Shelton School Board Sept. 26, 2023

001foreign it is a little after six o'clock thank you all for joining us this evening I would like to officially call this meeting to order if you will all please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance 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 [Applause] all right board members have you had a chance to take a look at the agenda this evening there are not any additions or changes is there a motion I'll make a motion to accept the agenda I second the motion it's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say no hearing none the agenda has passed

002and let me do say we do have Matt director wheelander is on Zoom this evening he is a firefighter and is over in Oregon so he's going to be with us for as long as he can we can't see him on screen but he is out there on Zoom at this time all right I'm gonna next give the microphone to superintendent Jesse for his report thank you board president Davidson other board directors our student representative Aiden family members community members staff um I'm going to start off with uh just a reminder we have a school-based health clinic it is uh housed out of the YMCA this is for our Junior High and high school students and it's in partnership with Mason health and the YMCA it's a great opportunity I really think about um Family

003stretch budgets an opportunity to get some health care that um that we know our students could utilize so I just want to put that out there as another opportunity for them to get that resource that we have available for them so it is set up for them specifically um if the contact information is right on the front page of our website so the district website if they wanted to get more information about that they could also go ahead and ask either the nurse or the medical technician or the front office staff and of course Administration or counselors for any information about specifically the school-based health clinics we really want to utilize that resource I know we've had a number of inquiries lately about that last year was our first year mid-year so when you start

004things mid-year it always takes a little bit more time to take so just want to emphasize um for us and our families and our students of course and take advantage of this resource speaking of Health I just want to also let you know that we have Narcan located at each of our uh School sites including the Early Learning Center uh help with any kind of um overdose overdose for an opioid so we have that and then we have our refresh training for staff on the application or giving Narcan for anybody who would need it and then my last uh comment this evening I'll keep it short is um I was out at secondary schools this last week I was really a lovely experience I was so impressed with Oakland Bay junior high and their Ela

005staff oh my gosh they've done so much work the the classroom spaces are so organized and set up for structures and routines and really about sustaining the reading for their students so that was really powerful to see it was just brightens up your day when we say safe and welcoming environments it was definitely one of course safe but two just really welcoming for students to come in and be Learners so kudos to all the ELA teachers at objh um I was also at Cedar um they are doing composting so they're out there doing um kind of the both project-based learning some science they were doing some Ela embedded into it if you know anything about Cedar that's what they're doing and then getting out there so it was really engaging and I I had to

006say there were some students that were really dirty but for a good reason so good for them good for them um uh at uh Shelton High School is able to get around they've got a lot going on really pleased about our Freshman Academy lots of excitement about that I know some of the issues that had come up last year was around bathrooms we're not having bathroom issues staff have doubled down on that both in the orientation and then at this uh their Freshman Academy and seminar so they just keep talking about these things and about handle handle it I had a lot of really positive feedback from some of the parents that have freshmen there so kudos to them and then Choice uh they have a full-time mental health therapist at their location and they're

007really working hard right now about who accesses that tremendous resource also at the same time recognizing that one of the quickest ways to lose your really talented mental health therapist is to overwhelm them so um why there's a lot of turnover in that field but we really feel very fortunate that we have that going on as part of the supports and services at choice so kudos to them so I just think that was good so that will conclude my comments great thank you very much for your report next we will move on to community comments I do have quite a few Community comments so I will say again that we will allow three minutes for each person to speak if you are going past that that your microphone actually will be cut off and I

008will be asking you to stop I am going to read the updated comments that we have around Community comments we are going to reflect wasda's language for their Community comments so there's some slight changes towards the end as part of the regular school board meeting the board invites community members to make public comments in person and or by phone as conditions allow if speaking in person please follow the public comment procedure by signing in and stating your name and address at the podium when called by the board chair if making comments by phone please dial 1-253-215-8782 and enter meeting ID number 872-5618-1978 each person is allowed three minutes to speak in accordance with the open public meetings act the board is not allowed to discuss items that are not on the agenda the board will

009direct the superintendent to follow up on any items that arise during public comment as appropriate the board cautions all speakers that it is possible that your statements could violate the rights of others under various laws including laws protecting privacy and laws prohibiting defamation if you are unsure of the legal effects of your remarks you should seek independent legal advice in any case we ask that you help us model for our students what a respectful and inclusive community looks and sounds like the first name I have is Andrew Wilford hello School Board Andrew Wilford 509 Grant Avenue thanks for having us today I want to talk briefly about the books that's the big topic for today everybody's really entrenched in this topic um one of the books on the list caught my eye immediately when it

010was first brought up Brave New World and um you know I purchased it and read it and it's it's a fine book there's nothing wrong with it the issue that flagged it was it was there's a reprint of that book about 10 15 years ago that made it a graphic novel which was highly inappropriate with its imagery and that was where the concern lied the other books I'd still do maintain concern I know there's six that are looking at approval today um two of them have a lot of profanity in them one of them has and I'll I'll censor myself 200 Brown words the other book has about 60 f-bombs we can do better than that there are some comments out there about well there's there's way worse out on the world for kids to

011see in movies and on the internet and I agree there is awful things out there for them to see and we as parents and and uh adults in their lives have a duty to protect them from that stuff it's what we put into ourselves we we get out of ourselves right so um and then another comment was you know about the movies well if if these were movies they would be rated R and our kids would be ineligible to see them if these were read on the radio station by radio hosts he would have to bleep out all these words or face millions of dollars and fines for all these instances of these bad words now in Brave New World there is uh references to sex but there's a vast difference between what that does

012and the other two books on the list where it describes the sexual encounters and I think that's really where a lot of people drew the line at and you know with the tens of thousands of books out there available for our kids to read I'm certain we can find a couple that are a little bit better than those that would appease the public thanks thank you next I have shyler rad AR good evening I'm Charlotte rad I moved to Shelton in June with my family I was a school teacher for two years and I have a doctorate in educational psychology I'm here tonight to urge the board to support policies that prevent suicide in our youth the 2023 United U.S national survey on the mental health of lgbtq young people shows that when they have

013access to farming spaces at school there is a 25 lower rate of suicide attempts in lgbtq young people so from a policy standpoint it's important for the board to support lgbtq affirming spaces in schools because it prevents youth suicide please be resolved as a board and act urgently to prevent youth suicide support policies that make Shelton schools in affirming space thank you next name I have is Heather quote Kowalski I'm Heather Kowalski I live in Mason County and I'm a mother of five kids all have gone through the Shelton school district and one is still in school here we had someone at the last meeting speak out against the district's gender inclusive policy saying we're teaching students to keep secrets what that policy does as in as and is in place for is to give

014the students some protection from parents who can be abusive when their students are not who they want them to be being a teenager is all about finding yourself figuring out who you are what you believe and how you want to live your life going forward if that includes being transgender gay lesbian non-binary whatever is that student's right many of our students do not have that freedom of choice in their homes at this time in their lives and can be in danger of being kicked out of their homes being abused physically or mostly or worse and they can commit suicide they may they have to have a place to be themselves and to figure themselves out if I'd not been accepting my daughter who is transgender would have committed suicide I have had to learn and

015grow with her along with the rest of my children none of them would be considered normal and I wouldn't have it any other way the only thing I want to change is for the world to accept them and everyone else for who they are parents who think students are being indoctrinated should really consider the fact that if teachers had that kind of influence they would be indoctrinated them to be on time do their homework and wear deodorant no one is trying to do anything but educate these kids how to learn how to find true sources for information and how to cooperate with others with different views and ideas without conflict and here we have parents who want to take that away to limit learning and understanding to take away other parents and students rights people

016who complain about our students having little reading scores and then they try to ban books if the only way to get a kid to read is to let them read controversial books then let them the fastest way to kid to do something that you don't want them to do is to tell them not to what are these people afraid of these books do have some uncomfortable scenes in them but life is about learning uncomfortable things whether it be about sex gender abuse racism different political ideas whatever it is knowledge is power reading creates understanding and empathy teaches about other cultures other Lifestyles and allows students to see other perspectives we should be seeking to empower our kids in any way we can this is the school district we are here to educate students to teach

017them to gather information and find the truth their truth not ours not their parents not their teachers theirs no one should be restricting what other people's children could read these books are not required for a grade they're in the optional section of the classroom libraries and even if one or two of them were required then the parent has the option to have their student read another book that is between that student and that parent not between them and my student parents have to learn to trust their children I appreciate that parents want their kids to believe the same things they do live the lives their parents want for them but we have to let them choose we can't force them and if you're a good parent you will learn and grow with your children they

018live in a totally different world than we did they should have a better life than us but that is not the way we seem to be going they should have be given more choices more resources more freedoms not taking them away I see you keep these books in the classrooms keep our schools a safe place for non-gender conforming students thank you Matt Hirsch hello I'm Matt Hirsch I'm a teacher here at Shelton high school and I live at 151 East cubby run books Rock teaching is like sailing you usually know where you want to go you plan the best you can you try to enjoy the journey but the weather can make it a lot of fun or a lot of struggle this year we embarked on a new adventure with our 712 literacy plan

019as a teacher I get to enjoy the journey every day there have been some low wind days but the sun has been shining and the kids have been helping steer the ship the Delight in their conversations with me has been a treat and all of this is because they have options in the books that they're reading that match what they need to understand and think and use to approach their world you made a commitment to having books and kids hands and giving teachers support to help keep the ship going the right direction it is already working I'm here to say thank you I had kids who told me they have never read a book on their own never we set a goal of finding one book they would actually enjoy reading this year they have

020already changed those goals to aiming for three to four books this year because they have options in our libraries that match who they are so thank you for the books thank you for giving kids voice and choice the kids are having a blast we look forward to all the books you continue to get into our classroom libraries as well as our high school library we look forward to blue skies and Fair Winds ahead thank you thank you Doug Peterson I live at 1130 Fairmount Avenue here in Shelton I've wanted to come up here and say thank you thanks to everybody being here to the board I've come to several of these meetings I've been on a committee or two um this is hard work that you're doing that the community is doing I've been in

021a couple of these meetings when folks have gotten their emotions have gotten the better of them and it's really hard in an anxious situation when there's a lot of feelings it's really hard to be able to work things out I'm impressed with and proud of this community tonight because this is the kind of conversation that that will work for the good of our students and and of our community so I want to just offer um a favorite poem from a favorite book of mine it's even out in paperback if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels but do not have love I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol if I have the gift of Prophecy and can fathom all Mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith that can

022move mountains but do not have love I am nothing if I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast but do not have love I gain nothing love is patient love is kind it is not envy it does not boast it is not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it is not easily angered it keeps no record of wrongs love does not Delight in evil but rejoices with the truth it always protects always trusts always hopes always perseveres Love Never Fails where there are prophecies they will cease where there are tongues they will be stilled where there is knowledge it will pass away but now these three things remain faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love thank

023you Marilyn Aaron hello um my address is on file so I don't think I need to repeat it again but first off I want to say thank you to Ivy I received a call from her from the district office and I've talked to her a couple times but I appreciated her calling me with an update in regards to the Narcan availability at the schools and then training for the staff I hope we move forward with a continuing plan to train additional staff because it's kind of really an all hands on deck situation if we come across a student that has come in contact with something such as Fentanyl um I do appreciate her calling me because that's really the only contact I've had every time I've stood up here and mentioned things or brought things

024to the attention of the board that's about one of the only times I've received a call back nobody else has reached out so I appreciate her I also received a call from the director of the bus garage so I just wanted to call attention to how much I appreciated her reaching out to me we had a bullying incident on the bus on Friday and she called me yesterday morning even though she was home sick so I really appreciate her addressing that concern um you know I know the committee recommended only moving two of these books from the classroom curriculum to the library and uh it's actually explicit content doesn't belong in the hands of minors it really doesn't I mean when you look at avoiding explicit material isn't our point to maintain a focus on

025education that's the primary goal of a curriculum is to provide students with Knowledge and Skills that are relevant to their academic and personal development right special materials can be distracting and detract from an educational Focus explicit material can sometimes involve situations or scenarios that are exploitative or harmful exposing students to such content may inadvertently normalize or desensitize them to inappropriate behavior different cultures and belief systems have a varying perspectives on what is considered appropriate or offensive content including sexually explicit material can lead to conflicts based on cultural or moral values there are legal and ethical considerations to consider depending on the jurisdiction there may be legal restrictions on the inclusion of explicit material in educational settings especially when minors are involved and then isn't it our goal to actually Foster a positive learning environment a

026classroom should be a place where students feel comfortable respected and able to focus on their studies introducing explicit material can create an uncomfortable or hostile environment for some students those are all things that we need to take into consideration so thank you for your time thank you Talisa Wilson talissa Wilson 1991 East State Route hello board members some of you are new and some have been around here long enough to know that the Dual language program at Evergreen Elementary has been through a number of changes in the past few years the whole school at one point had been dual language managed by dual language experience principals and staff who are recruited to the school the program was a point of pride in the community and it was extended to the seventh grade at one point

027since 2015 the program has been allowed to fray dismantle and now it is a fraction of what it was before the superintendent and other administrators will give many reasons for that but it has been a great disappointment to the community dual language is the most culturally appropriate way to educate English Learners and English speakers together in this community it is not just an enrichment program multilingual Shelton is a loosen it group of parents and teachers who support English learner education and dual language education in summer of 2022 we requested that the district hold a public meeting on Dual language and English Learners or for English Learners at Evergreen we requested that the meeting be 1.5 hours long to allow for Community input in October of 2022 the district agreed to host a public meeting to

028address concerns and questions related to the English Learners dual language program at Evergreen the meeting was scheduled from 6 to 7 30 and had over a hundred attendees the superintendent spent most of the meeting giving a presentation that was not adequately translated and then abruptly ended the meeting before the scheduled time he refused to answer the remaining questions that many people still had that does not mean that the dialogue between the district and the community should be over the hand-selected English learner task force and English learner parent committees do not represent a full community dialogue multilingual Shelton has emailed cat Kelly and Paula Kennedy in June to ask for a public briefing on both of these committees along with an update on Dual language there has been no response we need public meetings on these

029topics so we will again request that the Shelton School District hold a public meeting on English Learners and dual language we would like to know the number of English Learners in the district over the past few years as well as the number of students enrolled in dual language we would like to know what the district has learned from its English learner task force and English learner parent committee meetings in the past two years we would like to know the district's plans for hiring qualified teachers and para Educators and for training teachers and para Educators for English Learners and dual language please consider setting a date for this fall for a public meeting on these topics dialogue includes the Shelton School Board we need to talk to you and you need to talk to us please

030request this public meeting and join us at that meeting perhaps if we work together the amazing staff at Evergreen Elementary and the school district can position its dual language program as a beacon in Chris reichdale's initiative yeah time is up thank you are there any Community comments that have come in by phone or through Zoom no is that Matt possibly oh someone else okay okay it looks like that concludes Community comments for this evening so we are going to go into reports and recognitions and we do always start with our student reports so item 5.01 is report from our student School Board Representatives we've got one here today from Shelton high school and that's Aiden underberg oh Cedar I apologize hello my name is Aiden underberg and I'm the school board rep for Cedar High

031School so this week actually tomorrow uh we'll be having our First all-school Assembly to welcome our freshmen and also kick off our hope project our assemblies are mainly guided to um help the kids learn our Cedar agreements and also just to have fun because they are very fun um Peter was awarded six thousand dollars from Olympic College for our community Trail project that we started back in April we plan to plant more trees um create interpretive signs Even build a bridge and a small building at the top of our Trail for classes I think and then we are starting our career Cafe this week to help bring in a variety of community members to share what they do to help or to also guide students towards potential careers and then an update on our calendar

032project was started about two weeks ago our ecology class with the hope of Hope Garden started putting together a brand new composting system soon we will be going back to Finnish the layout of it I think and we're also currently discussing how we're gonna expand and Hope fully educate other schools about composting like OMS obj maybe Bordeaux I'm not sure that's all I got all right thank you I did have a question is that trail behind where Cedar's located there at Olympic College is that where you're building that it's on the like Mountain like thing the campus okay from where they had done some of the the logging recently great thank you for your report all right next up is 5.02 and that is the Shelton High School's School Improvement plan and I believe we've

033got Marianne Marshall and principal Bruce Kipper for that presentation good evening Madam chairperson directors of the board superintendent Jesse and the executive team it's a pleasure to be here tonight to present our School Improvement plan just started off with if you haven't been to the third floor of the a building yet I highly suggest that you stop by that's the new mural that was installed over the summer time it's it's gorgeous it really adds some flavor and gives a rich history of not only Shelton high school but the community and we're very proud of it and it's garnered all kinds of positive comments since it's been installed so I would um invite you to come over if you haven't seen it yet um anytime stop by and be happy to take you up there so

034first I wanted to revisit our goals from last year and kind of update you where we ended up if you remember one of our goals was freshman success which was defined by increasing the number of students freshman students that earn six or more credits we kind of use six credits as The Benchmark for their freshman year we need 24 credits to graduate they go to school for four years they do have to be the right six credits and so that's one thing we're conscious of but we're looking at six credits and we ended up just short of 70 percent um we had a number of students that so that was a about a five percent increase from the year before but what I will tell you is that before before kovid that number was below

03550 percent so since covid we we've made a a large gain in the number of freshmen that are earning six credits I'll get to we'll have that same goal this year and we'll get to that in a second um we did have 27 freshmen that went to summer school that were below the six credit threshold and those 27 students earned 26 credits so on average almost one a student which certainly will get them closer to those six credits if you remember we had three um sub populations that we looked at student groups which are our ill population our students in the native Ed program and our students that have IEPs if you look our native Ed program grew by 46 percent from the year before over 80 percent of the freshmen they're in a native

036Ed program earn six or more credits last year so that was that was tremendous to see happen a lot of people worked really hard you know we have our native Ed center with our tutors and our para Tech in there our teachers we constantly reminded our teachers of these three sub populations to look at and to make sure that we knew exactly where they were we showed growth of almost 10 percent in our ell program our IEP program we didn't do as well we stayed pretty constant right at 50 percent that's a focus for ours for us this year we've changed it and rearranged some of our staff on what their focus is in working with our Stu our freshmen with IEPs and so um that is a even more of a focus this year

037for us our second goal was attendance as you know that that's a tricky subject there's a lot of things that are out of our control I try to I try to look at and get our staff to focus on what do we have control over and we realized real quickly that we don't have a lot of control over attendance with you know the issues with Transportation um the the new kind of guidelines with like in the past you like hey if a kid was kind of sick you told him come to school we don't do that anymore we want to keep everybody safe and especially since covid um and so there is some encouragement of students and staff when they're not feeling well not to come to school or work um and so we didn't

038show as much growth in this area overall we had about a two percent increase from the year before um we did have some increase in our English language Learners and our students in our native Ed population which was two of our focus groups our ninth grade as a whole really showed a real slight growth but um this year we're going to focus our second goal on discipline and looking to continue we did decrease the amount of exclusions last year we looked to decrease that again this year so I'll share with that with you here in a second so for this year like I said our one of our goals is to decrease the number of either a exclusionary or off-campus suspensions by 10 percent last year we had about a hundred and we had 197

039incidences where students were removed from campus we're looking to decrease that to at least 177 which would be a 10 decrease one of our Focus areas when we looked at this area is like a large number of our referrals were for cell phone disruptions which eventually or possibly turned into defiance you know how it goes when teenagers love their phones and we're not trying to exclude the use of phones we're trying to teach students how to use phones appropriately at school a cell phone a smartphone is a great tool for learning it can be used in a number of ways to help students learn um that's what our focus is as opposed to trying to get students not to use them at all that's not realistic but we can figure out ways for students to

040use their phones appropriately and by decreasing those that area that's going to go a long ways in decreasing the overall number of referrals and and exclusions some of the strategies we're using we are we we have hired a dean of students this year to work with our students on what I would call infractions that don't necessarily put others at danger or involve violence but in incidences that re that could cause students to miss class and looking at more restorative practices how do we resolve the problem and keep kids in school um so Brandi redinger is her name she's been a great addition to our staff she comes with a world of special education background which can help us just in practices on how to reach all students and how to become how to create a

041more positive environment where we're focused on what do we want kids to do instead of what we would not want them to do because you know how it is I think somebody mentioned the quickest way to get a student to do something is tell them not to do it so we're trying to look at how do we create a more positive what what do we want students to do as opposed to focusing on what we don't want them to do um some specific strategies with regards to cell phone disruptions is all of our teachers now have red and green signs in their classrooms there are times that are appropriate to use your phone the green sign goes up that tells students very clearly it's an appropriate time when it's not they have the red their

042red sign up so we've spent a lot of time teaching structures and routines on what's appropriate cell phone use we're creating PSA announcements that are led by students on appropriate cell phone use at school we're starting a campaign to educate our families on what is the what's what is what are the negative consequences for students that spend so much time on their phones at school and how they can support us and helping students use their phones appropriately um as always our our tier one strategies include we want to create a warm and welcoming environment for all students we want all students to feel welcome at Shelton high school we want to build authentic relationships with our students know their stories know their strengths and their needs um we want to make sure that we're positively

043reinforcing students like I said catching students doing things that we want them to do as opposed to always catching them doing things we don't want them to do and then making sure we're communicating with families the quickest way to resolve a problem is get up get a parent or a guardian involved and work together as a team so that's our first goal we feel really positive about it we saw a decrease last year and we continue to look to decrease it this year our second goal again is our freshman success goal I think the research is clear that if a student gets off to a great start their freshman year in fact you can even narrow it down to the first six to nine weeks of school if a freshman gets off at their first

044six six to nine weeks is positive they're engaged they're learning it makes the rest of their four years go much smoother so that's our focus is you know really we started with our freshmen with our freshman orientation and that orientation just isn't two days that goes that continues throughout their freshman year um our big move this year and I'll share some some information with you in a minute is our freshman seminar class every freshman is enrolled in two trimesters of freshman seminar we've got a great staff some of them are here tonight that have spent a lot of time on their own not when when they weren't on contract and didn't get paid putting this together so they are dedicated to making this led by miss Trey our freshman administrator I see Mr Hirsch here

045I know he's part of that team um they are completely dedicated to helping our freshmen have a positive experience and and then of course you know we have our our leadership teams with our PBIS and our school Improvement and our school goals looking at data constantly um and and seeing like who who needs who needs support and what support can we provide and who's the best person to provide it and it really comes down to like one one student at a time like you know you help the students in front of you and you try to identify which students need assistance and all of them are different and you know strategies vary from student to student so that that's our second goal with I told you our big move was freshman seminar this is um

046this is just kind of a graphic of what what freshman seminar entails so over the course of two trimesters um there's a lot of community building that started the first day of school I have some pictures here in a minute students engaged in just activities that let them get to know their classmates also there's goal study we want we want to create students that set goals and that are goal driven they have you know they have a goal in mind that they have strategies to achieve that goal I know that um Mr Hurst touched on a little bit about reading you know we have students that they've set goals and they've already adjusted those goals based on the books they're getting to read and based on everything that's happening in their classes and they're so

047excited about that and so we want to build we want to build students that are goal driven and understand what it means to have a goal and and to try to attain it um study skills really important students in my I'm really old people so I've been around a long time I've seen students and I've seen students that have really strong study skills and they come to school ready to learn and I've seen students that don't have it and and if if they're not prepared they don't understand how to navigate the system like it is a system you have to navigate and so giving them those skills of what it means to be prepared for class and how to study and how to prioritize your time like those are those are really important for students

048time management is another important strategy and another important skill that students need to have and so all of these things are being covered in this class that our students have not had before and then lastly you all are aware of our academies and understand our Pathways we want students so in in the spring of their freshman year they register for school next year actually it takes place in February and March we want them to make informed choices when they choose their Academy and their pathway we want them to understand what that's about and what that's going to lead them to and and we don't necessarily look at the pathways as um put like career necessarily although they could lead to careers we look at it at how do you want to frame your education while

049you're in high school like which lens do you want to look at it through so if you're into building things and creating things maybe the med Academy is how you want to frame your education and then just today we had a meeting with all of our teachers and our um they went to their they went to different academies and so we have teachers that teach English and science associates that aren't a part of Academy right now but they're exploring which Academy they want to be a part of so that when they're teaching they can teach through the lens of those Pathways and academies so students can connect their learning why am I in this class like I want to weld I just want to weld why am I in this English class what is it

050doing for me how does it make how is it relevant to what I want to do it could affect the choices of the books that teachers have in their classrooms so kids have choices that is connected to what they're interested in so these are all things that are taking place in freshman seminar uh there we go these are just just a collage of pictures of activities that took place kind of the community building I talked about down in the left-hand corner all of our freshmen signed a commitment to graduate at freshman orientation um and so you know we hold them to that we show them that and we remind them of their commitment this is a group of our we call our climber crew ambassadors that's a tongue twister these are students that gave up

051their time in the summer to come in and go through some training and each of those students is assigned to a freshman advisory class these are upper class upper class students and so our freshmen have mentors of other students that have gone through Shelton high school that can provide advice can help them if they're struggling with something so each of these usually there's a couple of them in each freshman advisory class they work with the advisory teacher we really think that's going to add some richness to those advisory classes and provide some really valuable feedback to the Freshman students and then of course I just wanted to close with our open house if you attended thank you I thought it was awesome I mean you never know really what to expect the first time you

052do something and I didn't I didn't know is anybody going to show up like we we promoted it like we got the information out the crowd the amount of people that attended was just oh it was overwhelming to understand and to know that that many people actually cared would come um we had you know we had food trucks and we had music and dance like down in the right hand corner Jordan led the dance troop um so she said that there was a request that I danced at the homecoming assembly that's not going to happen so don't change your schedules um and Janet Tony in The Culinary area making treats and the Performing Arts people up in the top it was just really nice and I included a comment from Evan Jackson one of our

053teachers who's a Shelton High graduate um it just like how overwhelmed he was with the response and how positive it was and how it made him feel not only as a current teacher but as a graduate and he was just really happy to see everything that came together that night so that concludes my performance I will I will um answer any questions you have and yes thank you very much I did attend that and that was very fun um I thought that was a wonderful event and I'm so glad the weather was nice but it it was it was just fun I saw the beautiful mural up there on the third floor had a chance to look through some of the classrooms that were up there and and just check a lot of things out

054so that was a wonderful event but I do want to ask are there questions for the Shelton High School Improvement plan from board members yeah you're welcome to make a comment thought out that we're backed by teachers and staff who interact with students and are in the classroom and I am looking forward to hearing how the cell phone policies and student ambassador programs go because those seem like they'll have a really positive influence on the environment and impact on the students so thank you for your hard work and your presentation thanks and I'd like to say that as well that I'm so glad we have positive things going the um Freshman Class Academy sounds wonderful that is a tough transition to make it to high school so I want to talk about the cell phone

055policy and no is it brand new and how did you get your teachers to buy in so um the the policy this year is new we've we've kind of since I've been here we've kind of struggled with what to do with cell phones and um actually the teachers brought it to us we we have a number of um we have our you know our leadership group that includes our department chairs our administrators and other staff we have other committees that teachers are on and over the last couple of years they've just come to us and said we'll do something about this and so we probably wouldn't have tackled it if if we didn't have that kind of support from our staff and we even went back to them and said are you sure because this

056is what it's going to entail it's like everybody's got to be on board and everybody's got to do the same message and we got to follow through and so the teachers actually came to us and and said we would like to do this and we think it's important I think it's important um and um so far I think that it's it's going to be a challenge I mean you have you know that kids are tied to those phones there's no doubt about it but I think if as long as we continue to focus on how to appropriately use the phone um then I think we have a chance um it can't just be no you can't ever use it that cannot that's not going to be successful um so I've had teachers give me feedback

057so far that hey it seems the ones that the teachers that take the time to teach the structures and routines and the expectations in class and and teach students how to use their phones they're having more success than others so now it's just to get everybody I suppose fewer infractions what I understand is that social media and cell phones in the classroom led to a lot of disruption yeah and that's something I'm glad you brought that up some I didn't mention was the the infractions that come as a result of the social media The Bullying um you know we definitely we certainly think that's going to have a positive effect if we can if we can make this work Ed with them and came up with a plan I think that's uh truly a good

058model for school that that's how we have people in the front line really feel involved in decision making so I appreciate that and just one other quick observation is that your climber crew it's mostly young women so is there a reason for that or um well I in fact I I went back to the administrator I said hey we got to get more guys in this more more males I think that I really think initially it's like some of the boys don't think it's cool not yet right not yet yeah okay but I I like to sometimes do the voluntold stuff like you know I've gone to certain certain students on campus at hand you really need you a part of this like so I'm giving you the option but I'm really not you know

059one of those things and and there's there we'll get them we'll get more male students involved um but yeah I I I've already made I've already talked to people about it so just curious no I don't think that's developing things going on at Shelton high school well thank you I I did want to ask just to piggyback off of what Carla was talking about with the cell phones do you get student input on that to get more buy-in from like your student leadership and maybe how how getting direct feedback on how that is to see if that helps yeah so one of the things I mentioned was that we are doing student-led PSAs like public service announcements and so we're just we're just starting that now and so the idea is to work with our

060leadership class our um our broadcasting class with Mr Ramos and have students involved in developing some of the strategies and some of the and all of the announcements and delivered by students developed by students so that students can see their classmates and their peers involved in this also yeah I know I've been given some positive feedback around I've got students that are in high school and hearing that they do appreciate it when teachers give them a structure to it and say we know your phone is important we're not telling you can't ever be on it but these are the times you can and then you know we respect your time so respect our time too and give that to them so that that does seem to be something that is positive that I'm already hearing

061about so I wanted to mention that do we still have Matt with us okay can I check in and see if okay we just don't see you so I it's hard to know if you're there did you have any questions or comments for the Shelton High School presentation I yeah I am curious as to what some ideas might be and and if they don't have them tonight um a follow-up later is is fine but uh improving the The Freshman numbers um my my guess is that's going to involve some more parent involvement and uh um getting kids out the door and in the classrooms uh I'm I'm excited to hear about the cell phone stuff and where that's going I've never found a positive study on the effects of social media on kids at all

062be it you know whatever the the subject may be um so I'm I'm I'm curious to see where that goes uh as far as uh whether it's having a positive effect or not um I have a a couple of teenagers in the school and neither of them have complained about it and neither one of them have been disciplined so my guess is that they're following the rules and not complaining uh which I view is positive so keep up the good work uh the the atmosphere around the high school is is awesome uh it's better than I've seen in a long long time and uh I I think that goes a long ways towards uh what you and your staff are doing so thank you all right thank you Matt Sandy did you have questions or

063comments I did I was going to follow up a little bit more on the cell phone too we uh your graphic your slide there shows um previous year incidents of 197. how big a part of that is the cell phone usage and did I also hear you say fines for for uh you know multiple violations no I I mentioned I did mention that oftentimes the cell phone violation is turned into defiance thank you and so if you so if you look at if you look at the Defiance category many of those started as cell phone violations um hard then to say that yeah so out of those 197 um I I believe it was in the high 80s was the cell phone violations slash Defiance okay so almost half okay and um the red green

064signs for when you may or may not use the the your phone is that meant to be an occasional thing or a regular thing so so they they have they have them in their classrooms all every day every period and most of the time they're going to be on red because most of the time we want students engaged in you know teachers either teaching or they're engaged in learning somehow somehow activities but there there will be times that we are encouraging teachers like to find that balance you know like a teenager can't focus for for an hour to begin with I mean like so we encourage them to to I guess build in time to where hey maybe if you're going to do a short break transition between activity or something that might be a

065time to say hey you need to check your see if you need to check your phone see if your mom texts you or something that'd be a time to do it um and like I said teachers that are building that in and are finding ways and then also incorporating the phone into learning like many of our teachers use um polls where students put their answers through their phone um and so that's an appropriate use where it would be on Green so but yeah they're in there all the time and um it's it's meant to to be a like a visual reminder to students okay and do we track um or do we have in in fractions for language yes okay and yeah so there's a number of categories that that we look at um and

066we use we use the the platform homeroom that we can it it kind of it will flag a student as no risk medium risk high risk based on attendance grades discipline a number of factors and there is certainly a category for language in the discipline codes and I guess in light of um you know some of the the books that we've talked about in the libraries and um um the language and I'm wondering is there a what what is that language policy is that pretty um lenient is that pretty strict is that that uniform across the district uh I don't I don't know what I don't know what the expectations are at other schools I I mean we we certainly um we we will work with students in um confer with students deal with students

067when the f word is used when any derogatory language towards another person is used anything is brought to our attention that that somebody else heard we will get involved if it's profane or not appropriate for for school I mean certainly the f word used out in the courtyard is not appropriate um and harassing Behavior or harassing comments intimidating comments are certainly not appropriate when they're brought to our attention are we are we or we hear it we certainly deal with it alrighty thank you and I'm also safe for you know the ninth grade um looking at increasing the number of students that are going to have their six credits Plus is going to have to have a impact on some of attendance maybe it's not you know 100 percent goal but you know those things

068are going to go up as well and um so I think that's a a positive thing I like that thank you thank you and that was one thing I was going to ask about too was I know we don't have a or you feel that there's not a lot of control over absences but there are probably Outreach when you're seeing that that is occurring or when it becomes excessive there's obviously steps in place for all of that to try to help and I know that that's been a big thing to find out every student's story strength and need and to find out what may be actually going on that's causing those absences and see if there's something that can be done for that is that yeah there's a number a couple a couple of ways

069one is we do we do daily calls and daily emails to students that are marked absent unexcused and then attendance is part of our monitoring when we look at students that need support attendance is is part of that factor so students that show up as either a medium risk or a high risk we will look at at all of those factors grades discipline attendance um and see what supports your kids need okay and I know engaging programs are what keeps kids in school as well as Athletics and clubs and activities I had a memory pop up on my own phone that six years ago I went to Nashville for the first time for the academies for me as a school board member it's been really nice to see how these have developed it is something

070that every time that I've been looking at our school board scholarships we always have students that mention how much the academies have really helped direct what their interests are and really help keep them engaged so it's nice to see that feedback and it's really nice to see the Freshman Academy just all the structure that's being put into place with that and I know it's not going to be for much longer than I'm driving my students onto campus Because I will have a driver soon but I do have to say that every morning when I drop children off I see you and your staff I see so many of the staff out there talking to the students and walking around and that means a lot to me as a parent as well too so thank you

071for the presentation and thank you for answering all the questions that we had if I could just close with the last thing if I could give one piece of advice to to parents and Guardians is to get your student involved like the tendency when students get in trouble is to remove them from activities and remove them thanks you should do the opposite you should get them more involved like the more involved a student is the better they do in school that is so clear in the research and the mistake we make sometimes is we start removing students we should get him more involved and so that if that's the one thing if I could tell parents and Guardians to do so thank you I appreciate your time yeah thank you very much all right the

072last report is 5.03 which is the July 2023 budget status report and we've got Brenda trogstad to give that to us versus way taller than I am good evening president Davidson and Shelton School Board I'm presenting the July budget status this evening as you know our fiscal year ended August 31st so the finance department is up to our next and finish closing that out it's due to the ESD on October 25th so once we get through that we'll present the whole financial report to you this evening I'll go through July 2023 that we have closed and balanced so the July digital fund fun fund balance was 2 million seventy two thousand dollars 289.14 sorry that is a 2.96 percent fund balance of our total expenditures capital projects fund ended at 50 724.42 cents our debt

073service fund which pays our bond payments twice a year ended at two million one hundred and eighty nine thousand seven hundred and eighty two dollars and ninety eight cents Associated student body remains pretty constant um it ended at 485 863.45 transportation and vehicle fund into July with 289 514.52 we did pay for four of us in August so you'll see that go down and then our private purpose trust fund we which is our all of our scholarships the Drake scholarship the Mike Johnson Memorial and the memorial ended at 243 145.47 do you have any questions on this are there any questions okay do you want to turn your mic on okay um and this question might be for you and it might be for Wyeth Jesse so just wanted to wake you up over there

074yeah I'm sorry anyway in the budget reading through some of the details we spent 175 thousand dollars on a computer system for buses so is that correct that yeah that's our new routing system that we have put into place yes okay so can we have a few more details on the investment that what that will do for our district and how it will work I can give you a few pieces of it we're still implementing it working out the bugs as you know we have an interim director so once we get a true director we'll be doing more but our old system you had to input every student and their address manually the new system will import from Skyward so you can import all that so it's taking less manual time to enter all those

075routes in the future also there is an app that parents will be able to download on their phone that will show them where their students bus is so they'll know where their student is on their route and they won't have to call the bus garage for that information so we're excited for that but that's still a little ways out so we're still working through a few of the bugs we do have a new router personnel and going through a lot of training there but so far we're very pleased with it yes that sounds wonderful to have the latest technology on GPS for parents and did you say we do have a new Transportation director we did interviews today so we're still working through that process but hopefully soon we do have an interim and she's

076been great Delphi Gardener she saves us every time so another item in the budget is under expenditures and it's community service and apparently we've spent over the budget we're at 134 percent of that category can you explain what that might be involved in community services so when you're budgeting your transportation is budgeted into your program 99 codes when you're finalizing your budgets and monthly we do it in the finance department we move out any non-to-from transportation over to program 89. so that makes that go over but it's budgeted in your program 99 so it offsets each other and that is an accounting manual requirement from the state I did explain to you one day I'm kind of remedial on the budget but um so this was in the 80 category yeah so 89 is community

077services and that is your non-to from busing gets moved there from your program 99 Transportation I'm talking a lot of Technology technical terms here why is giving me that look um so we do budget in transportation is where it's at but it is a requirement that if it is not too from school mileage you have to move it over to that program 89 category so that community service represents Transportation over costs yes plus your swimming pool costs are in there anything with our Auditorium is good community service too there's several smaller items in there but the biggest thing you see is the non-twoof from transportation thank you are there any other questions on the budget Matt did you have any questions on the budget well that all sounded really good I'm just trying to avoid

078cows okay all right all right he's trying to avoid cows he said he's he's driving somewhere in Oregon monitoring a fire so I think that that's it thank you very much for answering our questions on the budget this evening and we are going to move into the consent agenda there's about six items in there proposed minutes Personnel report some cancellations and warrants usual items for the consent consent agendas their emotion I would make a motion to approve the consent agenda I will second that it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say no hearing none the consent agenda has passed now we can move into discussion and action items we've got one item under that this evening it is the proposed recommendation of

079the instructional materials committee on the eight books asked to be further reviewed for the adoption of textual materials for literacy instruction in grades 7 through 12. then we've got Marianne Marshall good evening board president Davidson members of the board as it was just said I am here to bring back the book the eight books that were for review okay as a reminder one of our priorities in our strategic plan is to provide high quality literacy instruction and so as we moved through this textual material adoption we did follow board policy and procedure 2020. just uh to review the timeline this work going into picking these book sets for grade 7 through 12 started with our 712 Ela Cadre making a decision of what was going to be our literacy approach and then moving on there

080with requests for books from teachers which went to curriculumly so there was this whole process that we started and just as a reminder our teachers here in the district who are professionals and they know what students are interested in what is popular out there in regards to books those are the people that brought forth these recommended book sets for our students in grade 7 through 12. and today we're here just to come back and make a recommendation to the board as the IMC committee all right so as the instructional material committee went back to review these books I just want to focus in on the fact that as we reviewed them we focused in on did it meet Ela standards for grades 7 through 12. was it a fit we wanted an Eclectic group of

081books based on different genres were these books engaging and were they age appropriate So based on the summary from the instructional materials committee we take a look took a look at the eight books and we are recommending the six books that you see there in Black for approval to by the board and the last two we took off of the list based on the criteria of alignment engagement Age and appropriateness and did it fit the genre of the units that were built again just requesting these six books be approved by the board tonight all right hope you did take any questions that you have go right ahead if you've got some questions and Want to Jump Right In I wanted to say that we listen to our community and I'm grateful for all the comments

082and pro and con and for these books and um there's a lot of respect to the people who did the research and picked the books that maybe they're not all I'd want on the list but I respect the procedure and that we did go through a committee and you did take a boat by your committee members what they believed would be a good choice also I'm aware that these are only for junior and seniors so that would be 17 year olds and 18 year olds well basically that Juniors and seniors is that correct okay all right well I think that needs to be brought out when it comes to age and grade appropriateness so thank you for your presentation thank you Carla one I think in the greater context of this too I know we're

083boiling this down at this point in time because it was a re-review of eight books but this is part of the uh English language literacy breakout groups that have many books yes that teachers can choose from it is not just these books these are going to be part of that if they're approved but there are are lots of book choices and we do still have the procedure and within our policy for a parent to request a book that they do not feel is appropriate for their child correct and that's all spelled out in the procedures correct are there questions more questions for Marianne I do have some more um so the recommendation is for six books to be approved for the curriculum adoption under the instructional materials committee and the other two would not be

084part of the curriculum but they would still be in classroom libraries is that correct they would not be required reading no no not required reading on the reading list but again not every book on that reading list is required you can choose from um X Out of Y okay one of that one of those books was not on the original classroom Library list so would that be um now in the classroom library or is that in just the main library yeah so at this time those these eight books have not been incorporated into their classrooms or sent off to the schools to be used so the two books that would be remaining we would be they would be held back they wouldn't be considered required reading but they could find themselves inside of the classroom

085Library as a supplemental book for students to choose to read correct but they would not be required to read those books um I appreciate the committee looking at uh that and taking into consideration the concerns of the community and I still have some questions can we say now that all eight of these books were read cover to cover or were they just reviewed using a you know outline or summary from a resource how was that yeah thank you that is a great question so some of the members read some of the books and the material within each of those books that was a concern and was brought forth by the school board was marked in those books so we were able to identify those within each of the eight books yes yeah I saw the

086books with the flags in them and I guess I'm still trying to pinpoint um somebody was reading it and said oh this looks like a flag to me or they were using a resource that said these might be possible uh flags and then go through and you know we took the information that was given to us by the school board and what the concern was and those are that is the material that was flagged inside of those books okay so that's how that was flagged um I appreciate that um can you clarify for for us the role of the IMC the instructional materials committee and the curriculum adoption committee all right so when we start off with the curriculum adoption committee in in regards to this we worked with teachers here in the Shelton school

087district there are experts they are our professionals they know um what good reading looks like and what students are interested in so they took the standard looked at what is what are students interested in reading and created book list based off the fact of our approach where we wanted to do book set reads that provided students with a variety of options so if you were going to teach a genre of dystopian novels that students would have a choice it wouldn't be just one book and a whole class reading so we wanted to provide variety for students and So based off the standards based off of the ELA approach that we were going to use the 150 book list was created by the curriculum adoption committee that recommendation then moves on which is all outlined in

088school board policy and procedure 2020 is sent to the instructional materials committee to reveal the thing I didn't mention within the curriculum adoption committee is not only I need to go back is they looked at the standards looked at what was engaging but they also use the ospi anti-bias tool just to make sure that we're meeting all of the Civil Rights and we wouldn't have civil rights concerns within any of the books that were being recommended that was pushed to the instructional materials committee for review and then based off of that criteria like we said are the books engaging do they meet the standards um is it you know age-appropriate based on the standards for each of those grade levels and then made that recommendation that we brought that I brought to the board on

089behalf of the instructional materials committee so for purposes of your timeline graphic with the construction or the CAC committee be the beginning of the timeline 7 through 12 Ela Cadre convenes would that be the curriculum curriculum adoption that's not the curriculum adoption committee the Cadre is just a group of seven through 12 ELA teachers that came together to decide the the work within Ela and what was our approach going to be the curriculum committee was made up of curriculum leaders here in the district so that would correspond more to the timeline that says curriculum leads yes okay we have to decide the approach first before we make a decision on what do we need us for books from teachers they're suggesting titles not just genres so they knew that they had to provide a variety

090based on different genres so they looked at the genres what books did for each of these genres did they want to provide on those lists so they could be pretty specific on a title rather than just saying and that was their job was to be a little more specific okay all right sorry I have some notes here I'm looking through um I went um my understanding is we have multiple copies of um each of those books because they were a great many of them are going to be in the classroom libraries as well correct okay and I had it was my hope my intention over the summer to be able to read all of the books that were in question too I was able to get to two of them and then they were no

091longer available in the district office so I did greatly appreciate being able to look at the books after they had been flagged by the committee I thank you for that um and one and as I read the books my process was to read it once for the story itself and then to go back in and read it again for um content and and concerns that people may have raised um and the language is still of a concern to me and you know I'm just wondering I I've talked to a lot of people everybody's kind of in a quandary about what to do about language where do you draw the line but it strikes me that maybe the line to be drawn is the same line that's in the school if F in the courtroom in

092the in the courtyard is inappropriate do we really want a book that has excessive use of that in it you know you can have a book that has occasional use of something to drive home a point um but in you know some of the things that be my percent my perspective that um you know it's an excessive use and probably isn't helping to coach kids into refraining from that language you know we're getting them ready for careers and colleges that's not um appropriate in great many places and so um you know I really would kind of Wonder ask if there's any interest in will this um committee continue and do they have any interest in you know working on some guidelines like um around language or other content in the future that's a great question

093so in regards to that I think you know looking at student discipline and whether what type of language is being used inside of our schools on a daily basis and what does that mean for the textual materials that we ask students that are required reading um what we do know moving forward is we've updated our procedures for board policy 2020 and what we're going to do as we move forward is to make sure that we are using credible sources to process what we've identified as wanting to move forward in an adoption and so will something like language be taken into account at that time or the or is the plan some other areas of updating yeah so when we think of credible sources of like running material through just to screen it we would be

094looking at you know credible sources could be what it what are our current universities using to screen material what are school districts around us here in Washington state and throughout the nation using to Screen through material that they want to move forward in an adoption and at any time parents can request the list of any of these books that are purchased because we keep all of these lists and if they would like to do their own screening and make that determination that they feel like something is not appropriate they can go through the proper procedure to request not to have their child use that book is that correct correct so they would be able to have access for transparent here what books are we are inside of the classroom and then you would follow the

095procedure of first talking with your child's teacher and then if it needs to going to the school principal so yes they would just need to follow those processes depending on whatever that family's values are whatever they're trying to they they can make some of those determinations correct and go through their teacher correct so then it will be the correction adoption curricula adoption committee that will go through the process of looking for credible sources and updating the 2020 procedures so the procedures have been updated as far as what we're going to use and but the curriculum adoption committee would be look at those credible sources to Screen through material whether it be book sets whether it be curriculum that offers an instruction you know a program is in itself yes those credible sources would be used

096to screen material be recommended for adoption before that would move to the instructional materials committee for review and so those credible sources are already in the revised policy that was posted on the they are not procedure they are not but we will use credible sources again looking at what are our universities and colleges using what are districts around us using we also want to make sure that it's you know research-based that it's credible we're not just using anything to Screen through our materials okay appreciate that thank you for taking the time here as I go through the questions are there any other questions that have come up from any other board members on Matt I don't know if you are still out there if you've got any questions maybe we've lost Matt yes yes we

097can hear you um first of all you know I'm not super thrilled that we've got cuss words and reading material you know that are going into the classroom but in the context of all that is um you know when we were kids we all looked up all the cuss words in the dictionary we looked up inappropriate things in the encyclopedias uh kids ask your parent what encyclopedia is um we knew how to write boob and poop on a calculator uh equally as far as I'm concerned if this gets kids to read so that they can navigate the future and be successful ah I think we're probably blowing it out of proportion we've also already addressed this in procedure so that you know we will have one more little speed bump to make sure that it

098doesn't happen in the future um like I said uh I'm not super thrilled the thords are there um but if parents are doing their job you know teaching morality and everything at home I think that uh making sure that the the schools are teaching reading and math and and that is is uh I think we're I think we're going to be okay is where I'm at um so yeah I don't have any questions it's just kind of my point of view on this all right all right thank you Matt sorry I still have another question we talked about the uh the protest forum and one of my concerns with that early on has been the length of time that it takes to go through that process I did see that the form itself has been

099um streamlined a little bit and you know thank the committee for looking at that it um as I look through the procedures it says parents anybody any parent that need wanted to protest would just submit something in writing so does that mean they don't have to use that form literally just a written note is acceptable ideally they would use the form that's been provided to indicate that they have a concern but that doesn't exclude the fact that we will have parents and Guardians that will contact possibly contact our schools with a concern but that doesn't mean because they contact through email that those concerns would not be addressed they may be asked from that email to please fill out that form so that we can move forward okay okay thanks for that clarification because the

100procedure itself doesn't actually say that there's a form and so I thought well maybe it was a you know a factor Gathering uh tool not necessarily a requirement to fill out it is it is very it is helpful right to fill out and I think it's important to note that the first step in the process is to start a dialogue between the parent and the teacher so it's not that parents need to jump to a long process form they need to communicate with their teachers first right I wouldn't anticipate that this would be used often in fact I don't think that's been used I don't think it's ever been used in the time that I've been on the board I'm not aware of one um so the last my last question I really was looking

101at the anti-bias tool and I used it with some of the books that I read since I couldn't get some of the books that were the committee already had the books and there weren't other copies available I even read some other books that weren't on the list and used the anti-bias tool and again I think committee's done a really good job of picking books that show lots of other different cultures and lots of other perspectives that that sort of thing but anyway so I went through the anti-bias tool and in some of the books that I read in one book that I read something struck me in the anti-bias tool we're talking about religion and in the book it made reference to the batshit Bible and my first thought was you know if that were

102to say the batshit Quran would the anti-bias tool have filtered that out and why not if it was in you know referencing the Bible it talks about being respectful to any belief system um and so you know that's just an instance that I had and um you know had questions about it not necessarily going to ask you know for a review of that particular book based on that but you know that maybe that um is a consideration as well when people are looking at the anti-bias tool that um you know Christianity is a religion as well and and you know if we wouldn't say it about other religions would we say it about Christianity just in general so that was just um a comment and an observation I had from actually using the anti-bias tool

103so I think that concludes all my thank you are there more questions I just wanted to go over one more time what you meant by credit credible resources so you would probably find an online site that other schools have used and it has some backing to be um trustworthy you're saying that you're looking for that your committee will go look for that now is that what you were telling us so just to go back it'd be credible sources not resources that we would look at and so the adoption committee would look into credible sources to use to filter out whether it's a book set adoption whether it's a curriculum that we're adopting to use to screen that material through correct so that could be an online recommendation system that we've seen it could be okay

104correct okay all right it is recommended for approval is there any more discussion on this or do we have a motion oh I'll make a motion to recommend the instructional materials committee um further review of the adoption of textual materials for literacy literacy instruction in grades 7 through 12. I'll second the motion after approving them already once this year all right it has been moved and seconded to approve the proposed recommendation of the instructional materials committee on the eight books that were asked to be further reviewed for the adoption of textural materials for the literacy instruction in grades 7 through 12. all those in favor say aye I all those opposed say no is there anyone abstaining Matt did we hear your vote thank you I couldn't I'm hearing vehicle but I couldn't hear you

105thank you for clarifying all right the motion has passed thank you Marianne for answering all of the questions all right that leads us to board member comments and Matt I'm going to start with you problem just wanted to make sure I'm sure I give you a chance is there anyone that has a comment this evening I would like to thank everyone for gathering with us to discuss books and take this time to stress the importance of literacy and reading not just at school but in the home I'd like to thank the committee for their hard work and um continued efforts despite pushback and harassment from the community I appreciate your time effort and feedback in in going through this process again I'd also like to thank you for your work in book selection and presenting

106to the community it's important to remember that books speak across the curriculum they teach social and emotional learning which in High School can often be forgotten since you're not you know reiterating empathy and kindness and anti-bullying as much as you are in grade school children it helps students navigate relationships within School within their families it is important for students to see other perspectives and also really to be able to see themselves and in their environment um they shouldn't feel isolated or othered they shouldn't feel transparent because of their identities in the classroom School Board member and a parent I have appreciated the community voice in this room but I am happy to move forward and hope that we can maintain a positive dialogue across all things that the school board is working on and that's

107it thank you thank you Carla did you have any comments this evening just briefly I wanted to thank the people for participating tonight for their interest and support in the issues that we're dealing with today thank you Sandy did you have any comments again thank you everyone I'll ditto the uh the board's appreciation for the members of the public being here I think things went very respectfully this evening and um I haven't had the opportunity to get out in the schools for anything all I can say is my grandson keeps me apprised of the girls soccer team progress mostly because he's a boy and he's played soccer but he didn't know he did tell me that the stands are much more crowded much more filled when the girls are playing than when the boys played

108I do want to thank everybody for coming tonight I really appreciate the fact that we had a lot of community comments tonight and they were civil and they were respectful as a board we are here to hear whatever the community concern is whether it's standing at a podium in the board meeting or whether it's an email that is sent out to us we have been aboard and we are still a board that wants to listen to what our community concerns are but it is very nice when people can show up and they can say that in a respectful and civil manner it's very much appreciated and thank you to the committee that did re-address the books thank you to the Shelton High School presentation on your school Improvement plan and thank you to all of

109the staff that showed up you know thank you for all of the things that you are doing at this time we do not have any need for an exec session so if we have somebody who would like to make a motion to adjourn we can close the meeting and then we will need to sign documents a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting I'll second that it's been moved and seconded to adjourn all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say no all right hearing none we are adjourned