001e e e some seats up front all right 6 o'clock so let's go ahead and get it started all right it is Monday August 26 2024 I would like to call this Elizabeth School District uh Board of Education working session to order at 6 pm. can I get a roll call director Booth here director Callahan here director Olson here director Powell here and director Waller pres all right all stand for the pledge of Alle I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for okay first up I move that the board approve the agenda for the August 26th business session as presented second any discussion no okay can I get a roll call director Booth hi director
002Callahan hi director Olson hi director pal hi and director Waller I okay a motion approv next up I move that we approve the minutes from the Board of Education meeting on August 12th 2024 as presented a second any discussion no okay can I get a roll call director Booth I director Callahan I abstain director Olson I director Powell I and director Waller I okay motion approved first up we have communications we have board member reports and I will go ahead and kick it off um find My Notes here so I know we have a lot of people interested in public comment tonight and I do appreciate you all coming um there is one thing that I want to do before we go to public comment and that is clarify there has been a lot of
003miscommunication over this last week regarding our library protocols and our a direction on the classroom libraries and I just want to clarify what that was all about so first off the library policy so in reviewing our library inventory there were books that were deemed to have content that parents may or may not approve of our curriculum Review Committee suggested categorizing these books based upon items such as religious viewpoints graphic violence um thoughts of causing self harm and uh perhaps sexual content and um books deemed to contain that content um the goal was that they would be flagged in the library system and at that point the power is put into the parents hands so if a parent doesn't care what their kid reads if they don't care about any kind of flag do nothing do
004nothing if you're a parent that you want to know what your kid is reading and you want to be able to give permission then you go to the school you reach out to the school and you basically say hey I don't want my kid to be able to check anything out unless I approve regardless if there's something that's flagged if a kid checks out a book then the parents get a notification perhaps there's a parent that didn't get the message that they had the opportunity to opt out so it's just kind of catching it on the back end um so when you think about it we've had you know quite a bit of uproar about people saying well you're you're rating things you're you're classifying things well when you think about it look at movies
005movies have ratings you have PG-13 you have R you have kids that can't drive before the age of 16 you can't vote before a certain age um I don't know I haven't gone to the store to buy pornography but maybe there's an age limit on that as well but um really when you think about it um it's it's just a very common sense approach to protect the parents rights on both sides of the aisle because I know this is a very hot topic um it's been said we're Banning the Bible and again that's another mistruth you know we have to in our position respect all religious viewpoints so um you know you have parents that maybe they're very religious in one aspect or another and they don't want want their child to be exposed you
006know what this is the opportunity to protect their right as a parent to direct what their kids are reading um you know and it's also been said we're Banning books we're not Banning books we're curating content a parent you know if if you want your kid to have access to materials you can go to Amazon you can go to the thrift store you can go down to the public library library and get it for your child we are an educational institution we're not a public library and there's also been um a lot of miscommunications surrounding the classroom Library policy we're going to talk about that more later in the agenda but you know the goal was never to remove reading content from kids in the classroom the goal was to basically take the content that's
007in the classroom review it approve it and store it in the Central Library of the school there is nothing keeping a kid from going and checking out a book but there is also nothing from keeping a teacher from going with a bin and saying okay these are the books that I want to check out for the day these are the books I want to check out for the week or weeks but it's a way that we can be that we can control the content that kids are exposed to make sure that we're providing a rich curriculum and also to provide transparency to the parents because that's what this is all about this is all about giving our kids a good education and protecting the parents' rights to direct the education of their children and again
008that's regardless what aisle be on what side of the aisle you're on I I I don't care we're protecting your rights so with that said um I think that that is pretty much all that I have to say so if there's anything that you guys would like to add to that if there's any other reports that you guys have that you want to bring forward I did want to just mention we had a great barbecue oh yes and uh the legion was the American Legion was fantastic I don't know if you've ever had a burger but no matter where I'm getting it at they make the best burgers I I don't know what it is like they literally I don't know what they do whatever it's always spoton great burger topnotch and uh it was
009nice to see staff family kids there um you know uh it's always nice to come together start at the beginning of the year and do a nice little kickoff right before a great football game yeah so um that was nice it was great y was it I just wanted to follow up with a couple little extra pieces to what Rhonda was talking about just just quickly one question that I received from uh someone was are the books from the Sensi list first of all before I get to that I'm going to say there are two distinct lists one of them is books that we are looking at to potentially actually remove from the shelves completely and those are the ones that have been on display and have been available for review um those have an
010extra level of um kind of egregiousness I would say in the content that um that we have identified as being Beyond sensitive and so that is one list and there's right now there's 13 or 14 books on that list the other list is the sensitive list and that's the one that uh that Rhonda was talking about that if a student checks checks one of those out it will generate an email notification to the parents literally all it says is dear parent or guardian of Johnny Smith your student has checked out XYZ book uh that has been flagged for sensitive content if you have questions give the librarian a call that's that's all it says the parents are free to do whatever they want to with that email hopefully it will generate a conversation with their
011student ideally but um but the parents are free to do whatever they want but the question that I received was are those sensitive books are they segregated in the libraries or or what and I said absolutely not those books are on the Shelf exactly where they've always been they are not segregated in any way shape or form they are not put behind a glass cage they're just right there on the shelf and available for the the students to still access so I just wanted to clarify that as well because I was asked that specifically so thank you all right well I would like to remind everybody that we have a barbecue tomorrow another one uh for the automotive uh shop we're trying to raise some funds we're lacking a little bit to finish it and
012it will be a good time of free barbecue and the bus turnaround at the school at 4:00 tomorrow please come and get your free barbecue and uh help us uh raise some funds for the kids we're very excited about that program very if you are coming please see me tonight because we do have an RSVP so you can RSVP with me tonight before you leave all right Mike anything I I don't have much all second the barbecue was was great um um football game was was good and I think the fact meetings resume September 17th so great all right I'll jump in and do my report um autoshop fundraising just to piggyback on John's announcement is tomorrow night we are asking for RSVP as we do have a certain number of meals we've ordered from
013Smokey Smoky Trails Trails thank I always want to say Smoky Bones sry Smokey Smoky Trails thank you um and uh we are looking not only for uh people are willing to donate but also contractors who might be willing to look at the pieces of the project that are left that would be willing to come and take a look at the the parts of the project that are still left uh to be completed um do want to just uh complement our transportation department um last week we were able to add back a number of in town routes we had children for the last couple of years because we've not been able to be fully staffed in our transportation department we are finally fully staffed in our transportation department um there aren't many districts in the state
014that don't have a bus with the big sign saying bus drivers needed we no longer do have that um so we are fully staffed um so we added back a number of routes last week and of course that meant that we had to shift some routes um and that led to new routes in kids learning new routes and so uh we definitely had some routes that ran behind as kids got to know their new routes and drivers got to know their new routes and new drivers who we have hired to fill those open positions that we had um so we thank parents for their patience we believe this week we're uh will be more routine and we'll be on schedule um we also announced last week we had to shift uh running Creek's uh start
015schedule um obviously our school schedules are heavily driven by school buses I know sometimes say that's like the the the tail wagging the dog um but obviously you want um school buses because so many of our kids do get transported by our school buses we do want our our school schedules to really match so that our kids arrive at school on time and they're not late for school and um and so we did have to shift as of next week our Renning Creek spell schedule and we appreciate our parents patience with some of those shifts that are happening um really want to compliment our staff um start of school has just been amazing I was in every classroom last Tuesday um and got to visit with our teachers and our students and um just um
016just really excited about the start of school very positive feeling we had a great convocation the week prior we talked about that at our last board meeting um and just really um excited about the start of school um our staff appreciation football game our high school has every game has a theme um last Friday night's game was staff appreciation so during halftime our staff members were on the field and our community um recognized our staff for the start of the school year and we appreciated that this Thursday's game starting at 7 o'clock is a veterans appreciation game so any veterans in our community we hope that you'll come uh veterans get in free just to identify yourself as a veteran um and at halftime we're going to invite you down on the field and celebrate
017you celebrate your service uh here to our country and certainly as a veteran here in our community so again 7:00 uh this Thursday at our football game is Veterans appreciation so uh we our next game which I don't have the date right in front of me is uh is recognizing our First Responders so we're going to recognize our police officers our firefighters our ambulance workers um so definitely just know that our high school is really trying to recognize um uh folks in our community that really deserve special recognition so again thank you uh to all of you for um just uh your trust as we uh have started the school year and I just really excited about the start of the school year so thank you okay so next up we have public comments and
018due to the overwhelming oh can't talk tonight overwhelming response um of people that wanted to speak at public comments we had the um forms marked in District and out of District so we're going to give priority to um people that are that are in the district and um I do appreciate everybody coming to speak um and and and being here tonight but um again we feel like we need to give that priority to the people in the district so let's go ahead and kick it off first up we have Chrissy Howell you want to mention you've got three minutes and it's three minutes per per um comment thank you and you can just leave it on push the button it first time thank you directors for having us all here this evening um unsupervised access
019to explicit and deranged content band not really let it be known that the Elizabeth School District Board of Education is in no uncertain terms upholding the platform in which they ran and were overwhelmingly voted in to maintain educating our children and putting kids first by forming a curriculum Review Committee consisting of parents teachers and community members this board has brought in consistency by not only following a tried and true educationally based curriculum they have alleviated the burden placed on teachers to formulate their own version of curriculum freeing them to concentrate on students needs and giving them the gift of time they so deserve we should all agree that books are a form of education and in many cases can provide a sense of Escape or visualization Beyond The Real World a book can take you
020to places beyond your imagination sometimes that place is very frightening and damaging young people and especially at the elementary level may not be prepared to mentally handle things outside of their family values and normal conversation such as suggested in these online reviews of the flagged books one this book is full of Dark Twisted themed deeply damaged individuals because of this I would only recommend it for mature audiences two each generation sinks further into the darkness and becomes more damaged than the last three this book can easily break anybody these are reviews these books do not Encompass the educational values that I would expect from a school sexual abuse alcoholism drug abuse promiscuity bulimia cutting sexualizing and then encouraging the intimidation of Innocence these books are not banned they are m categorized as any other form
021of expression for Content thus allowing a parent ability to openly provide family discussion or to maintain the religious requirements of their faith why are there people in here wanting to demonize innocence and the family family values of others yes this is ultimately the decision for parents to make let them make it by upholding the sensitive subject rating system in our school libraries wake up Elizabeth thank you next up we have Shelly Manning thank you school board members I have to say that I agree with this school board doing what they're doing I approve of this wholeheartedly as a former teacher and as a citizen of Elbert County our children's minds are so especially at the young age they take in they listen to their teachers they think the teachers are the world at times and
022sometimes they are to them so I approve of this because this content you are not Banning the misinformation that is out there is wrong people who are putting that misinformation out please stop you have the option to go to the library the public library or Amazon they're not saying to take these these books you your children can still read these books find an alternate to this let's stick with the academics and teaching our children right from wrong good versus evil I approve of what you're doing and I just want to say keep up the great job am thank you and next up we have Bert de de [Music] de so guys first of all I just want to say thank you because I've been to a lot of board meetings through Douglas County and some
023other different areas and everything that our board of education is doing here in in our area our local area is deeply appreciated you guys care more about the kids than any other board I've been in front of okay um the books that we were I was went outside here and I was looking through some of the books I didn't know about that I'm I'm with grandparents for kids okay I don't have kids in school but my kids were raised through this school I have three of them that completely went through all the grades in this school we didn't have these issues we weren't worried about him reading explicit stuff in the library you know I don't even know where that comes from why would we want this in our library you know I heard Mary
024you talk about I I I misheard you I guess I thought those 14 books were removed well not really supposed to have interact but those 14 are are under consideration right now so you have my vote to definitely remove those books they do not belong in our library they don't fit the ideals of Elizabeth the the way we want our kids to grow up out here and be Good Samaritans in the community okay so that that's my def my viewpoint and I just want to say again thank you guys for everything you do I work real hard to help a lot of you get to the board and guys it's it's just imperative we can't have damaging stuff in our library it just doesn't make sense to me I know there's other viewpoints but there's
025other viewpoints of many things in this world and if we rate those books and they rate higher than R they should be gone period in my mind thank you very much thank you uh next up we have David [Music] Fletcher my name's Dave Fletcher I have a uh daughter here in the high school so this is kind of personal to me um I retired from the Navy out of Northern Virginia if any of of you have seen the craziness going on there it is absolutely insane um what these people are allowing children to read it should never even take place they these people are criminals for letting them read these books they uh I want to thank this board for the leadership that you you have shown in this I want to app I appreciate
026you're you're doing your duty to protect these children and that is you can't I I don't I don't know if you get paid but you should but the but uh the this is we couldn't pay you enough to do this job and so the uh these you're focusing on the Reading Writing arithmetic that we all got when we were going to school nobody had to talk to me about gay sex when I was when I was in school I didn't know my fourth grade teacher was even married except for the fact she had misses in front of her name I don't want to know about I don't want my child to hear about anybody's personal life I don't want to hear about gay sex from a book that they just picked up out of the
027library I don't want it here and the you're removing these bad elements that obstruct our children from actually learning the uh I think you've come up with a very Democratic process you you found you weaved the through this and found a way to do this that the people who want their children to read these books can still do that um I I don't know who would want to to allow these children to read this in my mind if you want your children to read the books that are out there we should you're you're a child abuser that's what you are the uh um these books are being intentionally given to Children whose mind mind are being formed they they're they're just learning and their little hearts are being damaged by this and we cannot let
028this continue these books are also lies Isaiah 5:20 woe to those who call good evil who put Darkness for light and light for Darkness who put bitter for sweet and Sweet for bitter we cannot let this happen director pal I know that you've had to look at some things that you prefer your soul has been damaged by by this and I you have put yourself In Harm's Way for children and that's I sered the N for 20 years and I I I know what that's like the uh and I want a well good well done good and faithful servant well done Tom Peterson good evening uh board members and uh superintendent uh snowberger thank you for having me uh Mary thank you for leading us in prayer our country was founded in prayer um it
029it's uh very meaningful so thank you uh you can RSVP me for tomorrow night um and the burger fry last Friday night it was nice to see all five board members there uh supporting School supporting uh the community so I appreciate that um I'm a longtime Elizabeth School District my family we've raised our five kids here three of them have graduated uh from Elizabeth High School I speak tonight in support of the board and the library book policy and thank you for your efforts um I uh this is not about censorship that's misinformation this is not about book Banning that's misinformation this is about common sense and decency and about parents knowing what is being taught in the classroom and what books their kids have access to and the accountability to the teachers I agree
030with everything Bert said I agree with everything David said and I agree Ronda with what you said of protecting the parents on both sides of the aisle but I also those excerpts from the books are abhorent to troubling at best and have no um uh reason for being in uh the uh shelf of an elementary school um it's just uh the sexualization of our Elementary School uh students needs to stop um in our experience at Elizabeth schools we had examples of teachers giving lectures leading classes or leading discussions on subjects not in the curriculum and basing the discussion on their own opinions no accountability and there needs to be accountability and there needs to be accountability in the books in the individual libraries in the classrooms uh it just makes common sense that it's governed
031it's part of a a review process it's approved and cataloged in a library system and so I agree with the approach that you're taking the kids are the parents kids the classroom are the school's classroom and the rules are set to be by the school board the school the community uh um gave a clear Voice last fall in the election voting in two four board members with a 4345 to1 um U mandate and that is this is exactly the type of of uh policy that we want you to take a hard look at use common sense and understand the role that parents have in the kids' education so again thank you uh for your policy for putting the focus on academics student achievement and re respecting the uh parents rights to direct the education of
032their children thank you next up we have William King good evening to the board Dan snower thank you I come tonight to be brief uh if I can find it here I have my notes um I'd like to uh publicly commend uh the Elizabeth School District uh Board of Education work aligning the district's Library content and individual classroom libraries with the district uh curriculum and standards it is fitting and proper proper that a process is established to Ure centralization review centralized review and approval of the District Library materials parental rights and responsibilities are recognized and honored by establishing a system whereby they can control what and when their children are exposed to certain literature the members of the Boe or the Board of Education are meeting their management and fiduciary responsibilities that the Elizabeth School
033District voters have elected them to do and I commend you thank you thank [Applause] you next up we have Greg Lopez okay put that up to the side uh Zach quinby I hope I said that right yeah that's right hey guys thanks for having me um I'm going have the same issue with my notes here um just real quick I'm a Colorado Native been living in Elizabeth for 11 years I've got two kids that started out at running creek EMS now at EHS I've got uh two little stragglers that are waiting in the wings to start a little later um I am a blue backing 2way supporting small government kind of guy I love Jesus with all my heart I need you guys to know that because I don't agree with what exactly you're doing
034here I understand your heart and I appreciate it I see it um I think your goals and motivations are good what I disagree with is the methods because I think there's going to be unintended consequences um especially detrimental to early literacy I understand the desire to get to um get information to parents and I I support that um I mean my kids can be a little bit Knuckleheads forget what they have if my kid comes home with a piece of school property I would actually like to be notified so I I think the more efficient way to go about this might be to just send an email anytime a book gets checked out um that puts it in the parents hands just like you guys are talking about um but it alleviates the need for
035a list to be maintained and for a teacher to um measure against and really that's where my biggest concern lies is um the classroom libraries especially uh in the elementary school level um being able to access a book at hoc On Demand is absolutely Priceless it's Priceless um I understand the the desire to uh try to control that but I think you can put that on the parents I think we can take a look in the classrooms and we can peruse the those books ourselves and we can talk to the teachers if there is an issue if there's a book that we find um offensive because the task that you are taking on to tag and flag all of these books I mean it's it's Monumental there's so many books just in this small library
036and on top of that there is no way for you to know what I find offensive I'm very like you but I don't agree with what you're doing I mean that's a case in point we don't necessarily agree on all the same things so that's my thing is I think we need to do I'm just going to talk for a sec we got to keep books in classrooms there's a lot of things that don't belong in classrooms drugs you know weapons Bears books don't make the list books should be classrooms and access to those books is is huge for our kids thanks guys thank you next up we have Ken Matson hello board members uh thank you very much for giving me this opportunity um I'm a father of a daughter that's in the middle
037school and you know I I really appreciate the process that you've went through to review books um I kind of liken this to um basically the internet so me as a parent you know I decide when my child is ready to go on the internet do I put restrictions on what they can access do I put monitoring tools to see what they access and I I kind of like in this process similar to that um you're putting the responsibility on the parents to decide what's appropriate for the children and sticking with my internet analogy you know even us as adults when we go into work there's somebody that decides what you can and can't go on there's things that are inappropriate for work to go on the internet it it's the same thing here you're
038giving the responsibility back to the parents to decide what their kids are ready for what their beliefs are and is it appropriate for them and I just want to say I I support the effort and thank you very much for doing this that's it thank you thank you next up we have Andrea Richardson good evening board members staff uh Dan pleasure to to be here uh my name is Andrea Richardson I I do serve on the district accountability committee um as a volunteer I know you guys serve as volunteers and I think I'm friends with every single one of you and appreciate all the work that you do I'm going to tell you that my husband also served on the school board and y'all do deserve to get paid maybe a little little bit just
039saying but I know probably better than most people um the slings and arrows that you suffer on behalf of our kids and I I you know and where you're trying to go with this thing and I understand it tremendously and I want you to know I'm in full support um our daughter Avery she came all the way up kindergarten through 12th grade graduated last year super proud of that fact super proud of this District um and what they accomplish during that time and um I want to say that this is just common sense for me um and I don't think that this hurts anybody I don't think that they're also when it comes to middle school or grade school kids there's just some material that they shouldn't have a choice about um I'm not talking
040about censorship I'm not talking about um people not being able kids not being able to go and check out books we're not talking about that I think we're all reasonable folks what I think we're talking about is there is a certain level of insidiousness with some of these books and the fact that there was not discernment and one of these books was put on the Shelf in both of our elementary schools kind of blows my mind mind because I don't think they were of proper age now do these kids when they get older will they can can they check it out on Amazon they can check it out on Amazon they can go find anything on Amazon now we're not talking about the 1920s where they were burning and banning books and then nobody had
041access to these books because that's not the case that's not the scenario we're in right now we're in the scenario where we're just simply saying well maybe in grade school kids shouldn't be have having ideas supplanted in their head about their gender identity it's dangerous it's gross and if anybody thinks that those books should be on the shelves you know I question where your mindsets at do you want to protect these kids or not and I think that's what you guys are doing but thank you very much for your time appreciate you next up we have Lisa Beach hello I have three kids one in each level um of schools here I would like to express my concerns about the recent decision to remove classroom libraries students develop their reading skills vocabulary and a love
042for reading primarily through frequent access to books the removal of these libraries within the classroom will substantially limit the number of books students can access daily which will have a detrimental effect on their learning and engagement as a potential compromise I suggest that teachers be asked to cross check the list of sensitive topics books with the books in their classroom libraries while I understand that you are concerned about adding to teachers responsibilities I believe that this short amount of time is a fair trade for losing all of their books the proposed removal of classroom libraries is not just a logistical issue but one that will significantly impact student achievement and contribute to the ongoing challenge of Staff retention over the past two years we have seen an alarming rate of Staff turnover and this decision
043will exasperate the problem all the publicity that's gone to the books on the list but I think the real loss through the decision is the ban you have placed on classroom libraries yes ban does mean to prohibit and that's what this is this policy change would undermine the positive experiences that students have had in our district and erode the strong reputation of our educational environment in summary I urge the board to reconsider this proposal and to recognize the immense value that classroom libraries bring to our educational system removing them would be a disservice to our students and their future classroom libraries are not just a collection of books they're a fundamental part of our educational environment enriching the learning experiences for students in countless ways it was said earlier that we would just be moving
044these books to the library but that's not an option these books in large part do not belong to the district do not belong to the schools so teachers would be packing them up and taking them home and then I'm also curious about you're saying that then kids can just take basket of books and like have baskets that they're checking out the library like how would that work logistically how do how much time do kids get in the library to pick a large variety of books that they used to have at their fingertips um when it was just in their classrooms um I'm also concerned about students losing books that are at their reading level we're talking about kindergartener first grade second grade those are well kindergarten first grade those are hard books for parents to
045get a hold of um on those lower reading levels so there's just a lot that goes into this um I think teachers are absolutely responsible enough to cross check your the list on sensitive topics I mean you think how long that would would take for an elementary school classroom not very long right so I think um there's just a lot of logistics that go into it that have really have not been um explained to the community thank you next up we have Michael Morrison thank you board members for your time this evening my name is Michael Morrison and I'm as and I'm here to ask the board to read consider their decision to remove libraries from School classrooms across the district this issue is personal to me now I'd like to share my experience regarding
046classroom libraries with everyone back in 1998 I was looking for a project to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout I wanted to help the school that I had attended an elementary school I met with the school's principal the community leaz Zone and many of the teachers they all expressed how important classroom libraries are for education and asked if my project could help create libraries and classrooms at the time I asked why students did not access these books at the libr library and could we instead focus on helping the school library directly the teachers I spoke with gave me seever several reasons why classroom libraries are so important teachers do not always have time to plan and organize the entire class to visit the library having a small library in their classroom provides children with immediate
047access to books um School libraries can be intimidating to students especially younger students imagine being a young first or second grade student excited to read but walking into a large unfamiliar library with 10,000 books classroom libraries on the other hand provide students with smaller number of books specific to their reading level selected by their teacher the smaller number of books is much more approachable for young readers classroom libraries give young students eager to further their reading skills the convenience of finding a book in their own familiar classroom Studies have shown that young children who have direct daily access to books at their reading level test higher in reading and writing proficiencies the removal of classroom libraries will disproportionately affect lower income students who may not have access to the reading material at home home for
048our Eagle Scout project we held the book drive and asked students and businesses around the community donate to donate books to our project the books had to be appropriate for elementary school and students had the books must be received in good condition our goal was to re raise 1,000 books we raised over 4,000 books and built over 20 bookshelves to allow teachers to build their own classroom libraries I asked the board to reconsider this decision we should be enabling our teachers and giving them every tool and resource available and not restricting them by removing the books thank you okay couple um I think we have time for one more um we're just about a minute shy of 30 so um Jim vill so before I start I want to really compliment everybody in this room
049you folks are all rock stars people don't show up for anything and the fact that these people showed up is special you're all special you two that we didn't applaud for because you had the uncomfortable first position speaking I'm sorry we didn't clap else um you guys are important in special care what you think about this stuff and the reason we're here together talking is to learn from each other different positions my position's already slightly changed just from a couple of the speakers and that position is I just want to put that forward first I think in the kindergarten first and second grade there should be um libraries in the classroom and they need to be heavily vetted before a single book gets in there so I think there needs to be a little balance
050just in those Tender Years cuz when I was going to school I don't remember one second to be able to go grab to go grab a book off a shelf there was no way the bell rang you were in the study you were doing the teacher was talking you were doing the class board there was a lesson or you were reading predesignated material you didn't go grab a book except for maybe in kindergarten first and second grade anyway so that's where I've changed um what is a book it's a list of words and and words have tremendous power for example a man and a woman speak words of affirmation to each other and someone considered in Authority speaks more words over them and instantly their life has completely changed now they're married and they're acting
051and thinking and being recognized by society and the law in a completely different way just from a few words so that's why this subject is important um I heard about this um class school library thing many months ago and it really really Disturbed me that parents could just bring in and donate books to the classroom or a teacher could just bring them in with absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever and I don't think that's acceptable just in the same way that have every single book in the general School library would be acceptable I would hope that people would think that um the karma sutra Illustrated or or The Joy of Sex or uh what's some other famous titles M comp um how how about the Anarchist Cookbook should we have these books in our school library I
052I don't think so I think there should be some scrutiny on on content um I'm really thankful we have this uh this um board that's really finely moving forward with uh dealing with this situation um I believe the First Amendment um protecting speech in media and books is the foundation of our legal system and society and believe that no speech or media should be banned in this country I also believe that non-adults used to be and I do mean used to be protected for many things in this country they can't buy liquor or cigarettes or pornography or go to films rated R stronger they can't go to a doctor and get hormone treatments or body parts chopped off without parental knowledge um things seem to be changing in these areas but not here in Elizabeth
053I hope um just like alcohol is not ban in this country scrutinized the books um in our schools available to minors is no different and it's not Banning books just like a parent could allow their kid to consume um alcohol parents can go buy any book they want for their kid and if the book's legal for their age the kids can take it to school share it discuss it with their friends discuss it with staff but I do have to admit if you brought alcohol to school you might getting some trouble um again thank you for taking action and understanding the First Amendment and um protecting our kids for those that we didn't have enough time tonight we really encourage you to email email the board email your comments the it's appropriate for everyone to
054be able to speak who's here to speak we have time limits we have an agenda agenda with a schedule for public comment till 7:05 minutes okay but you don't think this is an acceptable reason to extend that since you guys were so short and fast on your initial part of the agenda you don't think that's acceptable anyways we you don't want to hear because you didn't reply to me you just didn't the email you didn't reply to me you didn't reply to me you didn't reply to me and you didn't reply to me uh so that's why I'm here I just would like to ask you did you get a reply from one of the board members I got one reply from you okay so we have jobs I hate to say this we have
055jobs that's why we're all here for all of us to be got a response now we're going to move on and if you'd like to email us at a later time you can thank you and we also have public comment at every meeting okay at every meeting okay noted your public comment does say till 7:05 on the agenda sheet it says we do minutes it yes it does it says 30 minutes yeah this is the time aot a little bit it was out on the public thank you on the agenda that was posted not you I'm sorry I'm not speak not to listen to parents is whato to do at this point Cal down you could have been here on time I was here on time I okay 30 minutes for public comment if you
056disagree with that would suggest that you all email or utilize the public comment time that nobody uses during The Other Board me meetings okay next up we're moving on we're going to discuss 8.1 revised policy GBE staff use of the internet and electronic communications and if you recall we reviewed this policy in our last meeting where changes were recommended we're reviewing those changes tonight and if there's no further changes it's going to come back before the board for final adoption at our next business session so this one I think just just had very minor changes I think it was I'm trying to remember exactly what the change was but it was very minor so yeah I don't think there was any looking at the wrong one GBE sorry I skip the other one oh I'm
057sorry I'm sorry me skip it so me for this for this one I really saw no other necessary changes sorry thank you so do anybody have anything they want to discuss about what's good GB okay next time all right going to come back for review so we'll have one more chance to look at it before we vote on it do we want this on consent or do you want this brought back for discussion if you don't if you don't see anything any issues with the verbiage that's on there now then we can just put it on consent okay okay all right sorry I skipped over that that's okay I apologize no I don't think so we can have that motion first and final okay next up we we have revised policy gb- staff use of
058District technology resources which is an acceptable use agreement this is a policy we also reviewed in our last meeting re reviewing again the recommended changes this evening and if there are no further changes it will be brought back for approval in our next business session um one thing I noted most of the changes were just verbage changes and I do agree with um I do also agree with non- verbage changes that were made such as saying personal use of work email is um permitted that was lined out and adding that the user must comply with any District policies I think that's the key as a district policy because it allows us to capture any use of District policy where before it didn't reference District policy so yeah anybody have any concerns discuss good to me
059all right next up is um a new policy that we're introducing and we talked about this a little bit last time it's gb- social media um so there was some of the things that um I noted that and I'm wondering do we need a do we need an r on this one needs to be one it should be e- E1 um is how most districts have have numbered it we didn't add it to the agenda uh but if you note it on the front of the first version um it does have E-1 okay and that's probably how we'll reference it moving forward is E-1 okay as a policy I think what we had hope to do and I think we've had some other things that were probably more urgent since our last meeting I think
060we really wanted to try to get um board members to give us specific things you wanted us to include in the first version uh gb- E-1 was our first attempt at trying to draft a policy from other districts and then uh we surfaced District 49's policy that I think had some elements um but I know we had some other things table this for a little while there's I don't know I think there's other districts too that you all have looked at yes you sent me a one today that I actually really liked I I was able to skim through it a little bit um yeah there's no urgency on it I think I think our overarching concern is just we want to make sure that where there are where there are social media sites that
061reference the district that look like they're official District websites that are not we really do need policy to make sure that we have the authority to to to to take control of those websites we we do have a number of social media sites out there that appear as if they're district and they're not could question could we put something basic in place tempor or not temporary and then bring it back to the table to add certain content to it so that the school can go ahead and we do and I think that's that I think that's what gb-1 I think that's what we were trying to do with that one um I think that that one gives us what we felt like we needed and then I think we can add to it okay because
062I think that one's going to take a little more time but I don't want to hold you guys up from being able to to move forward in certain aspects so I I feel like we could maybe put a basic one together and then bring it back later in the year to maybe add things to it I think we we brought Forward gb-1 Thinking it it gave us what we felt like was the authority necessary to make sure that any named social media sites that named Elizabeth School District would give us the responsibility and the and the authority to make sure that we adhere to District policy on photos on things like that we have had some parents who have expressed concerns even this past week around student images on sites that looked like they were
063District web or District sponsored social media and they weren't so so this this this version would give us what we feel like we need initially but we know it doesn't meet all of your expectations so if we could bring this one forward and then modify it moving forward I think that would be great but I know I know it's not enough it's not enough but I agree with you let's go ahead and move it forward can we oh I got a couple of things you already have good stuff well you know um and again I'm not sure if this would necessarily fall under that or if we need an R um I like the idea of two admins for each social media account or regulate all to the public information officer yeah but still have
064two admin accounts I know stuff gets abandoned out there well people leave and then we have no access to the site so and um employees are expected to adhere to the same standards of conduct online as in workplace MH um employees are responsible for what they post to participatory media sites um I like the idea that um representation of personal opinions as being endorsed by the district or any of its organizations um that needs that needs to be addressed we want to make sure that people aren't expressing their personal opinions on behalf of their um do you want to send us those Ronda and we can add we can build those into here and make sure those are represented before we bring this to you at the next meeting and then there's also you know
065it can be easily addressed with like a disclaim okay well an employee comments me on if there's a confusion between like I said a personal account and a business account right that you can put a disclaimer and say this is not not necessarily that view not the views of the district okay one one thing that I was wondering too when I was looking at the sample that we had from another District they called it particip participatory media use um and it seemed well for one thing their seems scattered so I think it would need to be sectionizer websites too this this is specifically focused on social media so Facebook Instagram deal with websites within this because some of the you know at least in some in one of the other samples that we looked at
066um it was there there was definitely um at least an inference to me that they were talking about websites in general too yeah I think I think we felt like this really needed to focus on social media because it is its animal unto itself so I mean I would say if there's something on on websites that we don't feel like we have in policy you know uh Mr Mah is currently looking at new website because we have to move from our current platform um by the end of the year um and so we currently are looking at new platforms for the district um so it would be important that if if you feel like we don't have policy that currently covers that I'd say we want to make sure that either we look at current
067policy or if there is other policy we should implement we do so so maybe we can I don't know if we have policies that directly relate to our website so if we do we can pull those and look at them um in the near future we can look and see what else out look that one especially if we're going to be changing platforms and all that so that would be probably a good time that yeah I think they are two different animals so I I would say probably keep them I didn't really like this one seemed so back and forth and I was kind of confused so I wanted some of it but okay it needed to be sorted better when we do ours any anything you want that addresses social media if you can
068get it to us as soon as possible we'll embed in here to the best of our abilities bring it back for conversation at the September 9th meeting and then hopefully have a policy that we can put into place and then keep it on the agenda for further modification I think if we can get something into place that can Empower Jeff to to begin addressing some of those social media sites out there that again do appear as if it's District sponsored that are currently not yeah um I think it the sooner the better I'd agree with that are there a lot of those out there there's just a few okay yeah there's a few and there then we have a number of teams that form them that again appear to be District that we have no
069guidelines for those who are operating them and again not that they're Rogue or intending to but we have no policy to hand those individuals saying hey it's great that you're doing that we want to keep our community informed about what you're doing that's connected to the district here's here's our expectations of those again not all of them are bad it's just they're not run by the district they're connected to the district let's provide some guidelines as to what we expect so makes sense yeah okay okay good on that one all right next up we have revised policy GCE GCF professional staff recruiting and hiring um um this is brought forward for minor revisions and legal references and again it's preent presented for review and um it had a few grammatical fixes it's updated with a
070reference to Colorado Revis statute 8- a lot of these are just because of our readmit to casby and and a lot of the changes that have happened over legislative sessions so uh again very minor changes but more more likely as Ron has mentioned the CRS reference any more discussion on no again I I guess what I'd like to know is are these are you comfortable with uh consent on some of these that are just that one had hardly any change yes it's just grammatical adist that that'll be easier to dispose of and save your next meeting for those that we have to discuss about okay next we have revised policy G gbj Personnel records and files again minor revisions and legal references um so it has minor edits um some necessary updates it looks like
071it's been expanded to include unlicensed Educators gets a bit more descripted in the definition of educator and this year we're throwing out Shale and making it will until next year when we change back that seems to be you know this is back and for this is a year of the will any issues with that one no okay next up revised policy gde gdf support staff recruiting hiring again minor revisions and legal references um has a minor grammatical correction and it adds references to new and updated Colorado revised statutes I'm good any questions on that one okay so so we can probably put those under consent as well okay next up revised policy GBA open hiring equal opportunity um again consist of removal of the reference to our HR Director yeah um still had kin's information
072in there and um it's really not required to have that in there so we can just remove it by removing that we won't have to change it should should that position ever change and there is a legal reference on the back page that's also changed okay so it'll be consent as well okay so next up we have um discussion of our review of the library sensitive topic books list um so before we get into this discussion I want people to understand and that you know a lot of times people think that these books end up on the shelves because of teachers or they end up on the shelves you know um because you know someone put it there purposefully and you know things things end up in the schools and it's not necessarily done on
073purpose a lot of times you get these you know you get books you buy them in bulk all the titles look innocent and if you if you really don't inspect them you know you bring in you put them on the Shelf so I don't want this discussion to be taken as you know we're pointing fingers that we're blaming people um you know it's just and and you can elaborate on that um yeah book companies are notorious for we've got this great deal on this box of 200 books you know the special price um and they come with with pre- cataloged and the file to upload into your destiny library system and they get placed on on their shelves so um I think many districts are moving away from that um when I interviewed with one
074of the media stations who questioned some of the websites that we're using to to check sensitive topics um I actually mentioned to them you know while we may be looking at that compared comparing our current collection many districts are using that to determine what books they're ordering so whether you use that to consider what books you're choosing to buy today or whether you're using that website to choose whether you want to keep a book on your shelf it's it's accomplishing the same thing whether you're you're actually putting a book on your shelf that is inappropriate or whether you're determining whether a book on your shelf should remain on your shelf so um you know the reality is is we're having to unfortunately go back and look at some books that were bought Mass purchases in
075the past and that's where some of these books that we're actually reviewing uh have come from so um we have 19 books one of them uh was checked out last year um and not return so it's it's a book that's uh being purged from our catalog because it was never returned and the student has lost it and cannot find it so it it's we're down to 18 uh books on display right now that that have um uh been temporarily pulled and suspended for public review okay and they're out there on the table and you posted hours people can come we have one evening each week uh for parents who work um to be able to review tonight is one of those evenings so if anyone would like to review any of those books you're certainly
076welcome to this evening that goes through September 6th I think September yes okay so um you know what we're going to um one thing I would like to point out um to be honest with you is the majority of the books that are out there they have no educational value whatsoever they really don't um you know and in in some books that we have um you know perhaps on our our uh sensitive list it you know you you might want to look at them from a perspective of and I'm talking about not what's on that table um you know maybe it would be more appropriate to say you know what let's move it up to a higher grade you know this might be maybe more tolerable in a high school environment but you know me
077I look at you know I'm old school I'm date myself here um you know back when I was in grade school it was K through six and now you've got six in in junior high which you know that's a decision I don't necessarily agree with but um you know you have to I take that into consideration the fact that you know sixth grade is still still very young um anyway so for those of you you that have not been able to come in here and and read these books you know we're going to flip the script you see the people go to the school boards all the time and they're reading these books and they're banging the gavel and they're saying oh you can't read this here well it's on the Shelf so um if
078there are kids in this room I would suggest that you have them go outside if there's anybody online that is watching this and you have kids in in the room I would suggest that you either turn it off or get them out of the room I'm just giving you fair warning there's some of this stuff that is not appropriate but I want our I want our parents to understand that you know this is this is what we're dealing with so um I will go ahead and I will go ahead and kick it off I want to point out the ones that we are picking from are more of the mild ones because the mild verses mild verses because some of us weren't that comfortable with rating out loud some that are back there so even
079as it is it's going to be tricky and could you also point out from what school grade level these came from the books yeah I know mine but I don't know I think I think the other ones we're reading are from the high school the high school okay there's two three out there okay tell I've got my list here okay so I'm going to start out with a book called 13 Reasons Why and just to give you an idea what this book is about here's just a little snippet um of the review so clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on the porch inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker his classmate and Crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier Hannah voice
080tells him there are 13 reasons why she decided to end her life and Clay is one of them if he listens he'll find out why it okay I'll say it I thought about suicide after everything I've talked about on these tapes everything that occurred I thought about suicide usually it was just a passing thought I wish I would die but sometimes I took things further and and wondered how I would do it I would tuck myself into bed and wonder if there was anything in the house I could use a gun no we never owned one and I wouldn't know where to get one what about hanging well what would I use where would I do it even if I knew what and where I could never get beyond the visual of someone finding me
081Swinging inches from the floor I couldn't do that to Mom and Dad it became a sick sort of game imagining ways to kill myself and there are some pretty weird and creative ways you took pills that's that we all know some say you passed out and drown drowned in a bathtub full of water the reason this was labeled was it's it's putting ideas into kids heads you might have a kid who is who is teetering and is having these thoughts and this could be just the just the just the nail just to say you know what some great ideas here maybe I'll just do this which school was that in 13 Reasons Why is the high school and the middle school sorry and the middle school all right this book is George it's called George
082this book is also alternatively named Melissa you might have to talk a little louder sorry this book is named George and alternatively it's named Melissa as well be who you are I'm going to give you a little subset of this book when people look at Melissa they they think they see a boy named George but she's know she knows she's not a boy she knows she's a girl she immersed her body in the warm water and tried not to think what was between her legs but there it was bobing in front of her so George knew it could be done a a boy could become a girl she had since read on the internet that you could take girl hormones that would change your body and you could get a bunch of different surgeries if
083you wanted them and had the money this was called transitioning you could even start before you were 18 with pills called andr drone blockers that stop the boy hormones inside boy hormones already inside you from turning your body into a man but for that you need a parents permission let us stop there um guys this is in our elementary schools it was in both our elementary schools luckily um a parent had brought it to the attention of one of our elementary schools and it was quickly removed as it should be um unbeknown to the other Elementary School you know they didn't you know know when school doesn't talk to the next whatever so I'm not holding any blame I'm sorry this is not okay at the elementary school you're going to you're going to have
084a kindergartener pick this up a first grader pick this up and read this unacceptable we need to do better and meaning we need to support the people looking through these books we need help from parents getting involved to look through these books and help the curriculum committee we there's no we're not blaming anybody here but somehow they wound up in our school but yet there are people who are going to criticize us for removing this I'm sorry this is disgusting amen amen can I ask a question how about the teacher that when they read kill mocking first question is is Scout a boy or a girl I'm I'm sorry we just can't interact during the board meeting I'm so sorry but please feel free you can talk to us after please feel free to talk
085to us after though we'd be more than willing to talk I understand doing right thank you okay this pretty graphic this one's called 19 minutes where was this one okay yes uh so background on this Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens until the day his complacency is Shattered by a school shooting um one of his front teeth was crooked his Adam's Apple looked fist sized his knuckles were naughty and chapped he was crying quietly and it might have been enough to engender sympathy had he not been wearing a t-shirt splattered with the blood of other students you feel all right Peter Patrick asked you hungry the boy shook his head can I get you anything else Peter put his head down on the table I want my mom he whispered
086Patrick looked at the part in the boy's hair he had br it that morning thinking today is the day I'm going to kill 10 students I don't quite not appropriate for any school especially ours all right mine is called Looking for Alaska and um this is the story of a of a young man named Miles Pudge halter who was a rather pass character but he follows the lead of his exciting new friends at a boarding school called um Culver Creek and again this is this is pretty graphic I mean sexually graphic and and what I'm going to read is not as much as the rest of the book has but anyway so he uh he asked his parents if he could go to Culver Creek because he was this boy was pretty um you know
087not a script in the school that he was in so he wanted to step out a little bit and he said that he wanted to go to the school because he wanted to seek the great perhaps he told his parents that's why I'm going so I don't have to wait to until I die to start seeking a great perhaps despite this one adventurous impulse miles is mostly a rule following studious kid it seems he was bullied a lot back at home in Florida and he coped with that by hanging back and not making much of an impact in school so at cul Creek boarding school he tries to be different and he takes up smoking and joins his roommate and the colonel and friends um and one friend in particular named Alaska who was a
088girl as they plan elaborate PL pranks on their classmates and get into all sorts of unhealthy things while he isn't exactly the one to make things happen he is gradually opening himself up to new possibilities this girl Alaska is trying herself to answer the question that was red raised by Simon bouar how will I ever get out of this Labyrinth she believes this Labyrinth is suffering we later learn that her personal Labyrinth is the guilt that she feels over watching her mother die of a brain aneurysm when she was 8 years old and she may or may not have decided to get out of that Labyrinth Labyrinth by crashing her car into a police cruiser so she's committed suicide and that's the that's the person that Miles uh is trying to follow so the what
089I'm going to read from the book now is on page 87 of this book which is in the high school Alaska read the sticker on the stop on the top of the video the of Madison County well ain't that just delightful we ran with it to the TV room closed the blinds locked the door and watched the movie it opened with a with a woman standing on a bridge with her leg spread while a guy knelt in front of her giving her oral sex no time for dialogue I suppose by the time they started doing it Alaska commenced with her righteous indignation they just don't make sex look fun for women the girl is just an object look look at that I who is this miles character I was already looking needless to say a
090woman crouched on her hands and knees while a guy knelt behind her she kept saying give it to me and moaning and though her eyes brown and blank betrayed her lack of Interest I miles couldn't help but take mental notes hands on her shoulders I noted fast but not too fast or it's going to be over fast keep your grunting to a minimum I don't want my kids to read that all right the one I have is by Tony Morrison The Bluest Eye uh is there a little background on mine I don't I don't have yours no okay I'm just going to read the excerpts in here my Wonder again for the 600th time what it would be like to have that feeling while her husband's penis is inside her the closest thing to it
091was the time she was walking down the street and her napkin slipped free from her sanitary belt they moved gently between her legs as she walked gently ever so gently and then a slight and distinctly delicious sensation collected in her crotch as the Delight grew she had to stop in the street hold her thighs together to contain it that must be what it's like she thinks but it never happens while he is inside her when he withdraws she pulls her night gown down and slips out of the bed and into the bathroom with relief another section or as she sits reading the uplifting thoughts on the Liberty magazine the cat will jump into her lap she will fondle that Soft Hill of hair and let the warmth of the animal's body seep over and into
092the deeply private areas of her lap sometimes the magazine drops as she opens her legs I find this absolutely disgusting for kids to be reading in school so where is the educational value in this I mean this is it's disgusting I'm sorry it's disgusting can any does any kid read better after that I I don't know I don't know and to be honest with you I wouldn't care um there's much better ways to teach our children there are much better ways and there's you know um so again for the the people who have issue with us removing these books from the library shelves um as far as I'm concerned you know I appreciate your input but that's not educational content you might find it down at the local library but it it doesn't belong in
093the school amen so we have the the books that um on the sensitive list not these um these are Beyond sensitive these are I'm traumatized um my so this book there there are a there are a lot of books on here that I that I can see as as Classics um you know um some of the books off of the great book list like um 1984 um the Anne Frank the Diary of a young girl that's that's different than the one I read when I was younger you know mine was The Diary of Anne Frank and it was it was am an amazing book um well then I just finished an Frank uh an Frank the Diary of a young girl I just finished reading that I never actually read it there's I mean I
094I'm just going to say that I think that one should be removed from this list there there were several people who reviewed books um this to to come up with this list there were several people who did each person had sort of a different discernment level and we were Bas we were going off of some um most challenged books of a couple of different decades when we were you know that was where we started um there are you know every every person is going to have a different discernment level and so an Frank and 1984 and a couple of the others like that were added by another person I I personally probably wouldn't have added those but we put them in here for now this is not a final list and in fact in a
095month or two we will probably have another list with some removed and a few more added because there had there was kind of just as this one was coming out there was some other review that had happened so there are a few others that will come out on the list but there will likely be some that will be removed from this list as well it's it's uh and then you know we keep telling people and parents that uh we would love for them to be aware of what their children are are reading whether it was Mark sensitive or not but if you can know that and if your kid comes to you and says wow this has some things that I'm a little surprised at and hopefully your child is coming to you and saying
096these things um and then we would ask for the parents to bring that to the board's attention and then we can take a look at it and determine if it should be on this list or whatever so this is not going to be a static document by any means we have not completed our review of the library there's still lots of books to to think about it is going to be ongoing but it's else but as it goes it's going to be less frequent I think because we started with you know the big guns I guess so to speak as far as the books that were already challenged in some form or another over time um so um so that's why kind of there's this big list to start and then it'll it'll probably slow
097down as time goes on and as as the books that are ordered are following more into the protocol that we have passed so um you know it's whenever these things happen it's always like this big you know thing and then it slows down and um and then we just have to all be responsible to be aware of what the kids are doing are there any changes the board wants to make now or do you want to wait until you continue to to get additional feedback I think that you know um because we've started I think flagging these so so certainly if if if there's no changes now well one I'm going to I'm going to say yes on the sensitive list um I I was asked to look at there's three books in the Skippy
098John Jones series and I that is a is a cute Story series about a Siamese cat who thinks it's a Chihuahua and I and it's a very cute series and it's just imagination and somebody went maybe a little further on you know interpretation of that to then um I think was probably necessary so I'm just going to I'm just going to say let's take off Skippy there's two lists of Skippy John Jones and it's a series and it's in both of the both of the elementary school it's a very cute little story and uh there's nothing wrong with that so definitely let's take that off and it's it's like I said it's listed on here twice because it's at both of the elementaries and I'm looking I'm looking at a lot of the books and
099you know there's a lot of the books that I I think I only see like you know maybe two great books on here two two from the great books and the great books have massive education ational content and and richness and and they're not you know they're going to be more having an educational purpose versus entertainment um and I have actually been told by one of the I went to the um Middle School back to school night last week and I talked to one of the social studies teachers and she indicated to me you know we talked about the Diary of Van Frank and a couple of books um by Ellie weasel I think or something like that um pardon me thank you I I kind of was hesitating to say that the way I
100did it so thank you um but anyway um I I actually did review those and I and I I can't remember exactly I looked a lot of books and some of them I just didn't want to remember but those those were ones that were had some historical information related to the um to the Holocaust and all of that and this teacher was telling me you know when she taught the Holocaust she used those and she used diary band Frank and I believe that diary B Frank should come out but I think we can talk about you know 1984 and those kind of other ones but I wanted to say Skippy John Jones because that one was so like yeah oh come on so uh so that's why so is that the only one or do
101you want to remove the greate the greate books um I would like to renove 1984 umone El okay with that yes and the the Anne Frank one it's it's just a kind of a revision adding a few more personal details from her diary it's not the it's not the you know the innocent one I read as much innocent as it could be yeah and I don't really honestly know I mean I'm assuming that the one I read which was called The Definitive Edition which had everything in it which the dad had edited out some things in you know one version of the other um it's there's very little there's a couple of things about is this at the high school it's said EMS EMS but there well an Frank is in high school and um
102it's in here somewhere else and I think it's at EMS too so um but honestly it's just a girl's diary mhm and I mean it literally is written as a diary and there's a couple things about menstruation and a couple things about her and this boy that's part of a family talking about male and female body parts not really graphically at all and it was just a conversation and that's really all I saw and other than you know she didn't get along with her mother very well so there's some stuff about that but it was you know I would say that one definitely should come out um and then Brave New World I think is in here somewhere come out meaning removed from this yeah like not be sensitive anymore not on the sensitive list
103but the bottom line is all these books that are listed are for just letting parents know they've been checked out parents will get an email unless they does mean they can't read them unless they opt out if they opt out they would be prevented from checking out any of these books but again that would be a parent choice down to exactly and even even in that case uh the parents opt out and so they don't want a notification they just say no my child can't have any of these books they can still call they can they can call the librarian and say for a particular book they can get specific permission for a particular book um so they can they can absolutely do that and one thing when I talked to this um um uh
104Middle School teacher the other night um these Ellie tell me again how you thank you I'm going to just have to keep relying on you um those books I said I to I as I recall I I felt that they should be on the sensitive list but I'd have to maybe look at them again but I told her even if even if that's the case I mean all she has to do and I know that you know parent the teacher send notes home to the parents all the time about you know this and that and the other and I said you know if you when you get to that it might be just a an email or whatever to the parents saying just so you know we're talking Holocaust we use these three books they
105are on the sensitive list just so you're aware and if a parent then says you know I really prefer not to then that's fine uh and that can be dealt with but um just a notification uh even if they remain on the sensitive list which like I said my vague recollection when I reviewed those was that I felt they should be on the sensitive list for sure but because of the graphicness of some of the information in there but it is historical and so um you know it's definitely a part of that I mean we all know the Holocaust story is is ugly and but it needs to be taught and and it absolutely needs to be taught but and those kind of books are going to be important to teaching it so okay okay
106all right so I've got uh 1984 an Frank and Skippy John Jones coming off Brave New World I would say yes I'm Brave New World okay I don't know if Fahrenheit 451 is in here or not honestly if it is I think that should come up too I see I'm not honestly sure if it is I it but I I I don't think it I don't know how it didn't get in here but I don't think that one is actually in here well that's true that's true and and I'm going to also point out there might be a couple of Corrections that happened too because John read from the book The Bluest Eye and that is out there that is what we are recommending for removal that has also accidentally gotten onto the sensitive list
107so there's going to be a couple Corrections that might happen too um if if we had it out there on the on the list of removal books um it shouldn't be on the sensitive list too but you know you know how it goes looking at spreadsheets and going blind okay so Brave New World is the other book I have here now yes okay okay and then there might be others but those are the ones that I would say right off the top those will remove as up tonight yeah okay is that okay with you yeah I agree I'm good okay okay so work in progress um next up we have the classroom Library Direction so again we've received um some very constructive feedback from our teachers we received some good creative suggestions um for those
108that weren't notified prior to our last meeting um you know I I apologize for that there was some miscommunication that communication didn't make it down to one of our schools and when we put the pause that communication wasn't didn't make it down to one of our schools either but um but but regardless we had some really good um constructive creative suggestions um we also received some very non-constructive disrespectful feedback um but um but regardless you know when we're when we're looking at the classroom libraries again I know that there's a lot of concerns in here that people have that we are taking the reading materials away and that is simply not the case that is not the case there will be materials within the classroom we're not going to leave okay can't we're not going
109to we're not going to leave the students without materials to read in their classroom it's just a matter of do we continue with the classroom libraries do we decide what content goes in the libraries do we just have all of the libraries instead of in the individual classrooms the content is stored in the Central Library however that material can be transitioned to the classroom during its use and then when they're ready to swap it out with fresh material it goes back to the library and they grab something else and that possibility would be by the teacher it wouldn't be by the individual students to go books it would be the teacher going to get a bin of books for this week maybe related to the content area that they're teaching that week and some other
110just kind of fun books too maybe 25 books a week and then actually it seems to me like that would be a I like that idea personally uh because I think that gives a lot more variety going on in the not the same books because especially at the elementary level they're in the class for nine months a year seven hours a day I think it would give a nice variety actually but these are all different ideas yeah just different ideas I don't know if you're okay with me going or if you had because I have stuff I want to say but I'll let you finish well you know for me it's it's important I don't think that it's fair to have the teachers um that they have to spend their own money on building up
111classroom libraries I mean we have teachers who you know we talk about the salaries and how all of our teachers are underpaid but yet they're the ones that have to go out and fund the content in their room um I also think that it would be very helpful for students to have just like we're looking at aligning curriculum you know we're looking at aligning curriculum between the grades in a school and then also between the schools so the first graders in running creek are going to get the same curriculum as the first graders in Singing Hills when you think about libraries I kind of look at it as though it would be nice to have those classroom libraries kind of kind of aign as well to where you know if you know if you know
112su's in this room and you know Johnny's in this room you know and they pick out the same book then they can talk about hey you know I I read this book in class um and you know one thing one thing that kind of I kind of thought about and I actually priced it out was you know perhaps we populate all of our classroom libraries with um with picks from the great books a books that have been used in schools that are very very successful educationally and they're they're turning out kids that they know how to read um you know they know you know just just an overwhelming performance um in a lot of these a lot of these um very classical Charter Schools do that so they have classroom libraries all of their classroom
113libraries consist of selections from the gradebooks and then if anything is um if anything's going to be added to the library then it's picked from the great books list so it's just proof of thought and there's and there's schools some of the top schools in Colorado have small libraries small amounts of books in their classrooms and some of the highest educated Kids come out of those schools I'm sorry I don't see an educational value in SpongeBob SquarePants but that's just me um I give will guarantee you those are not in those schools um we are here to educate children support them in their education but we're not here to entertain we're here to educate and uh I'm going to bring this up first I want to say we have some amazing staff we have some
114amazing teachers in this District amen all my kids have all four of my kids have gone I have been involved in these schools for over 20 years I've had my children in these schools and their dedication to education of our students is valued and appreciated immensely however I want to address an issue that has arisen from feedback that we recently received on from our classroom libraries we specifically asked for constructive suggestions on how would they like to see it we put a pause on it because unfortunately not all the schools were informed there was miscommunication so we said okay wait everybody doesn't know let's let's take a step back let's pause it and let's get some be feedback from our employees while we value constructive input and appreciate the engagement of many of our teachers
115some of the feedback we have encouraged or encountered is unacceptable and I'm going to give some examples because this is why we put things in place we don't always put we also don't always put things in place because it's happening right now in our schools right now we put things in place so as new people come in as new things happen we have up guard rails to protect our students yes it is deeply concerning that some of our staff members not only criticize the board's decision but have made derogatory comments about our parents in keeping with transparency and if I were still a parent who had kids in these classrooms who had teachers who said these things I would want to know so I'm going to quote and again I say I love our teachers
116and we have some the vast majority are amazing and wonderful and I just want to say some of the suggestions were outstanding outstanding suggestions but unfortunately we have to know the other side not all teacher are trustworthy so comments we know our community and already censor our materials to keep the uneducated parents safe it was nothing more than a power a political power play to gain increased support from the ignorant parents who want to keep their children sheltered and fearful of anything and anyone who does not fit into their very tiny view of what is safe that's a quote names no parents are afraid because again they are uneducated there's nothing wrong with teaching diversity anyone who says that is racis racism is not only ignorant but willfully ignorant it is clear you took this
117position of power to push the agenda of these ignorant parents who do not want their children to learn about different cultures people or ideas that don't align with theirs I have a couple more if you really cared about parents responsibilities you would tell parents to shut their mouths if they are super strict about what books they should read maybe they should homeschool or School online is a better option for them guys again this was a very small percentage but these comments are why we are putting these things in place you elected us on these values to keep your the majority values in mind of this community and that is what we are going to do yes thank you such such statements are not just disrespectful they undermine the trust and partnership that are essential for
118our school Community to thrive these comments are unacceptable and do not reflect the values we strive to uphold it is disheartening that these actions of a few have brought about a situation where we must address these unfortunately these comments will play a large role in how we decide to move forward with classroom libraries because the thing is again we have a lot of wonderful teachers but we can't say we can't cherry pick and say okay you get classrooms libraries and you get classroom libraries of your choice but you don't and you don't it has to be across the board we will not leave our classrooms without books to read that is ridiculous to say and the lies need to stop we will make sure your children have books but while we're figuring this out we
119need a little bit of Grace and and we will not I'm just going to put this out we have been Fielding some different emails we will not respond to disrespectful emails we don't have to this is an unpaid volunteer job we won't you want to come to the table with constructive criticism and ideas we are all for it coming together but you're rude and disrespectful I'm not going to answer and nobody else will and that's your problem so take that for what it's worth but I was really disturbed by these comments CU unfortunately the great teachers in our district are now going to have to deal with these small few people and altering what we decide that's all I'm going to [Applause] say Dan you had you had a great suggestion yep so do you
120want to just cop pass those down you know I I think um I love the suggestions you know I do feel like new teachers who come into the profession um you know we have teachers who come into the profession who are looking for housing who are looking for and I love the Eagle project I amazing um I love to hear things like that um but we do have new teachers who come into to teaching and don't have a classroom library and so the thought of I think the district does need to build to to building classroom libraries that the district can have in every classroom so I think we need to build to that I think the reality is is it's going to take some time for us to do that so um I think
121you know we need to address the issue that we do have parents right now who have concerns about what's in our library so I think we do need to we do need to honor the opportunity right now for parents to say I don't want my child to access what's in libraries for right now until we can um have an opportunity to provide review I think many teachers Who provided feedback said they have no problem with providing a a review of their libraries providing a a complete list to parents having parents come in tomorrow and go through their library and so I think a great majority of our teacher said we want our libraries to be an open book um and and so I do think um I do think we need to be able to
122go through our classroom libraries and a great majority of our teachers are very open to that um but I do think we need to immediately allow parents to say until that happens I don't want my child accessing a a classroom Library so opt out um immediately needs to be provided I I do think we want our classroom libraries not to have some sensitive topics that are flagged but to have no sensitive topics so I think our classroom libraries need to be reviewed to ensure they don't have any topics of graphic violence sexual content religious views drugs or alcohol use ideations of self harm or racism I think we need to make sure none of that exists in our classroom libraries great books would certainly um provide us that opportunity and and I think building towards
123that is important so I think we're going to want to be able to review those classroom libraries as soon as possible and many of our teachers said please review um I think we have some time we have a a full teacher workday on September 27 so my proposal would be to get that done by September 27th so I think if we um allow the opportunity for our teachers to produce lists of what's in their classroom libraries not only for parents but for us um by September 27th I think that is a realistic time frame for us um classroom uh teachers there are some teachers who have already said I don't need a classroom Library I'm a health teacher I'm a PE teacher I don't need classroom Library so they're already teachers who have said the
124few books I've had I've taken home I it doesn't it really doesn't enhance my curriculum I need one we have a lot of teachers who we know really feel primary teachers I think some of our audience members have spoken to that and that that's where I really think some of the libraries and picture books are really hard to say they have they have content that we're concerned about so I think those classroom libraries we can review pretty quickly um I think we should ask teachers to maintain a list of the books in their classroom on on the website uh certainly until we can provide classroom libraries I think we should work towards that but until then I think having teachers maintain a list of here's the books available in my classroom I think it allows
125even parents to say hey I see Mrs Smith has this book why don't you why don't you get that book when you have free reading time because I think it allows parents to guide students and to to reading um and then I think we need to continue to allow parents the opportunity to opt down I think for parents to send books to their with their children to to populate their their desk with reading material that parents would prefer they read I think continues to be the fact and I think we had talked about not having students share reading material what what Rhonda may send with her child may not be what I'd want my child to be reading so I think we need to continue to honor that not sharing material it's it's not saying
126don't talk we're not censoring but what we're saying is what a parent might send you know maybe there's a parent that thinks George is appropriate and they send it off to their kid with their kid to school and they they want to share it well there's another parent that might not agree with that so you know that's just again where we're protecting protecting for our so that's my short-term recommendation is that you know we do um teachers have their have their libraries reviewed that we certainly allow those parents who have concerns with what might be in their Library all of our teachers have said you know we have back school night coming up let parents who who are trying to decide do I opt out or do I not um so certainly encourage teachers to
127have those libraries on full display at back to school nights that I know are starting immediately um but allow parents that opportunity to opt out immediately until we get this review done so so that's my recommendation I think it's middle of the road it allows us to do a complete review I think uh Kim Moore our chief academic officer and I would be happy to lead that with principles to make sure we get those list of books that we do the thorough review of those books that are in our middle and elementary schools our high school teachers have had no concerns whatsoever they they don't maintain classroom libraries most of their books are are in our curriculum so high school has has not battered an eye at all about not maintaining classroom libraries and uh
128those that had had a handful of of books have said we don't need them so really this is a middle school elementary issue um and I think um this would take care of that until we can I think move in the direction of providing consistent classroom libraries which I think is really where we should go this is a short-term meure um just saying for 3K we could get the great books in all of our classroom libraries so we have a beneficiary how much under three we' have to the preschool the k for four under three we could have consistent greats Library y are they great book picture books I don't know I think K and K and prek I think we're pretty safe but but we can do a quick review of those books now
129a couple of concerns on this okay so um all the teachers have websites because I know a lot of parents like mine Blue Collar they were they were working yeah we can we can send them home we can send home a printed list and ask for a signature back so that we know that they've seen them and acknowledge that they have them so we can we can go to that extent as well just to make sure they have a printed list okay um and all of the teachers have a have a website um all of our teachers have access to a website on on that's something that Marty Silva is working with our teachers on as we move to our new website platform it'll be more accessible but currently all of our teachers can have
130a website and then we we who will the books need access to those yep those as well well we'll get the we'll get a printed list for that i' want you to have a printed list to review the website would be for ongoing access by parents okay know there's anybody have any anything are we good on that is that do we want to have Dan instruct the principles to move forward with this yeah okay until we can if everyone's comfortable so that's just my recommend yeah um you know and I I I said it at convocation and I'm going to say it again um I think everybody in this room can realize that the focus of education has shifted dramatically um you know since since I was a kid and I know that was a
131long time ago but um you know and it's shifted so far away from what matters and what matters is giving the kids a good education a good solid education academics you know that that levels the playing field again in in convocation I called it the great equalizer which it is a wise man said that by the way um you know a good education is going to help a kid overcome anything anything any barrier that there may be out there it levels the playing field um and I believe that part of getting the kids that good education is getting back to the basics I feel like we've lost our way we're focused on everything everything else but curriculum and and teaching these kids to read and to write so much has been put and I've said
132it before and I'll say it again you know you've got all of the burdens that have been placed on schools and have been placed on teachers they're expected to be you know they're expected to be counselors they're expected to be you know a special ed they're expected to be all of these different things but really I think the reason most of them went into it was to teach to share knowledge and give these kids a chance so what we want is we want to get it to the point where our teachers can focus on what they were hired to do and that is teach I want them to be the sage on the stage they call it they can get up there they can share their knowledge with the kids um and they don't have
133to stress stress out about all that stuff and this library is just one more thing I know people think I'm just being condescending but you know I really feel like this is one more burden and we need to provide them with content to take that that one more thing off of their plate and give them the opportunity to to teach so um I really hope that you know I really hope that we can get back to the basics and you know we're all we're all in this together we're all in this as a team and I know that you know tonight's meeting may seem like that's not the case but that's still in in my mind that's my vision that's how I'm moving forward we're all part of the same team so why haven't you
134talked to my kids librarian about this she hasn't been consulted at all she's the librarian Librarians have been spoken to she told me today she hasn't been we've met with Librarians okay so she lied yeah one of the two yeah I know more and I have met with Librarians multiple okay so next up we have new business so our October 14th meeting has been moved to October 7th um recognizing that October 14th is during fall break um so we're going to move that business meeting to October 7th um is this something that everybody is okay with with Y okay all right so um board planning new business our next board meeting is going to be on September 9th here in the boardroom um 6: PM anything else that we need to bring forward CL um
135just for the for the agenda next time um I am actually a board member of a new organization called Colorado leaders for academic success and it is newly forming and it is um it's basically a conservative version of casby and um we have just recently rejoined casby because we need the policy support um class CLA Colorado leaders racket icess um is is building up and we are we actually have a person who is going to start doing policy review and creating model policies um but that's going to take some time so in the meantime we um it is a membership driven thing just like casby is and um so next time I would like to have the board consider and I believe we actually have a class board meeting this coming Friday to confirm this
136I originally thought it was going to be uh a $5,000 fee but we were talking the other day that for the first year we for um 10,000 or less students in a district it we're looking at a lower fee for just the first year of 3,000 so um I will confirm that that's it at our next one and then we can make the decision to join that yeah I went to their um they had a was it a policy Summit on Saturday and it was it was um it was very interesting listening to you know different Tes have and have Al classist and it was amazing to be with the board members from some of the smaller more rural districts usually and U just hearing the things that they are going through and and the
137things that they are dealing with and um very similar very similar very similar yes and uh so um it's it's a good group and we'll have access to uh other board members that you know we can bounce ideas off of and there's there's lots of training and stuff that they are going to be doing there's some um things Zoom meetings coming up uh in September a couple of different ones and just kind of throughout the year and then in the starting in January when the Colorado legislature is back in session again we're going to try to do legislative updates two or three times during the Colorado legislative session and that'll be a zoom I think Dan you were on one of those last year so um it's you know for right now for not really
138having any pain members there's a lot of content and a lot of good information but um you know they can't keep doing it for free forever because it's being supported right now by a group called shook initiatives or Shu initiatives I guess so all right all right great um is there anything else that we need to bring forward all right it is 802 p.m. and I join this meeting