001e e e good evening and welcome to the September 24th board meeting I would like to call the meeting to order and ask that you stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all may I have a motion to approve the regular board meeting so moved I second John Christenson yay cha Kathy Howen hi an O Yay AJ Wilson yay motion carried okay we're going to go ahead and start off with donations um the first two items are donations to quba West High School Mr Wagner thank you Madame President and board um mine are really easy um we got a $5,000 donation from Anonymous
002donor specifically for baseball uniforms that's all it said is to buy new baseball uniforms so that's what we'll do um and the second one our RTC h a fundraiser at the Eagles in pu West um they did Car Wash silent auction and poker tournament and raise $135 so we'd like to thank them for supporting our kids in our schools okay nice any questions do you know how they're going use it besides the uniforms um a bunch of stuff as far as the RTC um we're putting in a thing what what is the word Bob I'm looking for a obstacle course or um in behind the school that the kids can use for some of their training um and a couple of their chps as well so very nice lots of stuff okay so right thank
003you thank you okay our next donations are to Ry High School Mr Addington hi thank you madam president and the board all right so we have quite a few for Ry high school tonight first one is a donation of $3,000 to Ry high school volleyball from Beth Jones the next one is a $1,200 donation to Ry High School athletics from native Lumber LLC the next one is ,000 to Rye High School field trips from mountain disposal next one one is a donation of $1,000 to Ry High School theater field trips from power wash LLC and finally the last one is a donation that should be 1,500 to no excuse me that's $500 to Ry High School field trips from greenhorn Valley Ace Hardware so quite a few nice love to see that guys have any
004questions comments for thank you thank you thank you okay may I have a motion to accept the gifts as presented so moved I second John Christenson y Kathy how an o y AJ Wilson y motion carried okay our next item is information from the board and superintendent let's go ahead and we'll start with you John I don't have anything this evening same yeah it's it's been oh a couple of weeks so you don't have anything yeah okay unless anybody would like my sinus infection gladly give that out AJ um I would like to thank you all for coming out here tonight um I hope you know that we are listening to you we are we very much value your input because of your input we are able to truly grasp what is going on in
005the schools with or what's going on with your kids and we love that you guys are involved parents because not all kids have that and so I am thankful for you guys and for your kids that you are involved in their education you are involved in their lives and that means a lot to us as well so I hope you all know that Mrs R well I've been out in the schools uh visiting all of them uh in PBA West and uh out on the Mesa and I've done a little bit of lunch duty did a little lunch duty I think at Prairie winds did a little lunch duty at uh a or at not Avendale at North Mesa so uh to me that's my favorite time of the day to actually really get to
006see kids and have relationships and and talk with them and see how life is treating them so it's it's a good time for me to to get out and about and get a feel for how our schools are going a pacher I have not been doing any lunch duty you haven't don't miss L but I think I'm going to be volunteering in a library soon I think I volunteered for that right Miss Russell coming up soon so those people at uh LP will see me in their library at some point in time probably in the next month not else to report on my end good and I don't have anything this evening just been um very involved with volleyball season have kids playing volleyball so that's always fun good time okay discussion our first is
007a presentation of the cell phone survey data Mr Depetro and can you tell us who this the survey was sent out to yeah K yeah she'll pull it up so everybody can I lose my mouse see what so um at the direction of the board uh a few meetings ago um we said that we would gather some data we would uh do some surveying we would talk to some individuals principles um others and we would pull together some information on what what does cell phone use look like in our buildings um and then what do we want to do to potentially um redo our policy or to make some changes and so in conversations that we had with principls at our our principal meeting um cell phones in the elementary middle school have basically been
008following the no cell phone policy phones are off in the backpacks um I'll get into a couple things with the middle schools in just a second but so what we did is we looked at surveying our high schools we surveyed our staff and we surveyed our parents so we created uh separate surveys for each school so we made sure we had some individualized information uh for every school and then there'll be some combined data on this as well the principals then push that out to their staff and to their school communities uh we did it a couple times to try and get as many responses as we could and so therefore up there you see that we did have um 15 staff members at Ry High School who responded to our staff survey 115 parents
009at pu West High School we had 57 staff members respond to our survey 598 parents and then Pub County High School 42 staff and 411 parents and so um Kimber if you want to go to the next slide so uh questions we had a little bit different questions for staff versus parents we'll start with the staff is just first question was do you allow cell phone use in your classroom and so if you look up there you see each individual School was broken into the yes no uh and then we just took a district average and so uh you can see at Ry High School about a 2 to1 yes to know um Pro West High School about a about a a three to one um very very even with uh public County High School
010as far as the the yes no percentage and then if you look at the district the the average kind of comes out to about a um two to one average it look about 60 60 a little over 60 uh% 65% % and then probably right around 45% for the um no so then the next question followup Kim if you go that one is um if for those who answered yes the next question was if cell phone uh use is allowed in your class how often so we wanted to look at again uh occasionally one or two times a week and then uh kind of that daily so you could see right High School um mostly occasionally just a few daily or one to two times a week again at P High School um majority just
011uh kind of un occasionally um little more on the daily than uh one to two times a week same with uh PLO County looks you know almost identical to West and then of course on the district average you can see overwhelmingly it seems to be an occasionally uh versus more of a a DA so then the next and feel free to jump in with any questions at any time um so the next slide that I asked so if if what we want to know is what are you using it for so if if you answered yes so if you answered you know if you allow cell cell phone use in the class what kind of activities programs uh apps do your students use for uh the phones and there you know received a lot of
012responses so basically I went through all the responses tried to identify some common ones there seem to be a lot of common ones on there some had more you know couple of them with just one single thing but um if you look at calculators uh was a big one uh this Desmos graphing calculator which I believe is like a lock down calculator that kids can use on on certain uh times for assessments um cahoot which seemed to be a game based learning app uh several people would put cahoot down uh quiz live was mentioned several times dual lingo um graphic design apps I assume this was an art teacher one of those graphic design classes and they mentioned all those uh apps that they use within that um camera video kind of combine those what
013are people using the camera video for so Labs documentation uh recordings for projects editing photo apps um of course recording lectures was also listed in there uh student surveys timers uh some language translation apps uh both it looked like both schools responded with this music uh band kind of tuners metronome uh drum beat apps uh streaming apps um smart pass we'll talk a little bit about smart pass in a few that's our digital uh hall pass that we use in all three of our high schools with our students and then some did did list as a recreational list you know listening to music while students are working independently listening to music as a reward so those were um the questions or the response we got back so Kim believe if you want to go to
014the next one so then the next question was well since you're using all these things on the cell phones if you weren't allowed to use cell phones or students weren't allowed to use cell phones could could that be replaced by other um things and so again just kind of combining the overall general answers uh but majority answers were yes a lot of people put computers could replace most of the items phones were being used for um a few responses did mention you know that there are several apps that they use that they would not be able to use on the computer and so that was noted and then uh some teachers did respond that they may need to purchase some additional items such as um uh like the music piece with uh those those type
015of apps they use to tune instruments Etc they might have to replace those and then some people didn't mention might have to buy cameras or or calculators for their classes so that that was those answers uh go to the next slide so then next question well if cell phones are not allowed to be used in the class what is your policy on what students do with their phones and so we've we've learned over talking with people that usually uh some people have a like a cubby a little uh sleeve where they kids come in and they put their phones in that uh during the class and then they pick them up when they leave uh or the other an answer was just often in the backpack so if you can see right High School looks
016like they have over half of their teachers use some f some form of dedicated space in the classroom where students uh Place their phones in it looks like a puest high school majority just often in the backpack or your pocket P West High School get about a 2 to one and then a district average was about a 2 to one on on what phones are where they're at when they're not being used uh so then the next question this is that smart Pass Program so last year we piloted a program in our schools it's a smart pass program Mr Wagner can certainly give uh did he leave already already U Mr adding could give some input on that a smart pass is where students access a digital pass they can do it on the computer
017they could do it on the phone they could some some par uh teachers actually have like tablets in their rooms that they could access basically they put in for a pass that's granted by the teacher and then that uh student goes to uh their appropriate location uh the program is interesting because it allows administrators uh it it's set up to how the school is set up so it allows administrators to uh if someone's in the hall and an administrator can look up on their smart Pass App or on their tablet Mr Moore P County High School carries a tablet around with them a lot he can say oh okay y I see you're supposed to be in this area and you're supposed to be going here it just helps kind of control um and know
018where kids are going and how many kids they can set limits like if we don't want more than four kids to be out in the certain bathroom in a certain area if we've hit that limit then when they request their hall pass the teacher can see that and say okay you're next in the queue and then I'll put you so it just gives a lot of uh options for the schools to to utilize it Mr Addington did I miss anything on that no I think it's a very useful tool because as administrators we're able to track what students are abusing that bathro privileg every single perod and we able to facilitate stud being in that clag I did have a follow-up question I did put it on this survey because based on um what I
019was able to gather out of this and then talk to the principles as smart passes and can I ask a quick question on this side so county is saying that they don't use their phones at all at all but then they say they have both so I think understand I think whoever that the one or two or three people that answered probably said that they've they use both so kids have used their phone in the past and have used a computer in the past that's how I could of gather that okay um I did talk to to Mr Dil and Mr mo County they say predominantly it's a computer they use it computer based um okay so I think that's why you you see uh that far less and then I did talk to Mr
020Wagner and he said they allow both and so it looks like um that's a lot higher in their okay in their school thank you um no issues if we uh didn't allow cell phones during the day no issues we can continue to use Smart pass all three principal said that not an issue it can be used on the computer and and other and still be very effective so that was one of the things we did want to talk about we did invest uh some time and effort and and of course uh money to uh have this program and so we want to make sure we could continue to to utilize it and then um last last you know the $100 question here is would you support a cell phone ban where students were required to
021keep their cell phones powered off and uh were not able to use them throughout the entire school day and you can see um it seems to be an overwhelming uh yes vers uh no in fact you know when we look at the district average it's just right at that U kind of 3 to one um Range so that that was our staff survey so any questions with staff survey data questions asked right so the next one thank you ker so with our parent data we uh we we asked a little bit different questions so the first one was do you believe uh Banning cell phone use in schools would improve students focus and academic performance um you could see is you know kind of uh even across the board I you know P West High
022School had a few uh more NOS than yeses and then of course there seemed to be a lot of uh not shes um but at uh you know P County High School almost even District average when you equal those all out is about you know kind of 50/50 yes and no and then kind of that uh you know portion that said uh you know not sure with that so that was the first question and then uh next question is kind of again are are you concerned about the potential for cell phones to be a distraction during class and so um interesting you know the first question well we don't know if it's you know kind of 5050 on impacting achievement but this one you can see uh it starts to grow a little bit yes
023you know uh some parents do believe that uh cell phones can become a distraction during class and um again when you look at County pretty pretty close uh Ry and pest have a little bit uh yeses versus the Nos and then District average um you can kind of see where we're at in the higher 50s and then almost at 40% no next question um do you agree with limiting um student cell phone use during school hours can enhance social interactions and social emotional development among students I think overwhelmingly everybody said yeah get off your phone you can um improve your skills on talking to uh other people and uh we all know right like all our kids have done it I you know when your daughter's texting you from downstairs hey you know can I
024go we've both probably been there to have have kids right um so I think overwhelming everybody agreed yeah let's let's let's talk more face to face um so next one so uh do you believe students have uh do you believe students should have the freedom to use their phones for research and educational purposes so again uh we have a lot of uh on the parent surveys that did did uh say you know yes um if you look at all three schools are over that 60% range and about uh 20 to a little over 20% across the board and so that District average you can see where that comes at yes they uh I do believe uh that they could be uh useful for research and educational purposes um another one just kind of are you
025concerned that they ban on student cell phone use during the school day may lead to increased feelings of isolation among students and uh I think everybody again maybe going back to that other question a couple slides ago like no put them away let's actually have face Toof face interactions and talk with people maybe you know belief again that that's uh that wouldn't be the case with more NOS than yeses on that and thanks to Mr Yates for helping us with some of these questions we were able to use some some Ai and some other stuff to kind of help like what would be questions that we would want to to specifically ask so we we pulled a couple we thought would be very very useful in this case and um so find should next question
026is should parents be able to communicate with their children during school hours via cell phones and um again uh seems like we have become very accustomed right to using that as a method to communicate with our children and others and so looks like a kind of an overwhelming again yes vers no and and a small percentage of of not sure on that one all right so next one um ask the safety question everyone you know do you think cell phones are necessary for student safety and emergency communication and uh we do have our emergency communication uh systems that we can notify uh parents and and staff Etc of of emergencies but again um you know people do believe that uh student safety and emergency communication with cell phones is is very important as you can
027see by the data um displayed and then last slide was the would you support um again a policy not a ban but a policy that would require students to have their phones off and stored in their backpack during uh the entire school day including lunches and so you can see um where we're at at Ry High School almost uh two to one and same with Pub West a little bit more uh County uh and uh District average I mean it's it looked pretty consistent across all school so there wasn't an overwhelming school that skewed this this question it seemed to be pretty close on all three um areas so then the just this next one was just kind of real quickly like what what do what are elementary schools doing we you know we knew
028this through our conversations but I do this in that um you know all of our district elementary schools have a policy where phones are to be off and stored in backpacks throughout the day uh some are allowed on like long bus rides for uh like field trips if it helps occupy those students uh bu School school did list um a little interesting thing he said that they do allow students to I apologize for my back turn towards you folks um that they do allow their um students to access their phones during lunch one time it's not for games it's not for music it's basically just to look and see has anything changed in their after school activities like is their parents text them say hey get on text them and say get on the bus
029or I'm picking you up or grandma's going to pick you up so he said they do uh do that one time a day with both his elementary and middle school students um most of the violation discipline process that our schools are following at the elementary is sometimes there's a discussion and a warning uh some schools will collect the phone and return it back to the student at the end of the day um second infractions usually uh involve a call with a parent parent coming in and picking up the phone conference with student and parent um again third infraction kind of the same um students students can't bring their phone unless conference is held a phone taken away parent must pick it up uh of course continued violations uh could escalate to additional discipline consequences for
030you know insubordination uh repeated rules violation so at that point if we're continue to violate the rule and we know it's the rule we have a conver conference with them then that's that's becoming more on the the not a cell phone issue it's it's a not following the rules issue and then Middle School um again most middle schools have the off uh in their backpack put away uh backpack lockers uh entire during the entire school day bin Middle School does have a piece in there that in the event that a classroom teacher sees the need um to allow cell phone use for a specific thing um that they would uh they would Implement so this is what we're going to do with the phones today and here's the clear guidelines she said they don't it's
031not often but she does give that flexibility um LPI kind of has a similar thing written into their policy phones are of and backpacks during the entire day however if a teacher did see the need to uh Implement uh cell phone in a class they would have specific guidelines of this is what we're doing with the cell phones today and this is your expectations uh violation discipl process pretty pretty consistent uh phones are usually taken away given back to the student at the end of the day um second infraction taken away parents have to come pick up um you know third infraction conference with parents and uh can continue violation would be uh kind of that in repeated violations that is the uh bulk of the the surveys that were put out and the information
032that we collected so any questions yes C so so what's the what's the the overall general feeling because well I mean I think we'll we'll we'll have now that you have this data we'll we'll have to have some additional discussions to see you know the dire dire that we want to go we do have a policy it's very outdated it does it does put limits on uh cell phone use in the buildings and we've talked about that I've actually been working on rewriting that to kind of update it uh but we can go a number of different ways based on um you know what we decide to yeah it talks about beepers talks about beepers and uh pagers it needs a little update it I I do have a couple revisions that we could potentially
033look at um so we'll we'll wait for uh our next uh Direction on what you as a board would like to see and then I assume we'll make a final decision on it okay thank you for doing that yeah it's very enlightening yeah I I think it's very interesting that that the parents want to be able to contact their children during the day and having had to go through I understand why because things change and you know you may have to contact your child I I mean I think you can you can call the office but it's a it's a it's kind of a I think it's a convenience you know a quick hey I'm not going to pick you up but so and so is going to pick you up and know okay the
034kind of thing that that that again those those those kind of daily things on insuring I think that's what you know parents feel reassured about that that's an option so I I have looked at several policies um across uh other areas and kind of seeing where some of those policies and there's a couple um interesting things in there they they're similar to like what binin and um uh LPI are doing they have a they have a no cell phone policy during the section of the day but then they also have a little piece in there that says when determined to be um you know an instructional need that they would allow that under very specific guidelines that would be established by by that so I mean there's a lot of different ones that I've been
035kind of looking at and I have a couple different things that I think we can modify depending on how we want to go after the data has been the data is here and you guys have a copy of this so you can continue to evaluate a little more necessary any other comments I don't have any thank you for that okay we'll move to our next presentation um it's of a tenative agreement between pcea and District 70 regarding article 7-14 which is military leave can I say one thing before we start yes I want to publicly congratulate Sky View Middle School for being a Blue Ribbon School nationally recognized it has not been mentioned tonight so good job to the staff and the teachers there at Sky View thank [Applause] you good evening Madam president members
036of the board so our first um piece of information is uh a new language to our article article 7 on leave and this is in regards to military staff leave we did not have any language in the negotiated agreement so um we did update our board policy this summer to include that language and this comes directly under the federal uniform services employment and Reemployment Rights Act and it does cover annual military leave for our staff members it covers notice of military service if they are called for military service and reinstatement after service so this follows our board policy and would be a part of our negotiated agreement questions good thank you um you can go ahead and move on to the next as you know in the fall um we spend our bargaining sessions talking
037about language in the negotiated agreement so the following five recommendations are from our September 13 um bargaining session the first um tentative agreement is on the definition 1-26 for E Central Personnel we do add a little more um definition to that in that maintenance and custodial staff are identified as essential Personnel however on a late start day if they do not report to work before 10:00 a.m. they would not be considered essential Personnel so um if they're that second shift custodian and they report it at their normal time 1 or 2:00 in the afternoon they're not considered essential however a a building principal or supervisor could call them in early to help prepare the school and then they would be under that essential personnel and earn the additional two hours of extra pay okay the
038next one is in regards to our sick bank so we've changed a little bit of language that employees must use all of their accumulated annual and vacation leave before they can receive benefits from our sick bank and then um sick leave can be withdrawn from the bank for leave that is authorized pursuant to any local state or federal statute that may be applicable the next one is um OU that we would like to Sunset and this mou um was created during covid when the district was experiencing a high number of Staff absences and fewer Subs were available and we were um having to combine classes and have teachers cover additional classes at the same time they were teaching their class so we would Sunset that language as we don't feel it's necessary now and go
039back to um our original language where teachers are paid $35 an hour for the loss of their plan time if they do have to cover in the absence of a sub the next one is article 71 1.3 and this uh language is just outdated um it is for our classified employees if they the language stated if they had used all of their annual leave the prior year that they would um only be getting um if they had used and left a balance of 0o to two annual days the next year they would only get four annual days at the beginning of the year and then those would be the rest of the annual days they would get monthly but our payroll I Visions system doesn't do that and we haven't done that in a number
040of years um all staff get their annual leave at the beginning of their contract so we want to repeal that language because it just doesn't fit with our practice or um the payroll programming that we use and then to um the last one is to repeal language um in article 7-1-1 uh 101 through 104 and that is the restricted use language um that we've had in place for um since 2007 however it um does not go along with the healthy family workplace Act of Colorado in which an employee cannot be penalized for taking sick time um and so penalizing people to take a day off on a restricted use Day by being charged one and a half days doesn't fit with that healthy family workplace act because we don't delineate our leave we don't have
041personal leave and sick leave we only have annual leave so um we can't ask for a reason for somebody is off during with the healthy family workplace act until after 3 days so we can't penalize people for taking a day and so we would like to repeal the restricted use language any questions I think any questions good thank you very much thank you okay next up is open Forum do we have any comments this evening uh we do we have three um to all our speakers the the time will be up on the screens 3 minutes and I'll give you a warning at 15 seconds if need be and if we could please be sure stay on topic and we'll keep it civil and listen to what everybody has to say uh first up is
042Miss Jennifer Nome the timer will start when you when you all start speaking okay if everybody just face that way because I'm not good at public speak I'm kidding I'm kidding no we St right up okay so um okay I've been asked to speak on behalf of several people we' all had um a lot of opinions about this trills and so to kind of compile opinions and express them we they asked me to speak on behalf of all them so here we go um statement against the implementation of trails curriculum in our schools while the trails curriculum presents itself as life-saving program designed to provide effective and culturally responsible social emotional programming several concerning factors make it unsuitable for our District's need at this time one is the lack of proven Effectiveness the Trails program
043is currently only implemented in three states with limited data available to support its Effectiveness the absence of comprehensive peer red studies or long-term success metrics raises serious concerns about the program's ability to deliver on its promises an adequate teacher training the program offers only an hour of training to teachers after which they are expected to handle the complex task of implementing social emotional learning Otherwise Known Asal this is insufficient preparation for educators who are not mental health professionals potentially leading to ineffective or harmful instruction teachers were mer instructed to upload the units onto their schooly Pages without receiving real guidance on how to effectively implement the curriculum or address sensitive topics that might arise the depth and sensitivity ofal require extensive ongoing training to ensure teachers are well equipped to manage these issues in a
044classroom setting um third is the lack of Parental involvement and transparency parents were not informed about the implementation of the trails curriculum which that okay which which is a significant oversight effective seal programs should involve parents as key stakeholders ensuring they are fully informed and engaged in decisions that affect their children's education the trails curriculum particularly the content after unit three is not accessible to the public raising transparency concerns reports suggest that these lessons include discussions on sexual orientation sex Intimate Relationships religion and spir spirituality additionally there is a video within the curriculum that addresses these topics like racism and oppression including mentions of the KKK and discussions around implicit bias in polititions such content is highly sensitive and po potentially controversial making transparency and parental involvement even more critical furthermore unit 3 includes hotlines
045that are intended to connect students with others intentionally while hotlines can be crucial for student safety these are not traditional support lines rather they are platforms that provide students direct access to Le and resources that are highly vocal about hot button issues occurring in the nation and around the world um mandatory seconds I'm sorry that's okay mandatory participation without opt out option all students are automatically placed into tier one of multi-tiered systems of support for social emotional learning parents really want the option to opt out or or not and that's ultimately what we have [Applause] next we have Miss Brandy Schneider my name is Brandy Schneider and I'm a mother of six students in District 70 who are sprinkled All Around The District in multiple schools I like many others am here with confusion in
046regards to the seel's Trails program I'm not sure why it's being implemented in our district the curriculum seal trails agenda like an onion has many many layers many of which have some very particular material that many parents don't have immediate access to because it's bu deep inside the program itself I also understand that the teachings can be edited and manipulated at the request of Any teacher or Administration the trails curriculum was not on the district website or readily available as a school agenda that would be you that was supposed to be in use this fall in fact many parents were blindsided when they got an email a short few days before the program would start it was in the guise of mental health awareness or masslo hierarchy of needs which in itself is a matter
047of opinion more children are struggling now than ever before with mental health issues a lot of these issues not all stem from the lack of attention the children receive at home these children struggle the most but would benefit the least because what these children crave is human contact and interaction sadly more electronic clicking and picking will not fix the core problem that is at hand the public school has always implemented knowledge core curriculums which are Reading Writing arithmetic social studies and science the school year 2023 24 Cass scores were just released and although our district made slight gains we are still nowhere near the majority of our students having District students having being on track for next grade level we have a lot of room for improvement which brings me to the next point when
048we are struggling as a district to keep our children afloat in regards to their education why on Earth would we Implement a new teaching structure or curriculum that none of us parents have approved of why if our teachers are already struggling to help get our children to reach these goals would we ever add more taxing requirements to their job teachers are leaving in droves like the likes of which we have never seen before did we ever stop to think that maybe we're requiring too much of our teachers therefore our students are suffering because the teachers cannot juggle the constant everchanging tasks that they required to teach our students a frustrated teacher makes a frustrated student a frustrated student makes a frustrated teacher a course on Mental Health that our teachers are required to teach may
049just be causing a mental health crisis for our teachers I was given permission from a teacher who was mandated to teach the Trails program to share how many trainings they were given to teach the trails course we watched a video she said in August not a training an hour session on a Friday where we were told just to look through lessons on schoology granted this is just one teacher but it doesn't seem that that would give enough information for our teachers but yet we expect them to teach something they have barely any knowledge on to our youth much like pharmaceutical represent Representatives push brands of medication on doctor's offices the same can be said about the Trails program being pushed or gifted to our district I'm sure incentives were received in one form or another
050in conclusion it's the public school system's job to see to our kids our kids understand the concept of Reading Writing and arithmetic it is my job as a parent to make sure that they understand everything else if it's the will of the board to keep Trails let's consider an opt-in only requirement to teach with willing providers and students [Applause] only and last we have Miss Michelle Cole M Cole good evening as an employee of District 70 I received an email from our superintendent about the seal curriculum she starts off with it's not meant to provide controversy but should address the mental health of our students she also states that if there is something that doesn't align with your values or beliefs within the curriculum you're welcome to modify the tools or lesson to ensure that
051it's comfortable for you and the students these students could have a teacher on either end of the agenda how do we know as parents what that modification will be or not be and since modification is allowed at only apparently the teacher's discretion then I want to know why I cannot modify my child out of this program the kids do not receive a grade only time away from their scheduled class I called the school yesterday and spoke with an administrator and asked how and when they were going to implement this curriculum there were no definitive answers we received an email from the school today that our child will be starting the SEO curriculum in a few weeks well my child has already been introduced to this curriculum that in researching this curriculum their intentions are just
052that theirs this Foundation does not represent our values that we have instilled in our seven children one link leads to another right from the page of the first lesson one thing right after the other you can find it right on it's easy follow the money I would like to ask the board to come up with a solution that we can all feel that our families values and beliefs are respected I would also ask the board to consider the Colorado State parent optout notice form that is available like we can get it online one of the opt outs is mental health screening maybe we could add to that for a program like this then my child can just go to her regularly scheduled class I don't know if it's possible for it to be that simple
053but something needs to be done to take care of all thank you thank you that concludes all of our speakers yep okay okay we'll go ahead and move on to our action items um the first one is approval to cancel the November 5th 2024 Board of Education meeting due to the election do I have a motion to cancel the November 5th for meeting so moved by second John Christensen y Christ luga y Kathy Holland yay an O Yay AJ Wilson yay motion carried okay um the next item is approval on matters discussed in executive session Madam president I move that we have superintendent Ryan um to remove items that have been identified as offensive and that admin present revisions um or present with revisions and a purpose of the program The Trails program with data
054at the November 19th meeting to allow for proper time for for proper time and input from community members okay in regards to the yes to tr I second that okay let's yeah we need to have a discussion real quick on that um I would just like to start off with um we have had extensive discussion as a board um we did vote to accept this gift it was a gift um the whole curriculum was a gift from Trails itself and we um did approve that but we did not approve to implement curriculum we were not given the opportunity to make that vote as a board so this is why it is coming up at this time um so we would like to go ahead and kind of put the breakes on it so that we
055have um kind of combed through what we want to take out what we don't because we want to make sure that our community um understands that we're listening to them and we want to make sure that the parents are comfortable with this just as much as the students we understand I understand that our kids need help it is very prevalent and there's a lot of stuff that we don't know how to handle even as a school district um parents reach out for help and we just want to make sure that we are satisfying all parts of our district 70 community and all levels um one thing I don't necessarily think is very um good is to have our teachers take on more than they already take on and I don't know if this curriculum is
056going to be beneficial for them to teach because like somebody had mentioned earlier they are not health professionals and we have certain counselors and clinical psychologists and people that we would like to hire there's been a shortage on that too and so there's still a lot of this curriculum that I would like to go through myself and see it implemented in a way that is not offensive yeah conducive to all parties okay want to talk yeah I am a trained therapist okay and I have written curriculums before I have a lot of problems with the Trails program and a lot of problems with the links I'm concerned about tweaking it but I do trust Rhonda to go through and take out what we but again who is going to determine what is offensive EXA and
057you know it once that first draft is done will it have to go through a second draft to find out say this is also offensive because there is a lot of offensive to me what I went through there's an a lot of offensive information in that in the seal curriculum so it's I think putting the brakes on it like we're doing is a good thing I'm not sure where we're we're going to end up but if our children are screaming for help you know I was the first one to say let's get more therapists in our classrooms the problem is we we can't we don't have people applying for jobs that are open we we need that if you know anybody that is looking for a counselor position and I'm not talking a school counselor
058I'm talking somebody that is a trained therapist and I can only do so much I can't cover 25 schools so that that is my opinion on it so I'll add real quick too so the worksheet that went around asking a k through threeyear olds what their pronouns are just like everybody else in this room you yeah they can barely wipe their ass they don't know their pronouns so moving on that's been changed that's already been changed it's changed what's your favorite color um we're going to comb through this the best we can it is available to everyone online currently you can get on to our website you could see everything that we could possibly be teaching this is where I would ask if you find it offensive you can email me let's at least get
059it into get into a we'll get into a a something and we'll start combing through it um I think once we get into it we might find some things that we like absolutely and that's that's kind of the goal here but um we definitely don't I mean this wasn't meant to start a an uproar and I think some something something's got overlooked so moving forward I think this is how we'll correct it to you know to solidify that we are we do care what you think we care what students think you know we care what the community thinks so um yeah yeah I'd like to add I mean miss m Schneider made an excellent point on our our teachers and what they struggle with in the classrooms and a lot of that is some of
060these kids that that they they don't know how to act they're not getting that at home and unfortunately a lot of This falls on the district and this so when we talk about seal coming from a person who has been vastly educated on it in the past three years uh it is needed 98% of what the district is wanting to do with this seal is good like Mr DeLuca said coming through it and make it we're not somebody's every always going to be offended that's just life that's just the way the cookie crumbles but if we can fall onto a common ground here and help I mean there's you know look at the suicides in Ry um there's big issues here and we do trust Ronda and Bob and we're asking that you guys trust
061us to work together we are hyper aware of of um organizations that use seal as a vehicle for other stuff um that's we're really working not so that's not the case here that's all for me do you have anything I I do um I'm going to be fully honest with you guys because that's that's why we're here right we want to have a conversation I'm struggling with this because I went through all the curriculum this this weekend when we were given access to and everything and 90% of this is awesome how many adults have more than two emotions most men over 20 you have happiness and anger those are the only two that most men understand and women probably aren't that far behind so how can we expect our kids to understand their emotions this
062curriculum helps them understand their emotions it helps them understand conflict resolution which we can clearly agree that is an issue in our society we can agree on on things and that's going to be okay at times but we need to be able to have conversations especially the difficult ones and be able to be be hospitable in some of that it teaches them about diet and exercise and how to do things that are beneficial for them their health it teaches um breathing techniques to help de d-stress them how many people are stressed in this room right now I don't believe half of you it's it's difficult life situations that we're seeing and and our students really our society in general needs help with this but if we can start implementing some of these things into our
063students as far as healthy solutions and management for these emotions and their stress then we're going to have better test scores we're going to have better education because they're going to be in an area in their selves where they can receive this information when you're stressed your brain shuts down you are not going to learn I know that firsthand I've learned a lot about the body when you are stressed you will not learn so if we can d-stress our children and we can teach them how to properly navigate through their life with some of this stuff and I'm I'm not talking the lgbtq I'm not talking the critical race Theory we we agree that's that stuff we don't agree with that stuff okay at least I don't agree with that stuff okay that's that's not
064that's that's the other 10% that that isn't okay in a lot of this curriculum stuff that that I was seeing that's that's not the type of stuff that I want our students to understand I want them to understand if I'm happy why what does that mean if I'm sad I want I want them to have an Avenue for that I don't want them to go online and search why am I depressed and get bombarded with all of the stuff that you guys don't want them to see that's that's what I don't I don't want my kids doing that okay I don't want them to I want them to have a healthy controlled environment where they can learn about some of this stuff and properly navigate it that's that's my desire for our kids and so
065I do think a lot of this is good but I think there's some issues with it as well clearly you guys brought up the issues tonight and I thank you for that if you guys don't stay involved in your children's education and what is going on we as a board do not know about it sometimes we can't we can't be everywhere we can't be in every school we can't be in every classroom the only way we are going to find out about this stuff is an a situation like this where you guys come to us and we thank you for that because that shows how much every single one of you cares about this community about your children and about your families and a lot of kids don't have that how many parents do we
066have here vers how many parents in our district and that's that's the issue we need more parents like you guys that care we need more parents like you guys that are involved in their children's education in their emotional well-being in in in teaching them how to navigate through life and we don't have that right now and our admin is dealing with that John stated about the suicides that we're dealing with that it's a problem do I think has gotten a bad rap yes do I think it has issues yes do I think there are valuable things within it that can be valuable for our children and our society yes so now the issue is what can we do and conversations like this are critical to figuring out what we can do to best help our
067children our schools and our community this is bigger than a school issue this is a community issue this is a society and a nation issue and this is it it's tough it is hard I've been wrestling with this all weekend and I wasn't stressed at all about this meeting tonight you know why because I wanted to have this conversation let's go because it's a hard conversation it's not easy we get emotional right we're angry the things were overlooked we're upset but how can we handle that can we show our children that we have those skills to navigate this situation because if all we have is anger and all we have is happiness how can we expect our kids to know any different we can't I've learned a lot about myself in the last 10 years
068I've gone through counseling I've faced addiction issues I've gone through a lot of different programs to deal with a lot of things and that is the only reason why I have more than two emotions right now the only reason and it's hard and it takes practice and it takes more than one person teaching you a lot of times too and we're not asking that this go perfectly it's it's probably not it's life life's not perfect it's really not but can we learn from this can we learn how to communicate with each other can we learn how to have difficult conversations and can we learn in the meantime or in the process of doing that how to best support our kids we're not trying to take away your choice we love hearing from you guys sometimes
069it's bad sometimes it's good but we love hearing from you guys you know why because that shows that you care just like we do and I thank you for coming out here tonight and I thank you for taking your evenings away you guys supported us we're we're here to we're here to do the right thing are we going to please everybody no but can we do what's best for our kids and can we teach them the skills that some of us don't even have some of us have lost or some of us were never given the opportunity to learn and I think we can do that in a way that is not going to step on some of those core family values and yet still be beneficial to our children I know I spoke a
070lot but thank you thank you please give us a chance [Applause] can I can I say a few things yes so Bob and I both become emotional on this because we we get the safe to tells every week and it's every week that we get a safe to tell with a child who is contemplating suicide and contemplating suicide at 11:00 at night or 2: in the morning we get every one of those phone calls and we send the police if because we obviously can't provide services at 2:00 in the morning um but we see the need because there's so many behavior issues with our children in the classroom and those behavior issues stem from things that are going on that we that we can't control but we can teach them some methods of controlling their
071emotions so that they are able to deal with adversity in their lives and that's that's really why we believe that they need a social emotional curriculum and I did put the entire curriculum on the on the website so if you go to um if you go to our website and you go to the Departments under curriculum and instruction I put K2 I put 35 I put 68 and I put 9 through 12 so that you can see exactly what is even scripted for teachers um to to be able to say because there are scripts in there if they don't want to if they don't feel comfortable and that that was part of it what's the training the training was actually more than just the one hour uh training was a couple hours and it was
072online and it it sucked I'll be honest because I had hoped they were going to come in person and teach our teachers um but they didn't have the manpower to get that accomplished so they did like a webinar and so then we provided another training so that they could answer any of the questions that teachers might have and that's where that one hour training came into play on Friday and I did hear from a lot of teachers that that extra 1 hour was helpful because they were able to get a little clearer picture of what was like and and have some of their questions answered and at that time they the trails sent their vice president of implementation and and I'll be honest I said several of what you guys said on on social media
073why why do we have these links how can we get rid of these links um why why do we ask a k through two on a on a on a worksheet pronouns instead of like your favorite color and and they were like well we we're changing our website on October in October um they mentioned that their funding source is actually the state of Michigan Michigan has given them $50 million um to implement this throughout the entire state of Michigan to every single School within their within the state so their funding source isn't coming from people with agendas and we're not looking to press any agenda we're just making want to make sure our kids are okay and I I think that somebody mentioned that whenever they were uh speaking of Michelle you had mentioned that
074uh I had said I just want to make sure our kids are okay and that's that's it I want to I want them to have the tools necessary at the end of the day to regulate and to face adversity because they're not all being taught this at home I I assume and I hope that all of you are teaching your kids that clearly you're here so you care and that's not saying that people who aren't here don't care but you really care because you showed up tonight so you probably are teaching your kids these things but our teachers are dealing with behaviors all day long and when you say why are we not just teaching Reading Writing and math it's because we are dealing with behaviors but if we could get those behaviors under control
075it opens it up to teach a lot more Reading Writing and math so that that 20 or 30 minutes in a week that we might spend on seal comes back to us tfold with the amount of time that we can spend on academics and it is is proven that this this program has been around since 2013 it it is it does have a long-term effect it does have long-term results it has been studied by the state of Michigan and it was put together by the University of Michigan so there is data to to support this that these are evidence-based practices I wouldn't have I wouldn't have pushed forward with it if I didn't think it was good for kids I every single decision that we make is for our kids and what's best for our
076kids and so I hope you know that we'll take out whatever we have to take out that that we feel is controversial or that we feel is um not good for kids I already took out the pronoun question no one was more irritated with that than me uh because I just don't get a k through two they're they're just learning what pronouns are he she we whatever they're just learning what the how to utilize them appropriately so I did immediately change that um there's a couple there's a couple other things in there that I think that probably need pulled out and I've already addressed that with those High School principles as well um so I'm I did pour through all of it and I will continue to pour through it but I do value your
077opinions I value what you say and nobody's trying to change your values and your beliefs or the values and beliefs of your kids we're just trying to make sure that they have the tools they need you just Googled Trails District 70 it comes right up you don't have to dig around on the website so thank you okay so I guess we'll continue on to the action item um did you have something this if you don't mind my name is Brad Bill I'm a lawyer for the district um I have zero motions because I'm a lawyer so I just want to talk through just make sure that we've clearly stated this motion the motion is because the board has identified a handful of things that were specifically objectionable that those are now being directed not to
078be implemented and and continue to be utilized that the limited onboarding of the program that already has started won't be discontinued at this point and it's limited but that in November Dr Martinez Ronda Ryan um and and the board will coordinate and presenting and talking about the efficacy the sort of rationale behind implementing this talk about what sort of measures have been taken to sort of correct the course with the idea in mind that the community in that interim period can communicate back to Dr Martinez to to Ronda Ryan and to the board in terms of things that they've observed and would like to seek um address within this and and maybe even counterarguments I don't thinkal should be involved at all because of this reason so that you've got adequate communication so you can
079thoughtfully engage with this because this blew up over the weekend and that's why we're providing you a little bit of opportunity to really engage so I just want to make sure that we all understand there's still a limited on boarding going forward so people will see that some of that happens because we're not we're not voting to stop that in its tracks we're going to carefully move forward isn't that in the um kther two or I don't know the specifics I just what are you asking me where is where is the the program being implemented so some of the elementary have have begun implementation as well as some of the Middle School uh have begun implementation and I think High School too but they are combing through materials going forward to make sure that things
080that are of that nature were going to be eliminated immediately and then for people out there there is um I Heard multiple iterations of the question of opt out or opt in those are viable sorts of things that can be considered the the district has a controversial materials policy it's kind of a standard across the board policy that could be explored there's there's different things that the board will engage with as they go forward I did send opt out forms to uh our principales today so I did make an opt out form for principles if uh parents wanted to opt out but I asked that they meet with you and show you the curriculum and go through it just so you know what it looks like before you make that decision but there certainly but
081there is certainly an opt out form that they've been given can I challenge you guys to even if you do want to opt your kid out please give us a chance to revise this and show it to you before you before you do that just so you can see one what we've done that that too we we do value your opinions we are fighting for you guys but but look at it too and see what it can do for your kids and I further on districts because M Ry did do an outstanding job of putting all of that content out there for you to have access to because we want full transparency we want you to have access to this content we want you to push those questions back to us so we can ensure
082that we're respecting your values of protecting our kids because the health the mental health and the social emotional health our kids is you should know too that at the elementary level those those kids are receiving an actual paper paper form of documents it's not something that those kids can click on links too so I know that was some some of the concerns were the links and and that the links were some of my concern too and I brought that up to Trails as well that those links are some of those links are my concern um but our kids are not going on the website to get any of this information they're going on either schooly or they're going on uh they're having a hard paper copy so they're they're not really clicking on links that
083that you're clicking on I think another clarifying TRS is in call rattle based on money that the state has put forward to Pilot some programs in mental health so they they're actually uh here um working in a few school districts I can't remember yeah um and and that money is coming from um Hugo the uh state level to uh pilot to see uh how the state can potentially go to a similar to Michigan a Statewide kind ofal model across District so that's that's where that funding is coming from does that help you guys I think I think one thing is that like for a parent outside of District I'm sorry but I don't listen to all the districts that meetings I don't so this seems like a ticking Time Bomb that's about to just explode
084and so when you get to hear things on social media and from these it's nice to hear this from you all that you do and are changing it so much but for me with knowing what's going on in the world and already like should I call my kids from school and home school and I can't and I'm in a frantic as it is is when I hear these little things it's like you've got to be kidding me like instant anger obviously but I I think there needs to be a better um communication directly to us as the parents maybe through the school directly I I don't know yeah I AG I a better heads up and a a better explanation of what you guys just said in form to let us know what's going on
085and an Aton honest hey I know there's controversial stuff we already have your interest in mind and we're already coming through it if I knew that I probably wouldn't even be here tonight so I think if there's some communication more directly to the students to the homes it might go better we would appreciate the same uh courtesy so I think we can too we can put what we've said because you do um the board meeting minutes we can have her put some of the stuff that we said because it's recorded too as well it's on YouTube but um just to kind of summarize we we can do that as well so that you guys have that information right after the meetings so we would appreciate that same courtesy for us it it's better for us
086to um we don't I'm not I'm not on every social site and I do try to answer questions when I see them come up or people send them to me but I have an email address and I answer my emails and so I would prefer for people to have conversations with me or call me or or email me or email Dr Dr Martinez or Bob um so that we can have conversations rather than uh the blowup of Facebook uh social media we're trying to teach our kids to be responsible on social media and so if if we're we need to be responsible on social media I believe they do have packets too at the beginning of each unit to send home they do in at the front of every single unit there's a parent packet
087that that should be going home to parents that say exactly what is going to be uh gone over in every single like unit and lesson so that might be an option well if you don't like what's coming up you can op Kate out of even just that unit or something was there was that sent out already the the first one has been the first one has gone out to the principles to send out to parents yes so it's gone to the principles but it hasn't been I believe it has gone out to the to the parents as well for the most part um to think I did send that out uh a week ago but they've had this for quite some time and from what I got from the principles the the majority of them
088have sent that information out for the first letting parents know that we would be implementing the curriculum so we we are not we weren't technically going to implement the curriculum till October 1st so there is still time for um those messages to be going out yes ma'am this is I'm sorry braad Miller here we should not be engaging in a town hall type of thing that that can be something you do subsequently but thank you okay okay maybe after the meeting if you have a question stick around and that'd be good sorry that was my fault perfect okay um so we are voting on again I'm even confused about this we're voting to want me to read what I have I have move to approve the matter discussed in executive session to have Rhonda remove
089the items identified as offensive by the board and admin staff and to let the admin present with the revisions and purpose of the program at the November 19th meeting giving the team time to collect the data as presented do that did I miss anything I no sounds good okay sounds good yeah okay just making sure I don't want to miss anything so did you want a motion John Christensen y Chris DeLuca Kathleen howand hi an O Yay AJ Wilson yay motion carried okay um we'll go ahead and move on and um we're going to go into approval of the tenative agreement between District 70 and PCA regarding article 7 Mrs okay do I have a motion to approve the agreement so moved I second John Christenson y chrisa y Kathy H an o y AJ
090Wilson y motion carried okay next items are approvals of the agreements between District 70 and pcea which is also including anou um Mrs Russell do I have a motion to approve this so mov I second John Christensen y Chris Luca Kathy Helen an o y AJ Wilson y motion carried okay item nine is approval of the consent agenda items is there a motion to approve these items I second John Christenson CH Kathy Helen o AJ Wilson motion carried okay the next board meeting is scheduled Tuesday October 8th 2024 at the Educational Services Center beginning at 6 p.m. our regular board meeting is now adjourned e for