001is so thanks for coming tonight we have three um speakers tonight before we start though you'll notice for a smaller board three of our board members um had good reasons to be absent so unfortunately we're missing them tonight but unfortunately we're live streaming so they can hear their um i'm grateful though we didn't get more members because this is the bare minimum we need for our forum so we're confirming this afternoon that we have an e4 if you don't mind we're going to ask folks to speak here at by this table maybe the favoritism from there and then just please speak in a loud voice because we are live-streaming like i said and that's the microphone so we want to make sure we can hear you so uh first off adrian melvin you guys have
002all spoken before don't forget the three minutes and very mural races right right yes our all right good evening school board members i'm here once again to speak on ics the equity audit consultant firm that growington is currently working with i just officially ordered the book written by colleen kaeper and elise furtura leading for social justice we are in a dire situation in my humble opinion we have a board that has already relinquished some of their control to our superintendent who was the principal in middleton cross plains who has not only worked with ics before and knows exactly what will come down from this consulting firm but he's also the one who worked hard to eliminate the jesus lunch and i've actually spoken with uh melissa hallbach from middleton crossplanes if anybody has any questions
003about that the process for ics taking over a school district seems formulaic and has been repeated in middleton cross plains mexico thiensville and elmbrook the goal under ics is to neuter the school board so as to ensure that the board will overstamp all the initiatives of the administration who are pushing the ics agenda based on the experiences of school districts in wisconsin they're at different stages of implementing ics the methodology appears to be one it begins with pressuring the school board about racism present in the district two the pressure will lead to an equity audit which is more or less where we're at which will be performed by ics equity this audit is designed to find any disparities by race gender etcetera and the equity audit always shows that ics equities health is desperately needed
004three with the disastrous equity audit ics will offer its services by providing a workshop for the school board the emphasis will be with the school board members over the administration of the district as it will typically be the administration who is promoting ics equity often the administration will have some previous connection with ics equity four having tackled the school board ics equity will begin the process of developing the equity non-negotiables which are things that they will not negotiate on that our school district will have to comply with by forming a team of known leaders for social justice five the impact on the teaching in the school is significant all advanced remedial and special needs programs will be discouraged diminished and eventually just terminated all curriculum will be vertically aligned to push the extreme social justice
005views of crt promoting divisive identity politics and activism the inevitable decline in competencies and ability will first be masked by eliminating grading and report cards and replace them with the general focus summary of what all students are supposed to be learning um the district will become more and more aggressive in taking over all aspects of the children's lives [Music] hudson school district equity audit july 1st 2021 if anybody's interested in reading their conclusion from hudson uh next aaron milner didn't have too much to say tonight um i've already said it in terms of i didn't want to speak on a public counter for this particular setup i want to express um dissatisfaction with this particular way that it's when it's set up i was when i first heard about it i thought that you guys
006might be looking to set up more like uh an interactive approach where we could ask questions and i know to coffee with the board i think that that kind of thing is a great idea i thought this might be something more like a town hall forum where he might be able to ask questions the lord would be able to respond i would love to see something more like that i otherwise i don't really see the point of suffering too it's just another night that that if we want to be involved or at the meeting you guys have to hear it would be important for the parents to be active at that at the efficient school um i also wanted to mention um the the audits again and as those reports come in my way to
007touchdown a lot of that stuff um but as those reports come in i'd like you to just really take into consideration what what they're saying and what we can do without necessarily hiring those firms or outsourcing but you've got a lot of people capable people in bsd that can they can handle that stuff and and then again i want to reiterate from previous previous meetings i'd like to see a platform where curriculum can be put online like like syllabi for for what teachers are teaching and so the public can access that and what uh what curriculum is in what classrooms so be aware of that and interact with teachers if we have any questions about that that's it thank you thank you last stop ryan good evening board as we close in on the completion
008of our district audits i want to provide a reminder to you that you are under no obligation to rush to implement any of the recommendations put forth by ics equity as there is no time bounding around when the plan needs to be submitted to dpi only that vasd will submit one all recommendations from the audit need to be put under the lens of whether the implementation of the recommendation will lead to increased student achievement an increased sense of student belonging preparedness for working in a global economy and improving students critical thinking skills this is the lens any and all recommendations from the audit need to be reviewed under any recommendations evaluated to not be additive to the preparation of our students for life in the workforce are just distractions to the overall mission of educating
009students and should not be accepted additionally i want to refresh everyone's memory on the failure ics recommendations have been for school districts asheville north carolina went from the fifth worst achievement gap between white and black students in the large to the largest achievement gap after a three-year engagement with ics elmwook school district stopped all their equity work that dated back to 2012 because students were feeling less included not more and their achievement gaps were growing well while i believe all of you all have the best interest of our district in mind caution and moving forward with recommendations is needed to ensure our students do not suffer the same fate as those two districts i will end with this i moved my family to burlington over 18 years ago because of the reputation of this school
010district as being one of the best due to job transfers i moved away for about four and a half years i was surprised to come back and see the state our district had fallen into 18 years ago we never would have thought about needing an equity audit as i've gotten more involved with the school district and in the issue surrounding it i can see how we've gotten to this point a recent response from a board member regarding removal of explicit books stated it wasn't that board member's place to impart the morality another response on the same topic was outlining the policy needed uh there was a policy that needed to be followed in order to get the materials reviewed nobody's asking for imparting of individual morality we're asking for appropriate material for our students we
011are asking we are seeking leadership from a board that has the ability to amend the policy or to voluntarily suspend it for a large scale review effort that has been requested so we can have appropriate materials for our students our test scores continue to fall year after year parents continue to feel unheard of have a sense of pride in this town its people our schools and our school boards our school board and it sends me to see that the issues of our district do not seem to be getting resolved or getting any better i urge you to ex proceed with caution with this ics equity audit and the recommendations thank you [Music] see that's it for our citizen comments this evening um i'd entertain a motion twitcher well one second just to adjust here um
012this is our first kick at the cat with us and i think it it could become more interactive like the the uh coffee with the board and i accepted a ton of those talking about the board um on particular topics that were important to me at the time and they weren't just they weren't very well attended so i think the more we can develop this interaction and discussion one of the things that we talked about is is having action items so that we can discuss this kind of something that comes back says these are items that we're going to discuss at a later date these are things that we're not and then um it was actually brought up that we maybe do a survey after and say okay two three four times down the road
013it's something real simple like did your question get answered do you feel like it was worthwhile just and that's something we've often discussed um i haven't discussed whatever but something that we talked i talked about with some other people and i think it'd be good so that you do know that you get here and this is why the response are dead response i think that's important i think the interactions and i think we'll get more and more people involved in in a calm manner to be able to understand the dialogue between foreign administration and the people that actually goes in yeah and i mean i think if if the public saw that there was interaction here with the board they would be more likely to show up yeah i mean because otherwise you know you
014come come with a concern maybe some people have grave concerns and and they come to the border you get to you get your three minutes and that's it and then it's over and you don't have any idea if anybody cared or heard you or you know or anything so that'd be really important for why right yeah exactly some kind of response something we don't we feel that way we don't call somebody yeah thank you emotionally so second okay any emotions any comments hearing none all in favor say hi hi opposed name hi roger