Hudson Schools - August 24, 2020 - Board Work Session

001let's do uh you want to do a microphone check and um Andrew can you hear me okay okay okay okay so many speakers on uh hello all right call the meeting please United States of indivisible you're there there we we cannot hear Jamie yeah Jamie's on mute you're on mute Jamie your microphone on your on your long mic all right well that was intentional so and somebody's got their speaker back on yeah all right I think what I need to do is mute can you hear me now no one can hear me I can you gota be up can you hear me now there all right I'm seeing nodding heads all right first up is the Personnel pack is there some introduction to this Andrea um I can certainly do that this time of year

002especially I would say this year um there's a lot of changes a lot of movements whether it's uh change assignments assignments or um different positions or some exits but then intakes to complete our staffing profile for the start of the year that was the goal and we're hopeful to be there at the start of this year so this just helps us move things forward prior to September okay so it's just a typical typical Personnel pack just be looking for a motion to approve the Personnel pack as presented all right is there a motion so moved is there a second second all right motion by Bruce second by Bob any further question Mr President yes just a quick question just looking at the exits are we is this typical for this time of year to have

003this many exits um typical I would say it's a little bit higher than our typical year um however we TP we do tend to have a lot of turn over especially with our hourly staff which I think the vast majority are the hourly staff some of them are the ones that we have discussed previously at the prior board meeting um but for the most part yes hourly staff we tend to have um a higher number in July and August resignations all right any further questions hearing none all those in favor of the motion to approve signify by saying I I I those oppos say nay the eyes have it next up is fall Athletics and this looks like the five sports that we did not um uh discuss or approve at the last meeting yeah

004and so really what it is we said we would revisit this back on the 24th um and so I have Aaron on here he's put together you know basically our recommendation administration's recommendation which you see on the screen I'll let him kind of walk you guys through it and then any questions you have for him for me more than happy to answer so go ahead Aaron Mullen can everyone hear me yes okay yeah I don't know if it's great to start if there's more pressure to get done quicker or if like last time at the end but um I'll I'll uh take the time tonight I know we talked about this topic two weeks ago so I'll try and provide an update um and and skim over things that we've already covered U but beginning

005with objectives the first two are the same we're obviously continuing to try and provide extracurricular activities where we can um aligning with the hsd guiding hsd guiding principles um the new one would be the recommendation to continue uh planning and then beginning our schedules on September 7th for that second round of Athletics and then we'll go ahead and Skip to slide four so we're looking at here the wi did Issue fall uh return to fall Sports considerations I've highlighted the in general what they cover they're they're providing considerations for practices which are pretty similar um a little bit loose in some looser in some areas than what we did in the summer um General considerations for events the medical clearance form that is a requirement before someone can return from a positive test they do

006need to have a medical clearance form completed signed by a physician doctor or doctor before they can return to play so we will run that through um our school nurse office our athletic trainer and then through our athletic office to make sure that we handle that paperwork and then the last piece would be the sports specific guidelines for each sport um within those there's nfhs rule modifications that have been made to allow for specific things um such as masks equipment considerations competition considerations officials and what we want to do provide for officials and then coaches um all across the board each sport I I believe the wa did did a very good job in providing us with structure and direction to the schools on how to do this um I think everyone wants our kids

007to have opportunities but how do we do that um I believe they gave us a starting point to be able to apply that at the at the local level the hsd extracurricular reopening guidelines we've continued to adapt um and add to those for our Sports we'd begin in a phase two um for practices essentially what that allows us to do is begin progressing towards activities having fall competitions which our first round of competitions for our sports that started August 17th would be this coming week um the first week was great the kids um did a great job coaches did a great job you know a few tweaks here and there but nothing made um the it was very exciting to see the kids at at their practices in the facilities um out and having fun

008with their peers I've also consulted with some health local health professionals in Hudson Physicians Physicians our School nurses an our athletic trainer uh just in terms of reviewing these fall Sports considerations and how it applies to Hudson and making sure that we're in line great conversations um support in terms of where we're going terms of the uh wi information and then our extracurricular reopening plan so that would wrap up our Sports specific guidelines if we go to the next slide being the school closure Matrix um in our discussions it's very important that extracurricular activities is an extension of the classroom and you know by saying that you know we believe that we should be tied to this school closure Matrix as well our proposal would be that if we're in person um that we could

009allow competitions with the mitigation strategies that we're going to put in place but allow competitions localized um if we were to move to the level two we would continue low-risk competitions so the sports that started on August 17th but our high-risk Sports we would propose that we move to practices only and the reason we' move to practices only is we'd be removing the competition um which is more of our unpredictable um uncontrollable type of environment where our practices we have a little bit more control we've seen success um we certainly do not want to part from the curricular aspect of school and we do not want to move the needle in a direction that would cause us to close school by opening some of these activities so we would want to follow the school closure

010Matrix if we were to get to level three we would suspend completely including all practice is um hopefully we do not get there but we would be there until we return to a level two Aaron can you can you this is Nick can you also touch Bas on what if we were to go to a level two and we go to practices only it's it's not going to look like potentially what practices would look like in a level one right right yep so then that would go back to our reopening plan that's thanks for asking Nick we would go back to how we operated our practices in the summer so would be physical distancing there'd be very very limited sharing of equipment all of our guidelines that made summer successful is what we would imp

011Implement in for our practices only should we get to level two so if we go ahead to Middle School athletics I'm sorry local recommendations yep um just to give you an idea of where where we're at I did link a fall return to place status U this is the S the same link as below I think I duplicated it from WH Sports um they're giving us a look at what schools are doing across the state as you'll see if you do click on that it is a wide range of decisions there are still some districts that haven't decided um if we look at our conference prospective fall participation would in includes six out of nine schools so those schools listed there have said that we're trying to do everything we can to pursue fall Athletics

012two of nine being the two oair schools have completely moved their fall to Spring and one of our schools so superiors in our conference for football and girls soccer has decided to move football and volleyball uh to Spring they do align with a Minnesota Conference um and as you know or may not know um Minnesota did switch football and volleyball only to Spring and are trying to resume all other sports in the fall so just a a snapshot of what others are doing in the area I do know the middle borders is still working through um but a majority of schools are also pursuing fall schedules the first level of recommendations would be our Middle School athletics our our main goal with the Middle School would be to continue providing Sports specific opportunities for our

013students we're proposing that we do an in-house fall uh Sports specific schedule at this time and we can revisit um when we start approaching winter but one of the most limiting challenges we have for Middle School is the um scheduling which is mostly relies on middle border and as i' mentioned most schools as I'd mentioned two weeks ago most schools are doing a conferenceon approach um we feel that we can do a great job in in limiting our numbers by moving to an a andb schedule U for our our middle school so we would do a two Practice Day schedule per sport so if we looked at cross country that's what it would look like sixth graders would be their Monday and Tuesday seventh and eighth graders would be their Thursday and Friday across all

014three Sports we're looking at not only continuing that skill development but then we're getting into some type type of competition option for them so cross country would be conditioning games in-house meets we could potentially pursue what a virtual meet would look like with other schools football would not be our traditional football as we know it um we would not be using traditional equipment we'd be limiting to football and FL footballs and flags in a seven on seven format and volleyball very similar um we would be doing an in-house League by grade um our coaches would be there all four days so what that would help us do is reduce the ratio and help us fit within the facilities that we have indoors for volleyball but also limiting that and being able to um spread out

015where we can in practice settings which is also what we're trying to do at the high school level um their season would be six weeks so they start September 8th we did begin registration registration numbers did did Spike right away on Monday so that was exciting to see or today um this morning that was exciting to see and then they would run through October 16th so that'd be our Middle School proposal do we want to work through one at a time or do we want to move right to high school I I I think what we'll do is you present the whole proposal and then I think you know what questions the board has and then we'll kind of go from there okay so for high school um as as we'd mentioned before we're we're

016recommending that we move forward with our remaining fall schedules that would include cheer and stunt dance line football boy soccer and volleyball and I do want to clarify cheering stunt and dance line they do practice in preparation for their winter but they don't formally have any competitions um until closer to the winter season um because there are questions in terms of stunting in different routines for dance line um as I highlighted before there are certain things that we're doing at the Hudson local level uh but as a as a conference we're trying to line as much as we can together but that's that's difficult as many of you can probably assume with seven different counties involved seven different District administrations and school boards um we're focused on a conference only approach where possible so we

017do have the ability if we lose a conference component like o'clair um we would like to be able to schedule a local school near Richmond where it's limited travel the exposure in terms of how many regions we're trying to reach across is very limited um another thing the conference is aligning on is we are setting up the same opponents for the week and by doing that we're trying to if there were to be a case one it's very easy for us to coordinate between ads in terms of who is who could potentially be exposed and helping us make decisions in terms of if we need to pause on something if we need to reschedule um if we have positive tests coming in we can communicate much easier and hope hopefully also mitigate any exposures that

018we may have so football volleyball soccer and Tennis would be those opponents so I know week one right now for for our September 7th uh football would be the the week of the 25th um that week we would be playing monomon so all four sports that I just mentioned would be participating in games against monomon for spectators up to immediate family is what we're prepared to be able to accommodate it's going to depend on opposing sites as it mentioned we're dealing with different counties um we will continue to follow County Guidance in that aspect um I'll speak to how we would do that when I get to event management but masks we are going to be wearing masks indoors along with uh in accordance with the mask mandate but Outdoors when we cannot accomplish physical

019distancing so essentially every sport will be will be wearing masks at all times except for potentially girls Golf and swimming when they do enter the pool we'll be wearing masks while we're transporting transitioning and so on um again with hopes to help mitigate the risk and stay in person as long as we can equipment we will be dis disinfecting frequently um there will be no shared protective equipment um disinfecting frequently for example our football team we have three times a year and we've done this in the past so this is not new but we use a company called Pro three and they come in and disinfect the equipment I have a link in my last slide for additional information um and it it leaves a chemical on the on the equipment that lasts for 90

020days and helps mitigate the risk and spread of bacteri and virus event management we're going to increase signage as we have around the school um increase hand sanitizer portable hand sanitizers um try and accommodate distancing where we can streamline admission so what we're looking to do for our accommodated distancing uh we went through each facility uh mainly being the stadium the pool and the East gym we divided sections in half and we're going to be labeling sections by number so in the football stadium we know that we can get 16 sections in and what we're going to do is when somebody would arrive they would get a number they'd be in section onea if the their immediate family would proceed to that section and then we would skip a row the next group would be

021in 3A and we'd work our way up and spreading people out every other row only two families per row on each section and in measuring that out we could accommodate the physical distancing required to do so as a conference we've talked about requiring masks and Spectators but there's been no definitive decision to do so um we would require masks on entry and in transition but once they physically seat we're still talking about what we would line on there for streamline admission we're looking at handling that on the school level so I would create passes and we would assign those passes to each family the attendance would be for their individual sports so we would not have JV volleyball parents able to watch the varsity volleyball game unless they had a daughter on each team um

022so we would be clearing facilities and trying to help reduce the amount of people inside the gym for volleyball we're also looking at things in terms of scheduling that can help reduce that uh back to volleyball for an example our varsity and JV will be home on Tuesday against one school our freshman and jv2 will travel to that school so that we can play back to back in a bigger gym as you know our West gym has much less seating much less room um so we want to utilize that East gym for our games um so we're going to flipflop and then on the Thursday our lower levels would come back here and our upper levels would go to the other site next would be concessions we're proposing no concessions to start if we were

023to see a positive trend um we would move to prepackaged goods and that is highlighted in our reopening plan locker rooms our goal is to establish pretty consistent with what we tried to do across the lunchrooms is 50% capacity with no personal items in the lockers so football for example we would have their hel here their shoulder pads and their pants everything else would go home with them and we would we would U be recommending more frequent washing of those materials by bringing those home um if it couldn't be daily that'd certainly be understood but much more frequently and physical distancing in conversations with coaches we're looking at trying to physical distance in any way we possibly can as I'd mentioned before it is not reasonable to be able to phys physical distance during a

024football or soccer game um but on the sidelines um when we're in transitions when we're setting up practice plans as much as we possibly can we're trying to mitigate risk we are going to like I had mentioned be wearing masks um we're going to be very cautious in terms of where we wear masks in order to continue to stay in person as I'd mentioned so with those things um we feel good about the plan that had worked in the summer that's worked throughout this first week these things are not easy but our coaches and students have done a great job adapting and continuing to to do what they can to make sure that we can stay in person and participate so as I'd mentioned there is another slide of additional resources for reference um there

025was a great study done by Dr maguin out of University of Wisconsin in terms of the impacts on Mental Health um with not participating that was done this past spring and then I also link our Pro three Pro three solutions um disinfection and protection if you wanted to reference what we're doing in terms of our disinfection of protective equipment so that that wraps up my presentation what what questions can I answer Mr President Sue yeah so thank you very much uh Aaron and I know that we need to follow these these rules and um work that you've done on um how to handle the best mitigation plans um because uh largely we want to have am I muted oh I have to go up to my no no on your microphone you're just your the

026button is have up well I thought it was up I can hear you it is up right okay oh okay so I can hear you I I'm sorry um so I I thanked you Aon so so if you missed that I'll send you an email um but I mean I the these plans are in place so that we can in fact um have our children uh engaged in in extracurricular activities um now I've completely forgotten what I was going to ask about um no I had a question about locker rooms uh locker room use is strictly for athletic programs so they're not like generally available to uh staff to go and take a shower if they feel like doing something like that before they go home maybe that goes to Nick no we we typically

027do not have staff utilizing our student locker rooms for any reason we we do have this the six uh family style bathrooms that are in the building that have they they have a full shower bathroom changeing table everything like that so if staff need to shower for any reason during the day or before they go home we would expect them to use those facilities that they can be locked and things like that but students also have access to those independent use um bathroom any student can use those that if they don't feel comfortable in in the regular locker rooms they can absolutely utilize those for any reason okay Bruce uh thanks Aon this this looks like a good plan uh just a couple of questions um curious if we looked at just moving um football

028and volleyball like Superior did to the fall and if there was any rationale behind that or anything that makes sense for us and if that was discussed can we move it to the spring to the uh to the spring sorry yeah we we certainly discussed that as an option and I would say it it's still can be an option um I guess what what we're recommending is that we give it a shot and take as much time as we can if we chose to say we were three weeks in um and chose to move to that spring option we could still do so you can do that and make that decision up to 50% Into The Fall season nice so if we got to that point and we saw either spike in numbers or just

029weren't feeling great about the progression we were making by opening up these Sports we could make that decision still we wanted to just give it what we could right now in the fall um we wanted to give it as best a shot as we could knowing that the spring is uncertain as well great I that's very good um uh and and even better to know that so thank you um next question is just in regards to um like video right like I I know there are we are networks out there other um networks that um do a pretty good job at at trying to just pipe the feed in for the different events um you know are we looking at at beefing that up maybe asking parents to participate or do something there I mean

030people could certainly throw it on Facebook live but um just curious if there's something that you know we're planning on doing to try and make sure that we're allowing as much uh viewership as possible yeah if there's one thing we know there's there's going to be people that aren't going to be able to attend that have attended before so whether we allow Spectators or not we are pursuing we have two companies that have done streaming for us in the past and I've been in constant conversation with them to try and obviously cover what they have covered in the past and reach down to lower levels if we have the capacity to do so but also looking at how could we film a cross country meet how could we stream different events like swimming that we

031haven't previously um yeah we are absolutely looking at ways to EXP expose um these these events to people that are not going to be able to be there that traditionally would be there to support these kids Bruce got your questions any other questions I I think so James okay thank you you got other questions no I think I have okay I got it covered all right Rob your hands been up thanks for uh thanks for hearing my question so Erin again I Echo everybody else nice job um on slide four uh with the extracurricular reopening guidelines there's a link and maybe I just have an old version but looking at the site specific information all of the sites are everything there is crossed out um so that's my first question and then I've got a

032follow yeah the the site specific information I am working through right now with the new release of the wi Sports specific um and we are we did get some new information in terms of the county and numbers so just working back through that list I didn't want it to be a working document was some filled in and some not um so I just crossed them out for this time okay thanks and this uh last question Nick maybe it's for you or for Tracy but um just I think in the same um same discussion or similar the boosters and other youth organizations are going to be looking for space are they going to be following similar guidelines at the very young levels or how do we that happening well you know one of the one of

033the conversations that's kind of ongoing right now is you know what is our numbers that we limit our spaces to you right now the St Craig County uh ordinance or not ordinance it's a recommendation that they have is 10 inside 50 outside and it it's really not related to spreading Co it has to do with contact tracing and so part of the reason why schools some people say well how are you going to have a lunchroom or how are you going to have classrooms with more than 10 is the reason we're one we're exempt from it because schools are exempt from it but two it's because we know who are in our rooms and it can help with contact tracing and so one of the things that they've talked about is if we decide that

034we would want to uh open up those a little bit more like if we wanted to say right now we've kind of said about 10 to 12 people per Court uh inside and you know 50 outside it's there's certain guidelines they would have to follow to be able to ensure that they could tell us exactly who's there and who's you know who's a close contact as we as we work through it so that's really the guidelines behind or the rational behind that 10 and 50 now I know olair County just moved to I think 50 and 250 so 50 inside and 250 outside um right now we had a call today with st Cy Public Health um they're they're holding right now originally they said they were going to make a change but I think

035Pierce county is not wanting to make a change they're trying to stay somewhat consistent with Pierce County but um it's going to be one of those things it'll probably be an ongoing discussion but as of right now we our our guidelines are still what we told you back when you open your the facilities in June which is 10 basically 10 to 12 per court and 50 outside but um you know we'll have further discussion we may have a recommendation that comes to the board at the September meeting that may or may not uh continue down that path it may come with uh opening them up a little bit more but with more requirements on the folks that are renting our facilities Carrie uh Aon one question I think you had said that the sports exempt

036from masks during competition were um girls swimming and girls golf was cross country one that would need to wear a mask yeah good good question we and they're kind of a hybrid we The Proposal would be that cross country is wearing masks at all transitions would wear a mask until their 100 meter Mark which is a cone that's straight out from their start line once they pass that they could drop their mask for the remainder of the race until they entered the finish line and then they would put their mask on and what we've done you know when I speak to the sports specific guidelines is we would create a shoot for each school um typically if you been to cross country meet there's one long shoot they walk through and they untie their shoes

037they take off the chips and they hand those off we would that process back to where their school Camp would be and spreading that process out so cross country would wear masks at times but not while they were out on the course and able to spread out thank you any other questions yes Heather thanks Aaron for all your work on this could you quick question um middle school did you say it's primarily space restrictions that are are leading to the recommendation about about the alternating practice schedules it was it was primarily scheduling so with the middle borders being mainly who we were going to participate against um and River Falls has also decided to go in-house with their middle school we really don't have a deep pool of people to even play against um so

038we decided to go down the the road of controlling what we can control and continue to provide opportunities for our students and with without having a schedule we wanted to try and de develop it in a way where we could control that schedule and create more of an in-house atmosphere versus trying to play one game and then fit around uh the rest of the weeks in preparation for for that one game got it um and I guess my other I don't know that it's a question as much as a a comment um I appreciate the insight about the flexibility about being able to shift plans up to halfway through the season I guess my my concern about that would be that if we're making a decision to shift it may be that us using this

039approach has also brought more covid to our school than would have otherwise been here and we might be jeopardizing our ability to stay open academically because we've moved ahead with with contact with with these um higher risk Sports so um I know it's hard to lean toward a recommendation of of pushing those Sports to spring when it doesn't appear that we're going to have anybody or much of anybody to play against in the spring if other folks are opting for fall but I mean that certainly otherwise seems like a more prudent um approach to still give those students a chance to compete but to not do so um right now when so much is uh is up in the air any other questions is there a motion and we could have one motion to approve

040both recommendations for both levels or split them move to approve uh recommendation as brought forth for the high school and middle school fall Sports second right motion by Bruce second by Rob any further questions or concerns hearing no more discussion uh all those in favor say I hi hi those opposed say nay all right uh the eyes have it and um we will uh approve the sport schedule next up is discussion on the back to school blueprint and covid-19 protocols yeah so really uh just an opportunity to kind of give you a heads up of where we are at and different things not going to go through the back school blueprint it has been updated continues to get updated as more things become available to us um one of the things it's a new document

041uh that is linked there is our back to school covid-19 protocols so a lot of those it's kind of the fruit of a lot of those meetings we talked about we had about 40 or 50 different work groups that were talking about what is going to be our protocols as we come back and expectations so that's in that list I'm not going to uh go through each one uh step by step um but essentially this is more of a staff facing document typically um but everything from our general safety uh expectations screening expectations and where we landed um kind of some of the the communication and then even talks about some of the leave as it relates to staff and and how that and how that works um we are we also have there and

042that it just some of the stuff is is redundant from what we have in the back to school blueprint which is how we're going to communicate our cases we also talked about face coverings hand washing and sanitizer um you know the physical distancing kind of what our expectation is you know we're well aware that we can't necessarily guarantee six feet of social distance space all the time all day long um and but you know what what the expectations are going to be and what what folks are going to be working on um you know cleaning and disinfecting uh spaces uh teachers are going to be just a touch on this one and this has come up multiple times so twice a day desk are going to be wiped down once in the middle of the

043day and then once either at the very beginning or at the end of the day type of thing so they get wiped down twice a day um and uh you know we have all of the products and and things we need for that uh it's it's going to cut it's going to cut into the day a little bit it's going to cut into the either instructional time or planning time we know that um but that's something we're working on talks about what we're doing with our ventilation increasing our outside air flow the meal schedules talks about some of those things and and the social distancing it does have a copy of our our school closure Matrix in there um and then just some of the some of the delivery models and in distance learning visual

044visual learning it does highlight their special ed programming um and different supports as it relates to school Age Care uh field trips and events uh large events concerts uh and I think it's something to note that you know the large events the concert events you know we had a lot of conversations with staff specifically about this whether it be the fall musical or concerts in general and as of right now felt because it would be hard like especially with some of our really large choirs to try to get them into a space and still keep the kids spaced out it it would be very hard for us to have a a concert type of environment so some people might ask why why are you having Sports and not having fall musical in concert and that's

045the big the biggest reason is we talked with the instructors said this right now they don't see it as being very practical to do it that way when they are going to be singing in larger groups uh will be the the biggest they get to is about about half their normal size they'll be in the auditorium but instead of being on the stage they'll actually be out in the seats spread out and uh socially distanced and working through some of those things and so uh they'll be able to potentially concerts the second half of the year we just to start with we're we're going this direction yes Bruce just curious since these kids are going to be together practicing together um could we potentially do a concert where it's just televised and nobody participates but

046you know and they maybe even do smaller groups but it's again just those kids that have already been together practicing together and you just have video yeah and I think you know that's something that the the uh music staff is looking at what's feasible you know I think the other part of the the Concert Experience the performance experience is creating a an a performance experience and depending on how much you have to space people out depending on if you're making them wear ask you know what is the quality and is it is it worth doing it at that level but uh absolutely because we talked about doing concerts with that were just per uh just completely streamed online you know live streamed we've talked about even doing that with the fall musical you know but

047as of right now at least to the conversations we had you know the Comfort level wasn't quite there and so but it's something we'll revisit and it could mean that there may be some uh opportunities for smaller ensembles to do some things virtually and things like that but um it it's just going to look very different as we work through some of those we we could do some cardboard cutouts of you know parents and get them in the seats and piping some you know clapping right they be all all kinds of different different things and and uh but I I mean it's definitely something we want to figure out how can we maintain experiences for kids because that's what we've been trying to do all the all the way through I appreciate you looking into

048it thank you yep uh field trips you know around there you can see we're reducing field trips visitors and volunteers I mean this is a big one we've talked about this in the back school blueprint but really the non-essential visitors and volun I know we've had some requests from different groups to come in and and even wish our kids well on the first couple days things like that we've kind of said hey we although we really appreciate that we want to try to keep as many non um essential visitors off campus to the best of our ability um as we as we work through things and then you can see the documents but I think so this is a kind of an encompassing document and then Andrew is going to be speaking to in a

049minute um some of the other documents that we've that we've put out a couple of things I want to kind of touch on as we worked as we worked through this is um I've been doing districtwide zooms with anybody that wanted to join uh staff wide they average anywhere from I think the largest we've had is just over a hundred staff members that have been on and and we've I think last Fridays we had close to 80 on there um so we've had kind of a variety of them and now they kind of subside because we're back we start this week we have staff back in the buildings and we're working uh but I'll be doing building listing sessions in the buildings and getting out of into the buildings and making sure um can listen

050and and hear what's going on but uh it's it's been a great opportunity for people to ask questions and and um you know it's been a good dialogue so really have really have appreciated that one of the things that we did not put in the handbook but something that we've been kicking around this is somewhat Co related is um and you say this seems kind of off and it's not up for approval tonight but we just wanted to kind of give you guys a heads up is you right now I believe when we um when people can sell back a personal day at the end of the year I think is it one Andrea they can sell back yep okay they can sell back and and I believe we they can sell back for $50

051a day is that right yeah and so one of the things is we start to look at how do you staff your buildings how do we do some of these different things is it since we raised the sub rate to to to $200 a day and really we're worried about Staffing is probably our number one obstacle as it relates to keeping schools open is you know we would probably like to bring to the board in September a recommendation that we would um raise that personal day buyback to just what we're paying Subs you know so that because if we're going to have to pay that money out anyway and not have our our teacher in the building with us you we'd rather have the teacher in the building and and we're going to pay the

052money out if they want that and it's not that they would have to do that but so it would be that we would you know because even though it's a $200 a day sub cost when you add in um FICA and wrs and any of the other auxiliary things really between $230 $250 a day and so uh is what a sub cost us and so that's one of the things that's going to be coming up as an as an effort to try to I don't want to say curve personal day use but if people choose not to use them there's a little bit more benefit for the individual not using them um than just the $50 a day s we're already going to be paying out if they do use them you know so it's

053it's basically a a uh it would be a wash I think financially for us is what we'd be looking at but we think that it's obviously better to have our teachers in the classrooms um and it would put less strain on our subpool and and things like that so any any questions or thoughts on that um so I'm just kind of bouncing all over and I'm gon have uh Dave uh do you want to give an update on you know our um our parent Serv and how many how many folks we have in and where we're trending as far as who's selecting face tof face instruction sure yeah you bet we just got an update just um about an hour ago so we are at a total of 4,930 responses right now so we're we're

054getting close we're rounding the corner here the final stretch we're tracking about 85% um opting for on-site in person regular instruction and um our other is the number that's decreasing at one point we're attracting about 6% we're in the other category that's down to about 2% which means that families are making decisions and finalizing their plans as well principles have been doing a great job making all these calls we are to the point now where we're not sending out District based reminders they're coming from the principles with the link because we're now um trying to get those last few folks that have not yet completed the survey to do so even if we have the information we actually want them to complete the surve survey because we also gather our technology information on here to

055determine if they need a Chromebook or they might need a hotspot um for your information so you know that we're tracking um 135 families right now that are indicating they need a Hotpot and about 450 requests for Chromebook so right now that that works where we've got the supply to handle that and just on a totally separate note um we ordered our cameras for our individual distance learning half are in and half will be in Friday so we'll be all ready to roll for that as well okay yeah go ahead Heather thanks Dave do you have a sense um of those 15% um what kind of an impact we're gonna see on homeschool families uh so yeah we have some families that have indicated they um are interested in homeschooling that haven't before um a

056slight uptick I wouldn't say a real significant uptick but a slight uptick um obviously families are looking for the best solution that fits their needs whether that's a fully virtual option in another District homeschool but very happy with the fact that the vast majority of our families are finding that our individual distance learning or on-site model meet their needs okay Bob um I was just uh wondering are we confident that with 80% of students choosing uh inperson learning that we can social distance uh safely in cafeterias buses classrooms is that kind of what we were expecting was a 80% yeah we were we were anticipating anywhere from you know 80 to 90% of our kids being back um our cafeterias will be able to operate at 50% capacity so we can space out plus we

057um we have bought uh plastic dividers so kids aren't when they are having their mask off they there's a plastic plexiglass you'll see that coming up in Tim's budget slides um we spent CL over a quarter of a million dollars with dividers and uh uh trying to make sure that we're in areas where we can't get good distance between kids we have some type of physical barrier um you know classrooms it it could be you know it's really hit or miss I mean some classrooms will easily be able to space out and other classrooms not as much uh so and as we've said we've never promised parents all the way through this that we can guarantee them six feet all the time um and we you know the hallways and passing time and things like

058that uh both the high school and the middle school have taken steps to try to uh change traffic patterns there's been markings on Floors they're going to be going over this with kids when they arrive the very first day get a lot of uh some of our most busy hallways are going to become one-way traffic so we don't have that face-to-face interaction and congestion um Middle School is a little bit easier to uh let out at different times because they can do it by houses or by grade levels so they can minimize the congestion of hallways but um so yeah so we're we're working through that but this is about where we we anticipated right right about where we would be uh I did talked to it was interesting I talked to um the uh

059Bill Foster I think from school perceptions who does our has done surveying for us and they've done a bunch of back to school surveys for districts around the state and it's been e between 80 and 85% almost across the board uh across the whole state of people wanting to send their kids back face to face now not necessarily that everybody's going with that but as they've surveyed parents and the and the parent surveys that that have gone back so uh we seem to be right in line with probably the way majority of folks are yep Heather Nick can you talk a little bit about you you just referenced surveys how we're going to get feedback about how this actually rolls out I mean I think you know this I have no doubt that our teachers

060and our families are going to give it their best and yet this is a really new way to deliver instruction a really new way to learn having this you know this synchronous both in person and and so how are we going to get feedback from teachers from families from students so that we have a sense you know obviously not after the first week because I'm sure the first week is going to be chaotic but how are we going to collect that feedback from folks so we can make good decisions moving forward well I think even that first week we'll want to get that feedback because if there's if there's you know things we can iron out I know that's something Dave and his team is working on as they're constantly getting feedback from teachers and

061and the leads so we will probably be sending out more surveys to people asking them what you know how things are going uh and and making tweaks and adjustments I mean one of the things that people have to understand is it will not be flawless I mean it will not probably be smooth all the time it will be kind of you know a little bit ugly at times and things like that until we kind of work through it um but you know I I think that's where the expectations just have to people have to keep their expectations somewhat in check to start um as we continue to work through it but yeah there will be opportunities for people to provide us feedback uh not only uh folks that are doing the distance learning but we'll

062also be looking for feedback uh from parents who are sending their kids face to face and feedback with buses and things like that so there may be a lot of surveying going on this fall you know and and um one of the one of the things that we'll try to do with surveys it's not that we don't like to have open-ended comment portions on the survey I mean it's good but if all of a sudden you get 3,000 paragraphs of open-ended comments it's hard to get through it and get a lot of feedback so we try to we try to get into a choice model so that we can you know do something to quantify the data so we can look okay here's a theme or here's a trend or something like that we'll still

063give those options but that's that's one of the big challenges that we run into with some of those things but yeah there will be lots of opportunity feedback I don't know Dave if you had anything specifically planned as far as with teachers on a regular basis um yeah Lisa and ivy have talked about that quite a bit with me just um How we'll be checking in regularly with the leadership groups that we've identified so that would be the Committees representing each curricular area at the elementary level our plc leads at the middle school and then um our department heads at the high school so some more regular check-ins from teaching and learning just to make sure that we know what adjustments we need to make one thing that's going to help tremendously versus what we

064went through last spring is we'll be getting some real time feedback it's hard to know how things are going if it's asynchronous because you're not connected directly with student and family once you become synchronous it's it's much easier to learn what's working and what's not working because you can see it on their face so we'll be able to be a little bit more Nimble with our adjustments but we'll still be we'll still need to be able to reach out and get that formal information and feedback yeah so and I guess I would just I mean as much as you know we as a board can chime in and we've got some formal structures to provide feedback I think important to make sure and it sounds like we are to get feedback from directly from classroom

065teachers to get feedback directly from parents and I think you know we've shared this metric which sends a signal that you know if numbers change with covid there's a change that we might have to change our plans my assumption is there's also a chance that we will figure out that this model that we've developed isn't working and we have to Pivot to something else I mean so I think that just to so that families know that that that that that we're looking that the staff and and the leadership is really looking at all aspects of this and not just the the covid numbers to help guide decisions moving forward about how we deliver our education this year yeah that's I mean that's absolutely the case I mean and we've talked about it as a leadership

066team I mean we're we're putting together what we think is our best plan going forward but there's 5700 variables that kind of come into play here and um what we won't quite know until we get it up and up and running but um yeah we may have to adjust our model we may have to but I think the thing is what we want to make sure that people understand is we don't want to have let's say maybe a less than desirable day one and day two and all and say we need to we need to adjust our model on day three I mean I think you know we we want to try to give it some time to see how it works its way out to see if it does get a little bit better

067and I'm not saying give it a whole semester or anything like that but we want to be able to give it enough time to find out okay is this just kind of the the newness of it but and still letting people know that yes we're we're being responsive but we we you know we have to see how this rolls out and then we'll make adjustments and tweaks along the way absolutely Sue had a question boy you reading my mind amazing um so uh just a comment on that yeah I think we need to give our model um enough time before we change horses in the middle of the stream so to speak if we did change our model then it would necessitate us completely relooking at our guiding principles which are rooted in a lot

068of data that we're working from and uh we're also referencing constantly what's from the CDC and uh public health so backtracking it we don't want to just trip off off of our plan with any you know quickness here because I I think we have a good plan yeah I think I think that's a good point and I think you know both you and Heather's point I think that the best thing we can do is collect data and get and make our decisions based on on the data as a whole versus um people that just want to push a direction or another Direction I mean we really want to make sure that if we're going to make tweaks or adjustments or things like that we're basing them on data versus hey I read this article or

069hey I did this or hey I heard about that or the news media is really covering certain things I mean we we've talked about this I I would say that the likelihood of the news media covering a lot of negative School related stuff over the next few weeks is probably pretty darn High uh and it's going to be hard to put into context how that is you know related to the number of successful potential School openings and and so uh we do know that there are a ton of colleges that have started back and we know we're hearing a lot of the colleges that it's not going well but we're not hearing much about the colleges that are and and so um and so I think that's where it's going to be important for us

070to utilize our data to utilize our metrics to make sure that we're we're getting we're getting what we need and and making those decisions and and it is a big ship and I think that's the other piece people have to understand I mean this is not a a real small organization it it for us to change things and that's why even like with the two-day lag on stuff unless it's an absolute emergency that we need to close it it's a it's a big shift for parents it's a big shift for staff it's a big shift for students and so you know we're trying to always look out you know out on the horizon but um really trying to make sure that we're we're monitoring those things but I think those are great points so as

071that kind of leads into kind of my next uh uh section which is the St Craig County numbers uh if you've had an opportunity to look um and I had sent you an email last week you know they have been uh trending in a pretty good direction for us uh there was a pretty uh big day on Saturday we had our call today they had 18 cases on Saturday um however um you know that was uh had two cases then today and so um so it's it's or maybe I'm sorry on Sunday so it e and flows and so we just try to count back basically the 14 days and and the the data that we're using is the one on the dhs's website that they every Wednesday the DHS has said this is what

072we're by two o'clock on Wednesdays we're putting this out it doesn't mean that we're not tracking this data on a daily basis it doesn't mean that we're not constantly in communication with st Craig County but as far as for putting uh utilizing our school closure metric uh Matrix we're using the DHS data on their website and so uh but we are we are uh trending in a pretty good spot other than maybe the last two days we've had or last couple days over the weekend we had some some big bumps uh when we had our call today the biggest increase right now uh in the that's resulting in our biggest lumps are coming from the 20 to 30 year olds as we've talked about and then also 40 to 49 year olds um you know

073they're seeing you know they're seeing some cases obviously zero to 19 but it's it's not growing like like some of those other ones um and so it's just that's what we're always we're checking and and always making sure that you know we're not we're not doing things that that are making it worse you know and that we're we're trying to adjust and things along those lines we had a great call with public health today uh this morning with with local public health uh talking about um you know they they really want to see us try to stay open as best we can um unless it gets to the point where we're not able to staff and uh because I think they definitely recognize that this obviously yes this is a covid situation but there are

074so many other external factors that have to weigh in on these decisions other than just covid and and so um it is a balancing act as we go through it we did have an interesting conversation today this afternoon we had another call with the Statewide d uh DHS with Dr westergard and um and then the head administrator for the State uh DHS and uh I would say that you know administrators across the state are pretty frustrated because everybody's having to come up with their own School closure Matrix because the state chose to not come up with the Statewide standard matri matx that says do this do this do this and um after they told us they were going to come up with that and so uh I think they that was the first time we

075had that group on with uh Statewide superintendent uh I think they heard loud and clear that people are pretty pretty disappointed um it's hard you know I think that the thing was it was hard to sit there and say we want to take what you guys say seriously yet you don't come up with the Matrix that we need in order to determine should we be open not be open and um Minnesota you know Minnesota has theirs and Illinois has theirs and Iowa has theirs and they're all different but you know at least they came up with some things and so there's a level of frustration there but as of right now I mean things are things are going pretty well uh in in s c County I think it's just something we're going to constantly

076monitor um if you notice the hospitalizations have dropped drastically if you go to their if you go to their dashboard right now on their dashboard they have only one person currently St C County that is that is being hospitalized related to covid at this at this time and uh nobody outside of the county so it's not a County resident being hospitalized outside of the county um so we're at 599 cases as of right now they're saying of which 457 are are recovered and so uh testing I believe is getting better uh the the times are are getting shorter um I uh I had to go in myself for a uh covid test on on Friday uh actually I went in because I had a science infection but they said well since you had symptoms that

077related to similar symptoms we have to test you for covid and I will tell you it is less than a uh a pleasant experience I guess would be uh my my opinion of it um but uh it was great I had a got my negative results back this morning so that's why I'm able to be here with you guys today uh so that's a turnaround of you know less than less than three days and that's over the weekend uh so I thought that was that was quite impressive and and uh and that worked that worked out quite well so um again uh that's kind of what we're hearing from St gr County and the numbers and and everything else that we have going on uh I want to have Tracy just kind of talk a

078little bit about our employee Child Care setup and where she's at with everything certainly so at the last meeting you had agreed to allow employees to utilize our school age CARE program so we had 70 employees who are currently requesting Child Care um we only have three families or three employees who will be using child care when we start September one um about half of the employees who have requested care are Hudson School District residents so they would be impacted depending on um our circumstances um thanks to Kim aeres at Willow River will be using that school as our first um employee Child Care site so we're all set to go and um are connecting with the families who need care right away so that we're making sure that we're providing um the connections kids

079will need uh for their own learning in their own school districts so it and just as a reminder because I know we did this at a special meeting um you know the obviously the benefit of having this for employees at a at a subsidized rate is uh it allows us to have our employees still here working teaching our kids um like I said Staffing is a big deal for us and that's you know what we think is our probably our biggest Achilles heel and so things that we can do to try to um mitigate the risk to Staffing and things like that we want to do so Tracy's done a great job getting that up and running and and Tracy you said there's 70 people that said they would need it if their child uh

080school closed potentially right correct correct not 70 right off the get-go nope we only have three families to start with um and then some will start because Minnesota schools are starting at different times uh so we'll have some joining us further into the month okay thanks Tracy and now I just kind of want to close out the update with Andrew she's gonna kind of talk a little bit about what we have going on in HR and and some of the other documents on the agenda okay so I linked a few documents these documents were sent out to staff um today um and we shared up on Friday afternoon with the well the new teachers came on Friday um Friday morning and then with the zoom call um at Friday at 10 as well so the

081first document is kind of like a I call it a quasi FAQ quasi flow chart regarding covid because we kept getting similar questions um over and over and so trying to put it into like a what if this happen happens what happens next and what if that happens what happens next and so I thought it was a pretty um Tracy shared this program with me and so created this so we have our symptomatic scenario and I won't go through all the details but the symptomatic scenario we have the asymptomatic scenario then we have what happens if you go into quarantine um and then uh what do you do what other types of leaves exist um in the event uh that you are subject to a CO related issue and then also a child care one

082and so you can see we um tried to make it pretty straightforward um we tried to balance you know making sure that they got the information with also trying to encourage people to come back to HR and ask us specific questions as well so that's that first document it's really again just a highlevel summary um hopefully in a userfriendly format gotten some good feedback from staff um so this is kind of that initial entree entree into uh the co issues and then the other two documents the first one is temporary leave options during covid-19 and that spells out more the meat behind FFC as well as just reminding people that we have all these other types of leave that continue as usual in our handbook but above and beyond that then we have the co

083leave we have the emergency paid sick leave we have the extended family medical leave act which is the efmla and then we have the potential temporary virtual off options but laying that out what that looks like in some scenarios as well um again the goal is to be transparent give information to staff and then um uh problem solve as issues arise uh post September 1st the last document is the temporary remote teaching expectations document and this was one that we worked with our Council on um to clarify that's not the right one Tim um the uh to clarify what teachers who are able to work remotely um what they can um expect or what we should expect out of them um so that we can be on the same page so that you know whether

084it's you know timeliness of responding to emails of Staff or um students um or you know Broadband capacity stuff like that so try to lay out some of that again to make sure that there's not misunderstandings and that um we can all be on the same page as we're heading down this challenging new road so that was a real quick summary of the different documents um any questions for me board members have any questions regarding the just uh Personnel so uh Andrea um a lot of what you just shared with us has been communicated um with uh the various principles because they'll probably be the may be the first people to uh hear these questions from their teachers definitely I mean I think they're probably tired of me talking about Co but I mean it's

085starting back in March and April when all of it began then with our Retreat or multiple Retreats we' walked through these documents even with the document that first one that I just worked on last week um email to them for their feedback a very good response because I think it does help them if they can say here's a document that answers some of your questions if it's beyond this contact HR and then we'll work collaboratively through it which was also the message as I sent it out to staff today is that transparent open communication as we're going through this uh will make it much easier any other questions regarding any of the three documents that Andrea had prepared and that's the update okay very good thank you for the update um I think we're moving

086in a good direction um and now next up strategic plan so uh this was a document that you guys saw it's been about six seven months we we were reviewing it and then School closure happened and then we kind of put it on the back burner a little bit and so um this is the culmination of the work with with Hudson lead uh the focus groups and working with uh stter education uh is is coming up with our our overall strategic plan for 2025 2020 to 2025 it's a fiveyear strategic plan and and where we want to focus we've we've kind of we've gone through this we've talked about it but we wanted to give people a little bit more time with it and then see if you guys are still thinking we're in the

087right direction um and if so then you know it would get put into final form and then approved you know formal approval would be at the September board meeting so any any questions I can answer on it or anything uh specifically I know sue you had sent me a question well I I sent a lengthy uh email to uh the cabinet um on this so I I guess I want to to know a little bit you don't I I think this is something that you can discuss among yourselves not necessarily tonight but I asked questions about um well I should get my notes up here I guess here they are um I asked questions about just what we mean by uh inclusive and I uh sent uh uh some definitions for inclu inclusion and equity

088and uh diversity because I think sometimes well maybe that's just me but it seems like we interchange them quite a bit and there are um institutions including the FIP Center for the Arts right now is working on an inclusion statement and so and I know we say supportive and inclusive learning environment but it might might be valuable for us to really understand what we mean by that term and I bantered it around when we were talking about the lgbtq thing um which I think got greatly um uh clarified and elucidated by the U Arbus U report that seemed I think to really um shape it and give clarification but I just think we should I would be nice as we're using that expression all on the same page to all be on the same page

089Mr President yes Rob and so Nick I appreciate the pillars um one of the problems I had with the last strategic plan was that there wasn't a whole lot of um strategy that supported what would have been our pillars then which then would be supported by specific tactics that are measurable quantifiable from a results standpoint I know we have our scorecard But ultimately how does all of how does this become supported and how do we know that we're making progress yeah absolutely and so um what we've been what we've been working on then with stter the second phase of this is after this is kind of the larger umbrella you know kind of direction for the next five years then what we're working with with ston is how do you operationalize it and how do

090you measure it how do you quantify it how do you know if you're doing and so um that's their kind of version of a scorecard where it puts in those very specific action items who's responsible what are the timelines 30 60 90day plans and and all those pieces so that's that's really this next step is operationalizing this overall strategic plan and at the very you know at at all the different levels at the building level department levels District level as you work through it the the the full District scorecard still kind of lays over top of everything because it it it falls into all these are you know we have different measures to measure these on the district scorecard but it it's really it's an action the action planning piece is what's coming up next

091uh after this gets approved that's that's probably more of the um well it's the that's why it's called the action plan it's the actionable stuff uh that we're going to be doing uh to implement this plan so what's the timing on that Nick uh we've already started working on that so we've already we've already started going going through what does that look like and I believe you know we're going to be working on that coming up in October uh Gail will be back to to work with our team from stoter uh and and the the thing that we feedback we got from the leadership team was uh not that this is not important it is very important but right now everybody's hands are really full trying to see if we can get the school year

092off to a good start uh so October felt like a pretty good Landing Point uh to bring it all back and uh have everybody a part of it uh and start to to continue to build on that work thanks yep yes Heather yeah so no I think this is great I think the one thing I would encourage as we move ahead is um so how do we differentiate uh our district you know when when I look at this I think just about any District in the state could look at this and say Yep this is what we're about our last strategic plan was really um I think Visionary and that it really called out some ways that we were saying this is what we're about at Hudson and and maybe maybe it was or wasn't

093the right things but I think it it kind of it was that that hook that that we were saying hey this is what we're a about and maybe a little different that I think um entrepreneurial learning was something we called out um uh we really focused I think on collaboration environmental stewardship you know in hsd 2025 and so I think and maybe that's some of the work that we can do is are there pieces of this that we pull out that really are the things that we say and this is something that we actually focus on more than other districts that makes us unique and makes us who we are because I think this is all really good stuff but none of it jumps out as me as like this is our differentiator yeah absolutely

094and and that was a big part of the conversation we had with st uh student group was okay when they started to look at things that we already had in place it was you know they were more action plans than an overall strategic plan and so uh one of the things that is going to be happening is it's going to be much more specific as you talked about some of the that were in hsd 2025 were more action plan type things than necessarily a strategic overall strategic plan and so this is supposed to guide where we want to put our energy how how it's going to tie back so that as we are having discussions at the board level at the administrative level at the building level how does whatever it is that we're working

095on tie back where does it fit into this plan and then as we create those action plans for this we'll be able to share and say hey this is this is how we're basically operationalizing or bringing to life engaging in meaningful Partnerships between families in the district what does that actually look like and so and that's where we kind of take that charge and report back to the board and then also get that information out to our to our parents and our and our other stakeholders in the community so it will this is you know and for me I I kind of felt it was very general too that was one of the big reasons why I pushed very hard three years ago to go with a scorecard because a lot of times mission statements

096strategic plans things like that they look like they could be applied to just about any District across the state because everybody's hopefully trying to get to somewhat of the same ends uh but the big thing is is how do you know if you're doing it and and is your District doing it well and I think that's where our scorecards and that's where our action plans come into place to be able to say this is what we're doing and this is how we know we're doing it well and and it ties back to these pieces so it it's going to continue to build uh over the course of the year and you're going to see a lot more detail as it relates to kind of things that are connected to this but um at least from

097what we were looking at in other high performing districts uh Kettle marine or uh even like Triple Falls that was using them or we've saw stuff with uh Howard trco I mean their their goal was to have a onepage snapshot strategic plan and then you have the other supporting documents that that that come into play okay any other questions about strategic plan then yes may I make one more comment and I and again this is something that I I did email because I know the staff uh likes to hear things ahead of time if you can um under the team um we we've done a lot of work this uh last year in um talking about um uh the culture of uh Administration administrative teams and administrative leadership etc etc and uh I I'm hoping

098that uh looking at the culture of leadership can maybe be integrated into one of one of these uh items uh that can also become something that we um measure and I don't know if it's the reward one recognition and reward and uh certainly recognition and reward is something we do very well when we are allowed to gather and and uh recognize those that are retiring etc etc but uh that kind of thing is something I think we've come to understand is is ongoing and pervasive um up and down uh you know the um hierarchy or the chain of command and so on so I'm I'm hoping that all of you that are working more intensely on the uh strategic plan would um give my words some thought thank you absolutely okay any other questions or

099comments all right so as you said that you'd get back at it in October and probably report back to the board on the development of the action plan because this is the Strategic plan this would be the overall strategic plan and then what we'll be reporting back to the board you know later this year would be the actual actionable steps you know to operationalize this but this would come back to the board probably in September to say okay are you comfortable with this direction general direction knowing that the actionable steps are are coming next so because we need the overall direction set so then we can start getting more into the details or into the weeds as it relates to each of these things so that you know we don't start heading down a path

100and then people say ah we didn't want to go down that path at all and then we got to yank people back what you're looking for is uh board members to review this and just say if there's if they see something that they don't agree with and shouldn't be part of the Strategic plan or if yeah there's something large that we're missing yeah just let me know and otherwise you could probably plan on seeing this at your meeting on on for a formal approval uh in September can you consider what I sent to you in the mail as my contribution you bet absolutely okay okay all then next up is the back to school inservice update so this is I'm gonna touch on this a little bit and then turn it over to Dave to

101touch on it I mean our back to school uh looks a little different this year um usually it's we try to really do a uh School Community celebration as far as try to bring all of our staff together we try to you know have it be a really a fun event obviously bringing 800 employees into the auditorium is not advised at this point uh so we're we're going to be breaking up those events uh instead of having you know the the staff lunch or the staff breakfast that we've had in different years uh we're going to have uh we're going to have events in each of the buildings and we've kind of spaced them out the Cav and myself we'll get to each of those and and uh have events in each of the buildings

102and and we also have a uh a short video I think that we you know that Tracy shared with you guys that will be playing at that event as well uh to is kind of thank yous from people in the community uh as we kind of work through some of those things but uh Dave I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about kind of what we typically do for the instructional meetings and things like that and how that's changing as we are preparing for this coming year y you bet thank you so quite a few Chang as Nick said everything we typically plan was sort of turned on its head and we had to take a new Fresh look uh so Andrea and her team in HR planned a fantastic

103Friday so it was our first day with our brand new teachers which is always an exciting time just to see all the the new faces and the excitement and all the energy coming to the building and we started something a few years ago that I think brought um had even more meaning this year we plann that day for the mentors or the building orientation buddies um and every new teacher has at least one of those folks associated with them they met together for the um for our luncheon and it was a fabulous time even though it was very different big thank you to the Chamber of Commerce because they um they typically sponsor this event and and provide the food it was a little bit different but they still sponsored the event a lot of

104local businesses gave um some swag for new teachers but it was a very positive event and it was a great way to kick off the year but very different from what we would typically do and then from a professional development standpoint things were very different as well um if you remember when we approved the calendar for this year and this was all preo but we made the decision to move one of the PD days from October to the beginning of the year in August so we had four days for all teachers veteran teachers um to work on the various professional learning activities that we do at the beginning of the year that turned out to be really fortunate for us to have that additional day at the beginning of the year with everything being so

105new so what we tried to do was maximize individual teacher planning or planning with the PLC so if it wasn't absolutely essential to be delivered either from the district level or even from the building level we said let's put it off and give teachers as much time as they can have having said that we still needed a lot of time with them just to get ready for all the things related to co that are different um teaching in this individual distance learning environment is different no matter what even if you don't have a student necessarily in your class that's signed up for individ ual distance learning things are still going to look different from day one because we need to be ready in case we have to flip that switch at any point so teachers

106have done a great job of digging in learning asking good questions and then helping refine our plan to make sure that it makes the most sense as it possibly can um as Nick said earlier there will still be bumps in the road we know that and we'll be as flexible as we can with everyone as we work through those details um so if you look on the schedule that went out with the letter that Nick sent out to all staff members you'll see things like um individual work time in the classroom or PLC meetings in fact that additional day that was PD typically in October is all essentially teacher work time whether they're working with their professional Learning Community or working individually and that um holds throughout for the rest of the time that we

107have with all staff and I think they appreciate it there's never enough time we could have 10 days at the beginning of the year and we'd still be looking for more time for professional learning and the same thing with uh you know throughout the school year there's always more that we want to do so we were very judicious in our thought process making sure that if it wasn't essential we moved it off and delayed it any questions on the schedule uh I just wanted to say uh David that I commend you on this being an old teacher myself and having to be dragged out of my classroom to go to meetings and I really had so much to do so I'm really grateful for that perspective that and especially this year with the craziness with

108Co so thank you absolutely any other questions Dave right thanks for your report then next up we have the U exposion pre-explosion report Erin yep that's me so a little break from Co for a minute um so this is just the annual expulsion pre-expansion report so I'll just kind of give you the highlights of the data and talk through how this works um just to remind you um Hudson school district has used this process for about 30 years um and so the purpose is to address expellable behavior and avoid when possible um referring students to the board for expulsion um so during the pre-exp salion conference the district works with the student and the family to discuss the behavioral incident its causes um and the students educational and discipline record um and the outcome of

109pre-expansion is either to move forward with an expulsion hearing or to develop a voluntary agreement in which the student and family agree to a number of conditions um so on the first page of the report you can see some examples of the conditions that may be proposed by the district um the conditions really um serve to prevent future behavioral incident and set the student up for Success um so during the 201920 school year seven pre-expansion conferences were held two of those resulted in an agreement in lie of expulsion um and unfortunately this year the district held five expulsion hearings um which is a little higher than in the last few years past um something to definitely highlight um is the work of both the middle school and the high school continue to increase their utilization

110of behavior contracts with students within their building which essentially um limited the amount of pre-exposure conferences that were necessary um and saw a change in Behavior by um handling things at the building when um when they could um it also limited the amounts that students are missing due to suspensions um both secondary schools also increased their utilization of restorative practices as a way to provide increased learning opportunities as a result of disciplinary issues um and research definitely continues to support the use of restorative practice um a way to increase understanding of the impact of behavior on others um and increase positive behavior and choices um just a little bit more about the data um male students accounted for 57% of the pre-expansion meetings um this year um and this year the high school accounted for

111100% of the pre-expansion meeetings so we had um no middle school students participate in a pre-expansion conference this year um looking at students with disabilities they accounted for 57% and again this is disproportionate in terms of um the percent that students with IEPs represent as a whole that's about 133% districtwide um so something that we're going to want to pay attention to just with our disciplinary data um and how we're responding to students with disabilities um questions about the data or any other any board members with questions regarding the pre- exposion exposion report kind of an annual report that um all right now hearing thank you for your report Aon thank you um all right next up on the agenda then is the uh 2021 budget update now it's I guess preliminary budget even though

112we're into that budget year um and uh Tim I think we'll start it off talking about the year-end numbers now that 209 2020 year is done right yeah thanks Jamie um so yeah we are uh we W up uh we're we're in the process of the audit finishing that audit and wrapping that up and so assuming that we don't if we don't have any adjustments we're going to finish the year um approximately 5 .7 million under where we thought we would um so that's that's you know good news going forward as we go through some of the other points here but to give you a little flavor again we've talked about these areas before a few months ago um health insurance self-funded health insurance we saw a drastic drop in our claims obviously because of

113those uh you know people only going in for uh for really really needed things you know any preventative appointment ments were delayed or postponed and other other elective surgeries postponed so we saw a a very big dip in those claims in the last few months however um we kind of expected this that at some point in time there's kind of this pent up demand and so we saw July claims for this year uh pop up quite a bit they're much higher than our average and we could we could expect that to move really back to the averages or maybe even above average for the 2020 F schal year um our we had a reduction the the other area that was under budget was 1.1 million in salaries wages including substitute costs that uh that we

114had a lot of a lot of savings there uh postone capital projects uh reduced Utilities in payments to service providers was 1.1 million under budget and then supplies and equipment purchases about $350,000 so that makes up the majority of of 5.7 million and then I'll just move on to the next piece here which is the uh 2021 budget and so one of the things with that um with that spending that didn't happen is it could have a positive impact on our state aid for next year that's because we're negatively aided most of the time and this would have this would have a uh a positive effect on that tertiary Aid level but again you know there's still talk of a budget repair bill that could still happen for the 2021 year so you know very

115likely that we won't see much of an increase that we'd probably even see a a reduction in a if if that happens that materializes which would be later uh this fall um so when we look at the current version of the budget that you're going to look at shortly here um we've updated that to include a lot of different costs for covid-19 related expenses so mitigate our risks so as Nick mentioned earlier um we spent about 365,000 on dividers and barriers and those dividers and barriers cover classrooms so if you have tables they have dividers there uh the cafeteria tables as was as was mentioned earlier as well uh those dividers are there cutting back on that capacity by about 50% uh in our lunchrooms and then um looking at those high traffic areas such

116as such as offices places where students and staff are face to face a lot so um I want to thank Jim stll and and his crew as well because they worked under some pretty tight time lines looks like we'll have all those barriers almost all of those barriers in place uh by the start of school so uh they did a they did a really great job getting things ordered making sure we had enough suppliers on hand to get things we needed those another large area um you can see that second bullet point about a half million dollars and that those are masks gloves paper products sanitizers disinfectants and applicator equipment um there is a shortage on you know the hand sanitizers the wipes that you see youve probably heard um they don't expect that to

117go away until 2021 um we've got we've been able to order up some supplies um I will say however we'll have to we'll have to G the usage um this may not be the last order it probably will not be um but we'll we'll continue to monitor that as we go forward um we spent approximately 200,000 for technology for families uh in in classrooms at this point um then another one that's a little larger is $800,000 for uh increased substitute pay as we talked about last meeting and the additional cleaning staff was that would cover up to seven uh full time equivalents for cleaning staff right now um we've hired about two and a half so we're we're just gauging uh where that need is going to fall at this point um so that is

118again one of one of the larger drivers when you look at the new version of the budget um the the good news the pre preliminary estimate of property valuation in the district is a little bit over 7% just under about 7.2% uh when you look at the Statewide preliminary estimates it's about 5 and a half per. so uh we looked at that getting down to bottom line on the budget we had about a million and a half deficit budget when we added all of those pieces in and so at this point um we did keep the the mill rate the same at a at a reduction of 3.96% over last year and the levy increase uh the levy Levy was increased by about 550,000 from the last time you saw that in July so then

119moving on to just a take on the 2123 biannual um so when we look at the state will be we we're hoping we've been told the state will come out with uh their estimates the end of the month here about what their tax revenues look like and you know we're you know pretty much expecting that that will be a shortfall so the state could reduce our state aid in one or both years of the bium and as we experienced if we use a yard stick measurement like um the past couple of times this has happened which was a Great Recession and then with passage of Act 10 um our district experienced about a 10% or 10 in a fraction percent reduction in state aid so uh you know up to $2 and A5 million dollar

120for a year and if we use this past experience to kind of gain that perspective um that could be what we're looking at we just don't know there there are a lot of different scenarios that could play out here U but we want to just keep that in mind as we're as we're looking at the budget um if we look at those reductions and expenditures the 5.7 uh which was actually would be about uh 6.3 6.4 because we had a p we had a surplus budget going into the year um what can happen is some of that did some of the the savings could cover some or all of those potential state aid shortfalls over the two years by using fund balance um one of the other pieces that um really doesn't help us a

121lot is that when we look at the cares act funding uh the the distribution formula for that um really only qualified US for about $121,000 a lot of districts received a lot more than that but it was based on free and reduced lunch counts and uh if another stimulus package gets passed and if there are monies for schools if that stay if that stays and that formula distribution doesn't change um it's unlikely that we're going to see any large pieces of funding attributable to that just some points to remember as we as we as we review the budget so I'll just jump into that um as I mentioned if we look at the the top sides so Revenue um we'd be going from about 2% to a 3.3% change that's five that additional 550,000 to

122close to close some of the deficit budget that we've got existing in this case um other local revenues have been reduced because those are things like gate fees and for for competitions and that type of thing again as you heard Aaron give his report um we're looking at possibly a very different scenario for sports so um we don't want to overestimate where we think we'll be with that Revenue so that's been cut back um we've go to look under uh the equalization Aid which is is a bar large part of it that one hasn't changed again that's down 4.1% um so we'll have to wait and see it's going to wait and see uh see what the legislature does with any potential budget repair Bill see how that's effective um if we look at per

123pupil Aid another large piece hasn't changed that one has remained in place that's an area they could do a simple cut and just reduce per pupil aid but again all the cards are on the table at this point um and then we had uh an increase in some of the federal funding sources so that one's been increased so when we get to the bottom line of revenues um we're looking at about a half percent increase and then if we move to expenditures we have bumped up uh again I talk about the sub costs additional sub costs for that increase increase in pay so that we can uh attract subs and we have we can continue to operate um and then also um the facilities and ground staff so that we have people in the facilities

124that can keep up with all the additional cleaning that has to be done so uh that that increased slightly um we had if you look at numbers 300 and 400 which which are other purchase services and non Capital objects that's where the majority of that almost $2 million for covid expenditures uh is residing so when you see those increases that's that's why um if we look at most of the other numbers haven't changed significantly some have gone down uh but we're looking at about a 2.9% increase in in expenditures so uh again if you look at the revenues um compared to the expense expenses were about $982,000 just about a million dollars as a deficit budget and then if we run down into the committed and unassigned fund balance summary and just looking on that

125right hand side uh the capital projects fund we should wind up about $ 1.7 million remaining in that fund self-funded health insurance remaining at 1.9 million and that leaves a projected unassigned fund balance of 23 23.4 million so when you look at what is the lower end of the um of the fund balance and policy at 25% of expenditures we're at about 5.4 million above that and again that would be and looking at that that would be money that would could potentially um be needed if we get uh large Cuts in state aid or the budget repair bill for this year we may be looking at three years where we have to cover uh reductions in state aid so um but again going down to those last few lines under that estimated mill rate that's

126remained the same as what you saw it in July so about of three point almost a 4.4% reduction in the mill rate so all right I've gone through all that you have any questions Mr President yes Rob just a few quick questions the cares monies that were available I know several counties had significant money left over that are transferable to other public entities like school districts um I don't know have you guys I know you guys are talking to the county all the time were there any leftover dollars there that might be usable by us that's I guess that's my first question something we can we can follow up on that I'm not aware of that they have any additional monies left over but we can follow up on that Rob okay check and then

127looking at the revenues uh 345 open enrollment in 9. 7% increas is significant do do we have an idea what what led to that high level of additional enrol Le in yeah I think I think some of the virtual that we've got and um and then we've had you know I think you know even even facilities could be attributing to that um but we yeah we when we looked at that number that did pop up this year so we're we're pretty good if you compare it we're still a little negative um in this update the Open Enrollment out under the that second line under expenditures is a million 61 so a little little a little over $130,000 um you know deficit when you compare the ins and the outs but um it's it's been improving

128okay and the last question Federal sources there's a dramatic increase there in revenue is that uh nutrition or what what led to that increase yeah so that that one is the part of that would be that 121,000 from the cares act uh the other part there are some additional grants that were that were available um I believe I want to say mental health is in that uh we had some I think we also had some uh um Career Technical headed uh funding that was there so that that all the all of those po that number up for us thank you any other questions questions by board members so this is for Tim or Nick if you haven't heard anything from the federal level that rather than punishing school districts that don't open five days a

129week has there been any talk of rewarding school districts that open five days a week case through 12 I've I've not heard anything and one of the biggest challenges that we have with Federal funding as Tim alluded to is a lot of times it tends to be based off of some other mechanism they have to distribute Federal funding and federal funding is usually tied to Poverty rates uh in school districts and so since we have such low poverty rate in Hudson we tend to not get a very large chunk of it so uh as as Tim said even if if there's another stimulus that they kick around unless they decide they're going to distribute it in a different manner uh I would not hold your breath to think that we're going to get any type

130of significant Federal bailout related to our cost related to co which is kind of too bad when you think about it because it's whether you're in an influent or non affluent Community you have cost associated with it just based on the number of kids you have so so Tim just to sum up then um with the preliminary budget where we're tracking now in late August compared to a final budget gets approved uh with a levy in October uh you're projecting a levy decrease of 4% um but because of the increased property valuations it's actually going to yield another 500 50,000 in mill rate yeah the mill rate would go down 4% yeah but but because of increased property valuations we'll actually see 550,000 more in Revenue but we're spending 1.5 million more because of covid

131purchases and and condition yeah almost yeah we're approaching that $2 million Mark okay in the covid expenses um so and and this and I should add to this this will be you know if you guys are in agreement here um this is what we'll be going into you know you'll probably see some additional changes but hopefully nothing too drastic but going into the annual meeting because September 14th uh next board meeting you'll you'll review the budget one last time and then we'll roll into the annual meeting that night right but one of the reasons because of the U leftover funds if you will from 1920 um you know there's anticipation of increased expenses a big wild card on what state um will do over the next two years and so we want to keep that

132Reserve fund higher than 30% BEC You Know going into the next couple years yeah this is this is definitely um I mean Act 10 and the Great Recession were challenging but this is just this is light years ahead of that and it's just so many variables right now going into it yeah yeah hopefully the the economy does come back like a rubber band like some are saying it's going to but um I think you've got us on the right path here um these are good projections I think we're being fair to taxpayers but also you know fair to our mission and our goals of what we're trying to accomplish and um yeah just way too many unknowns to try and carve this thing up any closer or cut the mill rate more now um or

133cut our Reserve fund and leave us um you know closer to that 25% Mark I think would be unwise but any other questions or comments all right thanks uh Tim for the update you bet and uh last two items we got a update now on our policies due to two to new Title Nine regulations yep that's gonna be Aaron handling that all right thank you so this is a little outside of our um series of student policies that we're working to update right now so earlier this summer um new title 9 regulations came out um and so those trainings have just started I think last week so we're working our way through those um so I'll just kind of highlight a few of the things that um these new regulations require districts to address um

134and then we can kind of walk through the changes and um additions to our policies so this affects both students and employees so Andrea and I have been working um together on this in collaboration with Shaina as well um so one of the things we needed to look at was the non-discrimination policy statements regarding sex discrimination under Title 9 UM specifically including um identification of the Title Nine cordinator um another thing we needed to look at is the grievance procedure for receiving and responding to complaints of sex discrimination under Title 9 UM District response when the district has actual knowledge of an incident or allegation of sexual harassment under Title 9 regardless of whether a formal complaint is filed um in addition a grievance process for addressing formal complaints of sexual harassment specifically under Title

1359 and then recordkeeping confidentiality um and non- retaliation in collection with all of the above um things I just mentioned So based on those changes um it really required us to amend some related student employee policies so tonight we're proposing changes to policies 512 511 411 and 41.1 um and the addition of two student policies regarding Title Nine um as well as two additional employee policies um important to note to these regulations are presently under um several legal challenges um and so it's not clear at this time whether the challenges will result in new reg the new regulations being struck down um so shaina's advice was really this approach with the Standalone Title 9 policy um and rules allows the district to modify or remove um any relevant Provisions if there's changes that result in

136the legal challenges questions about any of that it's a lot of information so tonight we're just bringing these to you as drafts um with the hope that um we can kind of expedite this process because these do go into effect um this month and so approval at the next um board meeting is what we would be looking at so we' be waving second reading or yes yep and that's in order to hasten the compliance with the correct yep all right all right yes Sue I I'd asked Erin a question on earlier too um because this sounded so strident I guess I I was taken back a little bit by some of it but um I was concerned um if if a student was on a trip abroad which is not going to happen anyway and

137they were assaulted or there was a sexual misconduct of some sort then what happens but uh you indicated to me eron that um that we could still pursue I can't here U dealing with the allegations right yeah it's a great question we consulted with Shaina on that as well and it is a strange carve out in these new regulations but it doesn't prohibit us from investigating any claims of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment during a school sponsored trip outside of the country and we would certainly do the right thing in those situations and lean on our other policies to move forward with investigating those so our other policies help Shore us up here at this point absolutely yep so in the packet that uh board members were provided the four policies you mentioned 411 41.1

138511 and 512 they all have basically about a sentence that's underlined and in red as far as what's being added and then it's a cross reference back to this new Standalone Title Nine policy correct will that be given a number by the time we meet on September 14 yep yeah okay all right is there questions then from anyone um again there's 45 pages there um with these changes in new policies um comprising most of that but again it's kind of repetitive when it's talking about sexual non-discrimination complaint procedures for students and for employees am I correct correct okay and the policies that we're updating are all fairly new um and so you you you're familiar with those right okay Heather you had a question yeah Erin quick question so was the guidance that came out

139um regarding Title 9 really just related to policies and how things are stated or does it have implications for practice it has some implications for practice so there's a lot of regulations around um the training of the title 9 coordinator um and then resources for training more people within a district um so we've been working through all of those um modules and so we'll be start to plan out what our district kind of compreh ensive training looks like for staff as well all right yes Carrie do you need a motion to approve the draft no uh no no this is just if there's any um this is kind of yeah it is kind of our first introduction but this would be like a when our other policies change um input questions whether we're going in

140the right direction is kind of the feedback they want but um given that this has been kind of uh dictated if you will by legal councel and you know federal guidelines will'll be looking for a motion to approve on the first reading waving the second reading at the next meeting but good question um any other questions about the content of the policies the reasoning for it or how we're going to deal with approving it on a short order because it needs to be in place uh for the uh in the very near term okay hearing none I think um Aaron you've got your answer that you're on the right track and we'll watch for these in the next board packet we don't meet again for three weeks um it will be a shortened meeting because

141it'll be our one hour plus addition that's prior to the annual meeting um on September 14th okay um any other uh I guess we move on with last thing is our book study and I just want to see if board members uh want to have a brief recess uh before we talk about the book that we've been all reading or do you want to just go right into the study all right I get one indication going straight in nobody needs to take a break Rob's the only one that's on Zoom so he could get up and take his break anytime but he's giving me the thumbs up to move forward all right so with this um everyone um has had the book uh we read the introduction prior to the last meeting and um seem

142to get feedback that folks are ready to U get into this it's a deep topic certainly um but one that is certainly necessary for us to get a good understanding of what how we're going to improve uh uh topics like equity and uh um you know anti-discrimination if you will um and recognizing those things that are discriminatory um so there's a study guide that was several I printed it off um and one of the recommendations that they made was that we rotate who leads this and I guess by default as the chair of these meetings I'll start off leading this one but I'll be looking for someone to lead uh the next study or the next uh discussion which will be at the September work session and uh when I looked at the book I'm

143personally I'm up to chapter eight I know that at the last meeting Heather announced that she's already finished the book but um my excuse is that I'm also I had to read the how to be an anti-racist or and that um it's confusing to read two books like this at the same time so um I finished that one and now I'm on chapter eight on this one but um it looks like there're 50 pages takes us through chapter three another 50 pages take us through chapter six and the last 50 um are the really the last six chapters of the book that's how I'd propose that we tackle this anybody else see differently um all right and then the other thing that um before we get into talking about the chapters um and we're not

144going to go over every single question I mean I think if we end up spending a lot of time on one that's okay uh whatever is uh the group feels is appropriate um but uh there are certain principles that uh you know the the author um was one there's two authors to the reading guide but Robin D'Angelo the author of white fragility assisted in presenting this or preparing this study guide and I'm just going to point out the seven principles that we're supposed to keep in mind number one is that a strong opinion is not the same as informed knowledge and that there is a difference between agreement and understanding and uh if we have a deep interest in denying the forms of Oppression that benefit us that's kind of inherent and so they want

145us to be cognizant of that and um number four race racism goes beyond individual intentions to Collective group patterns number five we don't have to be aware of racism in order for it to exist um and then number six our racial Position will greatly affect our ability to see racism and so we have to keep that in mind and then finally putting our effort into protecting rather than expanding our current world view prevents our intellectual and emotional growth and that's why I think that our willingness as a board just to get into the subject is I think an effort to expand our current world view which is important so with that uh the in in chapter one says the challenges of talking to white people about racism um I'll just ask a general question and

146that is was there anything that this author uh puts forward that caused a sense of discomfort um or challenged maybe your thinking or your thoughts on on this and sure sure I'll speak I'll speak up I think and I I don't have the exact words in front of me but when she says basically that kind of progressive white people are doing more damage than anyone to um addressing racial injustices in our in our culture I think I mean that she opened with that pretty early in the book um I think that was a little bit of a kind of you had to stop and think about it for me and is that and did you find as you got further into the other chapters maybe that some of that discomfort you notice it get worse

147or get better um as you maybe read more on this author I think you definitely need to uh read I think more pages to get in the same mindset as as the author this is somebody who has worked on diversity training and racial issues for for probably decades so Bob well my Post-its didn't stick as well as they should have damn you 3M I guess um so um uh you know it's it's not a discomfort necessarily or even to point at one passage or one thought from from reading all three chapters I just kind of my circle my circular logic alarms were going off a little bit you know I'm getting a sense that I wrote my thought down here um you're either a racist or you're in denial in other words we are all

148racists it's just what what degree are we ignorant of our own racism and and when I say circular logic I mean that kind of it it puts you in a spin um it it's critical of any defense you might have and and I get that that if you you know if you have that thought in your head like well you know I I work with a lot of color people or black people I do you know um I I'm related to some I I know that's not me um you know it almost puts you on the defense from the beginning and I just you know just from being a critical reader of uh of um papers I just that kind of not it's just a general feel of the whole book so far in the

149first three chapters right Mr President yes Rob so first I just want to thank Aaron for sharing this study guide with with me and ultimately all of us so thanks for that eron um with regards to discomfort I I didn't really see this as creating any kind of discomfort as much as it was a an opportunity to look at all of this from a different perspective you know just looking through my own eyes in my own experiences I I think that everybody generally speaking is treated fairly generally um you know sort of as an individual you bring you bring unto yourself either the good things that happen in Life or the the not such good things that happen in life what this book helped me with was just a better to to create a better

150perspective you know that sometimes racism we're not even thinking about it but other folks live it and it's a certainly a challenge that that I've not seen right I think one of the uh factors that impacts the Comfort level is the fact that racism has been is such a um evil like almost like a source of evil you know it's something that you don't want to be you don't want to be considered a racist but because of how racism came about and how it's just inculcated itself throughout and permeated our whole culture um that it's just something that it's still there even though if you want to deny that you're not a racist it's still there um and it's hard to to not um have inclinations I you know all of us grew up with

151different backgrounds um but I don't know is there any board members that you know went to a high school where it was more than 50% um uh people of color do we have anybody is's see what's the most Urban uh School District um just go around where did you go to high school Heather lour what's that lour lour okay so we had two adopted Korean kids and one biracial kid yeah that was it that was it and everyone knows I'm from naris and yeah there wasn't there was a uh there was two black uh um Brothers they I think they were actually twins a couple years below my grade but that was the extent of the minority makeup in in our whole school district Bruce yeah luck it was very Norwegian Scandinavian right and Carrie

152the Mo Iowa which still was pretty much like Hudson maybe maybe a little more urban but not a whole lot yeah okay and Sue uh I graduated way up North Minnesota from Grand Rapids High School and even then I was self-conscious that our team was called the Indians okay and uh so probably in terms of race we had some Native American people but um I you know I most of the people um in the kind of mining world that uh we moved to um were like Swedish or Finnish or um and we had a large Serbian population so it kind of came down to jokes would be made about whoever which whichever group you weren't a part of um but so I I think that was an awareness for me but I've kind of decided

153in my own grown-up world that in terms of the black community I I guess maybe I have to be honest and say that it's kind of context if I'm around quote unquote you know politicians and educated uh Ed education or something then I'm come able but uh when I was in Memphis on a bus going to the art museum and I was the only white person on the bus I was uncomfortable and I had to face that reality um sure you know well thank you for sharing that and and Rob I don't want to leave you out how about uh your high school was what and where I went to high school in Hoffman Estates illino which is a Northwest suburb of Chicago but prior to that my elementary years through uh seventh grade were

154was in a town uh called Bensonville and it was I mean my if you want to call it a backyard it was it was small but there was a four-lane highway and then O'Hare Airport was just beyond that and uh that I mean most of my neighbors and the kids that I grew up were either Pakistani Mexican or black um you know so it was that was probably more uh I should say that was pretty diverse um but my high school experience was not diverse okay yeah Carrie oh oh Bob um my high school is in Wasa and uh we were called The Lumberjack so that wasn't supposed to be a big deal but with all the uh people tree l turned out to be a little bit but they still are called The Lumberjacks

155proudly um I had uh um two classmates that were black growing up um in middle school and in high school um and both of them were adopted by white families I believe so it actually created an interesting perspective of being raised in a white uh City by white people parents and um going off to college and and one of them had commented how was expected to like didn't really fit in with the black kids and also was people the white kids you know didn't know how to treat them either um just an interesting kind of strange to that but um um I always thought you know my parents aren't or my neighbors and parents they weren't raced they just didn't know any and didn't have any experience with other races and and I've always you

156know thought every generation and uh we have we have change um so I found I found this book to be um interesting but like I said it's it's like I I I actually kind of noticed that other we're certainly not the only board that's reading this book a lot of company boards and and groups it's it's a very popular book right now right um so I I wonder is it going to be looked at as it's so popular is looked at as like the go-to guide and I'm a little uncomfortable with that you know being being written by a white author and and I just wonder how you know black authors feel about that right so well I um having read the how to be an anti-racist um by Kendy that actually he um you

157know seeks out um a book review from this from Robin D'Angelo the author of white fragility and so they're they're very much uh kind of supportive of each other um not identical in their approach but I mean some similar themes anyway and certainly get you gets you thinking um but yeah I Heather did you have a add to Bob's question I was just gonna say um I I think I actually liked it for that reason because I think she as a white person is writing to white people you know she's she's it's a wee book it's and and I'm thinking I know there was recently that Forum um downtown Hudson I watched it on Facebook live um at the and Barrel bar the one young woman who's a Hudson high school graduate um black woman

158and she basically said white people we are tired of answering your questions you know like like do some of this work yourself and so I think this book is not that we shouldn't be I think seeking out and listening to to Black voices to other you know other perspectives but I I kind of liked that I didn't I didn't have to work really hard to to connect because she was speaking from an experience that was not totally dissimilar from mine um I also really liked that early on she um I don't want to say takes issue with but she she kind of holds up the word racism or racist and really differentiates um uh prejudice and discrimination like the individual actions that we control and she carves that out and then says but this racism

159is this structural thing and so it almost gives you permission not to worry about if someone is or isn't a racist which I think to your Point Jamie has such like you're a bad person if you're a racist but kind of to to look at how do your behaviors either support or challenge a a a kind of a social structure that is racist and so that I thought almost made it easier to swallow because we we do struggle I remember after the the shooting in Minneapolis talking with my husband about the you know all of the anger about about um cops about police officers you know and and him saying something well about the police officers we know I mean they're good guys and saying I don't think this is about being a good person

160or not it's about whether or not like you end up doing things that later maybe you step back and go gosh I can't believe I did that um so I think that that for me I liked the separating the the prejudice and discrimination at from the acts that we control individually from this broader concept of of racism so that that worked for me but I appreciate your point um Bob about also needing to hear other voices that aren't white that's part of the work that I think is really important that we do and the listening that we do right I think um yeah what's say I was just gonna comment that I know Rob was there as well at the we had that March in in Hudson and and when people started speaking there were

161numerous black people in the audience young black people and it was to me it was just an uncom able moment because I wanted them to speak you know and they and finally they did but I I it almost felt uh ridiculous that here we're we're having this March and and I wonder and I wondered what was going through their minds you know listening to these white people in Hudson talk about how we need change and and and understanding and that so I was very I know Rob could comment on that too but I was very glad that they did speak so um well you mentioned about the generalizations and I think um it's number four under the chapter one questions was how can we make generalizations about what it means to be white when we

162don't know each person's individual story so that's one of the things that um that's why I got into each person has their own background and how they're raised um we don't have to get into super detailed on that but that's the thing absent knowing what the individual story is judging people based on generalizations go ahead I think from her perspective it she gave a lot of credence to that because she can speak to the general generalizations because we do all benefit from the societal structure in which we've all grown up and this country's grown up and it it it kind of puts it Beyond it doesn't matter what our prejudice or discriminations are individually because our society has that in place and we all benefit half of us in this room more than the other

163half but certainly because we're all white we're we're several steps ahead from the beginning right I think the obvious things of racism are like slavery lynchings and um you know as long as I haven't participated in a Lynch then I'm not a racist I mean that that was the bar 100 you know 50 years ago but it's much more subtle and Insidious now and what I'm hopeful in reading this book is that be we become more aware of how our policies could have unintended you know racial impacts um and that's recognizing just this implicit bias I think that's what you're talking about Carrie is it's it's there um whether we consciously recognize it or not well and it so much of it's built up in our unconscious thoughts and how we were raised and because

164we were you know that she talks about in in you know you can say I was sheltered uh in a certain part or you know how you were brought up but doesn't necessarily mean that you're given a pass just because of that it it it just uh provides a perspective on your upbringing uh your you know unconscious thoughts that are always kind of going on in in in your brain that you know I think are creating kind of your your current perspective and it's it's difficult you know to get past that at times you know and not necessarily understand exactly what you're doing or why you're doing it it's just a part of your being or who you are um so I I think it's it to your point earlier it is good to try

165and create that awareness and more of that introspective thought pattern because it does create opportunities for you to think about you know what are those instances or situations that you are put into where you may just jump to a very quick conclusion yeah Carrie jumping on to Bruce's point about that we probably sounds like most of us other than Rob were uh grew up in a sheltered somewhat sheltered environment a lot of The Impressions we do have as she pointed out were from media which is predominantly white so right right Jamie yes Rob yeah just to build on what you know car's saying I mean I think is is for most of us you know our our exposure many times to people of different races you know comes through the news comes through media comes

166through you know what what we see politically you know happening and so if our exposure is basically well not basically mostly through media I mean how can that not create bias which lead to discrimination and I as far as racism just listen reading through the book I mean it sounds as if you know all of us are uh complicit in racism because it's it's the rules and regulations and everything that comes out of you know the you know the whether it's the government or you know other associations so it's not necessarily individuals who are racist it's the overall uh Society if I understood the book correctly right um just to end this discussion on chapter one or transition into two is that question number three is how do so many white people feel so confident

167in their opinions on racism even as they live their lives in segregation I think that um that's kind of the point that Bruce and Carrie and you know we getting at um is without having had that background how is it that we could be so confident that you know we're not racist um if we haven't had the the we've been segregated from those uh other experiences I don't know if anybody else Heather do you have any other point on that no not on that one no okay yeah all right so I do think though J the one other thing in chapter one that I thought was so um important kind of setting the stage for the rest of the book and I hadn't really thought about it before but is when she I mean I

168like that she puts this into a historical context not just the history of racism in the United States but the History of the United States because that last piece about how deeply rooted this country is in um you know individual freedoms and um the the value of the the meritocracy you know that from the very beginning we are a country that believes in a meritocracy so believes basically that you as an individual get what you deserve and if you work hard enough kind of you'll get your rewards and how that plays out in conversations about race and racial inequities and when you know when that when that rolls over into po policy and other things I hadn't really thought before about that meritocracy that how how strongly held of value that is in our country

169and how deep those historical roots are because I I think it plays out in day-to-day conversations with people um as we kind of struggle with how to how to address some of these issues so I thought that was really important yes and you mentioned before about social construct um and so that's the first question under chapter two of the racism and white supremacies what does it mean to say that race is socially constructed yes so you know I I remember you know over the years of teaching art history not talking about women and then finally including women artists um and then I remember a point in time when I started to include black artists um and then the Walker Art Center had huge walls filled with Carol Walker which just shocks you when you first

170look at her work and um and so I I guess I guess for me it was like shock therapy and I would just uh make myself jump into these things and um and and and I remember that that was it was good for me but I realized H how much I I hadn't done um you know I hadn't included and and dismissed but again you know I don't have any excuses for it but it is that social conditioning um so that you know you don't you don't jump out of your own lane um and so you know I it's just a very steep learning curve for us that I think we should be on I and I'm glad that we're engaging in this book so that I'm doing the should Beyond leap here yeah thank

171you for that observation any other thoughts on um the social construction aspect yes Rob just uh quickly getting back to Media something that struck me was that you know and I I forget how long ago it was that uh Ellen degenerous came out and um you know the the media started portraying you know same-sex relationships in a different light and now today it's much more um well-received you know similarly through many of the things that have been happening in society you know we now start seeing more inter interracial relationships whether it's in commercials or Billboards or whatever the case is and over time that will also become more and more widely accepted and so as far as the socially constructed I I think again you know as it was mentioned earlier by by Carrie um

172what we see in society through our media dictates or helps us to start have those conversations around what is what should be comfortable for us and what should be taboo and uh it's good I'm glad to see that uh you know many of the commercials and media portraying a much more evolved Society okay yes Heather well and and I think if I'm remembering right part of her point I mean it's so constructed because it's not biologically constructed right I mean she was saying that there I mean there's no biological thing that makes us white or black or Asian that we have and we white people primarily have kind of decided what goes in each of those categories and so that it's not something that a DNA test reveals about you because it's not necessarily tied

173to geography or or or whatever it's um that it's it's a it's a construct that was created um to to serve societies well to help societies do what they wanted to do right um so what is the difference between racial Prejudice racial discrimination and racism anybody wants to tackle that one well I think I touched on that earlier right I mean that that yeah and what I did appreciate was that she said like and and don't feel bad about the fact that you have Prejudice or discriminate because like the way our brains work you couldn't not kind of have Prejudice and discriminate because that's how we go about about our daily life right but ultimately racism is a societal thing is what I got from the book it's not necessarily an individual but it's the

174rules and regulations and everything that comes out of society or governments and other powerful organizations that that dictate how we treat people who are in some eyes considered less to keep the authority and the power in the hands of those that currently have it right you know I thought it was interesting because they talked about you know you said the difference between prejudice and discrimination racism and Rob obviously hit the nail on the head that she describes racism as being more systematic being more of a societal you know construct but really I there was an interesting line in here that highlighted that discrimination is action based on Prejudice so you know Prejudice might be more of your thoughts your feelings your your kind of your your own personal construct of how you how you make

175sense in the world but then that discrimination piece is your actions as it relates to it and um you know the biggest difference and depending on where your Prejudice lie your discrimination can potentially change right exactly and that's yep the Prejudice is an individual's you know thoughts discrimination is more based on individual acts but racism can't be you know it's it's out there regardless of the individual um what do the author mean when there's no such thing as Reverse Racism uh what I took from that was just that it is it is strictly against people of color like to to turn it around what uh Nick was just pointing out that um to take action to specifically try to hire uh African-Americans or or people of other descent could be perceived by some to be

176Reverse Racism that they wouldn't we wouldn't be promoting or or hiring a white teacher who was equally qualified and it's it's not Reverse Racism because we're we're seeking out a different perspective but we're not it it cannot be against a white person was her point right and I think it had to do right with the power like what they talked about like that that that to your point you have to be like people who are in power are the ones who have the power to make a decision that changes things and so I think I think about there are similar conversations about sexism and you know and you certainly can be prejudiced as a woman against men you can discriminate as a woman against men but that sexism similarly is about a power Dynamic I

177think so I think it would be a similar sort of it's about a power Dynamic so that makes well and she sense yeah she gave the example that white women got got the right to vote but it was white men who granted them that right yeah they couldn't they couldn't Grant it to themselves right yeah and I think that in the end I mean that's what I got both out of kend's book and um this this book with D'Angelo is that it has to be white people that eliminate racism um it's it's not something that can just happen among the minority population um it's got to be something that white people take affirmative action to to stamp out and recognize recognizing it as the number one what did you think of that bird cage metaphor

178um illustrating the oppression you know that's you know where you step back and you see the bird and you can see that it's inside the bars but if you go really close you see the bird and you don't see the bars and you can say Well it must it must be just want to where it's at it's not being you know we get so close to a situation as white people that we don't recognize that there's obstructions for to the minorities and keeping them in the places that they're at or keeping them from aspiring or ascending I guess it actually made me think Jamie you know we've talked a little bit about maybe having having an equity audit done and I think it's it's a similar case for that that sometimes people who are in

179The District are just too close to to it like so the analogy here we're too close to the bird cage you kind of need someone to come in who isn't that close and who can look at the situation from a little bit of an Outsiders perspective to get a better sense for the actual situation um but yeah okay I appreciate that that Viewpoint there um and then jumping down to number eight uh there was a statement she quoted quotes that race is the child of racism not the father and it's that chicken and egg which one came first but um do you tend to agree with coot statement that race is the child of racism and not the father I think it goes back to that original construct that racism is created by the by

180Society it's in place purely to maybe benefit one group over another and so therefore without having that place there would be no need to think about race but uh it's in place and so therefore it's kind of that racism was happening first and then that automatically became then uh the need to identify people by race in order to implement racism right yeah that's what um Candi um talked about the racism actually starting and he's you know documents the birth uh or the start of racism back to the 14th 15th century just prior to you know slavery um and you know transatlantic um slavery um you know well was in other continents as well but um racism had to be created to justify um the different treatment um now finally and finally um how is the

181author using the term white supremacy because you hear the term white supremacy white privilege and then the name of the book is white fragility which one of the later chapters goes into a lot more about why it's that but um what is the author how is this author using the term white supremacy well the book talks about protecting the processes it describes and obscure the mechanisms of racial inequality and so I mean ultimately you know as Nick was talking about earlier you know before racism was was racism when we were talking about quotes just a second ago you know there were people that had more power and looked for ways to uh take resources from those that were uh not as strong and find ways to keep them away and so when we talk about

182white supremacy we just want to continue ultimately those processes or those means by which we keep those that don't have access to the resources away from them she also spoke about how it kind of set the structure not just you know in the west but but globally you know and it was kind of how it was uh built that structure around you know where how how how whites were perceived back then okay any other observations on that okay then we'll move on to chapter three which you know talks about racism after the Civil Rights Movement so there's kind of different uh periods obviously you had slavery where uh racism you know at its height in the 1860s you have the Civil War supposedly ends that and gives them um civil rights but as you know

183Jim Crow laws and the white supremacists um allowed blacks to be prevented from having the right to vote and took another hundred years um and actually everyone thinks that civil rights only happened in the 1960s but that was something that definitely was a post World War II it built up over the 50s um and in into the 60s um but the Civil Rights Movement actually started before Martin Luther King um but then just because the Voting Rights Acts passed in ' 65 it didn't didn't mean the end of racism either and so let's talk about what are the what is the impact of white people not knowing our racial history Bob um I I think it's you know this is you know after civil rights but like you said obviously began earlier than that I

184I think it's it's um an opportunity to look at what we don't know about black racial or racial history um I never learned much about the the Tulsa Race Massacre from 1921 um a lot of black people were unaware of it and it took a HBO uh series called The Watchmen just recently to open people's eyes and say what's that about and start researching and now all of a sudden that is a uh you know like our country has kind of embraced that and is like looking back and and studying that as far as you know the segregate yourself you know the black community made did what they you pulled themselves up by their bootstraps like we're all told everybody should you know they created their own Banks and businesses and and and commerce and

185you know the reaction of uh the white locals at that time was pretty disastrous but it's just when you say I just think it's very interesting that that just happened this year that this new interest in something from 1921 that we we never I never learned about it in school and right and uh and I read something you know um I think uh numerous things about that how important that was for uh black people that we're also not aware of that right so it's it's it's the education it's how we you know winners write the history that kind of thing um it's very interesting right yeah or juneth June yes that's what the juneth that's what that was tied to yeah I think the uh well you know I saw the reference to black history

186month is February but you know should we be having just black history month or should we be having black history semester um course semester long courses where we get into more detail about you know other than the I Have a Dream speech and Lincoln's Getty Berg address that's pretty much the extent of um our um you know Black Culture education in back in the 70s when I was in high school but um what is colorblind RAC racism and why is it problematic uh I if I can speak to that I would say um she's making the point that it doesn't matter if I'm white you're black you're Brown uh we're all the same we all you know we all have value uh but it does matter what my history is what your perspective is and

187we need to recognize that which that was kind of most eye openening for me that I don't consider I haven't considered people's history and perspective and their culture and how that's different and how their aspirations are different and and that's okay and that was kind of talking about the Melting Pot too that succeeding is becoming part of the white success story so that that's for me okay I I think U I like car's point you know about the Mel melting uh pot because um it's sort of like uh it shall be written that if you melt into the big pot then you'll be just like us the the white uh social structure um and it's sort of like it's a safe place to go just melt into the pot and be part of be an

188American for first and and so on and yet you know the balance here is finding your own self- distinction um and also being part of the wherever you're living you know in this case the unit America North America that's another one North America we're North Americans um yeah it's just it's like you got to be thinking about these inconsistent IES all the time I mean we we need to in our curriculum and and uh how we conduct our businesses aboard but it's it's really just hard to get your head to to get out of wherever it's at right now in terms of our a preferential position as white people and the only time I think about that is when I have to fill out a form except now I think it says Caucasian that check

189so any other problems with uh color blind racism I I really appreciate sue the fact that you mentioned you know the Melting Pot and as an artist you know when you melt and combine colors you don't come up with white you get totally neutral right and but but and that's why people identifying their head white as being neutral but what we need to learn and get our heads around is that white is the construct of no White's at the top and it's better than anybody that has color so if you say I'm just blind I treat everybody no matter what their color or skin the same you're kind of denying that the social construct has already been in place for six centuries that um makes white people you know quote unquote Supreme even whether you

190consciously say it it's it's still there you know you don't have to test for covid if to say that if there's nobody tests for covid then there's there would all the covid cases would go away it's the same thing with racism if we just deny that it's there um and treat everyone quote unquote the same I don't see race it doesn't mean that it's still not there well and I know um someone um someone I know recently quoted um Dr Martin Luther King's you know his his famous speech about you know the day when I'll be judged not by the color of my skin but by the content of my character he doesn't say nobody will know what color I am or talk about he just says like there's something more than my color that

191that people will look at but but I think it's an in addition to you know so I like the story in the book that she called out about when she was co- facilitating with someone and it was a a black man I think and someone in the group said well I don't even I didn't even notice you were black basically and the guy kind of you know called BS and said well I don't believe that and it's not okay with me like I want you to notice that I'm black because that's part of who I am um but I think there is um I think there there's this a a a a a belief that's very permeable and in you know in our community here about like it's better to to not see race and

192just treat everyone the same and and as if you are blind to color and don't notice it when I think at least a lot of the points she makes is that that's actually not real like that we have to acknowledge what we know notice and talk about it and value it and listen to people's stories and think about how we respond um what why does the author say that white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color what we've call if that was the part where you know she was just kind of talking about how again you're kind of you know placing um you know situational like you know don't live in that location you you know don't don't if you move into this if you're going to be a teacher here I

193would stay away from this location or that location so they're they're kind of um I don't recall if that's what she was referencing there but I you know it seemed to me like that it's kind of a a theme in the in the chapter anyway that talked a little bit about that so I think again they're not necessarily um internalizing it they just are are you know living their lives and thinking you know just kind of that they're not necessarily putting people in different positions but but yet they they are they're just doing it kind of uh unconsciously right I think one of the things that white progressives cause daily harm is their denial of you know racism they they they know it's wrong and everything but they they don't want to admit that there's

194implicit bias and that failure to recognize that and call it out for what it is I think ends up just perpetuating it's a reason why you know we haven't made big St Ides in civil rights in you know since you know I was you know a kindergartener I I remember the Weekly Reader and you know reading about Martin Luther King what did it take it took 20 years uh roughly 20 years after his death for his to get a holiday and but these little that that's a tiny progress being made um I think it's a positive thing but yet when we've done something like that it's like okay now we' made a national holiday for MLK so now we can go on to other things we don't have to talk about racism anymore um we

195got to the point where we did in the 60s only because of Television you know um if there had been television back in the 1870s and 1880s in the post Civil War when people were being lynched by the dozens and some cases you know hundreds um it would have ended um even sooner but it was kind of something that happened down there people heard rumors about it but as long as it stayed down there and didn't come up north but wasn't it duth that had kind of the a lynching that was like less than a hundred years ago or about a 100 years ago oh I think in their Mano right okay there was one in Mano also but duth had one in in kind of relatively modern history yeah right right yeah whe whether

196it was Mako or duth yes you're that that's kind of the point is that you don't need that kind of Extreme Action U but yet once we showed the violence that was associated with it then finally there was affirmative action taken um but then after we got complacent if you will and now we still have uh you can it's funny reading these books and they mention the black people who have been killed whether it's police brutality or in other means um and yet nothing has gotten done yet um and so it takes I think some white progressives are going to have to um get there but not just white progressiv it's going to have to be all people getting to that point anything else as we I do think you know Jame as you mentioned

197media you know she runs down that list of kind of control over the Hollywood and the this and the that which I I do then wonder about how different it is coming now because of social media and I mean the just just the videos of recent things that are happening that are easily shared as one but I also think about you know my 14-year-old and those of you who have teenage kids and the content that she sees like on Tik Tock and other places that the playing Field's kind of been leveled like it's easier for people who maybe come from communities without a lot of power to get their voice out there and get things shared um so she's actually got a lot of interesting perspectives that she shares and sometimes I raise my eyebrows

198but um you know I think I think that it'll be interesting to see how that plays out with with that generation with not the 20s somethings now but the teens now as they are growing up in this world where a lot of the media they consume is not Hollywood movies but it's this peer produced stuff um I think it'll be interesting to see what what what perspectives they come through with right and whether or not they act differently I guess that's that's the important part right whether they act differently than most of us do I I don't know if there's a subsequent chapter later chapter on the impact of social media but that would be a whole another thing because I think an AR argument could be made that racism has gotten worse uh in

199the last couple years with social media and the keyboard courage that people have um it's become almost acceptable in some areas to to convey what our racist thoughts even though they don't La label them that way that that's still what they are you're right everybody's got more access to voice not just not just these communities that previously have not yeah yeah why does the author consider young white people today this goes to the point that you just made hether to be no less racist than the white people of you know the 1800s or the four 18 the 1950s and why why are young people no less racist today well young people generally speaking just again reading through the book you know they look at the election of Barack Obama and some of the progress that

200has been made and I would think they they would suggest that racism is behind us you know in their experience and seeing everything around them that there's according to the book um two too much emphasis that's being put on Race relation race relations and other issues from a societal standpoint and if if that truly is their opinion you know that'll just continue to push us down uh a really bad path you know it's that denial of racism that things are better today than they were and why do we continue to focus on race when it's not an issue from their perspective do you think part of that is the failure of today's young people to appreciate and understand U you know the history of our country how we've treated blacks how we've treated Native Americans

201I wonder though I wonder Jamie If instead it goes back to kind of what we started with that you know it used to be you know pre- Civil Rights era it used to be that racism was about someone like openly saying you know I don't think blacks are as good as I don't want my kids mixing I mean that open and I think about our kids now who would just kind of say well race doesn't matter like you know um um lgbtq that doesn't matter you know I mean like we but but not recognizing then that this this piece about power so even if you as a kid can say I'll be friends with whoever like look at we elected a black I'll vote for whoever but not recognizing that there's still you know a

202a system in place that no matter how nice they might be or how friendly they might be to other people of other races it still is harder for those folks to get done what's what's easier for them so I wonder if that's part of it if it really does get back to that whole a racist to be a racist used to mean that you would openly say you know that you that you felt that way you can't deny your uh a race just because you don't use the nword in everyday speech or whatever that's yeah any other thoughts then as we get through the first third of of the book and um I like how the chapters build on each other uh so far and um yeah look forward to discussion now the the time

203of Truth who who's going to lead next month no I contact yeah I want to see a volunteer yeah with with masks on it's easier to just look at the eyes I'll do it all right thanks Rob all right we've got our leader for chapters four five and six then uh with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so second all those in favor say I I I those oppos nay we are adjourned