001And low expectations coming in, and I'm glad they were low. And they met them. They've been meeting them so far. All right, I see the recording button on. Veronica, are you ready for me to start the meeting? We are good to go, thanks. All right, thank you so much. All right, good evening, everybody. Today is November 5, and this is a regular meeting of the San Carlos School District Board of Trustees. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.33 PM. Are there any changes to the agenda, trustees? Okay, if not, I would like to ask for a motion to approve the agenda. I move to approve the agenda. Thank you, Wendy. Second. Thank you, Irene. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the motion carries five to zero.
002Moving on to item three, our special recognition spotlight on excellence. And Dr. Harmeier is gonna share this with us. All right, good evening, trustees and our community. Each year, we'd like to take a little special time to acknowledge our site administrators. The week of the school administrator is celebrated typically in October. So we're a little behind schedule here in making a public recognition, but we want to acknowledge the leadership and the dedication of our school principals and assistant principal. This year more than ever, our principals have really kind of stepped up and taken on the leadership role during a crisis to really be a support to their teachers, their students, their parents, and have really had to demonstrate strong leadership, making changes and pivoting when we don't have a clear vision of what's ahead of
003us, but still making the best of it and trying to be the best communicators there can and being empathetic and supportive all at the same time. I just really want to say thank you to our principals and assistant principal for all that they have done through this entire pandemic crisis. They worked in their breaks, their summers, their weekends. I'm seeing them text and email all weekend long, late into the nights. I just really hope that they can find balance and keep themselves healthy and safe during this time. Also, when they were just spending so much time really responding to the needs of the time. So just a big thank you to our site administrators. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks for choosing to honor them in our spotlight. I am just really appreciative that we have this
004chance to really highlight their work. I think it really, it just can't be overstated how, what a, this is the moon landing of education is something that's never been done before. And these leaders at our sites are leading the way with their staffs and with their families and with their expertise and knowledge of the needs of our students, their curricular knowledge, their sensitivity around social emotional needs of our students and also our staff. And I am just so honored that we have them in our district and so grateful for their work. I know it's a 24 seven job. I am sure it's the last thing they think about before they go to sleep. And the first thing they think about when they wake up. And I just want our parents to know how and our
005staff, I'm sure already knows how dedicated they are and how grateful we are to have them in our district. And I invite our other trustees to share any thoughts that they have as well. I guess I'd just like to say, I mean, I think what is lost on a lot of people. Neil, it may be me, but you're sounding very faint. How about now? That's better. Okay. I think what's lost sometimes is that people forget in small districts like this, a lot of the administrative work on a district is kind of pushed down to principles from that regard. So it, you know, if this was a business world, you'd be getting paid more for doing 15 jobs, but it's the government world where you just get a lot of appreciation and the thanks, which can
006never be enough from all of us. And, you know, I said it, I think a couple of weeks ago, but, you know, I get a lot of the decisions on a board level is, you know, policy, but it just creates more work for everyone else, which is always the hard part because you want to be in there and focus on it. But, you know, we're fortunate enough to have all of you to make it work for us. And, you know, I always like to say is that you make us look good and I recognize that and I realize that, and I appreciate you for that. So I cannot thank you enough for all that you do. I hope the thanks is, you know, just like that holiday bonus that we can't give you, but I
007do hope that you know how deep down the appreciation is. Thank you, Neil, for sharing that. Do any of our other trustees have any comments they'd like to share? I just wanted to jump in and say thank you for your dedication, your commitment and your creativity that you're bringing to this job this year. And most of all, I just want to say thanks for really creating a sense of community despite the fact that we're in a pandemic that you are using your leadership and your creativity to find ways to help parents and, you know, in your school community to stay connected. So I really appreciate that. And I, you know, just want to say I've, you know, as a parent, a new parent at Central, you know, have seen some of those opportunities that have
008been created, not only by Tom, but also by Mindy, you know, kind of as we share campuses, you know, to create some community amongst parents and staff. So I really appreciate that. And I mean, I think I was invited to White Oaks coffee and I didn't make it several weeks ago, but I would love to try and show up at one of your principal's coffee and just to, you know, join the conversation and get that sense of community. So thanks again for making those opportunities happen and keep up the awesome work. Thanks. Hi, Carol and team, I'll go next. I just wanted to say, express again, my deep appreciation and just in terms of what you to add beyond what the others have already said, I would just say that we know that this has
009been a hard year and you all have been remarkable in kind of reinventing education at every single phase. It's like, you know, 20 years of work every two months, but I hope you still find the joy or moments of joy because as a principal, not only do you get to kind of coach and lead your school site, but you get to be close with the kids and I've seen how in San Carlos, like our principals know all of our kids as well as the staff and we're so very lucky to have them. And I will jump in quickly and just say, you know, as a new board member, I've really just been learning over the past month, kind of the behind the scenes, how much our principals do and I think as a parent, I
010just really had no idea the level of work and commitment and responsibility that you all have even in normal times and even more so this year. So huge, huge thanks, you know, as a parent and also as a new trustee for everything that you are doing and the heart and soul that you are putting into our schools and for our kids this year. So thank you. Thank you trustees for sharing those appreciations. Sarah, I think you really hit the nail on the head. A lot of what the principals do is unseen by so many folks and so it is really important that we take this time to honor them publicly, to thank them, to really see their work and their contributions and let both them and our community know how valued they are. So thank
011you. All right, we're gonna move on to our consent agenda items 4A through C. The consent agenda is items that are routine in nature and do not require discussion. I'm gonna call for a motion for 4A through 4C. I move approval of the consent agenda items 4A through 4C. Thank you, Irene. I second. Thank you, was that Sarah? Yes. Awesome. Sorry, I can't see everybody at once here. All right, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the motion passes at five to zero. We are moving on to our information item. Item 5A is an update on our diversity, equity and inclusion work. Dr. Harmeyer? Yes, trustees, as you know, we heard from Amber Cechy about inclusion counts and how their business or their facilitation will support our district
012in some work around diversity, equity and inclusion, including anti-racism and bias. So I just wanted to give you a quick update with where we are. As we're partnering, what we want to do is to ensure that our priorities and goals and actions related to these areas are aligned. So the first step is really taking time to listen and hear from the members of our community, our staff, our parents and our students. So our first step is to have some listening sessions and those are now scheduled. And we're starting off November 17th with our parent and guardian session that'll be from five to 8 p.m. That block of time will be broken up into affinity groups. So there will be a whole group opportunity for listening but also opportunities to join a group that matches your
013identity. If you identify as white, you would attend the white session. If you identify as Hispanic, Latinx, you might then join that affinity group. And it really is an opportunity to create some safe space for people to really share their thoughts, their experiences because we really do need to hear where our work lies ahead of us. So the pressing date is our parent listening session and we just sent out a notification tonight to all of our parents to encourage them to RSVP sign up so we can get that session going. Since we posted this agenda on Monday, we've had a little change. Our student listening session is going to be on December 2nd now. It fit a little bit more better. It fit better with our Wednesday time. So our principals are identifying some selected
014students to be part of a focus group. There will be a session for fourth and fifth graders and then another session for sixth through eighth graders. That will take place in December with some parent permission and support. And thank you to our principals for facilitating and organizing that. And then all of our staff will have an opportunity to participate in listening sessions on January 4th. That's our next full day professional development day for all staff. So we'll be inviting everybody, classified and certificated staff to participate in listening sessions on that day. So we will have a couple of hours built in for different groups. So we're excited to get started. And as a result of those listening sessions, the next step will be starting to form a steering committee, representative stakeholders, and we'll start then
015digging into policies and handbooks and different areas of our district to explore and examine our own practices. And that's where we are for right now. Any questions? Thank you so much, Dr. Harmeier. I really appreciate that we're starting this work in the listening mode. I think it's so important to not only listen to hear areas that of growth, but also just to bear witness to the experience of diverse people in our community and diversity in all aspects of the word. I think it's an opportunity for anybody who's in the dominant culture to really just get a depth of lens that we might not have because of our lived experience as a member of the dominant culture. So I really appreciate that we're starting with listening and I'm really interested to hear how this goes and
016what comes out of it. Trustees, do you have any questions for Dr. Harmeier before we move off of this topic? I do have a quick question. I can't remember from the proposal if inclusion counts said, what is the product from the listening sessions? Is there something that will be put together and sent back out that kind of summarizes what was heard or does that come at a later point through the steering committee? I believe that that data will be gathered and summarized from them as a tool for that steering committee then to analyze the data and then start to form some goals around that. And trustees, I think this is a good opportunity to it's an information item, but I would like to invite two trustees to be part of that listening session. So you
017can let Veronica know if you're interested in participating and that way we have a couple of members there as part of that group as well. So let us know if you're interested. Michelle, is it only limited to two if we're in listening mode and we're not discussing? Cause I would think that as much as our schedules allow, it would behoove as many of us to attend as possible. Absolutely, all of you can attend. Absolutely, I think that's a good point, Irene. I think when we move toward the steering committee, I think my memory, Carol, when we were talking with Amber was to have two trustees maybe participate on that steering committee. So yeah, for the listening, Irene, you're absolutely right. Everyone can join in and I encourage you to do that. And then maybe from
018that point to start to think about who might like to serve on that committee. Thank you. Yeah, Irene, thank you for raising that. I think that would be very valuable for board members to participate. And so just Michelle to confirm, that would be for the November 17th one, the one for parents. The staff one would be for staff alone. We would let them have that space. Yes, correct. Wonderful. Okay, any other questions for Dr. Harmeier? All right, hearing done, we're gonna move on. Thank you for the update. Appreciate hearing what the next step is and that we are starting this work quickly. Really appreciate that. Now moving on to 6A, our return to school plan update. Okay, I'd just like to give the board a brief update tonight, just with progress. I feel like tonight
019is a feeling of celebration in some ways because we've made a lot of progress and I was telling the principals this morning, I didn't feel like this Monday morning, but I feel very differently today. And a lot of work has been accomplished and I'm feeling very confident as we're moving forward. So a big thank you as we start to our nursing team, to our principals and our district office staff, everybody has been working so hard to put all these pieces together to prepare for having our kids coming back. And they are coming back soon and we're excited for that. And we miss them and we look forward to seeing them on campus. So let me give you a quick update on each phase and then I'm happy to answer any questions as we go along,
020kind of pause in between. As you know, we're in phase one right now and our teachers and staff are moving back onto campus. And as we're doing that, we're excited to say that we started our testing program on Monday. So nurse Terry and Paige and Callie, all of our three nurses are working together and we started our pilot for volunteers only on Arundel's campus. And we've since done a couple of others since that. And it was exciting at 10 o'clock at night to get our first results on Tuesday night. I mean, that turnaround happened, like they said. So that provided to me so much confidence because that's the piece that we've been missing and it's a very important piece that we have this testing protocol in place. So we'll be continuing to pilot and train
021this week and next week. So that all sites get into that routine and then we will have it on regularly scheduled when our staff are back full-time every day starting on the 16th. So perfect timing for where we are to support our staff on site. At the same time, we're also setting up our fever-free screening app. And that app is gonna be really, really important tool to make sure that everybody is doing their self-check before they ever come onto campus. This app, as you will hear from Terry in a minute, will help us really manage that process. Right now, our principals are finalizing their campus preparations with maintenance department and custodians. I did get our first feedback call from the county office from our plan that we submitted last week. They were very complimentary and
022things look good. They are a couple of little things that we needed to add because we were still in process with fever-few, for example. And so some details are being added. And the last pieces are just kind of finishing up our site maps and having some more details in there that we need and that are really more closely tied with scheduling. And we're still in that process of scheduling for phase three. So I'm looking forward to wrapping those plans up again. Then we'll go ahead and let the county know they can take another quick sweep of that. Once they get our updated plan, then they will pass it on to one more level at the county office and then over to the county health department. So good feedback on our plan. So thank you to
023our principals and our COVID team for having that plan ready to go. We did order the air purifiers. You'll be approving that contract tonight. So they should be here within the next few weeks. And we're starting to place orders for some of our outdoor learning space materials now. Tents and umbrellas and whiteboards are some key items. There's a lot of materials, but those things are on the way. They're in high demand and short supply right now as we have been dealing with, but we're confident now that we can start moving forward and purchasing these things. So these lists have been worked on since summer, but we're finally placing some orders based on teacher feedback and what specifically they would use and want in their spaces. We didn't wanna just buy a hundred tents and have
024nobody use them if it wasn't something that teachers really bought into. So we really, over the last couple of weeks, have really asked teachers, what do you want? What will you use? What makes sense for you and where your classroom is? So we really appreciate now hearing from teachers and what can be supportive of their teaching. What's really nice is Nurse Terry is doing more training with all of our teacher staffs. Once they hear from Terry, they really do have a better understanding of our protocols that are in place and the tools that we'll be using. So I'm gonna ask Terry to do a little brief five minute overview. She does about a 20 to 30 minute training with our staff. I asked her to share five or six slides to give you a synopsis
025of the kinds of things that our staff are hearing, because I think you as a board should know too. And so should our parents. These are the tools that we're using, the training that we're providing to really provide confidence in our staff. So I'll have Terry do that in just a moment and I'll pull up a slideshow for you, Terry. And I should be able to show it from my screen and I should be able to share my screen. And then also this important phase is our teachers are wrapping up trimester one. So there's a lot of assessment and a lot of details that teachers are working on right now as they're transitioning back. And then they're also working with their principals to schedule and plan phase two and phase three. So with that, let
026me go ahead and open up the slides here. Veronica, will I be able to see the uploaded slides on the agenda here? Yes, they were updated, uploaded. Okay, thank you. Great, so initially again, what was posted initially was her full training. And now I asked her just to condense that down for a brief presentation. Terry, if you wanna go ahead and go and start to present and just tell me to advance when you're ready. Michelle, I am not seeing the slides on the screen. I'm still seeing your window. I need to say share my screen. Thanks, Carol. You're welcome. All right, you should be able to see it now. Okay, hi everyone, good evening. You can go ahead and advance the slides as Michelle already gave a great introduction. So the purpose of this quick
027presentation is to just talk a little bit about this model that we're using to talk about COVID-19 prevention, transmission prevention, and then talk about two really important pieces of that, which is the fever-free symptom screening platform, as well as an update on our employee COVID testing program. So I saw this graphic and it really resonated with me. And I think this concept is called the Swiss cheese model. And what it means is that every single layer of cheese in this model is imperfect. We know that physical distancing is not perfect. We know wearing face coverings is not always perfect. We know that there might be room for improvement for cleaning and sanitation at certain times. But the idea is like when you buy a pack of Swiss cheese from the grocery store, you hardly ever
028see the holes the whole way through the pack of cheese, right? So the more we can layer up, stack together all these different layers, hopefully we can prevent as much COVID-19 transmission as possible. You can skip on. So this is a very rudimentary Photoshop that my son actually made because he wanted to have fun with it. And so I actually feel like our district has about 11 different layers that we're, areas where we're trying to improve and put up these barriers against COVID-19 prevention. So in my longer presentation, I do go through each of these a little bit more in depth. But for tonight's purpose, I really just wanna talk mainly about these two pieces, two really important pieces. So one is our fever-free app that we'll be using. It's HIPAA and FERPA compliant. All
029that it requires is either a computer or a phone. So it can be done from the web or on an app and any digital thermometer will work. So most families will have these. And then it takes about 30 seconds. So we're not expecting any access issues because all of our students in distance learning should have devices. The way that it works is you actually take a quick video of yourself doing your temperature check. You hold the thermometer up to the screen and their AI platform verifies that there's a human there that an actual thermometer is detected. They can tell if it's a calculator or something like that. We've tried to trick it and I get all these funny emails about it. And it makes sure that the temperature range shown or the temperature shown is
030within the range that we've set. Just to clarify, our district has zero access into those videos where people are taking their own temperature. That does not go through us at all. We have no visibility into that. And the reason that we decided on this platform, I just wanna talk for a minute about the why. So there are so many benefits of doing at home screening. It's recommended by the vast majority of professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC. It also increases instructional time. As we know, especially in these early phases, our students are not going to be on campus for full days. And so we really wanna maximize the amount of time that they have with their teachers and other people providing services to them. The video component really does give
031us confirmation that all of our students and employees are actually doing their health checks. So that's a really big piece. The other really helpful thing is if you fail the screen, if an employee or a student fails the screen, they do so in the privacy of their own home. We wanted to be really mindful around stigma and this idea of lining kids up and, oh, someone has a temperature, we have to pull them out and then they feel like they've been othered in some way. And so we just wanted to be really sensitive to that. And also perhaps most importantly, it increases everybody's safety if these screenings are done on home. If we can catch fevers at home before people come on school, that's a really important barrier for us preventing COVID-19 transmission. Not that
032fever is the only symptom, but it's a start. So this is just a really quick example. We have not finished setting up our groups. Our nurse Kelly is working with Alejandro to get all of this set up, but there'll be lots of different groups. Ultimately, what we're hoping is that every single teacher will have a group to manage the students in their classroom and then we'll have other management levels built in as well. So this is just a really quick example. This is our nurses group. So if a teacher, for example, or a specialist who has their roster of students, they can see everyone who's coming in that day and they can see if they haven't done the screen, if they passed the screen, or if they're quarantined. And this word quarantine, we're trying to
033get them to change it to stay at home because what it really means is that student should not be on our school site. It doesn't mean COVID quarantine. There are some additional features that are coming. One that actually, they just launched it last night is the ability to message with our nursing team in real time so we can answer questions for families when can my student come back, if they have questions about specific symptoms. And then coming soon will be the ability for families to upload their test results directly into there. Right now, they're doing that via our email system, but this is just a more secure way and a way for us to organize and have everything in one place. Another really important sort of slice of cheese on our Swiss cheese model is
034routine surveillance testing for COVID-19. So as Dr. Harmeier said, we started our testing on Monday. I was also really impressed with the turnaround. I tested myself on Monday afternoon and I had results before 10 p.m. on Tuesday. So we were really, really excited when this batch came in. All negative, by the way, so we were excited about that. So we've started doing this for employees to date. As of today, we have tested 48 staff members. So we're very pleased with that number and that is only on three sites. So we're going to two more sites tomorrow or the DO tomorrow as well as Heather. And then we're gonna do our upper elementary and our middle schools early next week. I know some members of the public are listening. One thing that's been incredibly helpful is
035that San Mateo County Health is actually now offering pre-testing for all children ages five and up, five days a week. This has been fantastic, especially in our smartie and preschool populations where we are recommending a number of six students go for testing. It's been really fabulous. So you don't need to see a doctor. You can get in the same day. Usually our families who have done this and gone to their provider said this is a much better and quicker option. So just a quick plug for that. How the testing works is it's a self-administered swab. So right now our nurses onsite sort of proctoring and telling people how to do the test. It takes place right on the school site. So it's convenient. It's like I said, it's an oral swab. So it's not painful
036or invasive. We're able to offer weekly testing to all employees. And then we're also having a drop-in day at the DO every week for people that want additional testing. So the maximum amount of testing that insurance will cover for essential employees is two times per week. So anyone who wants, I actually tested myself again today at Brighton Acres. I thought, let's see, what does two times a week look like? I wanna make sure, see what those results look like as they come in. And so we're really pleased to be able to offer that cadence of testing. They mail us a huge batch of tests and then we mail the results back. They provide shipping labels and everything. So it's all super easy. Results come back quickly. And then as a part of the enrollment process,
037the employee consents to the results being shared with the COVID-19 point of contact, which is our nursing team. And so we're the first to see those results come in. And it's completely free as we talked about before. And for employees that don't have insurance, it's covered through the CARES Act. And that's all. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you, Terri. I appreciate that. Are there any questions about phase one, either for nurse Terri or for me before we move on? Okay, great. Well, thank you, Terri. At phase two and three, we're kind of working concurrently right now. Our principals and teachers are finishing up with the identification process of students that we're considering urgent learners. And as we know, distance learning can be difficult for everybody. And I think there's challenges for everybody. But through
038this first trimester, our teachers have really identified students. It's a small number, but are really in need of intervention. And so the teachers and principals together have developed a rubric to really kind of set some criteria for those students, those who have demonstrated that they are not able to engage or successfully learn in this distance learning mode. So part of what we're doing is developing ways to support them in various different ways. And then also at the same time, how do we build those students' interventions into our next phase, our phase three? So we're kind of layering these two things together, identifying students starting to intervene, get them on campus first in small groups, give them a little bit of a head start and get some good routines started with those students to experience some
039success as we're moving forward. And then we move into a phase three. Our principals are gonna be meeting with our teachers over the next couple of weeks to really finalize schedules and objectives and activities that they're going to prioritize when students are on campus. There's quite a few details to work out. So they're gonna be working over that with their teachers. And I think the key is having that time to collaborate. So our principals are sending messages out to their families to say, we may be having a mostly asynchronous day on this day or that day, because they need to set aside planning time. Teachers really need this time to carefully plan and set some objectives for how to use the time. And also just kind of how they're going to adjust their schedule. At
040this point, our teachers and principals are also gonna be putting their students into groups A and B because remember we can't fit everyone in the classroom at one time. That's why hybrid models are required to maintain the six foot distancing. So they'll be dividing their classes into their cohort groups. That's what we're calling those smaller groups. It's about half of the class in most of our class situations. And our goal is to have our students have some kind of orientation, tour, training, those kinds of things before the winter break. That way they have a chance to experience what it's going to be like, make sure everybody has the Fever Free app experience, getting that on their phone or their Chromebook or whatever device is gonna work from them, making sure parents and teachers know how
041to do that screening, making sure families know how to enter and leave the campus. There will be completely new plans for every site on where to drop your child off and where to pick them up. It won't be typical. We're going to want to avoid large groups gathering in any one area. So teachers and principals have to work out those details with some staggering depending on the times when people arrive and which gate they're going to walk through. Then once we're on campus, where they're walking through, how they wait in line for their class to get in, making sure the teachers have checked the screening. There's a lot of training. So we'd like to get all of this done before the winter break, give our teachers and our kids and parents a chance to understand
042all of those details. So we get a head start and then we continue our learning after the break. So we're excited that we're making good progress. We are still collaborating and working with our teachers association along with our principals and everyone's pulling together to make sure that everyone's having some input on these decisions and this planning. So it works. We really want to make schedules and plans that work for everyone so it can be successful. So I think what I want to say is thank you everybody for your patience. That's really what we need right now. It does not politically, but also in our return to school plan, we are really working hard to move forward as quickly as we can. And we are excited about having kids soon. So what questions might you have?
043Thank you so much, Dr. Harmeier for this update. And I also appreciate that you kind of bulleted all of these points in the description on the agenda item. So folks that maybe aren't watching or want to go back to review it, they are all there as well. And boy, you all have been really busy, just tremendous appreciation for the work that staff is doing at our sites on this. I know they are as eager to start seeing their kids as the kids are to see them. So lots of appreciation. I have one question. I have been hearing from some members of the community, they want to know how they can help. Are there ways that they can support this work, that they can take some of the burden off, that they can be part of
044creative solutions. So just putting that out there and not to answer, but just to know that there are people in our community that are really eager to support this work and would like to plug in in any way that makes sense. I know we have obviously limitations on who we can bring on campus, but I know there's other ways. So adding resources is always good when you're dealing with a complex issue like this. Thank you, Carol. And I think the key is making sure we have a plan, identify what the needs are, and definitely we'll want to tap into our parent community. And we do have permission from the county office to use volunteers. We will train them as staff members. They will have to kind of be on our Fever Free app. They will
045be essentially like employees. So we definitely will want to tap in to have some support because once we start having kids on campus and managing kids, I'm sure our principals will want a hand. Especially, we just talked about putting up tents and umbrellas and putting them down. And we have limited custodian support. So we'll look for ways to definitely have parents help out. And as we move into different phases, we'll look for ways and really reach out to community and ask them to come prepared. Thank you. Great. Before I move into board member comment or discussion on this, Neil, is there any public comment? As the public knows, we do take public comment on our agenda items during those agenda items. I wanted to check with you, Neil. There's not. Thank you. And did we
046miss any public comment on the DEI agenda item? We did not. Okay, thank you. Sorry about that. I forget to call for public comment. Okay, trustees, do you have any questions for Dr. Harmeier or comments or wonderings? I do have a question. I just first wanted to say, again, thank you to you, Dr. Harmeier and the district staff and all the principals and teachers who were doing all of the hard work to move this forward bit by bit. And to Terri as well for her presentation that she gave, I feel like she does a really nice job of being very thorough and clear on the information that she provides about the testing and all of the different layers that are being put in place. So thank you, Terri, for all of your work on that.
047My question is just, I've heard from several people wondering about consistency across schools. You could just speak to that a little bit, Dr. Harmeier, so that the public can kind of hear your thoughts and the principal's thoughts on making sure that a third grader at one school has essentially basically the same experience as a third grader at another school. Just as we did with our distance learning schedules, we really asked the four elementary principals to work together and create schedules that were similar and so that we would have continuity across the district. And we'll continue to do that as we move into these next phases. So our four elementary principals are already working together on that. This is where we really ask our teachers and principals to find those sweet spot of compromise is really
048what we look at, so that we can learn from each other and take the best practices from each other and then build that just right approach. So we will continue to do that. Our middle schools, they're very different schools. They have different dynamics, they're different size, they have different programmings, but we're gonna have a very similar approach again, so that our kids have a similar kind of experience on all three levels. So thank you. There are questions or comments from the board. I don't have any, Sarah kind of summed up my comments which I would have made to Terri, so thank you, Sarah. And thank you, Terri. Carol, can I? It's exciting. Yeah, go ahead. I should just add one more thing. Sorry about this, but we just got it confirmed today with Nancy McGee
049in the county office. They are going to provide a two-hour training for all of our staff coming up November 20th. We're gonna set aside some time in the morning and it's really helpful. Several other districts who are kind of where we are right now and wanting to do some more reassuring and learning, Nancy McGee or her team will do about a one-hour training on the four pillars in the framework and why this works. And then also they have a couple of pediatricians that also help do some questions and answers and some presentations that will just really help us truly understand how to best operate in this environment. So that's kind of news. It's not quite out to all of our teachers. I really just got that confirmation today but we'll be sharing that with our
050staffs and that'll be kind of a nice little training right before we go onto our fall break on the 20th. Thanks for sharing that. It's so exciting to see some of these pieces start to come together. I know these are things that staff really quite honestly have been working on for months. I mean, the testing alone, that's been at least two or three months worth of work for staff. And so really just deep appreciation for that. And I'm just really excited to see these systems start to come online and that they are working as we hoped. That's part of what we want to do as we kind of phase this in is test and iterate. So appreciate that. Trustees, do you have any other comments or questions? Okay. In that case, I think that's going
051to be the end of this update. Thank you so much, Dr. Harmeier. Then we'll move on to our discussion action items, our comprehensive school safety plan. This is a required annual plan that is developed by our district wellness director and our wellness committee. And Michelle, is it going to be you or Hans that is presenting on this? Okay, Hans. Hi, good evening, everybody. Thanks for that introduction, Carol, we appreciate it. You might recall that last year during COVID, actually we had some pretty major updates to this plan. And so much of the plan was updated at that point in time. And Mindy Hill, our wellness director, is going to just really focus on changes that occurred between when the plan was last approved, which I believe was in April and now. And she's gone and
052engaged, I think seven of eight site councils at this point. And so one of them, I think was today or yesterday. So there may be one last revision to the plan that she might want to include and she'll talk about that tonight. And you have a choice tonight of whether you want to approve this plan or bring it back next time for a final revision and approve it. So thank you very much. And without further ado, Mindy, will you take it from here? Yeah, they're gonna have to unmute you. Veronica's on it, I'm sure. There we go. I think it's good now. Thanks for your patience. Yeah, so I have had the opportunity to meet with seven of the eight site councils, which was great. They were very patient listeners, because as you recall, it
053is quite a lengthy plan. The only things, there are two things that we've changed since last spring. One is that when we talk about our MTSS program, an important part of prevention that we've added this year due to distance learning is the sown to grow program. And that's really enabled our staff to have their fingers on the pulse of how students are experiencing their day-to-day experience with school, with life. And they've been able to respond much more quickly. Since we don't have that in-person time with them yet, that's really been a key tool. So I added that as part of our tier one strategies at the suggestion of the site councils. The other piece that we added or that we basically created a separate section for is the threat assessment. So in the previous edition,
054we had mentioned threat assessment a couple of times, but it was kind of a buried link. So we just made that its own section. Otherwise, things are pretty much status quo from last year. And parents were... Actually, there was one other area. We also called out the topic of cyber bullying. Again, that's embedded in our anti-bullying policies and our discrimination and harassment policies. There's pieces in there about cyber bullying, but parents felt very strongly that it's so important. It needs to be called out. So we did call that out. There was one request I'd like to get feedback on, and that was around data privacy as part of a safety plan. So obviously several parents in our school district work in the industry, and we're very cognizant of the fact that when data privacy is
055compromised, it could present a safety hazard. So that's something I haven't done a lot of inquiry around, and I'd welcome your opinions on whether or not that should be embedded in this safety plan, or if we should just spell that out somewhere else and make that very, very clear. So yeah, that's it. Any questions? Ask a question, Mindy, just on that point, just so I understand a little better. Certainly. When you're talking about like data privacy, or are we talking like data breaches? So if someone hacked emails, if someone broke into something? I think that was part of what they were saying that they wanted to know that our safety plan included protecting student data. Yes. The other part was around the use of student profiles, for example, or misuse of student profiles by other
056students. They talked a little bit about Zoom bombing and some of the problems that were experienced early on, but I think that the biggest piece was this data breach. I guess my overall thought would be is that it's at this point in time, given where we are in, I think that kind of legal realm is that it should be, I think, probably referenced in the safety plan, but it should probably lead to an overall policy. If we're lacking in one, then we can always address it later, but that would be kind of my just general thought of, we should probably have an overall policy that relates to how we handle data breaches, notifications, security requirements, kind of going forward if we're lacking in that area from your discovery of, or from your work on this
057project. Thank you. Yeah, and it is my understanding that we do have policy on those topics. We have quite a lot. So maybe it's just a conversation with Alejandro and pulling out the pieces of policy that are relevant and creating a small section in this plan that illustrates that those exist and that we know about them. Mindy, if I could too, I'd like to add, I think another concern that might be out there that I hear occasionally from parents is about the use, we have so much use of different applications at this point, right? And whether we are truly vetting the privacy policies of those companies or associations that give us access to those apps. And we go through a really thorough vetting process for these things, and we generally just say no if it's
058not an approved, there's a California privacy law and there's a site that we use to kind of vet that. And any of the apps that we actually have in our domain, we have contracted with most of those. Now, the one piece that's tricky on this is of course, there are occasionally apps that teachers will find that are fantastic and they say that they're free. And the issue is with that is that is always a challenge that nothing is free, right? On some way, somehow they might be getting some data somewhere somehow. And so that's just a constant reminder to our staff and to our parents that that's why we have that vetting. And sometimes it's frustrating because we might say no to an app or something like, no, we're not going to approve that, but
059it's so great. Well, it might be great, but it doesn't mean privacy. So that's another arm of this piece as well. Thank you, Hans for adding that. And also Mindy for raising this issue that came to your attention in the review process. And I'm in agreement with Neil. I think this sounds like it would be a great opportunity to kind of take a deeper dive on our policies and look to see, I mean, this is, technology is rapidly developing. And certainly we don't have a deep enough bench on our staff to have a full data privacy department. And that is something that is really at the forefront. So I think doing some benchmarking and understanding from folks in industry, where our practices line up and where we could make improvements or certainly what's on the
060horizon that we should be worried about or planning for to prevent. And so my question would be in relative to approving this plan, are we recommending that, are you recommending that we approve the plan and then we can kind of go down the exploration route of what we would want to add to it with regards to data privacy and security? Because I think that might be a much longer process. And then we could either add that to the 21, 22 plan or maybe we could submit an amendment. What's, what are our options there? I think either route, but I think you're probably right, Carol. I think that that might take some time and we might want to add that later as part of the draft. Mindy, do you agree? Yeah, what I've told all the
061site councils in our meetings is this really is a living document. We're adding to it all the time. Each year we adopt the most recent version. So I think setting up a process to begin that deeper dive is fine. One thing I forgot to mention is that we did add the SESD pandemic handbooks as an appendix to this document. That was the last new thing that we added. So certainly between now and the next time we approve the plan, there will likely be other things that we put in this document. So I see no need to delay the acceptance tonight. Great, that sounds like an expedient way to go. Is the document that is posted, do you want us to approve it as posted or were there any small changes that came in since it's
062been posted? The only other small change was the zone to grow. We had talked about it at several different site councils but I only added it today. So it's literally three words, zone to grow. But the document that's posted that got added today is the current document, is that what we're approving? I don't believe so. I think I added that around 4.30 this afternoon while I was talking with Tierra Linda and Mayor Poza. Okay, so we'll approve it with the addition of the reference to zone to grow. Terrific, thank you. All right, trustees, do you have any questions? All right, if not, I will call for a motion of approval of our comprehensive safety plan with the addition of the reference to zone to grow in the MTSS section. We approve the safety plan with
063the addition zone to grow. Thank you, Neil. Second. I think that, I'll take Wendy. Was that you, Wendy? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you so much, Mindy and Hans for your work on this and another great document and also for raising the data security and privacy issue. We'll make sure we put that on the agenda. So thank you very much and great to see you virtually. All right, we are moving on to our action items. We have two tonight. Item 8A is the approval of the fever free agreement. Dr. Harmer, do you have anything you wanna share about this before I call for a motion? I think as you heard from Terry, this will be our screening tool and we're
064just asking for approval on this contract tonight. Wonderful. Trustees, do you have any questions? All right, seeing none, I'll call for a motion to approve 8A, the fever free agreement. Move to approve 8A. Thank you, Neil. Second. Thank you, Irene. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, the motion carries five to zero. Now for 8B, the approval of the air purifiers for our classrooms and indoor spaces. Michelle, any comments on this before we move the approval? I just asked Hans if he would just tell you a little bit of background about this purchase too. So, on to you just to give a little bit of background. Yeah, sure thing. Happy to. I think first of all, you know, the reason that we went down this path is that we
065heard from many of our unit members that this was a way to, you know, not only mitigate what currently is in our minds, which is the virus, but it also might help moving forward just with air quality in general in our older classrooms and help with some air circulation, just getting things moving in there a little bit. And, you know, with smoke days and things like that being a reality that this is not just a one-time investment, but it's something that a lot of folks are interested in. So, you know, I spent quite a bit of time making sure I tried to get one for every single nook and cranny, literally in the district. And we have just a couple of extras that I kind of threw in there just in case. And I'm hopeful
066that we got everybody, but it was a pretty comprehensive job to make sure that we got, oh, there's a little office there, or there's a small half classroom here, or there's this, or there's that. So I think that's the main background that you need. I'm more excited to have these come in. One other piece we had, we did a local district mental park actually bought similar, the same brand. And so that was really nice too. We did some vetting there to make sure that they were happy with the units too before we purchased them. So they were, and then we went forward with the purchase. So tonight we recommend you approving that contract with the air purifier. We're actually buying them not direct, but from a distributor. Thank you for your legwork to securing these.
067I'm glad we'll have them in our spaces for our staff's environment. Trustees, do you have any questions before I call for a motion? All right, can I have a motion to approve 8B, please? Move to approve 8B. Thank you, Neil. Second. Thank you, Sarah. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the motion carries five to zero. Number 9A, future agenda items. Now we have first interim coming up in two meetings. We will continue to receive updates on both DEI and our return to school planning. Are there any other items that trustees would like to have agendized for future meetings? Hey, team, it's Irene here. I think it'd be nice, Michelle and Hans, just to kind of have some regular pulse checks on the teacher experience and learner experience. I
068know we had a pulse check back in September, but how's it going? What's working well? What's painful? And it can be anecdotal. It doesn't always have to be surveys, but just kind of regular check-ins throughout the year. Is there any discussion about that as a board and what that might look like and what timing or what product you might like us to share? You know, my hope is that we can kind of keep the effort light so it's not a burden. I would imagine that these might be things you'd be discussing, but we might want to have nuances between how's it going for teachers at the K-3 versus a four-fives versus a six-eight. How's it going for like distance, the connections program? I mean, it could be as simple as like highlights and kind of
069low lights, you know? Okay. Irene, were you suggesting then, I guess for the students, I mean, you'd be surveying parents like they did before? You know, I don't want to generate like work, you know, in surveys. So some of it is, it's more, I actually think that the frequency of the conversation is probably more, you know, important. It could be that principals know a lot in their heads already from like their teacher staff meetings. So, and then I think Michelle and Hans, you can kind of tell us how often you want to do a more quantitative survey to gather data. Just kind of on that note, our principals are going to be sending out a survey probably next week, beginning of next week, just to check in with families about phase three. So we can
070look at how we can check in with teachers too, more formally and possibly in that way. But we do want to check in with parents and check out their comfort level with coming back, you know, and if they'd like to come back in that December time, or if they're going to be more comfortable waiting until January. Also making sure to have parents understand about connections. Now that we're starting to come back on campus, there are some questions that are coming up about whether or not they can transfer to connections program. So we'll do a little bit of surveying in the next week, just around that with our families. So that is one thing that's coming out. But I hear what you're saying about checking in with our teachers as well. It may be that you
071want to get like a couple of weeks of like phase, maybe three or four weeks in a phase three under your belts. So you have enough experience to kind of reflect upon. Right, thank you. Thanks, Irene. I do think that would be a good time to check in after we've kind of moved through this and into phase three. All right, anything else from the board? All right, seeing none, we are going to move into our communications section. For those of you who've been to lots of board meetings, you'll notice that we have moved communications to be grouped with our comments section from the board members comments and superintendent comments so that all of our comments are at the end of the meeting. This is something that I wanted to try to, so that the board
072discussions are occurring earlier and we're grouping comments together. It is really important to us that our associations have the opportunity to make comment at every meeting and that the members of the public that are watching are sticking around to hear them. So I really encourage anybody who is attending the meetings to stick around so that you do hear the employee group comments as well as the superintendent comments and board comments in our meeting because those are important parts of the process and looking at how many participants are on Zoom, I am pleased to see that yes, everybody is indeed still here so I'm glad to hear. I'm glad to see that the comments section will be heard by members of the public as it is intended. So item 10A is public comment. Neil, is there
073any public comment on items that are not on the agenda? No, there's not. Okay, thank you. Item 10B, employee group comments. I did see Dan here. Dan, perfect, you're unmuted. All right, so I'm Dan Lanier. I'm president of the San Carlos Teachers Association and I've been asking the district for air purifiers for the last three years. So I wanna thank the board and Dr. Herrmeyer for making that happen. It's gonna be something that helps teachers with COVID and with smoke days and so that's a big, something very important that will help us to feel safer in our classrooms. As the president of the SCTA, I wanna express my deep concern with the board president's decision to move public comments and employee group comments to the end of board meetings. In my 20 years of being
074a teacher in San Carlos, the comments have always been in the beginning of the meetings with the exception of a few months, I think in 2015. Many parents and teachers have young children and cannot stay up till 10 or 11 o'clock at night when board meetings end. I'm a teacher and I'm also the president and I work full time. And so for me to stay up till 11 or 12 at night when a board meeting has gone long is a hardship. And so I think it's very important in this time when our democratic values are being tested that this decision by our board is troubling or by our board president. I want to comment, I wanna commend school secretaries, teachers, counselors, nurses, custodians and administrators for all the hard work that they've been doing for
075our kids in the spring and through the summer and now. Many of my members are still scared to return to school and they're scared to be with kids in person. And as much as we have great PPE and testing, they're afraid for their own health and the health of their families and friends. They're literally scared they could die. So as much as some of the comments have been that we're worried about learning loss, my members are literally afraid they're gonna die. And so I'm asking you as our board to always have that in your minds with every plan you're making as much as you're concerned with learning loss. And I think as much as our principals are doing a wonderful job, our teachers are going above and beyond. And I'm concerned that this board celebrates
076principals more than teachers. And I appreciate Irene Chen's comments today. Yes, teachers should be surveyed and that shouldn't just be funneled through our principals. You should hear from us directly how things are going. We are going above and beyond for our kids. And now we're gonna put our lives on the line. We could die from going back to school. Thank you. Thanks so much, Dan. Are there any other employee groups? Corey, are you here? All right, hearing none, we are going to move on to item 11A, board member comments. Trustees, who would like to begin? Or does anybody have any comments tonight? Okay, it sounds like we have no comments tonight from the board. Superintendent comments, 11B, Dr. Harmeier. Yes, I just wanted to notice Sequoia Healthcare District under consent agenda item today, you approved
077our annual contract with them. And because it's routine, it was in there. But I wanna point out that over $650,000 is contributed to our district from the Sequoia Healthcare District. That's a taxing function of our region. And we could not do what we're doing in our district without this support of our community efforts. We are able to hire our nurses, some counselors from this fund and support other really critical wellness programs and products and supplies and materials each day, trainings for our students. So again, I just wanna thank Sequoia Healthcare District because we really do rely on that contribution every year. It's significant in our budget. I also just wanna say thank you to our teachers and the SCTA group. We've been working very collaboratively through the negotiations process. And I just value our time
078together and our problem solving and working together and we're making progress. And I just wanna really recognize our teachers and our SCTA group, hard times, but we're working together and we will continue to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Harmeier. All right, the board is going to adjourn to closed session. Neil, is there any public comment on our closed session item? There's not. Right, thank you so much. All right, I'm gonna adjourn the board to closed session. The board will leave this Zoom, join the closed session Zoom. And then I will come back out to this Zoom to report out when we adjourn the meeting. Thank you so much everybody and have a good night. Ah, there we go, success. Fantastic, we're recording, excellent. And we are live streaming. So I'm gonna call us
079back into open session. The board has nothing to report out from closed session. So I am adjourning the meeting at 7.54 p.m. Thank you and good night, everybody. Thank you, Carol. Thank you, Veronica and Alejandro. Thank you, Veronica and Alejandro. And I'm so excited to get you out before 8 p.m. For once, enjoy your evening. Have a good night, everyone. Good night.