approve uh the agreement uh the move 60 agreement with verdict is there any discussion i just want to say i'm really glad that we're continuing this program i think it's a really excellent program and i'd had the benefit of seeing the data both quantitative and qualitative data over a number of years and it was clearly having a a positive uh and beneficial effect for the kids who were participating in it so i'm really i want to thank verdant for continuing to fund it um and for the people who are staffing it and um i'm you know i encourage parents and kids to continue to participate in it because i think it's a really fine program for our kids any other comments or questions i just
045want to thank the jenny's i know they're on and uh the famous jenny's who have run the program for a long time and again it's a they're the they're the backbone the the heartbeat of the program you just want to thank them for the years of service and making this program what is and thank you director cato for those words i couldn't agree more thank you dr balderas and thank you to the school board we really appreciate your continued support of move 60. okay let's uh i'll go ahead and call for a roll call vote please director mcmurray hi director noble hi director chase enthusiastic eye director kilgore hi the motion passes and the agreement with verdant for move 60 is approved next we have a single reading to authorize district staff to execute the
046agreement with mcgranahan architects for the final design and construction administration of the hvac lighting roof upgrades project at the education service center is there a motion this is karen i move to approve a second it's been moved and seconded to execute the agreement with mcgregor mcgranahan architects is there any discussion having sat in that building for 16 or 17 years i am thrilled for the people who are still sitting there that this work is going to be done yay no more buckets any other comments or questions okay may i have a roll call vote please director mcmurray aye director noble hi director chase aye director cadams aye director kilgore aye and the motion passes and the agreement with mcgranahan architects for the final design and construction administration of all the upgrades at esc is approved
047um next we have board member comments um director noble yeah thank you um first of all i appreciate the presentation on the whole summer school effort and how well that went and so it was great seeing the kids at alderwood middle school going in there and that i think that's my only comment for tonight director mcmurray i i would just uh add a a thanks to the jenny's and i uh echo nancy verdant has been such a great partner for us but um when you have an outside agency you have to have somebody inside that's motivated and enthusiastic and really um taking that program along and that's where the jenny's have um have come in for us so uh thank you to verna and thank you to to the jenny's and also as i was
048kind of listening to everything i i realized i really miss our student advisors you know uh you know over the summer we don't have them with us and it just seems like there's well there is a voice here that's that's absent so even though they are absent i look forward to uh the new group who will be coming in in the fall but uh just recognizing um they they are they are such an important part of what we do here and they're missed when they're absent thank you director chad uh yeah chase sorry thanks and i couldn't you know you nailed it because it felt a very i felt like something was really missing and so the because of the valuable content um and comments of our students so i really am looking forward to
049engaging with them when we um you know as soon as we can right um so excellent um meetings thank you um president kilgore for continued leadership on this um the i can't believe that we're already halfway through august the legislative assembly did meet through the summer to finalize a number of positions for the general assembly that's coming up at the end of september um the update and all the notes on the volume of positions that we considered is going to be coming out on the 24th so i'll forward that to everyone on august 24th when we get that the general assembly is in spokane this year i'm unable to attend so we'll see if um another one of the board members wishes to go and can be our vote down there um and that's something
050we can discuss possibly it's a retreat i'm thinking and also reminding everyone that the nat the annual conference is coming up in mid november we do also have some outreach that's been going on with the climate parents that are a coalition of folks in the community along with sierra club that are asking the edmond school district to take a look at some of our commitment to climate to be good climate stewards in all of our business practices and at our next retreat i will be sharing some of the information that i received from nancy i believe that we had um an email that came out i wanted to share that i had followed up and met with her and there's some exciting things and some samples that these community members would like to engage with
051us not only as board members but with the students and partners in the district so i'm going to put that this heads up that um dr balderas i'm going to give you some information for the um retreat that we can add if we can somehow stick that on the agenda a little bit and i think that's about it oh you know actually there's one thing that that while we've been taking a break there's the weekly legislative rep reps learn is a really good program that everyone can participate in and i'll send those links along um they're also recorded so there is information for not only school board members but anyone who likes to participate there's a really good meeting talking about special ed funding and such a couple weeks ago so i'm going to send
052that link out and encourage everybody to attend for our own continuing education thank you director cadams well i really want to thank lydia for all of your work on the budget um it's a it was a really difficult year the way gary pointed out a tough budget to do and i think you did a great job and helped explain things to us well along the way um i think the summer school report was very positive in the fact that we're going to continue to be able to do this but hopefully also be able to work on best practices that we're finding out are working there throughout our classrooms through the school year as well to keep our kids engaged and i just feel overall like we're going into the next school year on a really
053positive note it's very nice to know that 92 of our kids will be in person because we know that's important for them in so many ways and that we can do this and do it safely and carefully even with the rising cases with the delta variant but hopefully get our kids vaccinated and help protect everybody but continue to do the kind of teaching and learning that our kids really need and i also miss the student advisors terribly and look forward to their coming back and i wish everybody a great rest of the summer until this the school year is about to begin but it's exciting and i think it'll be a very positive year thank you and i wanted to i won't speak too long i had a couple of sort of business items one
054one has to do with our meetings we're about to be meeting in person beginning in september and um my concern i think stems from having attended a recent linwood city council meeting where i was well potentially exposed to coven so making sure that we have a you know good protocol for that it's harder to sort of supervise a public meeting in comparison to you know our classrooms but um and and if something happens that we are not able to meet in person because covet rates go too high or something like that or we're not able to um to safely meet um i'd like a plan b um i share the concern that some of our commenters have that we've had a year of people writing in and not really getting the the kind of opportunity
055that they've had in the past to express themselves directly to us um to the public and um i've asked staff to take a look at whether we could not if we have to go back online um if we could find a way to have people deliver their own public comments because i think that's a really important element of our meeting that i'm missing and clearly some some of our commenters are missing um i did want to just you know also follow on to some of the comment tonight and say that you know i think it is important to have these conversations and um and i look forward to um you know i think sometimes the uh kinds of when the district engages in major policy shifts and and really our focus over the last few
056years on diversity equity and inclusion represented a major policy shift it uh it is something that we have to continue to discuss and listen to our community so that everybody has you know at least somewhat of a common understanding of what it is we're trying to do you know people may or may not agree with everything we do i mean they never do you know there's too many of us involved um but my hope my ideal would be that everybody at least understands why things are happening and feels heard and so i do welcome these conversations as we go forward um and then my second business item is related to uh you know as related to some of the comments that uh director chase just made about the climate um group and um because i
057know you know it got me thinking about at one time i had talked about doing a sustainability policy and i have to admit that it just was way too big of a project for me you know which is kind of why i set it aside it just um i do think i would agree that i think the district needs some kind of a sustainability or a policy or a value or a direction um you know in terms of sustainability and and or climate and um and so i would like to ask our superintendent and i have i'm not surprising him because we've had discussions on this side to start up some kind of a process where we wrap our our district's arms around the issue and what i mean by that is that we understand
058what the district is doing because we know there are things going on in terms of you know say sustainability type education and we know there are things going on with our capital projects group and facilities and so forth and so to get our our arms around what's going on in the district um what could be going on that we're not doing and this is where you know of course our community partners come in um looking at what other districts are doing um and then you know what could we you know what could we be doing and and so for the board to set an informed uh direction for the district i think would be a nice thing that that's what i'm sort of throwing out there for all of you and for your consideration and
059asking dr balderas to sort of uh get that rolling well have i got oh sorry didn't what i had before i decided have i got some information for you i'll share some of the stuff that um we're not we're um we're complete in alignment so this is very timely and i think you're aligned well with um the needs of the district and the part of the discussion that's ongoing right now so great all right yeah and i'm ex i'm excited about it i think i was overwhelmed by it when it wasn't a thing but now i'm seeing that we can really move forward and then we'll have a really nice i think at the end of some sort of process of learning um we'll have a nice uh informed direction that the board can steer
060our ship and then um that's pretty much it i love summer school myself and well i don't love summer school for myself but i i just so appreciate all the hard work that's been done and um and i appreciate everybody's uh really thoughtful contributions and and so forth and look forward to the new school year dr balderas yeah i'll be brief i just want to thank the board for uh for this meeting and also for the staff i really truly appreciate all the staff that work summer school uh the teachers the administrators all just all staff classified all the folks that were able to help support summer schools it was not easy it was not an easy ask not an easy ask because people were tired and people stepped up and to be able to
061support our kids so really want to thank everybody who did that but also i think uh a lot of people think that districts close down during summer and uh uh this district hasn't closed down door i don't think any district in the us's or the world has closed down this during summer just because of preparation that we've been having from facilities technology you know human resources communications keep going on and on and on getting ready for the school year so you just really want to thank all the staff the staff that are on the screen but all the so many others who are not on the screen that have been working hard to try and get ready for the start of the school year as we stated earlier we have a a spike in the
062delta variant and there is a rise in cases with roughly 280 per hundred thousand we're doing we're going to be doing everything we can again to to follow all the mitigation efforts that are uh both recommended and required for us to be able to to uh to support our kids coming back to school the 92 percent and also to ensure that we bring our kids back in a manner that uh that honors what they've been through and the staff have been through uh we have some kids that have not stepped into a brick and mortar for 18 months a brick and mortar academy for 18 months remember the 60 40 kids 60 of kids came in 40 didn't a large you know we have a we have a few hundred kids that have not stepped
063into our brick and mortar school so make sure that we do it the right way and taking care of them and their their emotional needs their their safety needs because again that's something that's a prime importance for for our students our communities and our families so uh look forward to that work ahead as staff continue to plan and i really thank the board for uh for this meeting and also for the retreat that's coming forward here in a couple weeks so look forward to that as well thank you okay i think that's it meeting adjourned enjoy the evening you