001All right and then his Kate she's gonna be wondering oh I thought you're in Japan I'm just get myself situated here all right my name is Anandi this is the construction work group and I'm calling this meeting to order at 501 no public comments tonight so we're moving into the first item and our agenda is the update regarding the superintendent search yeah so just a quick update of the VWP consultants were here last week they did numerous focus groups and it was a success I talked to them this weekend you talked to a lot of people they got a lot of really good feedback surveys are coming in - people are filling out that survey and so they will be coming to report back to the board on the 11th next Monday we they're gonna
002try to have the report done before the meeting so that we can take a look at it but it's if they do have it done it's gonna be really close to the meeting so but we'll have time to talk about it on the 11th they'll do a presentation for us go through it and then we can answer any questions if anything comes up during our discussion on the 11th or even afterwards they can include that in the report as well so and the survey is open - I think the survey is I'm not sure if it's still open is it yes and Chris you I don't know if you want to share with the board your perspective I'd I could not attend any of the forums but for anybody who wants to feel free to
003report out how you were able to attend yeah I was able to attend the LaFollette listening session it was fantastic and I probably will keep my comments back until we have the full discussion about it on the 11th but sharing it was really valuable they did a great job great any questions okay and so like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes from April first instructional work group so second all those in favor say aye aye meaning minutes approved and we're ready to start the presentation thank you very much Lisa 16 I will say that we least have prepared the presentation have as much external information as possible so there is link into that we hold up to some some questions and to the pause and then kind of facilitate the questions in that
004way all right thanks Anandi so tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the human growth and development curriculum and the work that we're doing around the proactive strategies in the curriculum and the planning we have patty Schafer with us tonight who's our director of stem in the curriculum and instruction department and then next to me is Ashley Riley our physical education health and wellness coordinator so thanks to both of these folks for joining us tonight so we're going to give you a bit of an overview before we start of how we're going to sort of design a scope and sequence about this over the next five months anand and i talked about this a little bit early and we wanted to be sure we kept the instructional work groups manageable but also responded
005to the so tonight you'll hear about the curriculum around human growth and development and the proactive work as I said then during the instructional work group on February 3rd jf Feld is going to come and present a mid-year update on the BEP implementation and he'll share a little bit more about the reactive strategies that we're implementing or developing and then finally during the instruction of work group on March 2nd we'll do a little bit deeper dive into policies and practices related to bullying title 9 and then sexual assault response so there's two more meetings after this justkeep asian prepared for you in the next five months so with that I will turn it over to Ashley and patty and we'll get started hello everyone so today we are here to provide an update of the
006current status of human growth and development and MMSD and then also outline next steps or continuing to support with implementation of instruction first we're going to start with just providing an overview of the policy and requirements for human growth and development then we will move to a description of the previous human growth and development Advisory Council work and then update some recommendations from the committee and then show progress to date and next steps that we have for instruction so this is start and give some context into kind of the work that we're doing here in MMSD really it follows from state statutes and one statute in particular really highlights the expectations from the state level around instruction and this goes above and beyond what we would see in other content areas overall so we kind
007of hold some the language from the statute here but if you want to read the full language that's why we provided the link on this slide but all for all statute 118 zero one nine really gives us some things to think about in terms of what we actually are school boards around guiding the work at the school district level regarding the human growth and development instruction in grades K through 12 sites on the need for the instruction to be medically accurate and thinking about the information that's provided making sure that it's age-appropriate for your students so really at thinking about a wide range of the skills that we want to highlight through our human growth and development ships and the connection to the resources related specifically to survivors of sexual abuse and assault overall and
008that last part again pulling some the language and really thinking about ensuring that our approach to instruction in the classroom and the materials that we're using aren't discriminatory for any of our students all right so just to capture some key bullet points around what human growth and development learning looks like in MMSD the three bola do sit for all students and this comes in several different ways but you see the first actually three bullet points look at supporting students who are transgender non-binary or gender expression two years ago hope has created the guidance for policies to support students and then also we have a separate best practices document for specifically human growth and development that goes out to health teachers around like things such as when we talk about families that we're talking about all
009different sorts of families not just one specific type and in different relationships as well as just body parts in a sense of being inclusive we also have connecting to the elementary level having lessons that include a lot of human growth and development skills and concepts but also through that lens of inclusive for all students and then lastly the the fourth sub bullet point is that we are encouraging health education teachers to continue to collaborate with cross categorical special ed teachers as well as BRTS bilingual resource teachers and ESL in order to make sure that our curriculum is accessible for all students the second bullet point is just making sure that we are focusing on skills based instruction this is moving to a concept where information alone is not enough to change behavior so the thought
010is is that we need to not only talk about functional health knowledge but through the sense of practicing skills that lead to better health literacy for students and then the last one is just to continue to look at developing partnerships in the community around supporting consent culture through different community organizations so Ashland highlighted in those points ways in which that first statute that we highlighted are being enacted and how we're responding to that here I'm another statute that is important to the work that we've done around human growth and development over the last few years is in regards to the expectation that a school district actually work with an appointed committee in looking at human growth and development curriculum and instruction in our school district and so with that in mind as most of what
011we're looking at is what's come about in somewhat recent times through developing a committee here in Tennessee so in the spring of 2018 the board approved the committee so as petty of saying that the members of this committee there's a very specific formula as far as what dpi calls out as far as who needs to be on the committee how much help how much representation of different areas such as staff community members clergy families students things like that we met three times and that was May two meetings in May and then June of 2018 and the outcomes for those three sessions were we developed a human growth and development position statement for the district just kind of laying out this is what we believe human growth and development curriculum recommendations and then some priority actions
012that we're going to take a look at in a second for implementation and strengthening human growth and development in MMSE is the communication it was doing we tell it was three meetings and we in one of our next steps we do talk about bringing the committee back up but it hasn't met since then all right and if you would this slide I not necessarily read word for word but this is our position statement so I will read the vision through our human growth and development program all students are empowered to reach their full potential as healthy and safe individuals and then we have the mission statement there too just talking about that we need to provide knowledge skills and resources for students to achieve that vision and in partnership with families and community and I
013had mentioned before that there was six priority areas or focus actions that the committee had called out when we were looking at our needs and our hopes for where we want to be as a district and curriculum to make sure that it is medically accurate aligning with what Patti shared earlier age-appropriate inclusive nonstick stigmatizing and skills-based the second point was to make sure which is linked to the first is just making sure that it's inclusive for all students especially what we heard from the students that it needed to include students of all identities and not that it was just focused on certain individuals third bullet point looking at quality professional development for teachers nurses and administrators that involve or that that involves students as well so just that ongoing fourth bullet ensuring access to human
014growth and development instructions so that could be looking at structures and where health education is being instructed and just what that looks like fifth one provide acts of excuse me provide students with access to school and community resources around sexual health here and then and then the sixth bullet develop communication tools for families not only for themselves knowing about the curriculum but then also like we need help on this topic how do I talk to my about that this first slide looks like this is the speculum and the professional learning for teachers so we some of this we've mentioned about the moving from content-based to skills based opportunities in the classroom so that students are practicing the skills necessary not just talking about what certain things are or mean but actually practicing skills such as
015interpersonal communication or decision-making goal-setting things like that we have developed a for K through 12 sequential learning progression that outlines per grade level what are the main learning outcomes and those are all based on standards the health education standards the national sexuality standards sexual health standards as well as some other resources that we brought in we have I mentioned before created the guidance for inclusive human growth and development in partnership with Sudan then partnering with the rape crisis center and days as guest speakers and classes and for PD for teachers next steps definitely wanting to continue to dive deeper into consent culture we had a PD for secondary teachers this school year during welcome back bless you and then inclusive human growth and development and sexual abuse as well we also want to focus on
016on this continued support to health education teachers not just those touch points with PD but how are we supporting teachers along the way and then establish a system for monitoring progress for implementation with these learning outcomes all right so then these actions and next steps have to do with the structures in supporting human growth and development so I mentioned before we establish the vision at different districts we noticed that that was something that a lot of districts have is just kind of like oh we believe or this is what the main purpose is making sure that we have resources for health education for all grade levels for K through high school and we started to work a lot more closely with Student Services in the last couple years to really look at how is school
017nurses social workers like school psychologists and health teachers all kind of working together to better that instruction for students next steps continue that collaboration we have also talked about reconvening the human growth and development Advisory Council where we can kind of look at next steps as far as curriculum resources and then scheduling support across school schools specifically in the middle schools and then increasing student voice in strengthening health education resources and supports in the last priority or kind of clumped together but the family connections so so far we have updated the sorry we included student and family voice in the human group and updated the language in the district policy guides for families that talk about human growth and development so that they align with our the learning outcomes so they're updated and then next
018we talked about having not only resources available for parents around the curriculum and have that consistent across schools but then also websites for other resources that families may want to access so just the close of what we have for you if you're looking for some more information to better like see where some of this comes from an address that's intentially some questions the DPI website has some great fa Q's there that we think are very informed informational around sort of state guidelines and expectations around human growth and development and then actually also shared here the specific positions statement right so we reference it on our earlier slide progression that came out from the committee's work when they had convened I guess a little over a year but actually daddy I hope I appreciate that like
019the framing that you know talking about what is compliant and having the links there so people see what is what is required of us and then how the implementation like what is a day-to-day of limitation happens and today we're talking about those proactive next steps structures there's more that we're going to scaffold that presentation and the next few instructions but if we can have conversation about what we have presented today I'll be really helpful Nikki you had yeah yeah so I think there are components of what you're talking about that are inconsistent with our practices right so our dress code um doesn't doesn't align with some of values you're speaking to so we're talking if we're talking about consent if we're talking about kind of equal access a space that is inclusive of folks and
020expensive relationships that their gender with a series of practices that actually undermine that and I think we need to examine that pretty closely I am curious about practices particularly in early childhood around learning about puberty I'm also curious about the word age-appropriate versus developmentally appropriate and and so I think a age appropriate is a is a strange generalization I'd like us to get away from it within education and actually talk about what's developmentally appropriate because that allows for us to interact with the individual right so one six-year-old comes in a very different place than another six-year-old in terms of its development may appropriate as far as exposure and that being said I think age-appropriate also kind of leans towards certain conservative value stats right which is that these parts of the body are not things
021that kids need to be able to describe them because they're not old enough right exactly they have about and they use it and they should be able to reference it and also be able to talk confidently about the way other people come into contact with their bodies or navigate their bodies and so how are we empower curious because I'm like we're listening to kind of this full scale like K through 12 approach and you go to school here and so I'm like how how has your how has your experience been shaped by these ideas in terms of human growth and development and sex ed so I was just like wondering about like online health and just like how you guys are planning on like making sure that you're talking about like making sure like that
022people who are in online I was like don't have the experience of like actually getting to interact with a member from an RCC institution or something like that so how are you guys planning on like making sure that people are really learning about consent when they're participating um and then also like about education about like knowing who your title nine officers are in schools because that's really an issue I see at like around the district and at Memorial because like we don't really learn about like the process of reporting a sexual assault in health classes which on I hope is something that like you guys might address in the future can I ask are you all still segregating students based on gender in fourth grade and fifth grade to talk about puberty no our practice
023is that they're not separated between gender because of when you have a student that's non-binary where do someone go where do they does that student go there were some questions before yeah we all had like some reactions to Ali and then some reactions to any takes what I want to directly address the question around age-appropriate versus developmentally appropriate I really appreciate that we were using the term because it comes directly from the state staff to do it I think it's certainly something that yeah we can not only adjust but then really think about the impact of how does using different language imply write different actions because I think that's right like it's both right not only using a different term but actually that then informing your practice so I think that's something we really want
024to think about and certainly an opportunity as Nicky had asked earlier about whether or not that committee had still remained active in reconvening and really addressing that - what not how becoming committee I think I'm Ashley speak a little bit - who actually didn't highlight some upcoming work of looking at the online how of course that any NGO asks about for those who who might not be familiar or high schools in particular is where online health becomes more accessible or a way of kind of completing some health requirements for students not because it's the only time but that's the most prevalent so students in completing the half credit required for graduation may choose to do it in an online setting and all that actually speak a little bit to what we what we're working under
025that so current ways that students can achieve online health for their credit is through NBC which is a curriculum that's not necessarily but not it's a it's a non light option that's available to some students we are trying to expand that to create our own where we have a team that's together right now of three teachers we meet in two weeks where we're bringing together to create our own online curriculum that's directly aligned with the health education in the class I heard from Memorial students in the teal Riven Club was that their online experience didn't match some of these things and that we wanted to make sure that we weren't sending even completely different messaging because I think some students can online class than NBC and then get their transcripts transferred in so the idea
026was is how can we provide opportunities for students that do want to take online health but that it aligns to our the curriculum and his skills based instead of knowledge based or content based yeah so that's to come this year and the goal is is that next year will be the first time that we offer you're taking the class with our own health teachers teaching it but in an online format and to address the second piece we had a welcome-back professional development for secondary health teachers and that was part of the PD around the making sure that our students know who the title 9 lays on is and just the process of what that looks like and that was kind of the process but is to clarify that and Student Services is doing a lot
027of that work with legal as well but that was one of our points that we need to make sure that health education is not just talking about the skills and the knowledge and information but also connecting to the resources in the in the school and then also in the community so when you guys are like I'm going back to like the slide earlier in the presentation when you're talking about like providing resources to like students and tools and regard slick sexual and reproductive health does that mean like providing free contraception that all schools are providing like through mentor or products out like all schools and three middle schools or like what do you guys mean by that but the side was is I get is it you said that was one of the six bullets
028I think in the sixty points what that was intended was is that we in our health education curriculum or connecting students with resources in the community so if a student is wanting to know about testing or they want to go find contraception that we are helping bridge that gap or helping raise awareness there's another take to that but I think that's beyond like this so I think overall what you read but connecting to the resources is really thinking about making sure that students should know where to access either whether it be information or right like physical kinds of resources and support that they would need it goes a bit beyond the scope of looking at it from a curriculum and instruction standpoint that's something yeah and hugging you can let's go I mean I can
029that's what I was going to share that a lot of those things I think are done in a different I mean when I think of the menstrual products I know that we receive I think those donations or something we're free menstrual products and then I would I would have to get more information on it and get back to but as far as the school nurses go as far as getting those products out to students so maybe we need some suggestions on how to make sure that students are aware say that like you have people earners like if we put that I'm gonna get help us have you taken you have to find it out thank you from some student services staff to see live how that actually as far as disseminating those products and stuff
030but as far as contraception I know there's the pilot of providing contraceptive counseling and handing out condoms but something that the anika mminton made me think about how do we so you know one of the things and I think that you all have heard me say like around my frame I think there is a the things that are were mandated to do there's the plan and they're in the same connotation and in the implementation is we're in a practice is where I feel much stronger about having the cops your experience what's happening what what can be better if I in and oh no I have a teenager who is actually a health advocate for teens so she has had experience with teachers giving inaccurate information around just health and around Pacific particular women's bodies can
031you share a little bit like when when Anika or her friends or my daughter and her friends like you're experiencing somebody's like this does not feel right what like what ways in which ways that they can advocate who they go to to say like I heard this in my class or this is this is going on what are the sort of the places where students can have their voices heard that is that is last like let's go to the principal kind of situation so I think a couple of things come to mind first and foremost I think it's actually important particularly because I think we're speaking at the high school level there I think maybe not in the whole classroom setting because that can be confrontational right and it can escalate and that's not the
032direction I want to go but to me it's important for the teacher reyga's first and foremost we want the teacher to be better informed and to better practice and so I think there are ways that students can bring it up with a teacher that doesn't always go right in the direction it's hard to bring up something to someone that has a power over your grade I agree so that is under than I think it depends like what is the like extent of what we're talking about right we're kind of talking in a general sense that would be my first like what I would encourage a student to do if that doesn't feel like the right next direction I mean but the principal is the one who's right working with the teacher to ensure that they're
033meeting students needs so a principal I think needs to also be in a conversation that might be otherwise like who is someone you trust in the school right so we have school nurses and other like even office who might be a first adult to talk with that the student has a relationship with because its first and foremost like making sure that the school right is aware of that question or concern and write inaccurate lessons being provided in that classroom because it's impacting more than an individual student then it's that scale I think our office right so I believe actually is always open to like Don working we're students I'm thinking with students so I think there's a number of adults at the school who would but we would also then work with around that but
034first and foremost maybe we will also want schools to be aware and work to help everybody and often they would also write calling us to support so I think again right like it's a matter of the individual student and what concerns they have and who was an adult in the school that they can kind of work away at first I was just going to say you know that we have a policy committee why can't we can we possibly discuss requiring extra products at every middle and high school and possibly with our community partners I know boys girls club has reached out several times on tampon eteri napkin drive stating that the schools are they would be willing to donate and frankly I don't see why we can't just put them in the bathroom so Sadie
035and Chris I had a few comments first um I just want to put out there a lot of appreciation that MMSD is teaching comprehensive sex ed in our schools if you read the state statute it's very focused on abstinence based sex ed and it also looks like any human growth and development is totally optional a School Board may provide an instructional program and keep their growth and development so the fact that we're doing this and that we're doing a comprehensively is great and I just want to let you know how much I appreciate that um I wanted to bring up the Family Partnership idea um I feel like um families could be more involved in human growth I know many schools and PTO s are at back-to-school night or at PTO meetings will have like
036math night because how we're teaching math now is really different from how parents learn math and the idea is that like we get in there and so to speak about how we're teaching multiplication tables and then they can teach their hope their kids the right way at home why aren't we doing that for human growth and development how I learned him in growth and development is really different than what we're doing right now and I think parents would be overjoyed if about the school nights already eto makings we sat down and said here's how we're teaching consent here's how we're defining consent because you know nobody in my generation got consent based sex ed you know so I think that would be enormous ly helpful in terms of trying to address rape culture and the
037district like let's get the whole family about let's get the whole community involved um I read through the yeah I just would add that when we brought the human growth and development committee together that was something like in that that one bullet around the family connections that was brought up - it's like it's maybe having some district level professional learning spaces first for families to be able to come in to learn more about kind of like an example like there's a the vaping one right now where parents can go learn more about vaping and so not on obviously a different topic but just some places district-wide or maybe by attendance area where parents could come I would really have to Kate for doing at school about school oh because teacher prepares to get there if
038you do it at back-to-school night you've got an audience then I would have totally gone to a session on that thank you oh my I printed out and read the topics and learning outcomes for okay yeah okay yeah for K through 12th grade and I did notice reading them that there's a fair amount of mention of consent at the elementary level and then it disappears at the middle and high school level and yet in your presentation you talked about trying to get more consent based education into the curriculum so I just wanted to know how the district is defining consent and how we're working that into the health curriculum especially at the middle and high school levels so the middle school learning progression and the high school learning progressions were developed a couple years ago
039one of the next steps bringing that committee back is to look at that specifically because last year I working with student services we really tried to strengthen that with the four k5 because of resources that were being shared with schools so that is definitely on the radar as far as needing to strengthen language because although all of the secondary health teachers got air had some professional learning around consent culture it's it I agree with you of what you see in there it needs to be what we need to make sure that we have the right people at the table to continue strengthening those learning outcomes you know building on that one of the things I noticed in the the learning outcomes was that the communication skills are very focused on refusal skills and consent is
040not about refusal skills consent is actually about asking for permission not saying though zone away from the word permission yeah it was open - I would say consent is about sharing thanks that's much better like girls give boys permission oh I didn't think of that but yeah gotta get away from the gender stuff um I wondered I'm curious how many students or families on their students out of human growth and development and why is there a rough percentage or is it very very few or I won't be able to give you like that I know the exact answer I can share my experience some teachers my six years teaching high school health I had two parents opt out those in a different district so just I'm just sharing kind of like a guide and then
041there's it's it's a few I would have to say like six maybe a summit like it's hard to tell like per teacher or I don't that's the bad estimate too it's not sex but it's a very small amount I just I would have to ask the school teachers the classroom teachers you know obviously by state statute every family has the right to be informed and begin a growth and development curriculum and opt their kids out but I'm also seeing that you know we also inform my parents about welcoming schools and it similarly there's a note a lot of overlap between the two and some of the skills were teaching in there which is just about acceptance and preventing bullying and good communication skills that may have nothing to do with sex education their kids out
042of that do we make sure that kids who do opt out of human growth and development still get those just essential communication and life skills that are about tolerance and inclusion and not necessarily about sex and sexuality one of the recommendations that would be to teachers that they have a student that apps out or they write a letter to either the teacher or the principal is to contact that family to find out like what specifically are they looking to opt out of because for that reason exactly is that a lot of this stuff a lot of the lessons are are the are could be for for K through five welcoming schools lessons or talking about people with different identities or families and friendships and and so it may not be that they just may think
043human growth and development and think my first grader can't learn girl you know like they may just be thinking a certain thing so the encouraging the communication to first say like well here here's our learning outcomes is there something specific that you would like your child to be opt-out of so that way it's not like we're pulling everything thanks for like one or two lessons in the Schools program um but I just wanted to speak to the fact that welcome schools doesn't just live within the human growth and development it is also incorporated into a lot of different academic areas that's incorporated into the cells learning and all of that so yes this is one area that we're incorporating it but it's not the only so if a family were to choose to out of
044human growth and development they are still getting welcoming schools lessons in other areas as well if that if the school has time to embrace that and that's something that they're doing that's really helpful Thanks and then I said one more point which was to echo what Anika said about online health I know that one option at least for online health is you take it through another school district and one of my kids did that and I don't think there was any chemicals and development in the online class because you don't have to so I appreciate that we're going to be doing our own curricula myself and more importantly for kids who have done or do online health through another district other ways to incorporate this information into other classes so they don't miss it that's
045a great suggestion about the end I think they know that yeah so I want to stress that there are areas in which I think you all are really pushing us forward there are only there two states in the united states that require sex ed to be medically accurate wisconsin is not one of them and so anytime medically accurate came up that's your leadership and i greatly appreciate it the other thing I want to say is I really appreciate your words a north of Sheree in terms of making sure LGBTQ students are you know thought of and given an environment in which they're accepted and they can see themselves as people with families because it's really important in the impact of feeling discriminated against at school is devastating and so you all are working really hard
046and I recognize that and appreciate it greatly I think it's complicated to refer to our state statute given you know that Waunakee has abstinence only sex ahead and I think that what we probably want to do is look towards best practices and I think that's a lot of what you all have done but I think there are areas to strengthen in terms of the best practices and so I don't think we think of Anatomy right as as human growth and development that's a science class and so to a certain extent some of this is science we don't let people opt in and out of science for the most part and so I think having that lens of this is about accurate information and to a certain extent D socializing in this growth and development wait
047a second I think somebody individually but D sexualizing human growth and development and think we as humans and development science-based is also beneficial to the LGBTQ community which is hyper sexualized and constantly associated with sex and sexuality versus you know humanity and an expansive relationship with one's body and ability to navigate one's body the other things I think are specific to human growth and development are just things like why do you learn to drive at the age of 15 or 16 well it's because your hand-eye coordination Peaks at that point in your life right and so being able to tie this to a variety of understanding of the way the human body works is is relevant to our ability to do this well I think as far as consent culture goes or consent based education
048I think you all are kind of in the embassy infancy of that work and I think we as a nation are in the infancy of that conversation so I wanna I guess let you all know because I know the people I'm sitting up here with that we would support you wholeheartedly you got anything you want to do to make sure kids understand how to navigate informed consent and understand you know their rights to their bodies and so please be ambitious and bold and look to best practices and please look to states that have far better standards than ours because I talk about the LGBTQ community across the state and we have a long way to go in comparison to places all over the yes I think your suggestion was one of the most wholesome and
049I could could think of in terms of wanting parental involvement I think there is a need to be cautious in terms of involving parents because I think there are some parents who are really excited and really want to know that there are some parents who would be interested in policing the gender not only if their student or thought of all their students or police do not have their students what about their students and so I think that in building trust with students we need to do things in as mindful a way as possible and I think you all are doing a great job of that I think creating something that parents or family members or community members cannot fit into is great but I think best practices it's not outing students is not you know
050yeah is making your school a safe place for the student to learn and that is our real response but letting our real responsibility is not making sure the teacher gets to where they need to be or the parent gets to where they need to be making sure like our young people have the ability to navigate their own dignity and respect for others in order to create Safe Schools and well informed young people and so I think you know I think you all are doing of prioritizing and moving forward and I hope you feel supported by the Lord and know that we appreciate your work to really save you yeah thank you you know I've heard multiple stories from students and parents about a particular students human growth and development interfering with their own academic performance
051elsewhere and so to what extent it does are like professional development of staff help staff respond to that and developmentally and effective and empathetic manner in to Ally's point to what extent can we in the human growth and development content into other courses - like science courses or social studies or English to make that concept more interactive and relevant to a student's life and then - and we you know make sure that we are amplifying that there are student support services and classrooms for students as well as are the points and questions any thoughts or just things yeah I'm sure I think so I wrote down there was a couple there's a lot of pain right there's some kind of like I was gathering yeah great I think some of our were right that we
052highlighted here is a little bit new and emerging in terms of shifting practice particular around health education in k5 well for k5 around right like the updates to the learning progression right so working to ensure that there are resources and supports for teachers there and we know over the last few years that each of our elementary schools has really some ways of approaching the human growth and development component we really health education broadly out there school that works best for the staff and collaborations whether it be with a school in ours working with those teachers to plan for their lessons and or also sometimes coming in and helping to deliver those lessons so in many cases that what we'll find particularly the elementary level is there is a lot of already incorporating some of the
053learning in with other content areas and we actually effort if they're promoting not only from the lens of health education but across all content areas because we know that learning really isn't sort of isolated experience for students that I'm learning to read by thanks to them and some of those science lessons might naturally connect to some of the things that I write and for me learning around health education and understanding either my own body or my family or other aspects of that it starts to become a little bit more complex as we enter into the secondary setting where we have sort of departmentalization zuv teaching responsibilities overall and some of the work I think that's happening and I'll highlight now I've actually at the high school level is for some students if you're in the
054health services pathway that's now in its third year place where teachers are collaborating and actually we have two our health educators from two abouts high schools working in support of their tenth grade pathways team and that's where their health education course is and they're looking at ways to batter bills I can also go speak to and actually early echo part of what we have seen also happen though even outside of the 10th grade in the 9th and 11th grades with that particular pathway and again largely because of the theme of the pathway already some of the ideas that were emerging with the 9th grade team as they were beginning all right so a couple of years ago when they were first preparing to implement they were looking at some of the things that they didn't
055identify originally as health education components that we were working on and so we were making sure that that was in alignment and supporting a full learning progression at the high school level it's becoming a bit complex at right to kind of work across those multiple teacher groups at that school well that's also only a portion of the students in our high schools but that isn't going to likely happen in such a natural way and other pathway themes as easily I'm so figuring out how how might we could have look at that the idea of like where does that how does that look in like in anatomy and physiology course but that course is an elective and usually a junior or senior level for students so how do we really work with it and not have
056duplicate of learning for students because we don't want there to be redundancies but actually complementary learning and I think those ideas are still largely emerging I can speak also to some of our new science curriculum that we're working on in the middle school setting are I think opening up more of those opportunities so I really appreciate you kind of pushing thinking in that way of how do we work to support educators in their thinking across the lines right blurring the lines essentially in the learning in ways that'll help students make more sense of right each of the components of it and something we can look at particularly as or making further updates relates to also thank you for them thank you how much more you and I just add the other groups and areas that
057this intersects is also some schools especially in the middle school have used advisory as a place for some of this work as well as when we talk about social emotional learning and the ACP curriculum at the middle school level there's a lot of blending where goal-setting is one of the health education standards and also with ACP and so so it's there's a lot of connections and we have started to bring more of those different kind of areas of work together make this it's not just health or it's not but it's this overall well-rounded education I appreciate everything all your hard work my question is for those students who are non-verbal how do we teach condition called heart consulting focuses on curriculum for individuals who are non-verbal I can get you that information to try and
058work at curriculum because oftentimes individuals who are non-verbal or left out of this discussion but just because they can't speak doesn't mean they shouldn't know it and they're directly affected by it just on the menstrual products conversation because we emphasized high school in middle schools and I do think Oh them that we can be pretty honest and just admit that the majority of our chorus is adult folks who identify as time or women and that exposing children to the natural products is like a normal part of life throughout their entire childhood it is okay and also allows for us not just to support our students but a very large number of our staff including unlike I think we as as board member like how often we break given our composition and the different ways that
059we interact with our own bodies right and so I think that yeah I think throughout throughout our schools we can we can take the initiative to make sure people have access to that level of support and that students and also students go through puberty and all kinds of ages right and so I think in elementary school it can it can be particularly supportive and compassionate to normalise administration if you're the first is to get everybody I would I would encourage us to get away from some of the stigma that has informed the idea of a age appropriateness throughout our history so there was one topic that got brought up and I'm not sure maybe there wasn't response was regarding to Joss Cole and that's something that we did hear quite a bit from like in
060emails and from students testimonials I find it extremely appalling there were like it's two in that space for Neary like staff happy losing that policy at their own discretion of what they feel it's appropriate and what's not and found extremely disturbing that a man is deciding how that's gonna work out for this young person so any of you have any like how was that navigating how does that be navigated or any thoughts on that and are you speaking specifically to the dress code policy that is written around PE that the board have a dress code but it doesn't say what so our dress code could be as simple as whether it's appropriate right but that lets open to interpretation there's just so much for bringing us back yeah yeah hey everyone I'm Jay I thought
061I oversee the department I think most of you are aware that last year throughout the year we were in a process of gathering lots and lots of stakeholder input around revising behavior education plan that also included input on the dress code which is a part of the behavior education plan and so we believe that we did make significant improvements to what had I think been a pretty static dress code that was quite outdated with a lot of gendered language that was removed we also met with student advocacy groups at at our high schools to get their input as well and I think we landed on a policy that is much better than it was but our schools are also a wish channel policy that they and I'll use policy loosely there a school can make
062a rule about additional requirements one example of that that we noted is actually in the dress code as the school can choose uniforms which means they have a much different requirement than they do at other schools specific cases where a school has decided to add in a rule that we wouldn't endorse or support but it's you know again for them where they feel that that's a rule that that they're willing to try to enforce so that they believe is important but I think if you look at the updated dress code hopefully you feel it is much better than than what we had in the past and we're always open for input if you feel that there are additional changes that we need to make to that particular part of the policy that is not something
063yeah so I think the flexibility is a complex issue in a way and so I think navigating that requires for all of us to be thoughtful and and not necessarily presumptive and really speak to the necessity of kind of how dress codes are to differentiate it that being said very consistently the people who are reprimanded folks who identify as familes anything of women and the other group that is targeted by dress codes are folks of color right so I've never seen a dress code that targets white guys never seen a dress code that's like no khaki shorts fellows we're not gonna deal with that this year okay so whose bodies are monitored who's like relationship to their hair is monitor is specific and relates to power and so I think what we can look at
064outside of the dress code is who's being reprimanded in sent home and if that is a specific demographic of people that that's discrimination that's using those rules to discriminate against the Civic people the other thing that I've heard from students is that austere aster leggings a student with a different shaped body camper leggings right like so one student in a v-neck maybe isn't as full-figured it's not a big deal another student in the exact same shirt from Old Navy is being told that the clothes are too revealing right and so when when is a the dress code and when is a policing of young people's body honestly like it's hard enough to be a young person and to be developing but then Kappa adults around you you know kind of policing your clothes or policing
065the way you're a postback can still be a bit unnecessary strain in terms of Leonard learning or additional soft consciousness and I think that's what we want to avoid while being sensitive to you know people wanting kids to be prepared for the weather and you know the temperature of the you know the things that come from a place of care and consideration towards others right we don't want a kid to come in wearing like you know a swastika or something like that because it would be disruptive to the safety of other kids and that being said there's a lot there's a lot of nuance to navigate but if we see that the majority of kids who get in trouble for what they're wearing are girls if they're disproportionately girls of color or black girls then
066I think we have to address that effectively and so it would be helpful to have that information right like who we are talking about gets in trouble before the dress code even the new or revised dress code or who gets in trouble using the additional elements it would be be helpful to have it from us so we can have a woman informed conversation so I just we discussed this at length with the you know as them that they did quite a bit of surveying among their peers to sort of gather much of the information that you were just referring to we have surprisingly little gotcha okay um ladies that are documented which makes it really hard for us to track I believe that our policy is in a much better place than it was and
067and I think it would be hard for us to sort of go back to find something there that would allow some of the discrimination that you're referring to so it starts with putting the right policy in place the next one is to then figure out where are we where are we creating inequity and enforcing it and quite often those are informal things where a teacher might mention something to a student there's there's nothing documented it makes the student feel sort of uncomfortable and maybe violated but it's possible then that no one else in the school becomes aware of that and so it comes from our conversations with students and out of that sometimes come certain trends and patterns of a certain person that keeps recognizing certain things that aren't even in the dress code anymore
068my suggestion for for for this particular body of work and for the staff working with this is to actually figure out connection with young people where you go to the school and with young people to here you know sort of unfiltered voices without prescribed agenda and all comes and you know that you know those things you can hear unfiltered things that are actually happening in the Nicki and Anika and Savior additionally whatever's going says it could also be a poverty had a friend of Mines daughter who was a single mom well five inches this summer the dresses that they bought for school - what's earlier are now over skirts not that they were tried to it she's wearing tights but when it's 80 degrees one can't always wear them and one can't always go and
069afford to buy clothes that will fit and the last thing a student would need is disabled your dress is too short but I can't afford to get another one the communication to the staff look like thank what you said on about like in family things like not say to students that's happened to me in my experience and through like clubs I've been in - I've heard a lot of extra member has told them to call her up or just put a sweater on or that their clothing is too low and they need to pull their shirt up just things like that that create a hostile environment to students I feel like I was just like wondering what you guys were doing to like communicate to the staff about like that's not okay because those type
070of things don't really like get reported from the student manage and then another thing I was wondering about was like the communication or like the dress code and athletics so I'm at least at Memorial um in girls cross country we're not allowed to take our shirts off on campus even though the boys are um which like as a former runner former runner was like really problematic in my experience especially when it's like 90 degrees and you're going on a run in addition to that like I know in or at least certain individuals have been told telling like teams that they're on like swimsuits are too like revealing and that they need like a certain type of swimsuit boys some team of girls here to add the girls swim team Micah the voice swim team is
071wearing much less yeah I'm like that is that a dress wouldn't like examing it to make sure that there aren't gender disparity misogynistic yeah 20 this plan I was going to ask and are there any tools that we can just engage like the prevalence of informal warnings which could also be seen as a microaggression and also like you know not sure about the ways that the dress code may also criminalize students of color too like I remember I was tutoring on this Souter told me that no teacher said you can't wear that hat because it's associated with the gang or something like that it's also looking for places in that area to help with the informal or microaggressions that students may experience in school yeah I think anika you sort of reference that so much
072of this is difficult because it it happens but it isn't something that necessarily gets reported or documented which makes it really hard for us to sort of figure out where are their things you know where are these things our current say beyond to your point I think you know surveying students are meeting with students is probably our best way to continue to gather what is otherwise fairly anecdotal information the other approach is just being you know way more purposeful with you know not just expecting staff to be aware of what the dress code says and that the dress codes been updated or what in particular you know clarifying changes like that now hats and hoods are no longer included in the dress code minimally making sure that we're updated on what the policy says that
073beyond that understanding like the lines that we don't want our teachers to cross when they're believing that a student is wearing something that's maybe crossing the line that doesn't exist I I think to crisspoints early like earlier like I do not here I did not learn consonants or like how are like I were uniform skirts in a uniform and boys got to wear pants and who gets to wear what and how and I think that part I like a lot of a lot of what we were talking about it's not trying to kind of plate catch up with what's right it's like you know there's gotta be some educational component charge that's ironic this is this is why we're no longer you know supporting or endorsing this I hope as a learning institution that we're
074also thinking adults as learners and and in particular in trying to make sure that we're that we are experiencing what we are upholding in articulating or just um how how often J um I know we just reviewed it last year but how often are you reviewing particularly this policy because I think the trends change right I mean things are changing everyday it seems like you know and so I'm just wanting often you review that policy in a great question I think the behavior education plan would be a part of our formal plan review that would be I believe every five years now but spring Bryn and I are sort of keeping track of some suggested edits that we've come across you know revising that if there are any suggested edits to the dress code itself
075that you're coming across or that you're aware of we would love for the policy committee to take those up and we can discuss them in the spring so that it'll come to the board in the spring yeah well thank you very much everyone for your work for the great conversation thank you for your questions no and it feels super early huge public outside to do well but it's early something at the end of the meeting like an hour and 10 minutes today your motion to adjourn so moved Arika okay yeah all those in favor say aye the motion carries meeting adjourned