Hudson Schools - November 9, 2020 - School Board Regular Meeting

001juggling of the uh agenda here because we have some scheduled presentations and so so we are will'll do the apie color recognition and the excuse me citizens request to speak those will be after our Equity proposals um and so I'm going to turn over to Dr olette we'll start with the public health presentation uh yeah uh can we go ahead and have uh Ellie's screen shared um so we have um uh Ellie clawen the um epidemiologist for St Croy county is here tonight she's going to be giving a presentation on some data uh and then uh you know short presentation on some data what's going on in the county and even the district and then uh given an opportunity for board members to ask questions so at this time I'll turn it over to Ellie

002can you hear us all right Ellie I can thank you Nick hi and thank you for having me this evening I will be giving a brief update on the co situation within SRO County um as we get started off here's just a summary of what is going on in the county a little bit of a timeline as people have noticed our dashboard online um I hope everyone can see the bottom row and if you can't please let me know and I will adjust um so as of today the end of our count today we had 123 cases reported into the county today um this is obviously up from just a week ago when we had 64 cases now note that's just a day um a point in time but our total confirmed cases is up

00330% from last week we did unfortunately have two additional deaths um Co related deaths reported to us today which brings our total to 14 total deaths and we currently have 34 people um within the county hospitalized half of them are hospitalized here in SRA County and half of them outside of the county so what is our Trend in new cases per day um we are looking at a dramatic Rise um I think everyone is aware covid is on the rise what we have is this is as of yes numbers yesterday but we're looking at 76.3 cases a day that's our 7-Day average which is obviously going to go up as we had over 100 again today um but kind of what does that mean in the long run that means the county is looking at

004over a thousand new cases by the Monday before Thanksgiving um which does paint a troubling picture um for the status of covid in our County kind of how do we measure that on terms of metric in looking at case incidents which is a great way to look at comparisons within other counties other states um within our nation is looking at a 7-Day average versus a 100,000 people which kind of takes away the population piece to it um we currently are looking at a case incidence of 83.9 which is up 45% um if you're looking at these Harvard metrics that are here as well on the screen these are from the Harvard Institute and they consider red level which to become which is considered uncontrolled spread in a community at greater than 25 daily VI cases

005per 100,000 people so we have exceeded that where are these cases um in SRO County currently so right now we're looking at the Active cases so these are people with present disease within s gr County 30% of that active disease um occurs within Hudson followed closely by New Richmond at 23% we used to have about 20% in h in Richmond and about 50% of disease in Hudson and that has actually um the disease has spread within St Craig County in more has dist distributed within the county greater so we are looking at Somerset now having 8% followed by Baldwin and then riverfalls and Glenwood City So within Hudson itself where is the active disease so we have um distributed the majority of it in Hudson proper um followed about by 25% in Hudson Township and

006then we're moving into unassigned um is unfortunately just those who were not able to be matched by address but do have a Hudson address um so then we have North Hudson and Troy Township at 6% followed by St Joseph's at 5 now if we look at the age groups so as you'll see this graph goes from 0 to 9 years of age up to 90 plus um these are the distribution from September to November as we have it and so this is a percentage so we're not having to look at the location numbers in November that have come about but in percentage of um where the disease is happening and we're finding the greatest numbers in kind of our 20 to 60 year olds kind of our most mobile range um those people who are

007actively U moving about within the community um we finding the greatest spread now looking um by those four to 18 years of age um kind kind of where is that spread again and again you see a trend towards the more mobile they are um the higher amount of disease we have so this is actually number of cases cumulatively um within s c County by year by age excuse me so this is a comparison here between hunson and Richmond um in terms of cases again four to 18 years old these are confirmed cases so I I guess I want to make myself clear um any case numbers I have referenced in this presentation are confirmed cases so they are laboratory confirmed cases reported to us um by hospitals and Laboratories um through our electronic disease surveillance

008system so these confirmed cases um we obviously are seeing a great rise in the number of cases that reflects what's going on in the community as a whole um and then in November we actually are seeing Hudson and enrichment having so far equal number of cases and for to 18 years of age now that is the end of my presentation um on the situation in St C County I'm going to stop sharing now and open it up for questions anyone have questions for Miss Clawson Heather Mr President Could you um just update us what's the current situation for contact tracing how is that being done and and how um what kind of a response are you are you seeing from folks to whom you are reaching out to or others are reaching out to I

009apologize was that a question for me or yes yes y question for Ellie okay um well two things um number one unfortunately the county is no longer able to do personalized contact tracing now contacts we call contact tracing those who have been identified as a close contact so when we call a positive case and they tell us who has been according to the guidelines within six feet um for 15 minutes or greater has shared a hug so forth um those are considered close contacts unfortunately as a county we are no longer able to do the contact tracing portion of our um just due to our great number of actual positive cases with the Positive cases we are finding on the majority um they are responsive um at least to hear our guidance and to agree

010to isolate in order to stop the spread other questions Mr President yes Ellie with regards to uh information that might be available to our public we've had a couple of uh a number of questions with regards to just being able to see covid data numbers counts where uh where would the public go to see this information or frankly if they have questions how do they get those answered right thanks for your question um number one our data cases by day um are posted on our dashboard the distribution by age is also posted on our dashboard our current case numbers cumulatively active recovered are also posted on the dashboard they are updated daily um we are transitioning to a new dashboard in which graphics and more information is possible to be shared with the public um

011as to having the actual numbers themselves um there is data for our County um DHS does release data they count it um in a different way we count by day reported to us as a public health department they um take a little bit longer in their counting system and so those numbers do not necessarily always reflect um exactly day-by-day matchup but as to our SRA County Public Health Data um at this time we don't have um any process for or sharing the actual numbers themselves yes Heather are you able to share any um any information about about research that's being done by epidemiologists or others around uh kind of the role of asymptomatic spread I mean the numbers that you have shared with us obviously are folks who have tested positive uh and we don't

012have a way to know how many people are positive because if they don't test we don't know um but where do you have um you know does the county or the state have have um data it's leaning on Research it's leaning on or encouraging us to look at regarding um the role of asymptomatic uh that that students might play in um asymptomatic spread to the community at large um currently we are collecting data on those individuals who do test and do report being asymptomatic um the state as well as collecting the same data I am meeting with a Consortium of epidemiologists um throughout the western region um this Thursday and I can check in if anyone has anything promising or significant to share but at this moment um I do know due to the difficult

013difficulty in tracing asymptomatic should they not be tested and right now the inability to do widespread testing um regardless of symptom being symptomatic or not is is not in is not currently in our wheelhouse um so unfortunately there isn't a lot of promising research that I have come across Sue uh yes Alie thank you um how often and to whom does our data um get sent to for a larger uh compilation of of information um so our data is continuously being incorporated into a large Consortium of information um where I'm pulling data from is called the Wisconsin electronic disease surveillance system and so this is the system that all counties across Wisconsin use for covid case reporting um and then each time a new case is reported and interviewed the data collected from that interview

014is then compiled um into a greater database for the state of Wisconsin and so the DHS that is where if you look on their dashboards that's where they're Garing all this information I have a question and and then I'll turn it over to Rob but my question is does public health have a recommendation for school districts to be administering temperature checks for instance so I think at this time there is a there is a lot of new information coming out about and regarding I know Wisconsin DPI just released some information regarding and that in another organization I apologize is slipping out of um released kind of recommendations on on how fever is not um a is not an effective tool um in the school situation now am I I am not going to represent Public

015Health I am not the health officer um and so there is a lot of research in that field to be considered but currently I do not know if I'm unable to say if there is a true Public Health recommendation okay Rob this questions is is for Nick with regards to uh the information and and you more than any of us are familiar with the questions we've been getting from our public you know our parents how uh is there anything you need more of or different from the county you know Ellie and I we we talk every every Monday with our superintendent Consortium you know we've been asking for more grade breakdown stuff and and what you saw today is the kind of stuff that we're getting which has been has been good um this is

016data that that the county holds on to and I think once their new dashboard is up and running we'll have a lot more data at our disposal um as we as we work through it um you know we're tracking our best way to track our data is just to look at our building level data and things like that we don't have access to any more data than anybody else would have publicly and then you know Ellie's ability to break it down by every age level and by municipality really kind of helps us understand those things I was wondering Ellie if you could talk just a little bit about you know the community spread piece and you know our our biggest concern I think when schools opened were uh was are schools going to contribute to

017community spread they may absolutely still be Community uh contributing but what are you when you're seeing cases in school AG kids what are you primarily seeing it attributed to or where they're getting the cases or getting infection from um and that's a great question and that is data that I am definitely working through especially and other data Nick has requested um you can touch on that but what we're really seeing is the spread happening in those older age ranges so like we said the 20 to the 60 year olds um um with the majority of our D schoolage children actually turning positive due to a positive already in their household um more than likely a parent and so we aren't seeing positives multiply um in the in the school system like we are seeing within

018the household and that I think right now is the biggest spread of disease is people sitting down to dinner together people riding in a car together people in a household people in those true very confined spaces for extended periods of time is really driving our um our case numbers right now um a lot of our age range is in that 22 60y old age range and and unfortunately um from our Public Health perspective Ive we really want to focus on the school age children and the elderly because those are where we deem that greatest risk but actually we have since today turned over contact tracing within the school system and the notification of parents completely over to the schools because we no longer have the bandwidth at Public Health to follow up with close contacts

019identified within the school system um and we really want to turn our our focus on the individuals that are driving the pandemic and getting the message to them appropriately And Timely in order to potentially curve spread Mr President yes Heather so Ellie I can see where um folks who are listening right now might be hearing you say it's really folks 20 to 60 who are driving the spread and then saying so why aren't we sending all of our kids back to school so could you clarify um I mean is is at this point is that what we're saying that we're not worried about schools as a driver and these mitigation strategies probably aren't needed or or is is is the message different than that I think you need to be yeah I think you need

020to be really careful in saying anything within our community is is not a risk factor doe to the incredible amount of cases within our within our community within s c County right now every decision anyone makes whether it is in regards to school whether it is regards to having Thanksgiving with a big group of people all of these decision excuse me decisions impact the spread of covid and so I am not here to say that schools are not a concern obviously um we have meetings every Monday we are in con each of us as public health individuals have a specific school vaison with whom we speak to multiple times a day um and so it is a situation where we want to be very careful about making any dramatic statements or broad statements um about

021this situation because it is it is um quite uncontrolled in our community at this time any other questions for Ellie okay hea so to so then to follow up on that so has there been a modification of the recommendations that came out this summer regarding opening schools you know from the CDC from DHS around strategies that schools should try to comply with if they are able around Mass in hand hygiene um cleaning protocols social distancing have those been um modified to reflect kind of this new information or increased information about who's driving the spread or are those still um in place as they were over the um you know this summer as we were planning to return to school right and I believe they are in place um because they are working now if you

022look at where the spread is schools are masking schools are complying 100% with masking schools are taking extra effort and dedication to making sure whether students are in pods or there is plexiglass and and those efforts those maintaining those basic messages to slow the spread of covid are working in the schools now and that's why we encourage those as public health those basic messages to be followed everywhere um to help slow the spread masking social distancing washing hands cleaning protocols okay thank you all right anyone else I want to thank you for your time thank you for the information and thank you for your efforts and trying to get you know more information on the dashboard and um you know anything that we can do to help get the word out um I know people

023like information it's just um not hasn't always been available for public health to do with it but as we're living with these numbers and dissecting them every day um it really I think helps people's concerns if they can understand where the spread is happening the most so thank you thanks Ellie yep have a great night and just a just a couple things to touch on uh Ellie can get off uh uh meeting now to let her go but um we do want to reiterate great uh and I'll talk about a little bit more in my co update coming up after the presentations is we are heading into the holiday season and you know it is really going to take all of us working together on this um to slow the spread and you know and

024I think that's we have a districtwide newsletter it's going to be coming out in a couple weeks or in a week or two uh where we'll address that really hoping that people you know try to limit those family gatherings and try to reiterate some of those points so that we can um uh continue to have our kids in school I mean it really is a it really is an all Hands-On deck approach to things and so uh we'll continue to have have some of those challenges so uh coming up next we have the presentations from the three different uh we have three different proposals uh for Equity Audits and so um I don't believe our first person is on yet is that right Tim um she um they I believe they'll be getting on uh

025in do we have time for the AP Scholars um we we may have time Dave um so I'll go ahead and turn it over to Dave Mr President do do we have anyone here for public comment because rather than having them wait for an hour and a half we could let them speak now no okay thank you all right Tim so if you could queue up that video and get that ready to roll um so tonight we're here to honor our AP Scholars uh every fall the AP program recognizes high school students who who have demonstrated outstanding college level achievement through their um their passing at high levels AP exams the numbers you're going to hear tonight are outstanding it really is impressive now at Hudson High School and in all our schools there's a

026lot of different ways for students to shine a lot of different ways students can be recognized this is one of them it's definitely an important one um Nikki Benson and Josh helverson associate principles at the high school we're going to share a quick video they put together recognizing and appreciating the hard work these students have put in you're going to hear several different levels of recognition at the end of the presentation I'm going to spend just a minute talking about two of the one of it's a new level and then the highest level uh just to shine some extra light on that again very impressive I've had the opportunity to work with several of these kids they are outstanding Scholars and um we're going to turn it over to this video so you can hear

027a little bit about their accomplishments hi I'm Nikki Benson associate principal Josh Alverson associate principal welcome to the AP scholar recognition at tonight's board meeting tonight we'll be honoring five different levels of AP Scholars and be digging into those definitions as we go along our first group of honores are our AP Scholars this distinction is granted to students who receive scores of three or higher on three or more AP exams and we had 74 students earned this distinction so we will pause at each screen so you can see their names our next group is AP scholar with honors so this is an average score of 3.5 on all AP exams taken and adding one more exam so four or more on these we had 33 students that were able to attain this level the next

028level is the AP scholar with distinction this is granted to students who receive an average score of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and scores of a three or higher on five or more of these exams and we had 65 students earn this distinction next we have our AP Capstone diploma uh the AP Capstone diploma is granted to students who earn a three or higher an AP seminar in AP research and four additional AP exams of their choosing tonight we have seven students and lastly we have our national AP Scholars this is granted to students in the United States who receive an average score of at least four on all AP exams taken and scores of four or higher on eight or more of these exams and we have 10 of our students

029earning this distinction we'd like to say congratulations to everybody good job and definitely I bet a lot of work and a lot of hours burning the midnight oil we're very proud of you congratulations bye-bye [Applause] again really quick want to talk about that National AP scholar level that's a four or higher on eight or more AP exams that is remarkable that takes an incredible level of dedication hard work organization it's just it's just outstanding so I'm going to read the names Rachel ball Elizabeth Collinson Helen gustofson Bryce hunsburger Amanda McKenzie corent Henry mcmeniman Anna Nelson Maya new and schwander and Alexander Weaver just kudos to them incredible work also on the Capstone diploma this is a new award available to Hudson because of the work with ap research and AP seminar I was able to

030work directly with all these students as they went through their process of writing and conducting their research it is every bit as high quality research as you'll see at a college level it is amazing you're going to see a lot of these names that were on the same list so kelen guson Amanda eel Laura Lane Maya nton schwander Nathan run Evan schmidtz and Alexander Weaver amazing Scholars we're very very proud of them thank you yes so the next part of the agenda I think Tim is is uh letting our first presenters in so this is the first of three proposals uh they are uh going to be presenting uh about uh what I said it's kind of 10 to 15 minutes talking about what they do their proposal and then give the board about 5

031to 10 minutes to be able to ask questions about the proposal or or anything that they do so um without further Ado I'm gonna turn it over to ICS equity and it looks like can you hear us okay I can I can hear you just fine we can hear you great so perfect um and we can share screen whenever you need to you have that ability yeah I think I can go ahead and share it so good evening everyone it's good to see you um I'll be virtually I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and then I'll just pull up a PowerPoint um so just a little bit so I'm Elise fura professor emeritus from W Milwaukee I taught the courses for the past 20 years on educational Administration and equity and Leadership

032for superintendent building principal student service directors special ed directors Etc and then um I co-founded IC for Equity integrated comprehensive systems for Equity with Colleen kapper who is professor emeritus from W Madison uh and she taught similar courses parallel courses so we each took um half of the state and then because W Milwaukee extends up through Green Bay in our educational administrative courses and Madison extends up to oair so we both had been doing that for about 20 years prior to that I was a director of student services and special education and a building principal for 15 years and then a high school teacher and a middle school teacher prior to that um if I went too far back which my kids always say Mom if you don't want people to know how old you

033are then stop talking about how how long you've been doing something I said well sometimes you have to they have to know who you are um but prior to that I actually taught Early Childhood of monory [Music] um when I was in school so and we've had a long history a little bit about just Kleen and I um and IC is we've been doing it for over you know this is what the kids say don't say but um almost about 35 years and it has evolved over time and working with school districts um we both decided to retire from the University she retired last year I retired this year um in order to actually really focus on this work 100% of the time and so we felt like it deserved 100% of our attention and

034so that's what we're doing um so I thought what I would do is talk just a little bit about the work we've done around ICS uh and then the framework we use to do evaluations and then how that leads off into professional development uh but this is your time so you know you're welcome to ask questions questions to stop me I won't I promised I wouldn't talk for too long um and I'm sure you have many things on your agenda so um so I'll get going and then um you know feel free just to stop me and say you have a question about something but just a little bit about our work as I said we've been doing this for over 30 years um so between you know teachers administrators in the University our writing

035articles and then the working with school districts has literally been since 1983 um and I think that's important for a couple of reasons we look at it as an educator we we also look at it from the understanding and I I believe the compassion of knowing what it's like to be in the field um and that's how we taught our courses at the University and it's how we do this work and so we think it's really important we um that we understand from that perspective because it is it is a different perspective and we've taken most of our work and put it onto IC equity. org which is a digital book or books it's multiple books so um right now we have um a digital book for schools to work through a process for district

036level we're just adding the school boards and Community um and then DPI and other states OD which is in Ohio Ohio Department of Ed have asked us to do um state level uh books for them so we will be adding those but our most recent work has been on IC Equity so it does say 2015 on there but it's always recent so it's 2020 we made it digital so we could go in and change things um but I just wanted to talk about what we do and why and then as I said I'll go into the equity evaluation or audit um but our our work is it's a framework we don't believe in peace meal and the reason it's a framework is because in order to create lasting sustainable change you have to look at

037the entire system and so often I would think as an administrator and as I taught the courses that there was always like 15 plates spinning and they were all multi-dimensional and that we have to be able to orchestrate those in a really healthy pragmatic IC Wise Way with Equity at its core um and it's not easy but but it can be made a process and it can be done in a very systematic way so we don't see our work as an initiative or specific program or a workshop um you know we don't you know I have to be honest we just don't believe that if someone wants an initiative or a a quick fix that um it's it's not going to resolve the problems so when we when we have achievement gaps and when we

038have authentic problems we have to approach those in an authentic pragmatic way and so that's how we look at it the other part of this is you know when we when we pay attention to achievement gaps when we pay attention to inequities within our schools we actually lift the learning of all kids and so by race disability language social class religion gender sexual gender identity and all intersections we have a range of kids with different identities and the and the most important part of this is it's it's just not a zero some gain so we see Equity completely attached and commensurate with um high quality teaching and learning that's what we look at do is everything in the system working in a way that it lifts everyone up that it's not a zero suome game

039it's not about focusing on these kids kids over those kids it's about making sure the system a really healthy way so that's some of the work it's research based as I said we've been doing it for a very long time um and then I thought I would just talk just a little bit about the evaluation so and this is how we see system change we know that oppression and marginalization are historical structural cultural and systemic we know that and so that requires Equity systems change it's why people ask for an equity audit that it's not one piece of the system or one or this piece of the system that it has to be systemic so the our framework is set up into four cornerstones all engaged in developing community and the first Cornerstone is really

040the focus on equity and what the system looks like what um just really looking at the language in the system how people see families and kids within the system um do we actually use curriculum and asset-based language in a healthy wise way do we know what uh the quality as far as research looks like um do we have very specific steps to address and obtain our vision uh so when I look at your vision your vision uh talked a lot about you know maximizing talents and uh the contribution of all staff is the system aligned in a way for all staff to contribute can they share their expertise um can they make sure they synthesize instruction for all Learners so we don't fragment instruction for Learners so we would look at all these pieces often

041what happens is we take kind of this nose dive into Cornerstone 3 transforming teaching and learning at the classroom level without really looking at culturally how are we situated how are we aligned as far as staff and student students are teachers able to share their knowledge and then how does it play out in the classroom and how does our policy funding support their our whole system so when we look at doing an evaluation or an equity audit we really look through all four cornerstones in order to do the analysis um and so I'll just spend just a little time talking about that and then I my assumption is you might have questions and I'm happy to go deeper in any of this um but so in external Equity evaluation we usually start and we see

042it more as a partnership it's collaborative um it is um participatory so we use focus groups from each school that represent the range of teachers counselors School psychologists uh and and within those focus groups we ask questions uh like three or four open-ended questions that b basically say first of all how how is your school arranged but secondly what do you think is going really well for kids and staff and then where do you think the hiccups are um and then we ask further questions on Where do you think the hiccups are what are the challenges in the system about meeting the needs of each and every learner uh do we have hiccups with are all kids learning at the rate they should be learning what does it mean for kids who are linguistically diverse

043what does it mean for kids experiencing poverty um can we lift that bar for all Learners so that's the focus groups of each school and we often do one set and then follow up with any other um individual interviews but then we set up specific individual interviews with administrators um because we typically ask that like the principal not participate in the focus group the school so teachers can talk freely and then we meet with the principal individually school board members Etc have district office are all individual interviews and then you know if it makes sense um for your District to do focus groups of community members and we may ask um to do focus groups of students as well especially you know middle and high of and kind of asking what works well for you

044here what meets your needs and and where are the hiccups and just hearing from students as well so that it's a um a very comprehensive um qualitative part of the evaluation we then look at the data so really just looking at the data and we look at data a little differently um so Equity audit data we do by student groups but and then within student groups we do by achievement but we look at proportional representation as the key piece so um an example of that might be um the percentage of kids that are identified for gifted that are also experiencing poverty and is that equivalent is that less than the kids that are experiencing poverty in the district or more than so if you're 15 20% poverty where does that fall um so the really

045looking at the proportional representation of kids and the services they're getting do we over identify kids with disab AB abilities who experiencing poverty do we over identify kids with disabilities who are linguistically diverse so what does that look like so not just the achievement data but the proportional representation data which is what um the feds look at and the state looks at when we look at disproportionality um and they often you know the state often looks at disproportionality around disability only we look at disproportionality around all groups of students so then we take that information the equity audit the U so the the quantitative part of it as well as the qualitative part of it the focus groups and depending on where we are if we can be on site we would also do observations

046um and depending on how the schools are set up right now um and then we would take the information complete an analysis and then we would use this framework to complete the analysis of really thinking about the focus on Equity how staff are aligned transforming teach and learning and then policy and funding so um part of the other information that we would ask for is we would ask for access to policy and procedures and then any kind of funding as far as just looking at how dollars are spent are they are they supporting the highest quality teaching and learning um and reinforcing that um so then um we would do the analysis complete the report and then do a final submission to the leadership team and then share it out or do a debrief with

047the school board or the um with the leadership team we've often done public forms as well of sharing out the information but most importantly it is um a set of recommendations and the recommendations are about really looking at how to take something like the puzzle pieces the recommendations are how do we how do we help from an outside perspective pull the system together stand on what's going really well and take those puzzle pieces and pull together um to advance Improvement for everyone and and leverage it from the district strategic plan so I'm just a little detail about what's in those cornerstones um and often based on the recommendations we would look at offering professional development in the F areas so that would be up to you if you're interested in that but looking at really

048and the professional development the way we do it is about training a leadership team from each building so that the leader leadership team can advance the work forward um we think the most important thing is to to build the capacity of synergy and share that out and so our colleagues listen to each other and so when we we build that expertise within a small group and they share it out it has worked really really well so just within the cornerstones you'll see that that focus on Equity Equity includes some understanding of how we set up current Educational Services um do we have deficit or asset based thinking where do we sit with our own identity development um are we really looking at the best research around um really thinking about high quality teaching and learning

049for all kids do we have core principles that we follow and then how does our a drive that change again the structures and then what goes on in a classroom so how how does it all work together and tie together um as far as teachers sharing knowledge and being able to proactively support all kids and then policies and procedures so we typically would follow that um primarily because we've built it over 35 years and we've learned by Mistakes by missing pieces by analysis by our own experience that um that it's hard to sustain change when we miss pieces of the um the puzzle the the in order in in the analysis in order to get to where we want to go so this is just a little bit about the professional development of how we

050typically do it so I thought I would stop there and just see where you are so it's about 17 minutes um and then I'm hay to answer questions or go into any part of it in more detail no that's that that's great least uh I'll open up board members I think sue you had a question I always have a question um Dr fatura I'm gonna I like that last name of yours and I had one I had a fratura in Italy when I was there once but anyway um I have a question about uh well I should say that one of my kind of things I'm anxious about in doing a an equity audit is really being able to hear honest authentic free dig deep responses from the various groups that you would be doing

051the um not the interviews the um uh groups the group engagements and so with the open-end questions I'm sure your staff's very skilled but H how do you get people to really not just paint a lovely picture of our school district but really come up with some honest um free and open responses yeah that is it's a great question and I have to say I love doing focus groups but some of it is about you know first of all we have a very short time and if the focus groups are virtual it's a there's a bridge because we also need to get people to trust us to like want to talk to us right um but we can also tell by language and you know if someone is if they're holding back so you know

052we listen to them we listen to them very clearly and and words matter and so people you know people say they talk in the way that they think right and so language tells us more than anything even if they don't know they're telling us it right so how the services are set up how they explain how they're set up um are we are we actually blaming kids and families or do we hold the system responsible for Student Success right that's all done in language so so we listen very closely to what people say how they say it and then we can dig in deep ER you know just as far as questions but we also look for themes right so if we're hearing people talk the same way we have a really strong idea of

053of what how things are playing out um so that's I mean the open-ended questions you know are intentional not to lead right we don't want to lead in but at this and and and people bring up you know teachers will bring up exactly what's important to them but that does that doesn't mean so if they bring up something that's terribly important but it doesn't lift student achievement that also tells us something so if it's terribly important to them but we know based on research it doesn't leave lift student achievement well that's a hiccup right there right um the other thing we know is um I always give out my email and ask people to call or set up and I can tell certain people have more to say than they're saying and so we would

054set up individual interviews with them and we would follow up because there is a part we're very specific of how those focus groups are set up because sometimes people won't talk in front of other people right um so you know we try really hard it's why we have the principles as an individual interview not that there's um not you know not healthy relationships it's just that there a differential and power right um there's also a differential Empower between special ed teachers and General Ed teachers sometimes between elll and so we'll talk about um know if you're interested in doing this eval exactly what the makeup of group should be and pay attention to that but we'll ask questions to figure out that makeup because you'll know more than we know right the district are just

055going to know more um so all I can say is we're practiced at it I think I've done over a hundred outside evaluations from Seattle Public Schools to San Francisco repu to Boston to small school districts like New Holstein right um so from Illinois suburbs Etc and so we've done these evaluations often um and and we listen intently all right we have a couple board members that have questions I just with the slide that you have up there uh for where it says Cornerstone one focused on equity and I see step six talks about the equity audit and you've got year one so from the time of your engagement through the the date that you would be meeting with the board to debrief and make recommendations how long do you see that time frame being

056well that's your timeline so um so the timeline that's on these slides is for professional development so often just looking at um so what I did was just take it from the evaluation of of talking about the evaluation to if based on the evaluation and recommendations what would professional development look like and it's not it's it's not us doing this professional development it would be your District leadership teams and school leadership teams carrying the work forward we just think it it has to be done in an authentic pragmatic way so we just put the years up there for that I thank you for clarifying that yeah so the outside evaluation um we would move as fast or as slow as you wanted to but it it usually takes um you know at least two months

057depending on the time of year okay and then my follow question to that was that about how many of these Equity audits would you do in an academic year so we never we try really hard not to do any more than two you mean across all districts yeah well I I thought that like you and your cohort I I just didn't know you work together as a team I understand and so how many do a take on in a Academic Year like 2021 oh okay so at any given time we never do more than one I can say that so we take we do about eight a year um but we split up who does them and I typically don't do more than two or three a year um because I'm I'm located in Wisconsin

058Ken is located in Alabama um I would be doing this one which is why I said I would share out with the because I would be the primary contact and then um probably do it with Ken or another coach as ours but we actually try to keep it reasonable for all of us so that we don't exceed about six to eight the company does obviously many more than that um but it's important for us not to do more than one or two at a time so we focus on the district specifically thank you and I'll Bruce had his hand up first and then Heather hi uh thanks for your time Elise appreciate it um so just a couple of quick questions so first of all um in Cornerstone 2 I presume you're working with you

059know even teachers like in our 4K program um all the way up so you know really embedding the the practice right as kids are coming into the district I I presume you know there's a lot of work that's done throughout that 4K through 12 uh grouping just confirm that yes absolutely and and and obviously developmentally appropriate right applied to the grade level appropriately so high schools are more complicated they just are right at the same time four is complicated in its own respect kids are coming in it's their first experience what does it mean with special ed in early childhood three to five so all of that matters right it all matters yeah thank you um I assumed as much I just wanted to confirm um so secondly um and I apologize I if I

060missed this but um you know just curious I see the the staff and the students we have a pretty active Community uh in in Hudson here and just kind of curious how the assessment you know weaves in the community and the the um you know kind of the the current makeup of the community but also engagement within the community no so the Cornerstone so if you see the cornerstones U the arrows around it are engag in developed Community um that is all about the community we would do focus groups with the community it would be up District of how to arrange those so we have clear representation of the community and everyone has voice right um so we would definitely pay attention to that and connect it all together um and we're excited I'm excited

061that you asked that question because we think it's imperative so thank you y yep we have four minutes left Heather and then Rob has a question session talking the way that students who are are students of those concerns that are traditional concerns right so actually the audit is all about all of those concerns so when you know when when people are talking about microaggressions they're talking about deficit based thinking so anytime I say something that lifts me up and pushes someone else down it's a microaggression right and so how so all of that will be taken into consideration when you talk about um The Experience Gap or it's usually defined often as the access Gap right that um certain populations of students because of the history so it goes back to this that Educational Systems

062have we have a 250 year old history of how we got to where we are that actually creates that access Gap so it's not the fault of teachers it's certainly not the fault of students and families it's not the fault of anybody but we we have a long-standing history that's led us to structure and aligned staff so we would pay attention to those access gaps all the way through this but especially looking at how staff are aligned because how staff our line defines exactly what access all students have across all student groups thank you and then Rob your question two hopefully really really quick questions for Nick and then a followup with Eloise um Nick what percent of our student population is minority if you will classified as minority and then likewise with our teachers

063and staff I we're running about 11 to 13% minority give or take but our teachers and staff I I don't have an exact answer on that is it less than that or on par yes okay yes so Eloise you it sounds like you've done a lot of really great work with um urban areas um you mentioned New Holstein which appears to be a fairly small school district um you know we have 5600 kids we have hundreds of teachers and staff um from a engagement whether it's with the community students teachers how do you make sure that you're collecting the voices of our of our target audience but also helping the overall Community well it is it's important to know I just I I listed the largest to some of the smallest but then everywhere in

064between so you you should know that the majority of school districts that we've done the work with um hover around you know 4500 students so you're at about 5500 I think 56 but hover around that to 10,000 so most of our evaluations are there but the reason for the focus groups are voice so we'll do as many focus groups as we need um and that's so not just to get the themes until we hit satiation and what I mean by that is there's a part where we're holding focus groups and we're not learning anything new we are not learning and so we need two three four five focus groups where we have hit satiation we're not learning anything which means I think we've heard the voices right so it'll be important though that we would

065look at your demographics which um I'm I'm reasonably familiar with what I can receive offline or online but look at your demographics look at the community demographics and make sure that all our focus groups represent all the people thank you with that we'll have to end it we have our next interview coming up but thank you for your time thank you for your presentation thank you thank you take good care good evening can you uh Katie and and Dr Williams can you hear me okay yes I hear you fine great great so we have the board ready to go I kind of given you guys kind of heads up it's kind of a 10 to 15 minute opportunity to kind of talk about your work and what you do and then an opportunity for then

066you know about the board to be able to ask some questions and kind of dig in a little bit deeper so without any further Ado I'll I'll turn it over to you guys great thank you so much uh we appreciate the chance to be with you and talk a little bit about our capabilities and also some of the ideas that have been presented in The Proposal that we worked up uh my name is Damon Williams uh I serve as Chief Catalyst for the center for strategic diversity leadership and also uh the national inclusive Excellence Leadership Academy I've had a chance to work with more than a thousand organizations of all types of sizes complexities and locations all around the world um I have a continuing appointment at the University of Wisconsin Madison where I serve

067as a senior scholar and Innovation fellow and I was the inaugural associate Vice Chancellor Vice Provost at W Madison leading all their K through6 uh activities uh uh across the state of Wisconsin and also served as senior vice president and chief education officer for all Boys and Girls clubs around the world uh developing Youth Development curriculums uh K through2 School District Partnerships uh that serve millions of children um I'm an author uh uh the work that we do is driven by research uh evidence-based scholarship that's been validated at the highest levels I'm the author of the best-selling strategic diversity leadership the first book on chief diversity officers uh we recently authored a covid-19 Dei crisis action strategy guide that's been downloaded thousands of times and since the pandemic has hit we've had a chance to

068address more than 15 20,000 persons through keynote addresses and various different uh sessions that we've LED on our platforms and also others uh our work uh and our approach and philosophy that we would bring to your school district is informed by a new study that we're in the midst of looking at Dei challenges and strategy at uh Elite K through2 institutions uh in particular we have 25 Elite schools that we are tracking uh understanding what's going on um at their institutions uh We've gathered more than 4,000 pieces of racialized uh and other Dei types of stories and insights uh that have garnered over 1.1 million likes uh those institutions are listed here some of them across the country um they are uh private Independent Schools uh but given your context in Hudson we think that

069some of the research we're doing in that context could be very relevant uh to the work we would be tasked to do in your context um we have a very diverse group of uh individuals that work with us um diverse not only in terms of uh identity characteristics you can see of race ethnicity and gender but also most critically diverse in terms of skill sets knowledge uh background ability that we bring to this work a couple further points here um you know the team really brings uh uh years and years of experience in the side of this work uh more than a hundred years of experience engaging this stuff in our core leadership team and one of the things I think is a part of our unique value proposition is uh we bring a number

070of PhD level researchers Educators curriculum Specialists trainers to the work that we do so your project which for example believe would have a strong focus on um climate and school culture would also have a strong focus on um on curriculum uh and and and instruction uh we have tenure professors that work with us on a regular basis and will be involved in your project in addition to that uh while I was at Madison I founded and led uh one of the nation's real outstanding culturally relevant uh curriculum and instruction institutes called uh uh uh hip-hop in the Heartland which was really about understanding today's generation of young people uh and really about creating culturally relevant approaches uh inside of that space while I was at Boys and Girls Clubs Of America I also uh had

071a chance to preside over the development of uh five um uh federally acknowledged uh what works Clearing House best practice uh uh K through2 curricular interventions in the stem preparedness area uh also to the area of leadership development um and um those uh various different uh uh initiatives that we LED uh were Common Core aligned uh so bring a lot of experience personally but also our team uh to understanding these issues at various different levels and we just have an incredible network of folks that work with us uh through our Center um our work is not about speaking truth to power our work is about Hope and guidance and uh if there's anything I think that the last several months have shown us and even the most recent days of the elections have shown us

072is that uh we all need some more hope and some guidance here uh because we really have to continue to create connectivity and continue to pull ourselves together as a nation uh and for me there's no more important of an opportunity for us to do that than having a chance to work at the K through 12 level uh around these various issues uh we talk about helping uh institutions uh of all kinds to navigate this perfect storm of dynamics that is really elevating issues of diversity equity and inclusion broadly defined uh the Resurgence of activism that we've seen uh the rise of the millennial and Centennial or some would say Generation Z Generations which are the most diverse that we've ever seen um technology and social media meaning that the smallest uh misstep the smallest

073comment uh can become a flash point for a school for a school district for a Fortune 100 company for a major university uh and and recently you know what's happened uh uh in the past and what now in front of us in terms of a new recession which is going to further exacerbate societal and educational inequities uh and then this glowing uh climate of hate uh that we've seen in our country in recent years uh our job as we view it is the opportunity to help organizations to navigate all of these Dynamics uh moving forward um you know we bring deep understanding of this generation of young people I've worked with young people all over this country indeed all over the world uh around these critical issues various different racial ethnic Geographic uh and socioeconomic

074backgrounds uh and we leverage and bring that experience to Hudson schools uh as we think about your project you know for us there were a couple key points that we thought would be uh important to build into a methodology uh one is we really wanted to uh help you to have an understanding of issues of climate and culture by taking a really deep dive uh across your uh various inst uh schools inside the district through do a combination of dialogue and Community Building uh listening sessions um which are focus group like but a bit different um open-ended surveys giving individuals a chance to freewrite and share their stor share their insights uh confidentially and anonymously uh and also interviews with key stakeholders to really generate this understanding um a second kind of major area of

075methodology we thought would be appropriate would be to engage in a level of what we refer to as culturally relevant review of disciplinary data achievement data Human Resources data looking for patterns of inequity looking for patterns uh that suggest areas where we may want to really focus into in terms of uh opportunities to improve and then the third thing was really to take a look at curriculum and to look at how issues of diversity equity and inclusion are positioned in the implicit and explicit curriculums uh of of the Hudson School District District knowing that we're talking about a wide span from early Learners uh through to Middle uh schoolers all the way into high schoolers uh we at Boys and Girls Clubs Of America talk about the littles the Twins and the teens uh and

076so wanting to understand those issues and how they manifest curricularly uh and then lastly for us you know we are researchers we're Scholars uh but the research and the scholarship that we want to do in the service of the schools is really to establish a foundation to spark action and so you'll notice that one of the things we built into our proposal was a uh insights to action set of uh recommendations in terms of a strategic Dei Leadership Institute some forums uh board presentation uh to really spark insights to action and change energy too often uh good research uh good assessment work is done and it doesn't translate into meaningful uh action steps and understandings uh for us that is athetic to our principles values and purpose which is to really use research evidence-based uh

077uh insights to create good solid strategy so institutions and leaders can take steps forward and uh create a more diverse inclusive environment and importantly to prepare the Next Generation for leadership in our country um I'll end with this I with this F final statement before I uh open it up for questions and comments uh for us you know it's really about creating a Continuum um we could spend most most of our time actually we can spend all of our time working at the higher education level and the corporate level uh but we've been very intentional about wanting to uh get involved uh uh at the K through2 level with these issues um I think that the Hudson school district is ahead of the curve uh as uh an environment that has uh young people um

078uh in spaces where they can benefit from elevating these conversations um many school districts are opening these conversations many independ depent schools are opening these conversations and we'd love to be a partner as you begin and hopefully accelerate on that Journey over the next several years so with that said it's some very quick moving uh opening statements um I will uh stop and turn it back to you for questions comments thoughts and reaction okay Rob good evening Damon hello so uh with regards to the um boys and girls club it sounds like you had uh just a bunch of success there um to looking through your proposal you talk about racial healing can you talk a little bit about uh the impact that you had with the Boys and Girls Clubs as it relates to

079the lgbtq plus Community sure absolutely uh so when I arrived at Boys and Girls Clubs Of America many people uh have a lot of thoughts about the organization but one of the things they don't understand is number one uh Boys and Girls Clubs Of America is one of the most racially uh ethnically and uh uh diverse institutions in the country serving young people uh about 40% of all Boys and Girls Clubs Of America youth are white uh and um about uh uh 50 58 plus percent are uh historically underrepresented minorities they're also the largest uh population uh serving military youth uh in the world and inside of that work candidly uh questions of lgbtqia Youth was not on the radar at all and in fact it's an organization that historically had been very is very

080conservative and in certain communities was very conservative and that identity was not uh really elevated and discussed nationally at all and in local clubs it was happening sporadically uh one of the things that I did upon arrival is number one I created a national Center of Excellence uh in the area of Health wellness and gender identity development that Center had as one of its priorities uh sexual orientation uh gender identity gender identity expression so we created a strategic uh capability at the national level from there we established a national task force to begin working on these issues one of the first things that we did was create and um was to create a a set of data collection activities to help us to start understanding um how many young people were either a identifying uh

081as uh a member of the lgbtqia community or two questioning those uh Identity or three identifying themselves as gender non-conforming from that understanding we started to get a sense that uh perhaps as many as 40% of the young people we were serving were either a member of that Community or Were Somehow fluidly uh uh finding their pathway and foothold in that community that was a really powerful insight for us from there we developed a national toolkit to help local clubs to be able to work with and engage with those young people we also began to establish a series of uh trainings uh and we implemented those trainings at scale across the country trying to help local leaders to level up in working with these young people whether they were on a military base in Germany

082whether they were in a poor rural community in Appalachia whether they were in Elite suburban community in Cincinnati Ohio or somewhere else that we serve young people so we did a lot of great work there one of the things I'm probably most proud of is the work that we did in in the lgbtqia space right other remembers Heather thanks so much for for being with us this evening can you talk a little bit maybe about experience you've had working in communities like Hudson where um you know on one hand we have um a a really vocal um energetic group of folks who are encouraging and pushing us to do this work really encouraging us to even you know go beyond the achievement Gap and really look at you know the experience that students who are

083not majority students have in our buildings in our system kind of as as other if you will parents whose kids are majority students if you will but they want their kids to have a more a more diverse a more Global um experience in school and at the same time because we have a you know about 90% majority Community we also have plenty of community members who are kind of scratching their heads and saying I don't even why are we talking about this and why would we consider spending money on it so can you talk a little bit about um I assume part of the process and the work that you do with us is about how to engage the community in a way that hopefully gets more folks kind of on board with the idea

084that this is the right work to do and that it's relevant um but if you've had experience in a community like that it would be helpful to to hear how you approach that and how you would approach it here yeah it's a great point and you know one of the things that we know is that across the board uh individuals in lots of different spaces around these issues right and uh to your point some are Allin we got to do this now and how do we do it better others are asking the question why is this even relevant you know are we uh celling to you know kind of these broader uh politicized forces uh and and then there's other people in the middle and you know candidly it's like that everywhere so whether we're

085working with a company whether we're working with a university whether we're working with um a k through2 Institution uh or uh a k through2 serving institution I found that there's an incredible level of similarity and for us you know you know this culture and moving cultures you know uh they're defined by tradition they're defined by privilege they're defined at times by homogeneity uh by risk aversion uh what the noted author wobin D'Angelo refers to as a white fragility um a lack of cultural competence and largely more than anything we found that there defined by a fear uh a fear of the unknown a fear of Engagement and so for us you know one of the things we really believe in is the importance of getting very clear on our messaging framework around what we're doing

086and why you know people I think that why is important to understand you know for us this is about how we prepare all of our students for a world that's diverse Global and interconnected it's also about being responsive to the dis uh to the Strategic disunity we've seen in our country um you know uh uh based on um research that we're tapping into between 15 and 26 million persons participated in the black lives matter social demonstrations making it the largest social demonstration movement in the history of this country and maybe in the history of the the world definitely the recorded world and so inside of that those are forces that clearly illustrate this elevation but how do we do it in a way that brings people on a journey um one of the things that

087we proposed tactically in your plan to help with that because we knew that there would be people persons all across the board here uh uh and that last cell here is around board parent uh alumni engagement you know one of the things that we proposed for you was to host uh some forums uh in particular I think it was two forums one at the beginning one at the end those forums uh and obviously would be virtual uh would allow for folks to to learn about the project uh meet us um hear about where this is going um and Hope hopefully we can use that as a platform to make meaning uh I think one of the the the Strategic benefits that you get when you work with us is that we can do big stadium

088and we can also do small club uh performances in terms of presenting information um and so we have an ability to to reach hearts and minds and create connection with the message with the why with where we're going to show empathy uh around these things and we really try to bring those things together in every single engagement that we do uh knowing that there's a lot of complexity we're working with um very similar communities right now um I can't name some of my clients I'm working with right now but some of the most elite independent schools in the country which bring those exact same Dynamics to the four the only difference is at those institutions uh they're paying $50,000 $45,000 a year for their young people to go into this area and we've uh are

089on the journey working with some of them right now at this very point Thank you just to follow up on that um you mentioned that uh you work with companies and universities um what percentage of your clientele are K through 12 public school districts that's a great question um you know I don't have a percent uh right now but I will tell you that I've got you know five uh K through 12 uh institutions we're working with at different levels of complexity some of those are one-time training efforts one of them is a year-long partnership effort we don't take on Mo uh too many year-long partnership efforts or six-month partnership efforts at a time because we can only manage so many of them in our portfolio um uh so but we do have five active

090projects right now in portfolio where we have uh recently done a all school training for uh faculty uh and Leadership around allyship um we're forging forward with a new climate and culture study of another uh institution um we're working with the board of another institution around these issues and uh uh how they should be getting their hands engaged with it and then another institution has a project which is more comprehensive in nature and uh in that we're actually doing research we're doing the policy and curriculum review and we also are doing training and capacity building so multiple multiple different levels so um you know one thing I will offer is this um most college and universities around the country use my work and I've visited most of them there's very few you can name that

091I haven't had a chance to touch at some point this work for us in the K through 12 space we don't have as deep of a roster there that we've worked with uh but the folks that we have worked with will speak very highly to us to our abilities and I think that uh as we continue forward it'll be distinguishing the final point I'll offer with respect to this is I stepped away from what I was doing in higher education uh to go serve America's youth at Boys and Girls Clubs Of America because I wanted to get more fundamentally invested and involved uh with with K through2 uh education Youth Development uh character uh based issues curricular issues that movement into that space was for four plus years when I stepped down for my national

092appointment in that role I full-time launched my Center that's only been three years ago and so we're still building uh uh infrastructure and capability but we feel very good about the work that we've done and hopefully we'll have a chance to do some of that good work with you then my other question you outlined your fees and um your proposal page 21 starts at page 21 and your estimate for the phase one as you call it uh being $155,000 what time period are we talking about for you to accomplish those things that are uh Phase 1 a 1B 1 C yes I I believe that we've outlined that as a six-month uh project engagement so roughly uh uh January through June uh uh engagement period uh whereby we would uh execute the various aspects of

093the uh of the methodology uh and you know indeed if we were to reach uh uh an alignment that you wanted to work with us and we wanted to work with you uh we got to a deal uh I could see you know it's starting perhaps even before January um uh you know at least in the planning phase uh but obviously uh we got a lot of road to cover to get to that point um but about six months is what we're thank you and then you have uh for phase two a general timeline to be determined you have on there but uh you include uh uh some virtual training sessions and some videos um and Inter integrated video links into our district so is that something I see a 24mon password protected access the

094does fit 75,000 cover that entire two-year time period or is that something that you know is is utilized more in the first year and how long does the generally take sure great question so um you know it's different to difficult to forecast projections particularly in the age of Corona right uh but what we were thinking is you know if we were so fortunate to uh Forge this relationship we would come out of phase one and you know really be looking to build uh uh a capability right so strength and capability with faculty strength and capability with leadership around these issues perhaps working with other constituents as well what we framed out was kind of our standard approach and package uh we really want to identify uh five kind of key uh learning experiences that you

095thought were really really important and excuse me and then we would execute those learning experiences uh three times live so we could uh uh uh control uh side and be able to offer some intimate learning experiences uh for faculty in particular who I'd imagine would be um very invested here and so actually in that package as we outlined it was five unique trainings um each of them offered three different times live so 15 and then um from the five we would take uh those five and we would then develop self-directed learning modules uh which would allow for someone to uh go back to a training if they had already done it or if they hadn't done the live they could do it uh asynchronously uh uh uh at their own uh discretion or if it

096was somebody that was new hired into the district and you wanted to create a policy that said that you know every new faculty member you know within their first X number of months must do uh uh you know X numbers of training you would have that capability uh in the world we live in now everything's about content and ownership of content and what we've been moving forward with is a standard 24mon license uh and so that license would allow for you to forge for for uh the 24 months uh and at the end of the 24 months we would have another conversation if you wanted to relicense that intellectual property or if you say hey we'd like to you know build some new stuff or or you know demon uh we we we we don't

097want to continue to license that that uh uh content and those are all obviously uh points of discussion and negotiation moving forward you questions any other questions all right I don't see any thank you very much for your time thank you for your proposal thank you before we one final thing it is so strange uh I can't tell who's talking because you all have your masks on so I'm sitting here I'm like who who's I'm trying to identify who took their mute off and I I I totally could not do it thank you all for your great uh preparation and questions and keeping us in a tight uh meeting a late time for us on the east coast God bless and have a great day bye bye thank you very much we appreciate it absolutely

098SEMA can you can you hear us okay um I just logged in so I think I think we're good can you hear me all perfect perfect uh so you know as I explained to the board and and as we talked on the phone um so it' be you know about 101 15 minutes you kind of give the the background and and your work and what you do with everything and then leave an opportunity for the board to be able to ask some questions and and kind of go go that way and kind of dig deeper so I'll turn it over to you awesome hi welcome everyone kind of fun to just like jump in and there's all these people and I have to like present versus like walking into a room so I miss it

099but um I would just love to know everybody's name real quick I know it's part of my 15 10 15 minutes but I quick name voice go ahead SU you start don't you also give kind of your position so she knows exactly kind of who she's talking oh uh I'm Sue I'm a a board member V uh Visual Arts oh gosh did you hear that school board I love it I'm Bob School Board member hi Heather School Board member uh Nick superintendent all right Jamie Johnson School Board Carrie Whitaker School Board Rob Brown School Board Tracy oops go ahead go ahead and H director go ahead Aon Aron Shin Student Services Tracy habisha lean community relations that's everybody in the room that's everyone awesome well thank you um it's good to hear your voices um

100my name is SEMA poy and I am here on behalf of equity literacy Institute um so uh my colleague Paul Gorski is the one that heads up Equity literacy Institute and he's got an amazing team of people who work with him um because he can't do it all and so I'm super excited to present you um our information and my understanding is that you have our proposals and you've looked at it yes yes yes okay awesome so I'm not going to spend a ton of time but I'm going to just go through a little bit I'm going to start screen sharing and just show you a little bit about who we are and kind of our approach and then obviously go into questions so let's see if this all works this Tech I always do

101a deep breath I've got two kids at home who are also online right now so I'm like I need I need it for like two minutes um let me get this so we can see your screen it's just the it was the zoom it was just the zoom uh tab but we could see your screen perfect yeah you can see my mess of work awesome okay so I'm just trying to make sure I can optimize um for a video clip because I do have one that I want to share and yes this is my mess of work here we go okay so Equity literacy Institute my name is SEMA poan my email address is up there but Nick obviously has it too so you want me to copy that down um I did love your

102be patient be kind keep others in mind like I looked that up under website and was like this is awesome so very catchy um what is your why I always start with why do we do the work that we do um I know that you've heard probably from two other amazing presenters today and um hopefully you were able to get insight this is a little bit about my why Equity literacy why for us it's all about the youth it's impacting the youth experience um and we've found that when our youth are having an amazing time and they feel included and valued and they're thriving then our staff feel like this huge relief is off of their shoulders and families are more involved um parents caregivers and so for us it starts with that youth and

103the youth voice and so I do have a quick video that I want to show you um just because I do think it's important to get that youth voice in the room at any time that we do our work it kind of grounds me and grounds us um this is a friend of mine her name is vilen she is a sophomore at the University no Boston University and um she was asked by her school District she was a Theater Arts major and after she left she was asked by her school district to do a message to record a message um for their staff on their big like opening day kickoff and this is the message that she did and her words just really are profound to me it's about three minutes long um but I

104do think it's um a powerful message and it's it's our y so bear with me while we listen to Veen [Music] in a world so full of color why would I choose to be colorblind with all the blue and the sky and the Green in my eyes and the orange of a monarch butterfly why would I choose to be colorblind see so many teachers have said to me in an effort to promote inclusivity I don't see color an otherwise harmless statement but when it comes to race it's not quite the same as you think what you mean is that you love all of your students equally all the students you you have the capacity to serve but in actuality your students are not all treated equally and they're also different colors the last thing you

105want to do when it comes to race is erase the things that make us unique erase a piece of what we see staring back at us it's not about not seeing color it's not about negating it it's about celebrating it and raising the voices of black authors black activists black leaders black Heritage black existence but resisting the single narrative resisting the story that Africa is one big territory with nothing but huts and famine it's examining our own biases our own prejudices and accepting that you are not immune to making mistakes so make them then take them as an opportunity to learn because isn't that what we're here to do isn't that the spirit we're fostering it's exhausting being young and black in the country we're living in your students are exhausted but not giving in

106when it's been 400 years you learn to cope so I hope you take their hands and make an effort to understand and see color then read about it go to BSU meetings be about it meaning roll up your sleeves and apply what you're learning don't rely on the one black student in your class to carry their entire community on their back don't ask them to preach but allow them to speak their truth if they so choose and use their name even if it's hard to pronounce announce your allyship wave it like a flag across the room you have the opportunity to make your space a safe one so take it and name racism when you see it it's not teasing it's feeding the Beast of white supremacy so seize the moment to dismantle the hate

107and educate it's what you do best address the uncomfortable lean into to what is difficult to talk about because it all starts with conversations hard ones we must talk about redlining talk about healthc care inequalities talk about employment disparities talk about hair and how all hair types are professional racism is not conceptual it is real and it is Perpetual it is not political but it is critical that you use your audience to promote tolerance talk about it read about it and be about it see color then use it to paint a better future for your [Music] students so I do love her deep breath at the end and I told Veil any chance I get to put her in front of a group of Educators I would do so um so thank you for listening

108and I think a lot of her messages ring true with the work that we do at Equity literacy Institute our passion and purpose is rooted in changing the trajectories for our youth um my why my personal why is um just that understanding of education and the power of it um I do have a picture up here of a picture I took last summer and it's in Hudson and um Hudson actually has a super special place in my heart it's where I always went as a little kid and um I'm in Minneapolis and I do get emotional because I love your city and so to get this request come across Eli I was like yes like we totally have to work with Hudson schools because I know um as a person of color I have always

109felt welcome and granted like I've only been in certain parts of Hudson but I do want to make sure that um regardless of how your students and fames show up in their schools that they feel welcome and they feel like they can be their authentic self so that is that's why we do the work that we do um so a little bit about us and what it is that we do in our philosophy so it's this comprehensive approach this is only the information that you have in your handbook so I'm not showing your in our proposal so it's not anything new um but I think like the big thing for us is that commitment um to really understanding individual and institutional understandings of how equity and inequity operate in organizations um I do talk a

110lot about racial inequity um just because I know it's the one that people are probably the most uncomfortable talking about and it's my lived experience but by no means do we only focus on that we do understand that there is gender inequity socioeconomic Equity um sexual identity sexual orientation all of that that comprises a student's experience so um we do look at all of those components and dig deep into them um so we really and so here again we talk about ability disability language religion immigration status whatever um identity that students bring into the school setting um and so what we do really is to empower people even just through our Audits and the way that we do our work and to really recognize the subtlest forms of bias and inequity so that when we're

111done with our work and we leave um that still continues that people feel equipped they feel like they have the tools and that they are ready to do that on their own um so just a couple things here when we talk about Equity literacy we talk about the ability to recognize subtle biases and so that's what we had talked about earlier um but then also to respond redress actively cultivate equity and then to sustain those efforts so I know we're only talking about audits um but even within an audit I think so much of how we communicate with people and the questions that we ask and um the topics that come up even just through audits we able to still leave people whether it's students or families or staff the skills to be able to

112do these five things um and then obviously we have trainings that we could do afterwards but um we're not somebody that's just going to come in and like do our thing and give you a report like we do in any way that we have contact with um adults and youth be able to give them that ability to work towards Equity themselves um so partnership what would it look like so it's a commitment to action while valuing Dynamics um we do understand that this work often comes with a lot of hesitation a lot of reservation and we get it um people's lived experiences if you're looking at Equity work it's either this blame and shame or it's this yay let's just celebrate diversity and neither one of them really move change um and so we understand

113that there has to be some thing where people feel comfortable they're vested in it personally they get it they understand the need and they want to work towards um creating amazing learning environments for all students so we do get Dynamics we know that this work isn't easy um and isn't readily accepted at times too um collaboration partnership flexibility to meet the needs of your families and your staff and um we the way that we do our report at the end is we call them Champions and challenges what's going well what are some things that um people your stakeholders have identified as areas of improvement we make a recommendations this is based off of Decades of experience both lived experiences research um professional experience and the experience of just being invited into schools and families and

114staff and conversations um from across the country and then we followed up with professional development um so some of the audit options again you have this so I'm not going to spend a lot of time we do paper or online surveys especially during covid super easy to just have these um available to families um we also have focus groups that we like to do and um we can bring in translators as well if language is a barrier super flexible on time we understand that not everybody can um do a focus group during the school day not everyone can do it in the evening so we can vary that based on um a students and family and staff needs individual interviews we typically um kind of put those in with the focus group times um so

115that it's a good easy schedule in a day but we do recognize that sometimes districts want um just oneon-one interviews and people feel safe and comfortable in that capacity versus being in a focus group um we also do site visits and um these are really interesting because there's so much that we can pick up and we can point out that um it's really unintentional but really makes a big impact uh so for example I was just at a school district um they were shut down because of covid but they still um they' started off the year hybrid and then they went to distance learning and so it just asked me to come check out their school check out their campus and just said what you know what is the feeling you get when you walk

116in and as I was walking in um they had a sign for a yearbook pre-order and it said order your yearbook by um like November 15th and save $20 so something as simple as that where the intention is great like yes you want your families to feel engaged you want them to order a yearbook um you want them to do it soon so that it benefits everybody but what message does that send to our students who can't afford yearbook and who are struggling socio economically um we're rewarding those who can afford and readily have money available whereas students who have to save and um maybe even wait until after the holidays to pay they're now having to pay a higher price so little minor subtle things like that where um unless you have that lived

117experience or unless you've had somebody tell you about it you might not recognize it so how can we um kind of eliminate those even subtle barriers and so that's our site visit um we can do it virtually as well but we do prefer to come visit and just walk around and have conversations uh curriculum analysis and policy analysis like that's a really big piece as well like we just take existing documents and again we operate from this notion that it's all made with good intentions but sometimes um things happen or you have word or language that people don't realize um is a barrier and so we sit and we use our team to analyze different documents and then just make recommendations of sometimes it's just as minor as word changes and other times it's um

118completely rewriting something so that it truly is more Equitable and then we do have a summary report at the end so again Champions challenges recommendations um we can do that in formally we can do Schoolboard presentations sometimes we get asked to do community presentations so um we invite the community to come and hear and then kind of collaborate at that point too so that just varies on what you want and how um how much you want to involve your extended and broader Community as well um professional development so at Equity literacy Institute while we do enjoy doing audits um and helping districts see what they don't know we maybe feel like Hudson schools is probably like most school districts across the country where you do have issues of homophobia you do have issues of sexism

119of racism and um we can probably safely predict what some of that is going to be granted we don't have the um qualitative stories that go along with those so um we do enjoy doing audits we think they're necessary but our Heart is also really in the professional development and it's like okay so we know this exists we know that you um have your Champions you have your challenges but these are some topics that we want to do um for that ongoing professional development and really creating ways to sustain Equity efforts and so staff students families don't feel like it's a one and done or it's a checklist on a box like what can we do to make sure that people feel empowered and that you have a whole bunch of equity Warriors in your

120District who are ready to take this on um and continue to lead for change so these are some of the topics that we do we also do trainings with youth even as young as Elementary School and um addressing inequity something as simple as um asking questions or asking students to clarify when they hear something that doesn't sit well with them okay so with that um I can take questions I know I'm like looking at the time I'm like I think I WR might right be there um and then I end with a quote by Mahatma Gandhi who will lift my ancestors up um of that be the change you wish to see in the world and that truly is something that we believe in um if we're going to be invited into your District we

121certainly want to model best practices just even something as simple as how we engage with your students and your staff and your families thank you for your presentation I guess I would U lead off the questions by asking um how many districts do you see of of our size you know roughly 55 5,400 students that have uh Equity coordinators and do you see uh that position being something that we would need to have on the ground at the conclusion of the audit during the audit or uh something that you would look at as Maybe not necessarily mandatory but a recommendation you might make yeah that's a great question um you know it depends on who you ask but personally I do think that um while an equity coordinator is great it's certainly a symbolic gesture

122at the cabinet level it shows people that you have somebody that's focused on that um I've also seen other models that work really well sometimes it's really hard to burden one person as like you were the equity coordinator and you have to deal with all of the stuff that's happening because what that does some times as it enables people to kind of step back and it allows Equity be to be seen as um a separate component versus really engaging your teaching and learning engaging your um curriculum Specialists everybody in your District um to be able to look at things through an equity lens and so instead of entrusting one person to kind of manage that responsibility I spent a lot more time doing professional development in schools um I've seen ones places where there are

123Equity specialists in each building so it's a teacher on special assignment or it's a teacher who's it's a stien role um and then that way there's like a local connect with staff in a building or with families where they can say like okay here's somebody who's going through extensive training that we can turn to so yes I think an equity coordinator is a great option I don't say it's I don't think it's mandatory it's obviously a good position to have but I would hesitate to recommend it if that's going to be your be all like hey we hired an equity coordinator now um we can all continue to do what we do how we do it and not work together for that systemic change and your different Services you provide include that um pretty wide

124range on curriculum analysis and policy analysis of 2 to 10,000 um can you give some idea of a district to our size um what that might be whether we'd be closer to the $10,000 or the $2,000 in yeah so with curriculum analysis it really just depends on how much you want us to analyze right and so like um we were just with the school district and they're like we want you to read through our elementary um handbook our Middle School handbook and our high school handbook and I was like that's awesome I can do that but with a lot of equity work you just start to see patterns and if I just take one of your handbooks and do that instead and then work with your staff to kind of show hey here's some changes

125here's some ways to look at the certain Equity lens then you all can be empowered to do your your own other two handbooks um so the volume of and the range of costs depends on how much you give us to analyze and the time that it would take to do that so policy if you're like we want you to look at all of our policies versus like hey here's four policies that we see being utilized often with student suspensions like can you look at these and tell us um how we could look at this through an equity lens that's a little bit um less of a cost than a whole bunch of documents to analyze and your time period from time of retention to the time that you give the report to the school board

126is that more along the lines of two months or is it six months it is what you want it to be so if you're like hey this is what we need you to do and this is the time frame um we can get it done like we're pretty flexible with that and I do um personally am somebody who thinks like our students can't afford for us to wait to really figure things out and have perfectly packaged before we start looking at things differently and so um while it is stressful for us to get requests of like hey here's our here's the work we want you to do and we want you to get it done in two months we also again like we're really youth focused and we know that that's what's best going to

127benefit your students and your families and your staff and so it it really varies on how much you give us but we do have that sense of urgency when it comes to doing this type of work the percentage of your work that's done with uh K through 12 school districts public school districts um shoot I would say like I don't know for sure but I would say probably at least 75% the rest is nonprofits who work with youth um or businesses that work with youth so schools are kind of our and Educators is kind of our Um passion and purpose and our expertise and the number of audits you do it any one time well we have a pretty good team of people so um we have multiple audits that are happening at I'm sorry

128what was that nope I'm sorry I said we have multiple audits that happen at the same time um we have a pretty big team of people um this one in particular if Hudson would probably be myself Paul and um a principal colleague of ours that works um and does it when he's not being a principal so yeah um I think board member Heather has question thanks so much for your time SEMA so it looks like your equity your audit is really focused on um School culture and student experience what I didn't see referenced in your audit was for an for example um looking uh looking at student achievement gaps looking at um uh disciplinary records and you know um differences there is that not a part of your audit is your audit really more focused

129on on that experience piece or would you get into some of that that data no we definitely get into that data too and we actually have aist list um that I can send you to of standard questions that we ask um data specialists in each district to pull so we'll just ask for summary charts of um access to honors classes access or access to advanced classes suspensions um we look at students who start in September who maybe moveed to Alternative settings um attendance behavioral referrals where are those referrals happening is it in the classroom or um the cafeteria you know and so we do do that as well extensively great thank you yeah Rob hi SEMA hi hi uh so how many years and maybe I missed this and I apologize but how many years

130has your business been in operation and do you have a rough idea how many school districts you've done this audit work with yeah um it's a good question so here is like truthfully like we and it's funny when you use the word business because we don't consider ourselves to be like a business we're not going to give you this um I don't have like a presentation of all of us standing in front of people and we don't have our own commercials for our business we actually are all Educators who do this um because we're super passionate about it so um I know Paul has been with the equity literacy Institute for over 20 years um I've been with them for the past 12 years and I he would probably be the one to tell you

131like how many people we've worked with but in any given school year we have like dozens of um whether it's individual schools whether it's districts whether it's a one day training um well I can just tell you so since September what are we in September October November three months like personally have done probably about 15 different trainings um but again like I said we really since it is kind of more grass rootsy like we are there for our clients so um we don't just do training and leave I know Nick had asked for references and I kind of hesitated because I'm like Hey we're not trying to we know our educators are working so hard and um while references are good obviously we know you need them but we also don't want to burden people

132with like trying to sell us that's not what we do um and so I did give them a reference for the Nina School District which is a district that we've worked with to do some trainings and Chad one of their um I don't even know what his official role is but constantly just sending us emails and it's like hey I want to do this and what do you think and so we really value that that relationship um and we're super just vested in making sure that you all get a great experience and um at the end of the day again it goes back to students if we're going to be meeting students and families and staff members we want to make sure that um we're helping you as much as we can so that when

133we leave they feel good about what they've offered and what they've shared with us thank you yeah other questions is since you can just drive over from Minneapolis does that reduce your onsite cost it does yeah since I drive over there like once a month like my kids my son is 16 and he's learning how to drive and I'm like let's go to Hudson and so the Dairy Queen is there like we have a Dairy Queen like four blocks from our house but we drive to Hudson to go to Dairy Queen every now and then um but yes you would not have to pay travel fees for us to do this work great excuse me yes very good Sue um the ethnographic um observations um that really intrigues me uh how does does that often

134corroborate like what you gain from Gathering students together to share their stories or or does it relate better to curriculum Focus or how what does it offer what what do you give from doing that yeah you know it's kind of both it typically does go well with um what students say and oftentimes so like I did work in the barou school district um and when we did some focus groups we had students that said like we don't see ourselves in the school like we walk in and there's nothing that um it this is a certain demographic of students and like there's nothing that jumps out at us that speaks to us and so then when we walk through the school we're walking through and looking at it through that lens and again I think so

135often like unless you truly take the time to talk to students or understand or look with that critical lens you don't even see what you don't see right and so to walk through and say like yeah you're right like we get because we don't see any visuals of this you know or we don't see um any like visuals that highlight or share achievements for this particular demographic right and again I think a lot of this is just common it's not some thing where it's like oh like how could how dare you it's just we a lot of times you don't know what you don't know and so when students share things when family share things and then we' go in a building or we look at a site and we're like yep like did you

136maybe like not see that like for example this one the school had like a trophy case as soon as you walked in and it was for like all the male Sports and so we were just kind of like huh like we're we're all the female sports right and so they're back in the art Wing and just simple things like that that you might think don't make an impact but students know it they see it and um they have a visual representation of not feeling validated right excellent any other questions right SEMA thank you very much for your presentation yeah thank you and um good luck and I'm super excited that you're even taking this initiative on and um I think it's going to be great regardless of who you go with so well anytime you

137want to be a cheese head come thank you for no I'm not quite there no no no I would not qu I said I like Hudson I'm it's not a general Wisconsin thing you get over here on the good side of the river you know and that's that's everything's a little bit better on the on this side but thank you very much we appreciate taking the time and I'll be in touch yeah sounds good have a good night everyone bye um I think that we've been going for about two hours but we have only one request to speak so um Scott do you want to do that now all right y please my name is SC Lon um I live at 7186 Street in Hudson I'm also a teacher and a parent um I just

138want to I know that you received written information about this today but I I think it's really important to acknowledge publicly um you know and I'm just really proud of 52 Middle School teachers today who signed a petition um for the following request the Hudson Education Association requests that the hsd administration and Board of Education decouple seventh and eth grade from the early childhood 4K to 9th grade section of the hsd school closure Matrix 7 the eighth graders should return to their previous grouping with 10th to 12th grades Hudson Middle School will be significantly safer if at a minimum seventh and eth grades return to hybrid learning visual learning for seventh and eth 10th through 12th grades would be even safer so again 52 Middle School staff um sign that today and again I'm just

139really proud of them um and basically you know when you know two board means ago um you held firm and did not make what we consider dangerous changes to the metrics last meeting you made a dangerous change and we were very very concerned Hudson Middle School teachers are very concerned because as we saw with all the information earlier it's the it's the old people the non-k kids that are at risk in the building and then of course we don't know what's flowing in and out of the school asymptomatically to families the community so we just think it's very important that you reconsider that decision and that you change that as soon as you can um you know people are you know they felt blindsided by that um and just really concerned about that we're also

140confused about you know the district saying things like teachers can't meet in certain Siz groups have to do that virtually while we go and pack you know repack the middle school full with students every day so so we're concerned about that there's a real discrepancy there um I know there are some really good letters that were written and and we would if it weren't for the time change we would have people here speaking not just me again trust me I was intending not to speak not to have you hear me again or you see me way too much I know that um so anyways we just got to be alert to the silent what they say well I heard on the radio the silent pandemic um especially in the 12 to 20 group of these

141stealthy healthy people that we don't know what's happening and we got to keep people safe and like I've been saying lately the county numbers that's the weather report of icy roads okay it's saying hey stay off the icy roads our numbers in the vertical column of those that are sick those are the cars in the ditch that's after the fact let's not wait for the cars to get in the ditch let's listen to the weather report about the icy roads and keep our our staff amilies of students and students safe so thank you so much all right thank you all right with that I will'll uh we'll take a five minute recess um and then reconvene e e e call the meeting back to order and uh turn it over to Dr olette to give

142us the the covid-19 operational update yeah so one of the things that was going to happen earlier tonight is Dr mcginness was going to um speak as as he rep he's on the Health and Human Services board for the county as a medical adviser for them and so um he wasn't able to come tonight and and speak and and answer questions but he he did send a little video message um and I told him I would play it this isn't like a public comment portion it's because we we actually invited him to to come in and talk and so that's what makes us a little different than some people have asked well why don't you play videos from public C portions that's the that's been the kind of the big the big difference between it

143so um everybody all right that's just somebody choking on a little water so just for people people out there it's not uh not anything uh covid related just purely wrong pipe so all right um we'll go ahead and start this and then we're going to go into my uh my covid operational update so good evening my name is Paul mcginness I'm a resident of the Hudson school district and have three now adult children educated through the district my former primary care practice encompassed 30 years in this community I wish to acknowledge Dr olette The District staff chairman Johnson and members of the school board for all your efforts during this extremely difficult unanticipated and challenging time your diligence on the behalf of the students staff in our community is appreciated first I acknowledge evidence that

144inperson educ education is the best option for most students hybrid is second full virtual learning is the least desirable it is also known that adolesence can become ill with this disease and can transmit this disease frequently with little or minimal symptoms keeping them in school for part of the day in environment that helps mitigate Community spread may also provide a benefit younger children may also be infectious but are less likely to be source of widespread infection fortunately when our youth become ill with this virus they are less commonly hospitalized or to developed severe symptoms second I understand that prior to your last meeting some members of the community interpreted comments I had made at the last Health and Human Services board meeting in October as supporting a full resumption of in-person Education or a significant

145reduction Rel or relaxation in the district's mitigation strategies this is a misinterpretation my comments were intended to highlight the results of your efforts with limited in School transmission and the fact as I understand most cases in Hudson School District were the result of community spread not spread within our classrooms this is good news in that it demonstrates the impact of the recommended Public Health measures in reducing disease transmission my comments were intended to be a call to action for our community to support your efforts as well as supporting similar mitigation strategies elsewhere in the community so that our schools are able to maintain inperson or hybrid education as long as possible I am Gravely concerned our community is letting our schools down third at your last meeting you moved seventh and eth grade to the

146elementary profile I cannot agree or disagree with this the evidence related to Young adolescence and covid remains limited but you are best position to make that decision in concert with public health and the state recommendations you also changed the metric to decrease the impact of community spread this represents a more aggressive move and again there is simply not enough evidence to allow certainty either way your ongoing careful monitoring of the situation in the schools and the community combined with the flexibility to adjust as circumstances change is what is needed during this pandemic finally further relaxation of the metric would be quite risky with the onset of Winter the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays as well as the dramatic increase in spread in our community also this would not be the time to change any of the

147standards related to masking distancing isolation or quarantine while these are a burden they are the best tools you have to protect all concerned to the best of your ability so to be clear it is up to us as community members to support our schools students and staff by not holding inperson Gatherings masking at all times unless we're home and diligently practicing social distancing our schools are doing their part we as the community can and should do ours thank you all right and um I just you know I talked to Dr mcginness earlier today and um I trying to trying to work through what are the what are the best next steps for us as a school district uh because as as he said it's it's hard to know we don't have any clear hard facts

148that for sure we're good to do this or for sure we shouldn't do that I mean and and a lot of what we're doing is trial trial and error as we try to work through some of these things and trying to make adjustments as we work through this uh Tim if you could share um uh my slide deck that I had uh brought up um so um if we go to the hold on it's coming up if if we go to the next slide you know there's been some you know people have been asking you know how can we be more transparent with information um this is this is all the information we I'm continuing to give information we have a couple slides here we have a total of just about 6,000 uh staff and

149students in our buildings uh right now um of which since the school year has started we've we've got we've had about 103 cases um and of those 103 cases 66 of them have been student cases and 37 have been staffed cases uh as we look at that uh 84 of our of our 103 cases have recovered and in our back we do have um about 19 Active cases uh right now in the district and and that's that's across the district uh one of the things that's interesting to to point out is our total close contacts um we've had uh 614 close contacts across the district uh since since the first day of school and so um you know close contacts is one of the biggest challenges uh that we have as it relates to students

150and staff and keeping buildings open and keeping things going um but as uh as we talk we're going to talk about in a minute you know and Ellie talked about a little bit earlier tonight uh there has been a shift as to who's going to be identifying close contacts as it relates to school cases and and who's going to be notifying those those individuals and I'm going to go through that uh I think it's important to know that we have had zero student deaths uh or St death related to covid we have had one individual that uh was hospitalized uh related to covid uh but has since been released uh I know sometimes there's misinformation out there that we've had a dozen or two dozen or or whatever may be but that that's just not

151true um you know I I checked with our School nurses and HR departments today uh this afternoon uh to make sure that you know to the best of our knowledge this is this is what we what we have um to for our data as as we move forward can you go to the next slide Tim so uh new cases by two we counts so I think something to kind of keep in mind um and we are sharing a lot of data here it doesn't look like much but but this this is a tremendous amount of data and um you know it's this is just kind of a One-Stop look at where all the cases have been in the district and when they've kind of come uh in the twoe periods and so the um 11th

152uh the 11 11 hasn't happened yet so this is up through today's date but this our our reporting period will be on on Wednesday the 11th uh coming up but as you can see we've had 55 cases since school started at the high school 14 at the middle school for rock six at Prairie 10 at Holton four at North Hudson two at River Crest four at Willow and we have had four cases at the uh administrative service center um couple things to to keep in mind um what what is interesting is you know as we look at as we look at cases as we look at do we go into hybrid do we stay face to face do we do we pull in do we pull out you know we we have had some different

153uh buildings that have risen and and some that have come back down on their own you know Holton for example uh and we talked about this a couple weeks ago where the decision was made to keep Holton face to face even though uh we were about a06 uh on above on the old Matrix and uh what we what we saw over the last couple of weeks is is uh because uh our cases at Holton were tied to the community spread that Dr mcginness talked about is it it did start to calm down and um you know we as you can see in the cases at Holton it's it's kind of gotten itself back to where we' like to see it where there's not any cases um but even in the previous two weeks you know

154it dropped it dropped down to two and so uh it doesn't mean that we that we're not that we weren't concerned about but it it did start to drop down I think something else that's important to consider is at the middle school the two different um the the four-week segments that we were in that we were in hybrid for seventh and eth grade um were the the two weeks prior to 1014 the two weeks prior to 1028 um is when we were actually in hybrid for those uh you can see we had three cases uh in the one set of the two weeks and then six cases in the second set and then right now in the current weeks we we've had four uh we've had four cases but again we still have tomorrow to

155go tomorrow's the last day of the reporting period and then we report out on on the 11th um and so as of right now with adding seventh and eighth grade uh back to uh the Middle School it um again it it doesn't show any significant increase in cases however I think the thing that we're going to be watching most closely is going to be the next two weeks you know because it's the amount of time that kids are in school um as we as we move forward uh the high school um continues to be uh a challenge for us um as we as we look at it our student cases at the high school have not been tied to spread amongst uh students within the the normal day um we did we did have uh

156several staff members uh that ended up testing positive um that were kind of tied back to an activity and um uh we're continuing to monitor that that's part of you know I think one of the speakers tonight talked about um we had put out a a memo talking about um you know we want staff to refrain from certain Gatherings and things along those lines and it really what it was is you know we you know were having staff that were getting together and and eating together without the barriers in place and so um which we believe might have uh led to some of our some of our cases and so um as we continue to work so you know we know that as we have kids in our classrooms that it's a necessary thing for

157us to have kids in our rooms and we might not actually be able to uh get the full six feet between each one of them however when we do have situations that we can control that we don't have to have which is Staff related meetings or staff get togethers and we we what we've put out is that we want to limit um those those Gatherings because those are things that we do have the ability to have to have the control over on some of those things and so putting putting that through the next slide SL please uh so this is a uh similar data I've showed in the past so since school has started we've had the 614 uh close contacts or people have had to quarantine because of being in close contact currently out

158right now we have 150 close contacts as you can see the elementary has the highest number of close contacts yet um the elementaries have the fewest cases and really you know one of the things that hybrid does do for us at the secondary has done for us secondary is allows spread kids out more which means we tend to identify fewer close contacts um however um having more kids in classrooms at the elementaries although we have more close contacts out we are not seeing um uh a huge number of cases or or things along those lines and so you know one of the the conversations is always when do you go to hybrid when do you when do you stay face to face and you know we utilize The Matrix but um you know for the

159the 81 different uh uh people that are out related to uh the elementaries it definitely does impact those those 81 families I mean there's no doubt about it especially when they're having to be home all day um and and what they do but when we do go to a hybrid model or a virtual model we go from impacting 81 families to potentially impacting 1500 families at the elementary level um and again that doesn't mean that we don't do it I think our Matrix you know allows us to to move into that direction um I think you know as we continue to look at it our Active cases you can see where Active cases sit right now we have eight current Active cases at the high school four at the middle school and seven at the

160elementaries um and we continue to to track those things as well if you go to the next slide um I don't know if Tim if you can bounce between this and potentially um the uh School closure Matrix but um actually why don't I just hit on this and then we'll go into school closure matrix real quick um so this uh link I have on here cesa District so one of the things the cisa is doing is they're asking us kind of on a weekly basis how are we um what are we doing as districts you know are we in person are we not in person are we virtual and so these are all the school districts in our cisa you can kind of see um and it's a tough I it's a tough way to

161answer that the questions because it's you know in person versus virtual and what percentage so like for example when you look at the Hudson I I put us at 60 to 90% in person because um we you know do have some of our high school students that are not in person every day and um you know at the as we're looking at this stuff so it's it's it would be uh hard for me to say that we are 90 to 100% in person um but also to go any less than that so it's it's um basically the way this looks is you know anything more than you know kind of that that 50% in person uh kind of 60% person for school districts are are in the green anything less than uh 50% in person

162are are red and then you can see uh there's some that are kind of completely 50/50 with their hybrid you know K12 but you can see the different districts some of the districts haven't responded yet um and you can also see some districts have already said certain weeks they're going to uh do virtual and things along those lines but overwhelmingly when you look across our our cisa on the Wisconsin side and it is very different than the Minnesota side because the Minnesota side uh is if I was to do the same look with Minnesota schools it would look a lot different it' look probably a lot more red it' be a lot more virtual and um uh but uh the majority of our districts are running iners instruction I know there have been some districts

163that have put out um information about switching to completely virtual in certain buildings for two week periods uh it's it's similar to how our Matrix works because it goes by building um except the as I talk with those um superintendant the biggest thing that has pushed them into having to go virtual has not necessarily been because they've had a huge number of cases in the buildings it's been because they are having an inability to staff their buildings because of close contacts and uh inability to get subs and so we've been in a in a pretty good spot for the most part not that we don't have holes in our sub coverage or anything like that but um we have been in a in a really good uh really good spot up to this point in

164the year and so it's allowed us to to continue to have inperson instruction um if you could uh switch over to the school closure Matrix Tim yes I just I noticed shell lake has a red box far out and I've been asked by a couple parents if we've considered doing all virtual like for an extra week after win winter break just to give that extra period of time after the holidays has has there been conversation about that between superintendant or or at our cabinet level and what are your thoughts on that you know we we spent a lot of time talking about that at as conference superintendent and then as CE the superintendence um you know the biggest concern we have and we even talked about it this morning uh on the St Craig County

165Superintendent call with public health is the one thing where we know mitigation strategies um that's is that it is that the updated one um the the one thing that we know with our mitigation strategy when kids are at school we're enforcing them and so um one of the things that came up consistently with superintendent cross County was if we start going to all virtual um and not necessarily because we're having issues in our buildings is that going to drive spread up because we're going to have kids that are going to be gathering more outside of school I thought you know kind of as we looked at and I had said something when we're looking at Ellie's data you see kind of a drastic increase in number of cases when you see 16 17 and 18

166year olds it's almost as if when they get their driver's license and they have a lot more freedom um you're starting to see there's a lot more interaction outside the school day so one of the concerns that we have you know superintend have had is the less time we have kids here is the more time spent not necessarily following the mitigation strategies that CDC has recommended St C County's recommended um and it and it does give us some sense of pause um and because we haven't seen a whole lot of of kids bringing it and then spread it to other kids in the building um not that that can't happen and it absolutely can or could happen where it spreads staff it just we don't have conclusive evidence one way or the other so as

167of right now not not going down that down that path not seeing as you saw on that list not a lot of school districts are planning on going down that path Shell Lake was one of the districts that had said yep we're going down that path ahead of time absolutely other other questions about some of the data before I get into the metrics and talk about it a little bit go ahead Bob have have we seen uh in the Middle School especially but anywhere in our district um more uh IDL requests has that increased because of what we did in the Middle School Dave two weeks ago um have we had have we had more IDL requests because we changed our Matrix do you know um I have not heard specifics when we ran the

168numbers they were relatively consistent hadn't seen a big spike but we haven't asked that question specifically I can find out and see what what happened but um nothing that was reported to me and typically they keep me pretty informed thank you president yes Carrie of the 614 close contacts do you know how many of those resulted in a positive case so the the close contacts um because a close contact list it it's it's an interesting list because um we also will get added to our close contact list if a child is a close contact of a positive parent or a positive sibling so so let's say there's a positive case in their house uh then they get because Public Health wants to let us know that hey this child shouldn't be at school because they're

169close contact when we look at our school um context purely related to school um so their only interaction is the fact that they sit next to each other at school not any you know anything else related or you know they interact at school um we've had uh very few if if any actual close contacts related from Kid to Kid like um Johnny sits third hour English here and all of a sudden the three kids around him are now testing positive because he was positive we have not seen that at all uh in in the buildings and that's what I think Ellie talked about in Dr mcginness not saying it couldn't happen or not saying that there's not asymptomatic spread related to that just saying yeah we we we don't know how many of the close

170contacts are getting tested um and uh but of the ones that we're that are getting tested we're not seeing uh we're not seeing a high positivity rate as it relates to uh School connections yep other questions yeah go ahead so we're still reporting to the county as we have to um positive infections but if they're not contact tracing anything they're really doing nothing with it so it's actually the other way around so the the the positive cases actually go to the county first and then they let us know um but what happens a lot of times because of the way that wed system is set up the Wisconsin um H is it Wisconsin epidemiology something something something site uh because the way it's set up sometimes there's a little bit of delay we know sometimes

171before it goes into that system because a parent will get the call from let's say Hudson Physicians or they get the call from you know a lineer or something said hey I just got a positive result for my kid and um they'll let us know right away before you know it even goes from the lab to to their system so um what what we do is when we when we put out the letters on positive cases um we always verify that through Public Health that yes it's a it's a positive case through public health because they do get they do get that um and then we work through our the close contacts um and our nurses really spend a lot of the time working through our close contact list so which brings up go ahead

172Sue oh no go ahead well it just brings up the point you know Ellie talked yeah because uh St C county has moved into a crisis care mode um they have basically asked school districts to handle close contact tracing which means um that although they will be contacting positive cases SRO County still contacts I think the positive cases however uh anything that uh related to the close contacts is determined by by the school district so they'll say um and and we're only looking at it from a standpoint of close contacts within our building so it's not as though uh we're going to contact Trace um you know let's say for a child that happens to play um you know a basketball for an A Team on the weekend we're not going to contact Trace all

173the teams that they played or anything like that we're really looking at okay who are their close contacts that we would have to put out and have quarantine that are related to the Hudson school district and what I what public health asks when you test positive is please I please notify your close contacts anybody you've been in close contact with since you've been uh two days prior to when you were symptomatic go ahead Sue okay so I'm trying to remember remember when we started in September was it something like um 11 or 133% of our teachers were doing uh teaching from not being in the classroom but teaching from a remote site um well all of our teachers are are teaching normally in the classrooms but we we had about uh about 13% of our

174kids that were doing idls was the kids 133% that's where the number I'm remembering okay so um just uh any updates on how teachers are feeling about this or what are they doing to improve their their sense of well-being in the classroom and how's that Dynamic working and I can talk on one level and Dave might be able to provide some additional feedback so I can talk from a personal level my children were quarantined as close contacts as it related to me as being a positive case um and so they did spend an entire week in in IDL um and I can tell you the experience uh that we had uh from my kids teachers was absolutely nothing short of phenomenal was it perfect no what it did it have to be a tremendous amount

175of work for our staff absolutely but what our teachers were able to do with my first grader fourth grader and eighth grader was nothing short of amazing and our teachers uh if that is indicative of what we're seeing across the district it it is some phenomenal things happening for our kids um but I there's no doubt in my mind it has to be extremely stressful extremely difficult and and and a lot of work I mean I I don't think anybody's is is sugarcoating that as we work through it but it was amazing that you know as I you know anecdotally as I looked at my own kids as they work through this process to be able to not really skip a beat to be able to stay in with their classes and then be able

176to return to school today and be able to kind of be right where they left off has been uh has been really uh quite impressive the way the teachers handled that uh and it was uh the teachers that did the job I don't know Dave if you have yeah sure well I'll I'll I'll respond to a couple questions so first to Bob's question about how many students had selected IDL since the metric change um according to the middle school administrative team um about 8 to 10 per grade level since that change between now and then now having said that we don't know if that is because of the metric change or because close contact could be a variety of reasons but about eight to 10 per grade level and to to Nick's Point yeah I

177I think it is indicative of all teachers doing an amazing job of keeping this moving forward it is amazingly challenging challenging I I've mentioned this before but the way that when when teachers sort of synthesize it and describe what makes it so challenging it's the divided attention that is very difficult and that's exacerbated as students come in and out we're we're doing a great job teachers are doing an amazing job of being fluid flexible really responsive so a student is out and within within usually a day they're up and running on IDL that is becoming more challenging as we're seeing more ins and outs um as a student or as a teacher tries to respond to that change on the fly it can be very difficult um it is not as easy as going home

178and logging on there's the sharing of materials there's assessment information there's a lot that goes into it that I think on first blush gets lost um so that that is challenging we know I I would say that the teachers experience in large part is a microcosm what's going on throughout Society everything is really challenging right now and emotions are rubbed raw so when you face challenge and you're already feeling a little emotionally depleted that is um more challenging so I I I think the experience of teachers runs the gamut from some that are feeling um supported equipped and and relatively able to adjust to others that are really struggling and it's no fault of theirs it's just a very challenging time well I guess to follow up on that my question is the sustainability I

179mean if if there's a possibility that we could be in this um virtual or hybrid type model through the end of the Academic Year my understanding is there aren't a lot of districts who are whose teachers are doing what our teachers are doing who are simultaneously teaching students in their classroom while they are teaching students at home um and our teachers have stepped up in Spades I is is this sustainable is it is it realistic to think that they can continue to do this um in this stepped up fashion through the end possibly of the Academic Year sure so a couple things to that point so one we are going to relax the timeline essentially we're going to um we we want to under promise and overd deliver on how long it will take to

180allow a student to flex in and out reason being what's happening is we'll have a student or a parent that will call and say I want to get set up on IDL and by the time the teacher goes through all the the logistics to make that happen the student is back so that adds a stress so what we're saying now is the goal is within 48 Hours depending on case load and intensity may take up to four days the other thing that's going to impact that as local Health Providers um are able to do rapid testing that will actually help because there'll be a greater level of certainty as we move kids in and out of IDL experience now I say this not to minimize the challenge at all and I don't want anyone to

181misinterpret that the challenge is real it is very challenging for all teachers however it we are refining practices so there's things that are getting that we're doing better supporting teachers and then teachers are just getting better at it so I think there's two opposing Dynamics at play there's the fatigue of doing it over and over again but then there's also the skill that's being developed it's just being better at at doing it those two things we'll have to see I I think in terms of the sustainability I think it is a sustainable plan as much as anything is sustainable in this world we're living in right now however it's our job to ramp up the support commenor it to that stress level so as Things become more challenging we need to find ways to support

182teachers better um part of that is just really actively listening to what's going on and learning from the responses I'm going to share an example of something and not to take over this this topic um I I I just I want to commend the high school teaching and learning team the instructional coaches and curriculum Specialists as an example of the way that support is ramped up um they were seeing that one of the greatest stressors that was being placed in the system was getting Subs in as teachers were out for close contact reasons or whatever they might be out for and especially in those situations when you have several IDL students you have a substitute teacher Walkin could be the first time substitute teaching in the building and they have to figure out this IDL

183situation so they just stepped up without anyone asking them and created essentially a brand new system and support structure to allow Subs to walk in and be successful and the problem solving the way they were approaching that that is nothing to do with their typical job description they said this is the need we have the capacity to do it they jumped in to support those opportunities are going to are going to continue to present themselves but we just have to be really Nimble because we don't the challenges we're facing right now I will guarantee will not be the same challenges we're facing in two three weeks they continue to change they continue to evolve and then we will adapt yes Rob just uh quick I don't want to lose Heather's or one of Heather's questions

184are are we the only or one of a very few number of districts who are doing a hybrid no okay no there there I I think what what Heather was saying specifically was the way we're doing the synchronous IDL which I think is it is um not unique to us but it is definitely not the norm and that is where our teachers are stepping up in a way that most teachers are not now when I say most teachers other districts that don't have the same level of um of expect of delivering instruction that way and again I don't want to I I don't want to gloss over this but we know that teachers are really appreciating the personal connection they're having with their students so even though it's very difficult we're also hearing a lot

185of teachers saying this is hard this is stressful but I love the fact that I still get to connect with all my students on a daily basis so it's that balance we're trying to trying to strike and if I could just say one thing about staff as well is that that I think we'd be remiss if we didn't think about the mental health impact on our staff for this year that I think it's becoming cumulative I mean just like we all have our outside worries in our personal lives and then layering this significant change in their job this year and then um increase cases whether it's in the buildings or whether it's in the in St Cory County I think it's compounding and now we're going into a holiday season that's typically stressful anyway with

186an unknown time period associated with the what are they going to do I think we're just seeing more and more staff um having a hard time um uh working through this as one could certainly expect but I think it's the mental health side of it I think Erin chilin and I are going to continue to talk of what we can do to better support our staff because I think it's an important conversation that we have as we're going forward other other questions before I kind of talk about the Matrix a little bit B okay so you know there is there's always conversations about the Matrix do you you know is it working is it not working we did make the adjustments I there's a couple things I want to point out you know as as

187we're looking at the numbers heading into Wednesday um it it looks as though um all the buildings will stay in their same instructional model except potentially the high school um there there is the potential with the High School uh to jump up above the 20 case Mark if they hit to 21 then they would go virtual uh grades 10 through 12 and 9th grade would go hybrid uh and I think um you know that's something uh something to say about this new Matrix is the old Matrix um wouldn't have been this responsive to the building numbers I mean they would have had to have more numbers to drop them into that situation uh if the if the uh county numbers weren't as high as they are and so um it it is a it is

188a challenge um but I I mean just in in looking at I'm just hea in there um in looking at the um the Matrix as as we look at this so the The Matrix is and as we make adjustments to the matrix it's never been how do we make adjustments to keep everybody in school all the time that's never been what it's about it's it's you know there's a very like I said there's a very real possibility that the high school could happen to virtual for for two weeks uh and I think the thing that's that's that's good about the Matrix the way we have it set up is that after two weeks it's a restart and and they'd have the opportunity to come back again and hybrid and give it another shot versus being

189in Virtual perpetually you know for the rest of the year and so um you know I think that that is a uh something to keep in mind as we as we look at the Matrix as we utilize it um to to take into account what instructional model each each building will be in based on based on where they go go ahead okay I'm sorry I'm not seeing any difference between it's an error on the left hand column yep so they were just copied and so that is not correct on that leftand side thank you oh yeah it's yeah it's showing the same it's showing the same numbers all the way down yeah so basically the high school right now as I as I think I showed you in the presentation is at 16 cases and

190at 21 cases um it it kicks to Virtual for two weeks and so depending on how many cases we have tomorrow um if we have uh five or more cases it will kick the 10 through 12 to Virtual kick ninth grade into hybrid for two weeks so um and you know as of right now we don't have any intention of of recommending anything different uh Follow The Matrix and and and utilize it that way goad so one question I guess for you and and for the board as a whole I've been wondering and a couple of parents have asked is um so right now the the the Top Line ends at 50 plus is that really 50 forever you know so if that number was 150 if that number was 200 so is there is

191there a level of County um transmission that would make us even at that top level of building um building uh spread think that we would be doing something differently because I think I think that um you know I mean two weeks ago we were at 51 is now we're close to 90 four weeks ago we were at 26 so it's not inconceivable that in another two weeks we could be at 150 or 200 yep yeah absolutely and and I think you know as of right now we we have not looked at adding additional columns to the right of the Matrix um it it really it it really is a is a tough it's a tough situation I mean so if if we're sitting where we're having almost minimal cases in the buildings regardless of what

192the County's doing um you know right now the recommendation is to continue to have hard to make the case to pull them if there's not evidence of increased spread in the schools yeah and I think that's the you know that's the the biggest piece it's it's not that we're not Tracking not keeping an eye on it but you know we are seeing some districts that are on the Eastern side of the state that are having burden rates almost double of what we're have and they're actually bringing kids back for the first time because I think they're realizing oh my gosh like you said I mean there's no real end in sight anytime anytime soon with this it's not like okay if we can just get to December 15th and then you know we'll be able

193to get back to normal and so um it it is going to continue to be a challenge I think as of right now we've kind of kept it at 50 plus but if that's something the board wants to look at or have a bigger discussion on uh that if the county rates get to a certain level regardless of what happens in the buildings we close um that that would be something that we would need direction from the board on Mr President yes so I I mean I feel like if we get to those numbers like we get to 200 or 150 um it should trickle down you know and if it's not trickling down then again the mitigation plans that are in place within our schools are working you know I mean this this statistics

194out there that show and and you know we heard this on our rotary um discussion this week you know if you're wearing a mask your chance of getting covid is reduced by 50% if the other person if there's two of you or multiple people wearing wearing masks again your chance of getting uh can are Contracting covid goes down even greater at that point in time so I mean I think the it was discussed earlier um tonight as well I mean not only do the kids need to be mindful of what they're doing outside of school and trying to minimize the activities that they're doing or the um where they're spending their time you know those in the community are not only our teachers but you know our parents to try and minimize this to keep

195our kids in school as much as possible um and I think that's that's the most important point is you know what are we doing outside of the day-to-day um to to minimize the amount of contact that we have or the Gatherings that we're participating in and I I know it's very difficult for a number of folks especially coming up on holiday season you know will you see people will you not see people will you get together in person will you not um and those are going to be very difficult conversations and decisions for many families um but again trying to uh keep our kids in in school as much as possible um hopefully you know the amount of interactions and the amount of large Gatherings that people choose to participate in are down this year

196you know I mean that that's the only thing that we can can hope for we can't force people to do anything in that regard but um you know the the less we're creating those um environments the better chance we have to keep our kids in school right well and I I know that I see two board members that want to come in on that but I I want to piggy back because it's an excellent excellent point Bruce and I took better part of yesterday to finish the uh bottom third of the 700 plus emails that we got on or that I got on October 26th and I just wish that every single one of those that were sent by parents some were sent by parents that are also teachers in the district begging us to

197stay uh in person as long as we can or hybrid that I I hope that every single one of them are going to be doing things uh over Thanksgiving and Christmas to minimize because for this to be successful and for our kids to get the best education they can people have to do this voluntarily we don't want to be in a situation where we have to close our schools because people are not doing the responsible things so with that Bob you had a question oh I just uh could you speak again as to if the high school 10 11 12 goes uh virtual from hybrid what that does to other activities Sports and marching band and all that uh yeah and I think uh the way I would look at it as is because the

198direction the board had given us was if a school is in session at any point or there's any type of face Toof face and ruction that we would continue activities so if nth grade is still having at least hybrid then we would consider that building to continue to have their Athletics and and activities uh even if 10 through 12 ends up going having to go virtual um if the board would like to have a discussion about decoupling Athletics from The Matrix in general uh and and um saying you know we're we're gonna uh not tie in-person instruction to um extracurriculars then we can absolutely have that have that discussion as well or you can give us give us some Direction but as of right now I just assume that since n9th grade would still be

199in school at least part-time that your original direcor would stand that activities would still go on until that building went completely virtual uh if I'm misunderstanding or misinterpreting that please um correct me and like the big Rivers conference and different things like that they haven't made any um no I mean I think uh you know as we've talked and we have another conference superintendent meeting coming up on Friday um I can say that one positive with uh covid has been uh the conference superintendant are meeting more often in the last uh three months than we've met probably in the first five years I was in the district um because we're all kind of wanting to know what each other's doing as we're trying be on the same page um but I think um right now

200a lot of the districts are looking at still continuing potentially extracurriculars and I think that's something that you're you're seeing in Minnesota actually quite a bit where a lot of their high schools are virtual but yet they're still doing all of their extracurriculars so that there's some level of connection for kids uh if if those are available but um we'll continue to have that dialogue uh with bigger conference I can tell you right now uh the way we left it on Friday Friday was all of the uh big Rivers conference uh school districts uh were planning on having winter sports um nobody was planning on delaying or or pushing them back um it's it's uh we've had a pretty successful fall season knowing that the winter season obviously is inside um we'll continue to Monitor

201and make adjustments as needed but the waa has come out with guidelines for indoor sports each individual type of sport uh and all the conference uh schools have Comm commed to uh our athletes will be masked um even during competition with really probably the exception of two different exceptions one is uh swimming and Diving uh that doesn't make a whole lot of sense uh and the other actually being gymnastics um where the the uh competitors would wear their mask all the way up to the event take it off set it on the floor or you know do their event and the reason being is what we don't want to have happen is um having a young lady that happens to be vaulting through the air and have a mask come up over her eyes or

202something along those lines uh or be in a floor routine or something like that and have it have it do that so and they're they're not um necessarily interacting with anybody they're very it's a very individualized um sport so other than that though the kind of expectation would be even like for wrestling that they would mask or or wear a um uh what's the gator or something like that to the best their ability to keep it on but we also know how wrestling goes and sometimes it's going to get pulled down and and that's somewhat of the risk that that the wrestlers are going to assume by willing to participate in the sport but basketball we would expect uh would continue to wear masks um to participate in basketball uh and then um uh probably

203same thing with hockey as well Heather so I I too would like to piggyback on Bruce's statement and especially I mean I know folks are are watching I think a lot of those 600 emails we got Jamie talked a lot about students and a lot about sports um but I think just to remind folks that we can't keep our schools open if our teachers are sick and and there are adults in those buildings and we need them and and I mean thinking right now to your point Bruce if the numbers go that high we'll probably see them go in our schools too we'll probably see them go with with staff and then have to close so I think you know thinking about all of our activities in the months to come um you know I

204know there were some people who said I'm willing to take that risk with my kid you know um or who said um parents have a choice they can pull their kids out I mean this is about our staff too and about keeping our staff safe and keeping our school's open and along those lines I think then um to what you were just talking about Nick initially you know I my mind had kind of been well if our kids can't be in school because of covid why would they be playing sports if our kids are out of school because we can't staff our buildings I think it would make sense to have a conversation about decoupling I'm not 100% sure that I land there but I mean to me it seems logical that we would that

205we would look at that that even if our numbers get so high that ninth grade is virtual as well if the reason that we're virtual is because we can't staff our buildings um I could see with all safety measures in place that we would consider having extracurriculars um continue because we're in control of the environment and we know how important they are for our kids um just well-being so that that's one of the things I know Bob you have a question one of the things that came up with conference superintendant and came up with both the county superintendant is the one thing that we do know is when we are running the practices when we're running the events we are implementing mitigation strategies if uh winter sports decides to you know cross the state go

206away um the void will be filled with club sports and um and then all of a sudden the ability to mitigate risk and things like that drastically changes and um you know the one thing that we do know is you know we when we can stand firm in our commitment of whatever our expectations are uh while we're running things um we feel like we have a better opportunity to control spread and things along those lines with kids participating because even if all of a sudden we say okay there's no more winter sports to think that kids aren't going to play some level of Club hockey or Club basketball or Club Gymnastics or Club um you know swimming or things like that that's just it's going to happen because what'll because what'll happen is those aou

207programs those Club programs will just they'll fill that void and um at least by us being able to have those events and have those things go on we're able to kind of control those mitigating factors and what that looks like so go ahead Bob sorry uh yes and yeah I mean if we can't staff the buildings obviously that makes decisions for us but um you know one thing too and if if we do go full virtual uh we we lose the ability to show that our Str strategies are working and that that the cases are low so I think that's a big concern is is you know then we just going by the county numbers we have no way to track our in school you know infection rat so when would we ever come back

208well so so what would happen is after the twoe period um you know we still get like for example we we still get um a as you know and we've talked about this we'll get reports that an IDL student is uh positive and so um so we would still get reports of positives even if they're you know not tied back to school and if we could bring you know so if we would still have those School numbers per se or at least student SL uh staff numbers and apply The Matrix and be able to start over again after two weeks so it it the way it's set up is that at the very least even if the county numbers stay extremely high uh we'd be able to at least get back into hybrid for 10

209through 12 um the way the met the way the metrics set up after being out for two weeks virtual so not necessarily being in this Perpetual virtual environment until the county numbers come down because that's that's what the old Matrix would have put us in and that's what we believe the new Matrix solves is that after a two week kind of um I don't know if you want to call it cooling off period or whatever easing period Then we're able to bring kids back and give it another try again yep other questions and I and I think that the the thing that's important to note on any of this stuff is that we don't take these decisions LLY and that um you know we we are hearing what staff are saying we understand their concerns

210we we we we do understand their concerns and it's not that because we can't necessarily meet where they want us to go that that that their concerns fall on deaf ears it's not that they fall on deaf ears but we are trying to weigh a variety of different competing interests as we make these decisions and as we move forward and so I think that's I I think that's an important piece it's similar to kind of even what David talked about with with the way we're doing a synchronous environment we're absolutely hearing what staff are saying about the challenges associate we're trying our best to try to help them uh work through some of those challenges um but just because we continue down a synchronous model doesn't necessarily mean that we're not hearing where their frustrations

211are or that we're not trying to do our best to to eliminate some of their some of their frustrations or some of their stresses and it's and it's the same thing as we look at at at seventh and eth grade and and I know there's been different groups that uh have voiced via email and and uh even uh you know the petition by um uh as as Scott said by about 50 or so Middle School staff members um it's it's not that we're not hearing those things we are taking all those things in consideration we're also weighing that against um the benefits of having kids in face to face we're also weighing that against what have been our past counts when we have been face Toof face what does that look like and um all

212these all these different things and trying to make the best decisions we can make uh as we as we move forward but I just I just think it's important to know or note that we we do hear what people are saying but it doesn't necessarily mean we can always give them what they want and that doesn't mean that we don't hear them or that we don't appreciate the feedback or the input that we're getting from staff from parents um from from everybody involved from kids it's we're we're really trying to balance these things a lot of times there's no real clear-cut um answer is is Heather even kind of alluded to as it related to Athletics and and activities and things like that uh there's not quite it just it just doesn't play out quite

213as clear as uh or as easy as as some people would like to think and so I just want to hit on that so any other questions related to co well just a observation based on what you just said one of the things that the board in the school district U cannot um have any control over are the individual uh fears justifiable fears absolutely that our parents um have and our teaching staff because they're in there with with you know 20 some kids and so on um but it does seem to me the trend I'm hearing from what you're saying and checking in with fellow uh superintendent and so on is that at least by having kids in person as best we can maintain that um and our hybrid we're we're in um kind of

214a a manufactured or setup way to have a control Factor here because they come to a school where desks are clean mid midday and partitions and so on where there's many more unknown factors if they're totally at home in a learning situation so um I I I think we've spoke tonight to the positive aspects of what we're trying to do we can't protect everyone we've already said that but I think our mitigation practices um have are measurable thanks you I I do just a final comment for me and I I still do um think that you know Nick you talked about us doing um what we can in classrooms to keep things safe and I I keep going back to you know middle schoolers especially those seventh and eighth graders the older middle schoolers are

215are old enough that they can independently learn from home in a hybrid model and so you know when we talk about what we're able to do and still continue to provide kids some level of in-person instruction um I think that those staff have a legitimate beef to say we moved away from what was safer for us and and made it less safe for us um when in fact the hybrid model was something that um was an option for us and I I know part of the challenge there was that that rumor got out that we were going to at the last board meeting be voting to move everyone to 100% virtual and so we got a lot of emails from people who were concerned about that um you know I can't help but wonder if

216if if the agenda item had been presented as it actually was that we were looking at revising The Matrix um that we might have had a different response from parents um you know I did hear from two parents who who Moved their kids um Bob to to um in IDL because they were uncomfortable with the decision and they said I feel bad about that because I can do that for my kids but it doesn't protect the teachers so um you know I hope that decision won't be made for us by having those teachers actually get sick and then us not be able to provide um a a hybrid any kind of in-person instruction um but to me that still feels like that was a m m something I've heard from a couple of teachers and

217then again from Scott tonight about teachers being in the classroom with 207 something students but then they're not allowed to congregate in their break rooms or whatever can you talk to that a little bit as far as why it's okay in one not okay in the other yeah and you know I tried to touch on that earlier which is really you know there there are certain situations that we can um you know that we can control a lot easier than others and so you know one of the things that you know we talked about was you know if you're going to have Team meetings instead of having them in a small conference room uh obviously the classrooms are open move them to a bigger classroom or do them virtually if you can't um uh you

218know when it comes to eating in small spaces uh we know that that creates one of the biggest challenges because everybody has their mask off I mean and one of the ways we've chosen to mitigate that strategy as it relates to kids is we've put up a lot of plexiglass across the district if you've been in our buildings and so um you we don't so if staff are getting together in small spaces and everybody's taking their mask off and eating then we don't have that secondary mitigation method uh in in place and so you know that you know I think that I think the majority of our staff understand that I think the majority of our staff say yeah we understand where you're getting at don't you know there are certain things that we we

219need to do in order to educate all our kids and there are other things that we just don't need to do um and and we can you know we can definitely work through that so I I don't think it's a uh All or Nothing Like to say okay since we're expecting you know 24 second graders in a classroom that should all of a sudden justify having a team at the middle school all take their mask off and eat lunch together in a small conference room I I just I I think that the majority of our staff can look at that and say I see how those are two totally different situations and I could see how you could have different expectations without them being contradictory as we look through it thank you go ahead I

220just like to respond a little bit um you know as far as my comment about staff determining you know whether we go virtual or not or or um you know Heather's comment about the the uh families that chose to go IDL and and felt that they weren't helping the teachers you know I would say actually they are helping the teachers if they if they took their kids to IDL I mean that's part of the plan it's part of it it shows it's working to me I mean it did reduce some and I don't want to be it you know to be taken that I'm not hearing the teachers concerns at all um you know I wouldn't want that as I'm very concerned about the safety of our teachers and staff members but um I think

221we've been very responsive to this community and we've been flexible and uh I I don't consider it a Miss well in I think somebody raised the potentiality for some type of resurvey I mean you had mentioned that Heather and uh kind of in between since our last meeting and um maybe that would be something for uh another month or something that we looking into this because I appreciate the fact I mean our parents want some consistency but they also want to see flexibility for safety reasons so it's it's a tough balance that we're trying to strike here um but I think it's a good one in that for instance the middle school which is the one where we took the seventh and eighth graders and now included them with the sixth and ninth graders in

222the other Elementary ages um they still I mean if they had an outbreak in the building combination of staff and students of 15 and got to that point then you know they would be going to to hybrid but I I think it's something that to consider you know whether it's a month from now or whatever um to maybe ask the parents you know how comfortable they feel but we kind of see it in the self- selection too and the common theme that I saw was that um parents want to just maximize as much as possible the inperson learning everyone universally including the staff knows that that's the best for our students it's just it's just not easy for the any of the seven of us to have to you know weigh the you know putting

223our staff at risk with trying to put our students at risk of not getting good educations and so um I don't want to be striking that you know opposition of those two groups we want to try and um maximize the quality So Jamie one thing that I found myself saying to people is I think we all agree that we want to provide some level of of inperson instruction as long as we can safely do so I think there's agreement on that the the the differences of opinion come into safely and what what does safely look like and so I think this continued conversation and as evidence emerges um you know new research um to be able to respond to that but I mean we've all got the same desire to keep our kids as much

224as we can safely engaged in person in school engaged in extracurriculars because we know how important that is to them brose yeah I was just goingon to say that you know I mean I think the the opportunity that we have is to continue to look at the data and I think it's really important that we look at the data and what's happening in our school and to me if we would have seen a big jump in the Middle School in the last two weeks then I would have said we probably made a bad decision there um now it could still happen in the next two weeks but we get to come back together and talk about it which we all love doing and we you know I mean we we spend a lot of time

225on this and I think we're all looking at it closely um and we have to be flexible in understanding what is happening and with the with the numbers you know and yes it's it's scarying concerning what's happening in our community but um we still have to put some some trust in the fact that you know wearing masks in our school is important um put having the plexiglass in place that we do uh in our schools is important and it's helping and it's working um but you know again at any point in time those numbers could change they could grow and we're going to be talking about it again and we've got a chance to to do something about it at that point in time so you know I think I think um the the changes

226that we made were were good um as far as the the Sports Go I mean I think um you summed it up pretty well Nick to me I think like if um we have at at least some level of of uh hybrid learning uh we should continue to do it I think we'll have to look again at the data to see if it makes sense to decouple it if we get to a point where we're all virtual um and on top of that what are other schools doing you know what are other schools in the big Rivers conference doing uh and and are there the um high-risk Sports and the lowrisk sports I mean I think the other thing that we've seen and we had a lot of students write in about this as well

227is those activities are are you know very important to those kids as well you know I mean look at the soccer team and they had a chance to go to state this year like how exciting is that you know I mean and and what a great opportunity uh an experience for those kids um to have that uh have that time together so the more that we can create those environments for our kids um is equally important to their mental uh health and well-being so um um anyway I think we get we get uh we get an opportunity to keep coming back together and talk about it well not even just on a regular schedule meetings you know I want the public to know it too I mean the administration is monitoring this all the time

228and if you saw some kind of big increase you'd be calling us into a special meeting if we had to make a more quick adjustment than than every two weeks yeah I mean I I think that's the important piece I mean and it is for some of the stuff I mean the closest we kind of got to that was was probably when we were looking at Holton and tracking Holton with the original Matrix and you know we made the decision to uh keep them in face to face it turned out to be the right decision I think um however you know it you know it could have went the other way I mean we could have picked up you know quite a few more cases and so you know I think the same thing will

229follow with seventh and eighth grade we're going to continue to track it and um I think the next two weeks will be very important as to what what our case loads look like in the middle school and um our case counts I'm sorry and uh uh what happens with seventh and eighth grade and and you know I think if we can keep cases down I think we'll be in pretty good shape you know knowing that you know it's all right to keep them where they're at but if all of a sudden we start to see that Spike you know we may be back with the board saying you know what we might need to move seventh and eighth grade back or it might be that we need to move sixth seventh and eighth grade back

230uh into a hybrid model um you know as we look at that and the same thing with ninth grade because we aren't just looking at what's happening in the buildings we're also looking at what's happening at the individual grade levels and um you know one of the things that gave us you know some sense of confidence to bring seventh and eighth grade back was we were looking at the number of cases we were seeing in sixth grade which were pretty low and we're looking at the number of cases we were seeing in ninth grade which were pretty low um and so which all have been face to face the entire time uh with full classrooms and so I I think that's you know I think that that's important to note and that's what we were

231looking at not that we didn't have cases in those grades it's just we weren't seeing anything we weren't seeing any disproportionately more cases in n9th grade and sixth grade than we saw seventh and eth and 10th through 12 if anything we saw way more in 10th through 12 than than any of them and I think we've already kind of beat that horse into the ground about why go ahead Carrie uh according to as far as great specifics uh were the teacher numbers the same across all grade levels or or were the uh sixth grade and Ninth Grade staff numbers higher um or can you not answer that due to specifics um I just I guess I don't necessarily I I mean I would say it's kind of across the district and um you know we

232had um no I I I would not say that we're having more staff in Sixth and nth grade out because they're positive as relates as opposed to sth and eth and 10th through 12 Andrea I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that yeah I I haven't seen any any outliers in terms of those grades as compared to others y um and and just like the elementaries I mean it's it's same same type of thing I mean the elementaries are in full every day with everybody and so um you know so and those are the things that we continueing Dig Down data and some people ask why can't you give us even more precise data even more and we have to be careful because once we give you once we get

233to a certain level of specificity of the data you can start to identify who the positive cases are and that that creates uh issues for us both with fura and for Hippa now I you know willingly you know gave out the information tonight that I have tested positive and then obviously I'm back but um not everybody wants people to know that and and and not everybody are comt with with that information being shared and so um I think that's that's an important piece of information so we're trying to give as much information as we think is reasonable that it's not going to put us in a situation where somebody could argue that they can identify individual cases or individual students or individual things and we probably give a little bit you know in one of

234a couple of slides a little bit too much data especially in our elementes because they've had so a few cases but um you know we're really trying to be as transparent as we can be to this Sue did you have something no I don't I changed my mind thanks okay anything else on the co report then okay then we'll move ahead with h agenda and um I'll take a motion for the consent agenda items with expenditures Mr President go ahead R move approval of the consent items and that the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of $1 million 450 all right motion by Rob second by Heather all those in favor approving the consent agenda with expenditure say I I those opposed say nay the eyes have it

235next up selecting wasby delegate and Alternate Delegate for State Convention and I would I would say of the 112 people still watching us live I would say that most of them were holding out to find out what you guys were going to select for this topic so I I know that that's a so we would just need a motion for the uh for the wasby delegate and and I've heard from Rob that he's willing to serve again and um is there isn't that a board position we could call the question and um well we also need I want to I want to do it in the same motion with an alternate delegate who's willing to ser this is again a virtual convention because it's not going down to Milwaukee um okay excellent all right do

236I have a motion I moved uh that Rob is our delegate and Heather is our alternate second all right Bob got in there on the second all those in favor say I I I those opposed say nay thank you for being willing to serve in that capacity now I'll entertain a motion to go into close session please use the stat language and and just real quick you know so you'll be adjourning from Clos session and so uh the recording of this uh of this meeting will be done after you go into close session so there wouldn't be a need to for people to stay on and wait I mean it's done before we go into close session yeah it's it's done upon you going into close session the recording will stop all right because you'll

237take no action outside of the Clos sessions uh after you at the end of meeting Mr president go ahead uh the board will entertain a motion to convene and close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85% to Wisconsin statute 19851 par C to consider the employment of a certified staff employee second all right motion by Carrie second by Sue all right you know gets tough with these masks you know you can hear in that certain directions but all right uh roll call Balman hi Brown Hansen I katas I Logan Whitaker I Johnson I uh the motion carries we will go into close session and U this will