Board of Education Meeting

001howard stacy seldner here carrie trav [Music] okay thank you um then i would entertain a motion in a second for the minutes of our september 14th meeting do we have a second second any additions or corrections in those minutes oh yeah i have uh three things that i've added um there's three motions that are in the minutes that were made that you do not have the votes on how that how they went they'll just say that there was five two uh four to two and three to four um but there is no environment just to vote in which way could i get those attitudes um anybody object to that it's not a requirement yeah you just want them for the records yep okay any no objection any objections that all in favor say aye all

002right okay thank you uh then we'll move on to committee reports curriculum committee uh let's see meredith isn't here yet so um we'll move that till later till meredith arrives how's that and i'll move on to the report of the superintendent we have personnel report from joyce yeah thank you um you should have a personnel report and board book that was in your packet on friday and there would be an addendum um that should be at your places i would entertain a motion in a second to approve those reports i request that they be split um yeah i mean i'll do that it's just you know you've been voting against the addendums just be aware that when you do that those personnel technically aren't employed appreciate um uh the explanation as to the the need

003for them being done i just don't like having things just set on my desk for you do we have a quorum right now yeah we got we got four i'll make a motion to accept the first personality report i'm going to do a separate way yeah so i'm going to i am going to do them go ahead oh second okay any further discussion all in favor say aye all right all right okay and then the addendum we need a motion to accept that then we will move on to the designating the youth options coordinator and i'll turn that over to the superintendent actually um it's an annual designation we designate high school principal in this case mr lee tennis as our youth options coordinator we do need action on that it's a state requirement to

004oversee the youth options at lincoln high school any other questions on that otherwise i'd entertain a motion to appoint lee tennis the lincoln heisman principal and the youth options coordinator anybody want to make a notion second okay any further discussion all in favor say hi all right okay then the we have a 2021 summer school presentation yes so i'll turn that over to our summer school team um stacey o'connell is here to lead us through that presentation let me get this presentation hold up for you quickly [Music] perfect um so thanks for having me here i'm staciel polly i am the madison school principal and the district summer school coordinator um this is my second year i'm running the summer school program for mps yeah i'm happy to be a part of it when we

005talk summer school most people think june july in august i think october um because october is really when we start planning for the next summer school year so we've already started we've reviewed our 2021 data and programming and we're always starting to think about summer 2022. so way back in october of 2020 our focus for summer school was to provide safe opportunities for kids if you remember at that time we were just switching to a virtual model um my first year as coordinator one of the challenges we had is that we had planned great summer school programming and this pandemic hit and we had to cancel and change things at the last minute so really our goal was what can we do safely what can we provide families and kids that we won't have to

006change to parents in the last minute so we didn't want to do that again to families and we wanted to provide opportunities so our programming this summer last summer i should say at 2021 consisted of some k-12 virtual enrichment options that lasted approximately four weeks at the beginning of the summer one of our new opportunities we brought this summer was a jump start to 4k option which is our incoming four cares so some of these guys are still three yet coming over to the riverview building to learn about 4k so we did that as a new program this year in person we offered elementary academies at i would say all seven of our elementary sites so that's our six elementary schools and the stangle building offered some opportunities for students over there as well a

007new program we offered as well this summer was our middle school bridge program so that program really was focused on some academics some team building and to get kids excited about middle school programming one thing we have heard from parents the year previous is there's a lot of opportunities for elementary kids but what about my middle school kid i'd like my middle school kid to have more math opportunities more science opportunities more stem opportunities so that middle school bridge program was new this year to address those needs we also offered a middle school welcome week which is again when you think of that new student or sixth grade orientation and a high school transition week for our incoming ninth graders and our new students up at lincoln and then we did offer in-person athletic opportunities

008throughout the summer as well now that's a lot of different things in a lot of different places before i get any further i just have to give a shout out to these wonderful women sitting behind me sarah dish and lindsey balzan are really the people behind the scenes that are helping to make all this magic happen so they're helping with parents they're helping with the registration they're helping with course setup they're helping with communication so they really from october to august again it's like a whole year for us work through all those parts and there's such an integral part of the program if we look at the numbers that we had for summer school this year um this chart will show you um individual enrollment so let me just walk through this if i am

009an elementary student i can be included in that elementary academy number of 627 i could also have taken an athletic opportunity and be included that number of 584 and i could have taken a virtual enrichment and be included in that number of 281 so you can see the breakdown of the numbers of kids if we looked at how many individual kids participated in mpsd summer school it's 1 620. many of those participated in multiple opportunities but we have 16 1600 kids participating summer opportunities one of the great things we did this year as well working with lincoln high school and lainey longmire up there really helped to spearhead this was helping some high school students complete some credits that they were needed so apex is our online credit recovery option and then an interim was

010more of an in-person teacher-led course so we had 69 students up at lincoln or mckinley complete an apex for credit course and we had 36 students completing interim four credit course so working with lincoln high school on that at the end of the summer we asked for some family feedback about our different programming so again academy and middle school bridge is more about academic problem-solving team building um type of programming it was in person 96 of our family said the balance between learning and fun was perfect 94 of the parents said that they helped prepare prepare their kid for the upcoming year and we heard things like my kid was nervous to come to the school but after this they're not nervous to come anymore we had a parent that said um we were had

011a camping trip planned but my kids actually begged us to not go camping a day early so we could go to summer school so those are the kind of things i'm always excited to hear one of some of the feedback that we got from that also was that middle school and elementary started at the same time so for families that had kids in multiple buildings sometimes that was hard so we take that feedback and we'll look at programming for next year to see how we can improve that um our athletics feedback from family families thought it was the content was high and the instruction was good a lot of our sports coaches were doing that instruction so it's nice to have those varsity coaches sharing their expertise with even some of our second and third

012graders um and really interesting was that 68 of families said if there was an academic and an athletic component i want my kid involved in both so one of the things we do in summer school is we try to avoid conflicts we want kids to be involved as many different things as they can be and we don't want them to have to choose between do i go to baseball or do i go to academy we want to give them both options so they can do both if we want so that's always our goal is to eliminate those conflicts so kids can participate in as many different things as they want our enrichment was online um so we had 68 of our families take one or two classes there was a 40 and he said if

013he was offered again virtually would you want to do enrichment virtually about 44 of our family said it um yes sick you know the other percent so they did would prefer in person again feedback we take for the future one thing that has been really exciting with the virtual enrichment is some feedback we've gotten from families is we could do this as a family together it was recorded or i could go back or you know one of our most popular enrichment classes is mr slaker's cooking class so mr slater's been teaching cooking forever right he always did in person he offered it virtually summer and we had some feedback from parents that said it was really cool we actually made dinner as a family together by following mr slider's course we could pause it we

014could rewind it so we had some good feedback from families about that as well but always take their feedback what they prefer for programming staff feedback that we collected at the end of summer school some categories that ran high were that summer schools run effectively it felt safe for staff and students there was support facilities the content was great i would say thinking about our elementary and our bridge and even those transition weeks at lincoln and the middle schools the things that i heard over and over again from staff were it was a great opportunity to build relationships with kids great opportunity to get kids in the building and i could do things more creatively and different than i typically don't get to do in the school year so we really encouraged our staff to

015think outside the box like this doesn't sit and get for four hours a day but how can we do different activities with our kids to keep them highly engaged um so that was some staff feedback as well um we also i think there was some ease of getting to know kids before they came into a building kids getting to know teachers um there was feedback that like do you know do you know somebody if you're a sixth grader do you know somebody now at wilson middle school or washington middle school that you can go to and the answer was yes um some of the feedback um is always that we want more of our teachers to teach summer school like we want the teachers right so we always encourage our staff to be a part

016of that planning process and really develop what works best for them we also added some teacher leader support this year so those were some teachers that helped support at the high school the middle school and the elementary schools so when principals weren't around or there was additional support needed for staff they were there and that was a really well received structure as well um flexibility was nice and family involvement was great um that they really got to know the kids so two people were excited i will say for our middle school birch program that again was new this year our highest number of enrollees were in sixth grade our second highest was seventh grade and our lowest enrollment was eighth grade so we're excited for the future that these six and seventh graders joined had

017a great experience and we'll continue to see those numbers for all from staff um what are we thinking about for the future because again it's almost october at the end of this week it's time to start thinking about next summer we want to offer more in-person opportunities next summer than we were able to offer this summer but we also know that some parents like the flexibility and even some students up at lincoln high school when you talk about credit recovery like the flexibility of virtual options so how do we balance those in-person opportunities with the flexibility that's needed we want to continue a model that provides multiple opportunities again avoiding those conflicts how can we get kids more involved in different things and exposed to different types of programming and continue to communicate with families

018one thing that we did new this year is we did online registration i see it um the first time you do something it's always a little bit bumpy right but we're going to continue work on what's the communication how can we support families that are struggling with that we were doing like call the number we'll get you registered no problem so we'll continue to support that process as well um but it was a nice option once we got the online registration that parents were able to access that anytime and not having to wait for a letter in the mail um so again our team constantly reviews what we need to do for the future to improve so next month i already have my team scheduled and we're going to continue to talk about summer school

0192022. just a few pictures from our virtual kids this summer some cool kind of creative classes and that's it are there any questions any questions uh um my kids did attend the summer school this year they very much enjoyed it i think it was very well put together um how many parents did participate in that survey that you did uh i'll put out to get the feedback i could pull it up and let you know i can email me if you want i also had one other question um there was a parent that did not have a request to see some things for summer school is there a route that they can go to see programs that they would like to be offered in yeah i have had some parents reach out to me directly

020so via phone or email talking about some specific programming that they're looking for or asking what opportunities we have so if they are contacting you i would just direct them my way and then i can you can take i bring all that feedback out to the team and talk about what we can offer great thank you if a student has an iep will that just roll into summer school or how are those and do you have the staff that you need to be able to do that so joanne will probably speak more eloquently than this on this topic than i can but what i can tell you is that students with ieps we support during summer school but it's not part of their regular school year except for their extended school year so you if

021an iep says they need 15 minutes a day of social skills we don't have to provide that at summer school um teresa stockinger who works over at franklin was one of our teacher leaders and her role was just in special education to help look at ieps for kids what kids might need some additional paraprofessional support what kids might need some sensory support so we don't have to follow the iep's exactly as they're written but we do offer a wide variety of programming and then help to provide right support for those kids to participate so this looks at some extent and then just one other question um you know with with the school being closed and going virtual and back and forth do we do anything um like looking at at some gaps or deficiencies that

022the kids may have had for the school year where they're behind and then encourage them to come to summer school to focus just on those specific areas yeah we definitely target like i'm thinking especially from an elementary perspective right our middle school program is new okay and i'm guessing our middle school program bridge program will continue to do this in the future but we look at our kids who we know have some gaps or some liking skills and we do encourage those families to sign up we talk about you know we try to avoid barriers of there's no cost for summer school um we run shuttle buses so if you need to get on a bus stop we can get you to school but we do try to target those kids that we no need

023those academic supports um and provide that you know that right balance of academics and fun during summer school but at least an opportunity to keep practicing those skills i think do you feel like a lot of people don't take you up on that that group or not i think this year's summer school attendance was lower than two if we would have compared pre-pandemic okay um and i think various reasons i had parents tell me like this is the first time we can go on a camping trip like we're going on the camping trip you know like we're not sticking around tonight or we're going to visit whoever so i i can't tell you a number for certain but i know that our teachers were really really really really advertise that we're really strategic too like

024elementary conferences are typically in february so we have all the summer school information ready to go so when those parents come in from conferences we can say like hey here's how your kids mean and here's a great opportunity this summer to continue their learning so i don't have specific data but we really do try to target those clients and is enrichment um just to keep them is it to help them get further along or is it more to keep their learning up of what they may have learned during that year throughout the summer i would when you think of enrichment i would think of it like back in the day when i got to go to basketball at summer school or i got to do a cooking class or i got to do an arts

025and crafts class so it's more of that kind of fun exposing and what we really are trying to promote with enrichment is how can we expose kids to different opportunities that maybe they didn't have before so if it's the cooking or it's the arts and crafts or if it's bead making or so it's it's not academic focused that would be the bridge in the academy programs and then the length of high school and credit opportunities okay thank you yeah i just want to say thank you thank you thank you for making registration online i remember the days of lining up outside the room right and having to take vacation time to get my kids signed up so that they got into that that was amazing and i think again when we talk about providing opportunities

026right like not every parent could do that but every you know and again if you don't have internet access or you're not able to get work through the online where it's not english is not your first language we have a phone number and people get really do it for you so we're trying to make it as accessible to all as we can any other questions for safety uh thank you stacey thank you and thank you lindsay and sarah okay the um then we'll we'll finish up with the uh report of the superintendent then i'm gonna go back to the christmas until you know that so we have the 2021-202019 protocol yeah so we talked about the opportunity to bring back this topic for conversation and discussion um just to kind of give you some feedback

027that i've been receiving last week we definitely received communication from our county health professionals specifically regarding the number of student incidents and how that's increasing we're seeing our burden rate continue to increase so we want to continue to monitor that the number of students and staff who are who have tested positive has increased so at the beginning of the school year we saw a significant increase we saw a dip and then we've seen another increase so definitely is something that we're keeping our eye on as we look at the burden rate right now our burden rate puts us in the very high area that's based on the percent of number of positive cases and our school district demographic data would indicate that we have uh 24 students and four staff members as of friday who

028were positive so just want to give you some updated information in regards to what we're seeing from health related from our students and staff and then definitely answer any questions that people have um so rather than me go back and forth reiterate any of my same opinions um on these masks mandates um i just have a it's a little bit longer uh discussion that i would like to just bring up here um so i'll just read from this here rather than sit here and argue this afternoon and have us repeat the same things we made last time around i'd like to take a moment to touch on some questions that i have about confusion on where we are taking guidance from and why schools are being the only dangerous atmosphere worthy of wearing a mask

029i'll be brief and not to go back and forth i went to the store last night and i purchased some masks i was wondering if this body should only allow certain kinds of masks because the masks that i did purchase were multiple styles and brands and it said that the only one [Music] that was able to provide to fight colbit uh and i'll quote here this product has been authorized by the fda under the eua that stands for the emergency use act and for use by the hcp healthcare professionals as ppe which is personal protective equipment to help prevent the spread of infection or illness in healthcare setting and by the general public to help slow and spread the virus during the 19th day which sounds nice and that should offer some relief to some

030people um never mind that the children are not health care professionals um if it didn't save right above that but this also does go on to say that it is not fda cleared or approved the person that authorized the use uh it also may contain silver and or copper but this is the next uh mask that i have here was a dr [Music] dr family protective mask this mask is a three layers of protection it may reduce the like the wares of fluids but it does not eliminate the risk of contacting any disease or infection it also states the maximum relative humidity is greater than 80 percent there is less than 80 percent ask any hvac technician when microprogramming is important when microorganisms grow like crazy they will tell you that levels above 75 if

031you're an asthmatic sufferer like myself you can have an increased sensitivity and reactions to fungi there's a reason i do have a nebulizer at home the next one is a five layer mask and it says that it is not to be used with beards or facial hair that prevent it from a good seal so i guess i would ask if we are going to not allow facial care at uh the school district if we're going to be uh focusing on mass mandates this mask also where it must be fit tested and trained like i was many years ago in the correct use it also states that the mask helps protect against certain particles that does not eliminate the risk of contacting disease or infection this one states that it should not be used for exposure

032to airborne germs influenza or other contagious diseases in bold print it also states that the misuse making it may adversely affect your health and lastly this one says that it is not to be used for airborne germs or other harmful substances it says that it is not designed for children with ended and those with facial hair it even goes on to address the concern that i have about masks and asthma it states that i should consult my doctor prior to the use uh if you have asthma or emphysema which leads me to another question about who we should consult who is it we're supposed to obey webmd and cdc say that when it comes to masks while exercising they say go for it the who says that they have never advocated for it and they

033do not endorse it so you have two coveted authorities here that people look to as the gospel with conflicting information so who should we trust when it comes to the vaccine as of yesterday you had vast numbers of people refusing to vaccinate in new york where the government mandated that for healthcare workers as a result you have people who have invested large amounts of time and money into their field walking away from it regardless of the threats they wouldn't even be able to collect unemployment why at what point do we call us and ask ourselves why so many people are not buying the narrative that we are being told it's only i've spoken to medical researchers who give talks all around the world who've had their own research blocked and suppressed by google healthcare professionals

034and doctors and nurses who post things that this body want that this body wants to impose on the children my point of bringing this up is when there is controversy among the experts as to what the answer is which entity is the one that should be the one asking which entity is the one with the answer that has become the one followed lastly i'd like to address the elephant in the room there are some districts that have had close and tactical and close and become virtual this is due to outbreaks we just heard there were 24 in our district that have contracted that the only question that i have regarding that is how they got sick what led them to getting sick was not reported and if you go into the community right now you

035will see 94 95 of the population is not wearing a mask what led to those outbreaks that would have contracted anyone what led to those outbreak breaks could have been contracted anywhere so don't go adding to the assumptions of it being school related let the parents decide what they want to do about their kids getting sick and i'll leave it at that okay do we have any other questions we have any questions for yeah i'd like to make a motion that we [Music] make the masks optional for the special education students education students i won't go into all the different nuances of that but sensory issues things on their face not being able to read lips things like that and so i think that we should consider this for that group of students let the

036parents decide whether or not they want to have their child wear a mask to school i'd like to get some input from our staff mark or some of the other people how would that fit into our current scenario joanne's not here um i can appreciate the feedback we had last board meeting specifically relating to a parent who was concerned about their audio handicapped child however i also know that um as of last meeting i don't have the date today we had more than 30 students who had completed the waiver specifically to not wear masks and many of those waivers come from students who are who have ieps the manitoba public school district has about 16 percent of its population in identified with ieps so for us to make a overarching statement for iep kids would

037be something that would likely put some students into a particular situation and others not i don't see that as a model to universally masks it would also then reduce uh our quarantine from or increase our quarantine from three feet to six feet because we were no longer you know universally masking so potentially adding more students who are close contact um so i mean i i can appreciate the idea of individuals but i think you know from the safety of all um i would have concern so people are applying for exemptions and you're looking at it on a case-by-case basis yes any any family can apply for a waiver okay and that seems to be working we have we have students who have waivers who have completed the question um what's required for labor to be

038approved uh physician you're the family's physician or medical expert saying that the mask is not feasible or is prohibited based on their expertise anybody want to add anything else i have a question about that go ahead our uh are all those parents that have iep children are they aware of those forms being available to them yeah those forms have been available since last year so and we've communicated it's available on our website available in a communications appearance so my understanding that yes i mean i'm not sure how we could greater make that difficult are they allowed to not wear a mask or do they have to have some other kind of accommodation like a face shield and they come unmasked if you have a waiver you can be you can have them i'm going to

039move to postpone the motion i don't want to hold forward against it right now because it just came up i'm gonna i'm gonna move to postpone the motion until our next meeting i'd ask for a second for that okay open that for discussion and i'll just say it's because um i'm not completely against it um i really want to know more about the waiver i want to find out more about what our specialist or who comprises our special ed students you know what they're doing what activities they're in i mean i know some of them are on one-on-one contest some of them are multi contacts so right now i'm not prepared to vote yes or no on this issue and by postponing it allows us to collect more information otherwise we vote on it today

040and then maybe that ends that's an interesting proposal dave since there are two court cases right now in wisconsin regarding um districts who are not masking and specifically kids with eyepiece so we might see some um movement on that i would just prefer to continue the discussion until until we have better information colin i don't like big things being put across my desk in the last minute um so i guess i can empathize with your you know your feelings on that um so i would um i think we need to get some um you know you want to find out more about the labor do we invite any other experts in the field i mean that you consult with those teachers um to find out more information of what that classroom demographic they look like

041and how that may affect them well i mean i'll do some of that myself contacting teachers that i know are in special ed and just finding out if that's if that's creating a new problem or if that is helpful in where we're at right now so anything else otherwise um all the favorites will call in the motion until our next meeting say hi okay that's so then then it'll be under um old business for the next meeting any other questions or i i do have a question um regarding the quarantine period that we have for students and i believe it's ten days and i know that maybe it only is seven or eight days actually this is a weekend in there but how do we provide adequate teaching and learning to those students who are

042in quarantine here and i know i've got some questions on that um so just just kind of let me know that either we're able to or what our plans are for anyone that might be in a quarantine period and i'm assuming there's 24 students that may be on the important team theory right now plus they're close contact so it could be as many well whatever the number is how are they being provided adequate teaching and learning during that quarantine period so let me circle back and say that over the last um three or four weeks i've been meeting with classroom instructors and and ask them to go back and ask their colleagues very specifically on how might we best provide instruction for students who are out and in this case we're talking very specifically students

043who are out with covert related symptoms not i'm sick for a day or i'm on vacation just very specifically coping and what we found is uh that there there are many many situations where it depends and when i say it depends it depends on the grade of the child it depends on what kind of learning is going on in the classroom and it depends on what the classroom is and what kind of capabilities so i could go from a generalization for example if i am a middle school or high school student who has a elective art music technical education physical education there is a google classroom where there's some classroom activities and work to be done but in many cases i'm not going to be able to do that work i'm not going to be

044able to go into the wood shop or the shop and i can't duplicate that i can look at a few things i can understand what those are they're put in the classroom but i'm not going to be able to repeat that when we also talk about our very youngest learners our teacher said you know we well first of all we don't have one to one going home right now with our kindergarten 4k through fourth grade through third grade we have some capabilities if we needed to do that but in order to expect a four-year-old five-year-old six-year-old seven-year-old eight-year-old to work independently while watching something that might be new instruction is in many cases likely not feasible so what we're doing is providing packets of information that the teacher is collecting and sending home to those

045families as we talk about then our middles are upper elementary school fourth and fifth sixth seventh eighth grade they also have these what we call google classroom experiences and they're places where the teachers are putting their information and in some cases they're also working individually with the student but every teacher across the board has said it is not i cannot do both well i can't do a video presentation for the class and a class face-to-face presentation i can't do both well and when i have you know 24 kids in my class and two who are virtual i'm not going to be able to interact necessarily and answer questions so in some cases maybe the video might be helpful but in many cases it's not because i don't have the opportunity to interact so again we

046are in the midst i met on last night actually with our building principles this week we will be sending a communication to all of our staff about just our general again expectations to make sure that we're all on the same page their building principles are working hard on that i would add to that piece that there also is factors that really remain on staff members and their ability to teach from home so there are situations where staff members are out because of cobit and we are wanting them to teach from home if they are symptom-free or not sick and then we would put a another human in aid a teacher somebody else in the classroom and they would teach from home while the kids are in their class again that works assuming number one the

047teacher is in a position where they can teach from home and number two they're in an academic or a program that would allow them to work from home and teach in some cases if i'm the gym teacher and i mean i can't do the video while the kids are in gym class that's just not going to work so there are some that aren't as well but i will tell you that we're going to continue to evolve and work hard on what what those pieces are we have a universal expectation that our teachers are working now i know they're eating and working with kids but what we continue to know is that we want to try to help every kid while they're out for these up to ten days i think probably the most it would

048be is eight or seven days but we also know that we have a classroom that we're trying to manage and outside work so there's a balance there of trying to make the best of what we have and try to provide instructional opportunities so that kids can be successful in their periods i can answer um have we adequately addressed the concerns that have been raised at this point by the parents of students who've been important i i well you know i think there are some who would like a video of the classroom but they don't understand that the video if i'm videoing i don't have the information like it's new learning and i'm not there to provide you with new learning that video is just a video right and it's not you know it's it's not

049as easy as just clicking on my screen and allowing somebody to watch i need to be interacting with somebody and engaging so you know in some cases it may work in a secondary level we're working on that but in many cases what we're continuing to hear again from the 30 teachers i met and then asking them to reach out to their peers at every building but that is not something that they can do well so i think there's there's challenges we want to evolve and try to provide teachers with opportunities to do that in many cases but it's not going to be equal every teacher is not going to have the same model because it depends on what they're teaching the grade level that they're at and the core academic piece versus the encore as

050a recipient of the blended education last year when we were at home there were kids in the classroom i think the teachers found it really hard because they don't stand in front of a podium in lecture they're working with small groups of kids they're um potentially displaying something that's not something that can be on a screen or they're you know having to manipulate some equipment i think of like tech ed right um it was not a great virtual experience for new learning when when there's a classroom full of kids also to have to be teaching too no doubt it is a challenge and at any time students we know that are away from the building when their class is in the building their opportunity is not going to be equal so we're trying to make

051sure again by stressing these learning targets that teachers are putting on a weekly basis onto this spot and working on making sure that students have access to that and it asks the ability obviously through either google classroom or email that they can connect with their teacher so like when you say a video are you you're discussing streaming correct yeah like uh yeah i mean i looked so my child was uh in npsd they did she was there uh for 4k one of the things she really enjoyed was the fact that simply just seeing her friends you know it didn't matter the fact of the fact uh what exactly was the topic of the day but you know you have a duration of time where she doesn't where they don't see their friends offering them the

052time to just live stream with their friends say hello be part of that classroom it's important because that's kind of a chunk of time that you know where they're building those relationships not only with them with their peers but their teachers as well so what i'm gathering from what you're saying a little bit there is is that the streaming the ability to stream from one to another is not very it's not able to be done am i doing that or is it too hard to do or i just didn't so what you're talking about with the interaction what i'm saying is that that's not so if i have a classroom of 25 kids and three are out with colbit those three are not interacting with my class the only the only people that are on

053a google meet are the three kids and the teachers teaching the other 22. what they're what what we found and what we continue to hear is i do not have the ability to stop and do what i'm doing with these three while i'm teaching these 22. i can't do that well and if i do that i have to completely stop and move here if they're all virtual right or all in person i have that ability to manage and work through that process so by just putting the screen on there's no interaction because none of the people who are in the classroom are on the google meet that makes sense so it's a software limitation no it's the fact that if i want to be on a google meet the google me is like this right

054if we're virtual every single one of us has a screen so if someone is off screen all they're seeing is this they're not interacting they're just looking at what's there i guess i look i'm thinking you know in my own professional experience where i'm in a meeting you know we have i do virtual meetings a lot absolutely every single one of those people are virtual right right what i'm telling you is only three are virtual 22 aren't virtual the 22 aren't on a screen so the three aren't interacting with the 22. now i guess i see this they i don't understand why they moved by couldn't be that in that classroom they know about their normal classroom business you have three three heads that sit in the you know put those computers on those desks

055and it's just like those kids are in those desks where you have a headache but what i would tell you is it seems like that's but that's not how it goes okay i mean unless every one of those kids was in a google classroom it's linked into individually there right so you're in the classroom and they all all have 22 chromebooks and they're basing their chromebooks and then those three chromebooks and they're all virtual even though they're face to face but in the model that we're talking about the instruction and the things are going on just like we're talking right now people are virtual and maybe watching that virtual piece they're not interacting that's how it would happen this the teacher is not it again it's not ideal i understand it but the teacher is

056not interacting with people who aren't who aren't in the classroom and what they're saying is could they yes that would mean they'd have to stop what they're doing and then go back onto their google meet while the classroom is going on and they're saying i can't do that well just just for a uh uh i see where you're coming from colin like it feels like it's an equipment issue and not uh right um so we where i work we installed many classrooms with equipment with overhead knives cameras they run about 15 000 a room to get something of quality where people can hear and see both plays so i mean if the district is willing to invest around that much in every single classroom i'm not sure i mean it's prohibitive right it's cost prohibitive

057to get the kind of equipment to do what you're saying i think i think again you're working with adults absolutely and it's different they got to know how to mute and unmute and all the and it's not it's not like we can't provide like do we have the ability to each teacher has a computer that's linked to our wi-fi and we can stream like they can create a google meet and if the students who aren't in class can join google meet their screen is whatever the teacher's laptop screen is and again at times we can promote something else we get a little camera maybe or something to that extent but again to kind of give you an idea there is a hundred um k five 200 almost 200 k5 classrooms right and of those 200

058classrooms we might have let's say 28 kids out there three from here two from there three from here two from there three from there a classroom teacher is not standing before that and just talking right they're doing a small group lecture or small group introduction talking a little bit about some planning and then they're working individually with kids the kids who are on screen are seeing the teacher work individually with kids they're not you know it depends on where they are they're so we're working on that but it's it's not and again depending on where you are does the third grader know how to log in and can they get all that information is a teacher the one who's kind of working through that and and what i'm saying is i know it's not ideal

059but there's not one teacher that came back to and says you know what let's do both i can do that they're saying i can't do this well and so we're going to create this place either workbooks packets etc and technology to support the learning and then i will provide some individual one-on-one when when they have questions or when they're available we've talked about many many many different options and we and what i would tell you is that that what we have now i think is what is our best option based on the feedback that we have from people i think i think the expectation should be that i mean what i hear from parents is that they want the lesson so even if it's a small group lesson i think that the teacher can put

060the chromebook on hit the thing record it and the kid doesn't have to sit there for the whole 45 minutes but after they break into groups then they can answer questions later but i there's no reason why there cannot be the lesson part of it provided and when you go into a google classroom you can mute everybody anyway i don't think they're looking for engagement as they are for teaching the lesson um and again if it was we are the ones that are mandating that these kids stay home and by not providing those opportunities that's wrong and so i think the expectation should be that the teacher hits the button and the kid can do the lesson and they can listen to what the lecture is for the day that means that the teacher has

061to carry it on their problem with every single you know i i think as awful as this setup is but i'm just saying we can hear in this room and no one's carrying anything around so no they can have the chromebook sitting there and it can pick up the audio the other thing is and i'm going to get wrong about the months you have been doing this for 20 some months and that we don't have a system at the beginning of the year you're gonna mandate that kids healthy kids on my bad are sitting at home not sick and you refuse to instruct them via video by by touching a button so again i'm not sure what we're waiting for how much how much longer how much more time do we need to perfect for

062coping are you wanting me to respond to that or are you just telling me it's a question how much longer here's what here's what i'm going to say as a academic professional if i talk to our professionals clicking a button is not teaching it's not that easy so when you you are making an assumption for a educational system that is not valid okay so if i'm i just want you to think through this right i i don't i don't mark i don't want to i don't i totally disagree with you okay i understand that and i don't i don't want to be lectured to today okay so i can listen to yours but you can't listen to mine go ahead okay so i just got done telling you if i am an art music by

063a special education teacher i just click that and then that's all the learning that goes on it's not feasible it's not that simple so there's not a lesson for jim we don't teach anything in gym absolutely there's a lesson okay and they can't listen to that lesson the listening to the lesson today we're going to jot three laps stretch and then play badminton that's not a lesson what i'm saying is that i'm working with our staff specifically we have a plan right now that has been communicating to our families and to our parents specifically about what they want i agree it's not ideal but what i'm telling you is that what you're asking is not ideal either it's not going to improve our academic instructional practices we can mandate say just click the button but

064it's not that easy in addition to that if we are streaming video we also have to take into consideration our iep obligations and we can't probably do that well either so we're trying to piecemeal that's what happens when you're in a pandemic things don't work perfectly it's not like we're not trying to do this well but what i'm telling you is that it is not as easy as clicking the button and making it happen it's not that easy because every situation is different there are some situations where we may be able to do that very specifically at secondary levels where you're talking about core academic classes but at all levels it's just not that easy so we're working through that trying to make sure the teachers can be both places and do it well and

065just for the record on the video i applaud this the teachers that are going ahead and doing it on their own without being told like math so great job colin so i i guess i don't as far as the ip iep aspect it's my understanding it's as best you can possibly do for those children right and if if you're doing the best you can do then so i should i'll i'll set that on the side the other thing though is the clicking the button i don't think it's just a clicking of the button it's that's not the that's not what anybody's trying to get it it's pushing record understand but if i'm you know take for example common core matters all right if i'm going to be i was never taught common core math is

066completely different than what i was raised in learning all right and there's many parents that aren't taught or that we're never taught common core math to have the child be expected to do in google classroom this type of math parents have no idea how they do it they can't help their child if there is a record of the discussion the lesson and all those things discussion is part of learning a really simple you know clicking for record and clicking the button to record what it is the discussion that's taking place how we go about it this is solving the problem i don't see that as why why that can't why that is a huge ask that should be as simple let's just record this little small tidbit and i think that's what actually stacy was

067you know probably alluding to i don't want to put words in her mouth but a let's record this aspect so that these kids can actually learn this and not have to figure it out on their own you know there's there's it's there are things out there that a parent might not know i don't understand why we can't just i have that lesson plan provided to them so we are providing a lesson right but what i'm telling you is exactly what you're talking about so if i don't know how to do it right and i watch a google classroom and it's and again it's not going to be like this because we don't have this in 500 classrooms right we don't have this we're not we don't have this in 500 classrooms i could do that

068with my phone in a classroom setting in a in a thousand square foot area with 25 i mean you you understand there's limitations to that so could be in some situations videotape what is happening the teachers at the board doing an overall fall lesson in some situations at work yes in all situations it's not going to work because in fact the learning that's going on in a classroom i don't know yet and i have to be able to ask some questions and there's no interaction going on so you're asking the parents to do something you just said that they don't know how to do no i'm not asking the parents to do that but i'm asking the teachers to do that right but i can't um and that's because the parents can't i will continue

069to work uh and and see if there's a better way to do that what we're going to have in some situations is some classrooms yes and some classrooms and so we've been working on this literally i and i and i continue to say i'm also need to be respectful of what i'm hearing from the people who are doing the work right and what the people who are doing the work are saying is i can't do both well so if i am going to say to the people who are doing the work after they're telling us okay i heard you but you're gonna have to do both we can do that but you know i'm not sure that that's the model that i'm looking for at this particular point so are there brainstorming sessions that are

070going on is everybody is this included in the meetings are they looking for benchmarking tools in other schools is this i guess you know when you're trying to expand i mean we're not the only district that's out there we're the only district that's facing this you know are we moving to what those other schools are doing to tackle this virtual aspect i mean like we we have been at this for a very long amount of time and the fact of where we're at right now in you know i i'm assuming i would feel that it would be safe to assume that there are other schools that are doing that okay well yes we're always going to need this in just about everything right so we're always looking at feedback from other folks what i can

071tell you is when when we were in uh moving from a face-to-face model from a blended model to the virtual to the base of face we heard significant improvements blended we heard not very good 100 virtual not very good but we can do that 100 virtual 100 face-to-face is something that is easier than blended and we heard that throughout the entire year and when we came back to this face-to-face we split it and said either you're virtual or you're with us right there's a reason why we did that because we said back after all this work we can't do this well it doesn't work well so i understand like it's like we've got eight days of kids who are out that's not what i want i don't want kids to be behind i want to

072continue to work through that but what i'm saying is it's just it's not as easy as it seems to be able to provide instruction to kids who are out to provide learning you know that's what we're trying to do so i will continue yes i've done that we had a meeting last night with uh building administrators i had a meeting the week before with classroom instructors they went out and fill out the google sheet gave it back to us we're getting feedback on how to improve what we're doing absolutely is it uh one last thing in regards to that has it ever been discussed to allow those children who are um being quarantined and you know they feel they're completely fine um has it ever been discussed to prove their coping status with the test

073to allow their return we've we've probably talked about embedded many many different strategies right now our strategy continues to follow the guidance that we're getting from our cdc and our local health department which means close contact or someone who is deemed close contact is less than three feet 15 minutes or more or physical contact and we're so that is the model if in fact we choose to not follow their model then that's something but right now we have that so the model is saying that a test is not sufficient correct and then so again to get into the without being a position and knowing all the specifics but get into it that when you're a close contact i get tested tomorrow i might not be positive tomorrow it might be positive in three seven days

074that's why that's why the recommendation has made that and we've seen that so again that's probably not the conversation right now but that's where that's coming from those aren't my i didn't make up those those anything else remember okay we'll move on to a new business uh well absolutely about the committee report uh meredith you are the chairperson of the curriculum committee yep so we had a pretty comprehensive meeting on um september 16th um one of the things that was brought forth to our committee a couple of months ago was evaluating a policy number 5310 in regard to health services um there was some some concerns about the ways that the policy was written and as we walked through that with joanne it was discovered there was an updated neola policy and um so we

075asked joanne to go back and do some research have some conversation both with neola as well as our attorney and um what came back was a resounding um this is federal law we need to have this policy um on our books and follow it uh so later on today there is the recommendation for a first read of the updated 53-10 so that we are in compliance so you'll see that in a few minutes um we also had a comprehensive look through our academic standards if you remember at our last regular board meeting there were some concerns about the academic standards and those were sent back to the curriculum committee for review and recommendation after we discussed those there was a unanimous decision between uh kathy willis myself and stacy to forward those standards in approval

076of those for today's meeting so you'll see that later on as well again those are all in alignment with dpi academic standards um we then took a look at a deep dive into math data specifically looking at longitudinal data between 7th and 8th grade students who take part in the compacted map and looking at some then results later on down the road within a five-year period specifically looking at act scores um and and other scores and so we we were able to have a comprehensive comprehensive conversation about that as well no action was needed during that that was simply informational um and then finally we looked at the parent and student engagement survey uh results that was something that was postponed from the prior meeting folks wanted some more information to be fleshed out and

077so we did get those results and um that was also informational purposes no action item there and that's my report any other questions for meredith on your committee um i would entertain a motion in a second to approve the minutes from that meeting a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye yep so again um there was no real good fit for a committee uh to review this policy but again we we worked in conjunction with joanne nutson and uh she did her research and we um we are now doing a first read of this policy it has been updated um so i'm not sure there's an action to be taken dave other than is there something we do for our first stream yeah we have this the board has to approve

078the first read and then it comes if approved it comes back for the second read if it's not it goes back to the committee um since the committee approved it we're not taking a motion here in a second but we started discussion okay so if that's where we're at i'll open discussion on the first route of policy 5310 anybody have anything they want to discuss stacy yeah i still don't like the language in here this invasive physical exam means any medical exam that involves the exposure of private body parts or any act during such exam that includes incision insertion or injection into the body but does not include a hearing vision or scoliosis screening so i think that we should modify this my understanding from the legal team was that the policy is necessary to

079notify the uh public uh specifically parents that this is going to happen and since i can't ever see that we would be doing an invasive invasive physical exam um i think that we can change and modify it to be that we just have a time when we're going to notify parents of approximate dates of the school year when any non-emergency exam or screening is scheduled or expected i think joanna explained why that language needed to be in there and i don't remember exactly what it was can you recall mark yeah so the the language says that school districts are bound to the requirements and definitions found within this as such any objection to the policy language is properly directed to the federal legislatures not the individual school districts so as much as i don't disagree

080that's why we were alerted like incision insurgent like those are but this is [Music] not something that the individual school district is able to modify so it's a federal mandate or federal language um i don't know that it's a mandate from the federal government i guess i would have the federal laws 20 us called 120 one two three two h protection of pupil rights requires that the school district's state and policy the requirement a parental notification related to the rights of parents inspect instructional materials to be informed and consent to the use of student surveys collecting certain information and to be notified and opt out of any non-emergency invasive physical examination that's what it does and this is from the attorney so how can we delete it i i don't believe we could i don't

081could we i i don't think we need i mean we could certainly change the language and still uphold the federal law by stating that we would follow us code and what it is we don't have to have that u.s code language in our policies if that is what the you know the area of concern is we don't have invasive policy we don't have invasive procedures so why have procedures that we don't have in our policy mode and then on top of that you can simply state that we will follow us code one two three one two three two h if required right i don't know if that's right or not i only know what the attorney told us okay and i don't have any differing legal opinion other than what the attorney said so i

082i guess i don't i still would not support that type of language because of i don't think that that is there's no sense in it being there i don't find the language appropriate i mean mark even alluded that he felt that it was you may not put words in your mouth but concerning but uh why have things that are concerning in our policies if uh we don't do them in this case we're following federal law right and if you just put in there then we'll follow the federal laws right i'm just going to read what says the policy does not authorize school districts to provide non-emergency invasive physical examination rather it requires that a school district provide notice to parents and leave guardians of the district plans for such examinations of students importantly this policy

083language plus federal law 20 u.s code 123 332 each protection of public rights requires the school district's state and house requirements of parental notification related to the rights of parents to inspect and structural materials be informed and consent to use of student surveys and collecting certain information to be notified and opt-out of any emerging non-emergency evasive invasive physical examination like we don't as much as i would say khan we don't get to edit like we're just opening ourselves up to law suits and i don't want to go down that road here so and it's the notification it's not the implementation that it's required it's not saying we have to do those medical procedures right or that it gives us permission to do so right so dave you need a what we're going to vote on

084it and this is we're just in discussion and you know again i'm going to support it because that's what the attorney tells us to do that's the legal advice that we have is to support this i don't have any legal advice that conflicts with this policy at this time so you know i'm gonna i'm just gonna support it based on the legal advice we have i don't know any other way to go um that would be reckless not to follow legal advice yeah any further discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed no okay first read is approved we'll move to a second read at our next meeting then we have the academic standards and you want to address that sure so again um we reviewed all of the standards um we had about the

085paper version and it's been on our npsd site as well as dpi site for many years um and pam walked through how the changes and updates work with academic standards and the um review that occurs at the state level when we look at how you know when we adopt the dpi standards what a rigorous review they go through when things are updated or changed um we had a good question and answer session um and and in the end um had a unanimous vote to forward those to the board for approval okay that also doesn't require a motion in a second since it's brought forward from the curriculum and approved there do we have any discussion on the academic standards thank you yeah i just wanted the public to know that i didn't look at all

086of these documents on one of the questions um there is language in here that refers to equity and if you notice every single one of the dpi standards is switching over to that language or has had it in there so i know a lot of times that there's concern that critical race theory and equity are interchangeable but there was nothing in here that was suggested of racial equity or that that was being directly taught in these standards so that is why i supported the standards that were put forth any other discussion hearing not all in favor would say um i believe our budget and finance had a rescheduled meeting is that correct it's not here let's go coming she sent an email to do either friday or monday angela and she was waiting for committee

087members to get back anything for building a ground yeah we have a building in grounds on friday at 30 at washington middle school masks will be mandatory if any committee member is not able to accommodate by wearing a mask let me know right now because we will make arrangements to do a meeting for anyone that does not want to attend in a mass we do it virtually so let me know right now what what uh you're able to do sure let's do virtual though okay and you will do virtual i will do in person with chris so am i going to be able to see what they alright because you guys are doing a tour again to accommodate the ability to see those things i can work with chris to accommodate that we already discussed

088it he said he would be willing to take some video of what we're looking at um so that's that's what we can do for you colin okay um the mask mandate i i will hold firm on that going into washington middle school school is in session at that point still sure and it just would not look good if we have board members walking into a school without a mascot plus we have a required mass mandate in all of our school district buildings so that's where that's where i'm at college so i i know you really wanted to get in there i know you wanted to look at some of these things so you know if uh if you're not able to accommodate the math then we'll make other arrangements curriculum do you have anything scheduled

089we do on october 6th we have a walk through madison um stacy i would say the thing for masks so do you need to make an accommodation for you actually here okay so we'll be walking through mass uh through madison and um getting to know some of their teachers and stacy a little bit better and seeing what the kiddos are up to and then we have our regular meeting on [Music] okay and then um going back to the cola diet had that ad hoc community member i talked about that looking at protocols or just at least going over the protocols colin you still want to be on that yes okay good you're on um lisa said she'd be on it and i'll be on it um if if we meet next week and i'd like

090to get this going i'm going to have to meet like a google me so what kind of times we're helping um i'm pretty flexible um you said next week sometime yeah um since we're doing it google it makes it a little easier at least the schedule right around our schedule so we still have a public notice because the three members are our board members so it's not a citizens committee so final start with monday morning monday i cannot do between i can do anything after 11. yeah that's that's even better um and then um lori will have to set that up for us because that's going to be a google it'll have to be a public meeting okay all right okay um and then our next regular scheduled meeting will be tuesday october that would

091be the 12th right that sounds right yeah okay any other any anything else anybody want to bring up here um or before we adjourn then i'd ask for a motion one second to adjourn a second all in favor say hi okay we are done thank you you