001[Music] 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 we do have a couple of changes to the agenda on con the consent agenda item I the amount should read 52,600 not 56,600 and then on the business agenda item two has been removed I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda with those two changes Mr yes Mr Reyes yes Mr yes Dr M yes the chair votes yes as well onto the consent agenda all of the following items those items of a routine nature normally approved to board meetings will be approved by one vote unless any board member desires to have a separate vote on any or all of these items items the consent agenda
002consists of the discussion consideration and action on the following items items A through Z for approval second Mr yes Dr M yes Mr yes Mr re and the chair votes yes as well uh information reports USPA report do we have anyone here this evening all right you see report president McAdams Dr harler members of the board just wanted to report that we've been busy over the last month working on um member concerns and we appreciate administration's um continued support as we come to resolutions on those issues and we've also been working with oea continuing our work with OA on the auto pay flipping members from payroll deduct to auto pay and this benefits our members as well as our association and we're looking forward to Thanksgiving break and we really do appreciate having a week
003to spend time with our family so thank you for that all right our next item is a special recognition for the Adult Learning Center hi my name is Letha B and I'm here on behalf of the okahoma Department of career and technology and we are here to present Amy Mardy and the Adult Learning Center um a award that was given on October the 31st um at a annual conference between Oklahoma Career Tech and the CLA literacy Association and this award um is for um the highest in our state for measurable skill gains and measurable skill gains are um the gain that a student achieves either when they receive their high school equivalency or their educational functional gain and there are 32 programs in our state that work with adult education and so we would like
004to congratulate Amy's program or dr's program and um the um Union Public Schools um Adult Learning Center we like to think as well so if you all can stand up all right under hearings in correspondence is there anything other Communications all right um under opportunity for comments from the audience regarding the agenda the rules for this section of the agenda are as follows speakers should identify themselves each speaker is given a maximum of 3 minutes total time allocated to this item is 30 minutes under board policy 1800 the Board of Education president has the discretion to determine if topics are relevant enough to be heard and to establish the order of presentations this includes the right to interrupt this section and move on to the next item you have one person who signed up to
005speak regarding the agenda that is Erica Stormont if you would like to come forward now and tell us UHA item you like to address Erica Stormont if you'd like to come forward and let us know which agenda item you would like to speak about I may have misunderstood when I signed up but I'm here to speak on behalf of Union Public Schools as a union parent and wanting um my child to have a diverse and inclusive public education and access to books then I will call you back up at the end of the agenda when it's um our regular when it's our comments that are not regarding the agenda okay thank you all right our next item is the first reading of proposed board policy revisions Dr thank you president again board members um this
006is just our annual uh board policy uh proposals to you as you recall we start these back in August uh each year and uh within the respective divisions they have time to go through um all the board policies and make sure that statutory changes as well as any types of changes that need to be made because of our a with both USPA and ucpa and then sometimes we have a little clean up language in terms of just title changes by position and so we have 29 of those this year and uh as you probably recall I recently provided you with uh all the proposed changes and an exclamation for um a summary of what those changes are uh this will be for a first reading this month and we'll allow this to be out for
007about 30 days uh to the public they can see these as we be on our website and then I would like to come back in December we really need to come back in December and ask the board to consider the changes so that they can then be um executed throughout um our different policies and really the operations in the district so we happen answer any questions you might have at this time right thank you next item consider and take action on the purchase of 500 student laptops and accessories from traera and the amount of $34,500 from bond funds Mr Mor yeah um president drers members of the board uh this is a purchase of 500 new laptops it'll take care of our third graders at Rosa Parks and um also replace some of the Lost
008uh uh laptops we have um from year to year so remind me is this just the actual purchase of something we've already before uh this is this is additional laptops so um anytime we're spending over that certain amount this is this is we we kind of gauge how many we get back each year after we've checked them out and also we have you have damage you have some that just age out we hope to use them and they age out so we needed about 500 new laptops in order to take care of the third graders that Rosa that didn't get new ones and then also to replace some of the lost and uh aged out ones we have the secondary s same with yes Mr Rees yes Mr yes mne yes Mr yes chair votes
009yes as well consider and take action on the purchase of manage engine support and maintenance from payall toia in the total amount of this is a renewal of our software that allows us to manage all our laptops in the district um this allows us to push out updates allows us to control those updates um push out different filtering that we need to have on our student laptops um and to kind of see where they are and what they're doing and that they that um the students are using them and and uh they're checking in with us we kind of have the same thing for iPads we that we use for Jam this is the laptop version of that software that allows us to control those laptops move for approv second yes yes mrman yes Mr
010Rees yes chair votes yes as well thank you all right item three consider and take action to accept the bid for the Bas full integration at Freshman Academy and award the contract to Harrison Energy Partners in the amount of $336,000 from bond funds Mr ISAC yes good evening Dr and president McAdams uh this uh project the BAS system is the building automation system it operates the air conditioning system and the system for the freshman in the academy the uh the system we're replacing was installed in the late '90s so it's it's seen its time it's done its job and we've we've had problems with it in the past we've been able to interface pieces with it and try and get it to operate but we're to the point where more of it's failing and we
011can repair economically so we look that just uh replacing the whole thing with a modern technological BAS system much like what we have at darnaby and jarma and the CH over at the at the stem Center so this this uh this protocol and this system is something we developed through a specification after doing many construction projects so that we can interface it with our districtwide server-based building management system that communicates correctly and everything so uh we're just ready to take care of that right now we we will also work um it's modern very modern very Advanced so as we go through these buildings and and and modernize them and update the HVAC HVAC system we plan on keeping this one in place so we can just replace the equipment with the controlers and the system
012there so with your approval and I move forward new vendor Nel sir no they've uh Harrison Energy Partners has integrated like I said jarvin and garnaby inovation lab so super thank move for appr second Mr yes Dr mne yes mrir yes Mr re yes and the chair votes yes as well all right under Finance consider and take action on reapprovals and Child Nutrition fund operational budgets for the 2023 2024 fiscal year as outlined on the state of revenues expenditures and fund balances and as originally approved by the board of education on September 11th 2023 and reapprovals of needs document as approved by the county excise board on October 19th 2023 Dr LS good evening Madame President members of the board and Dr harler uh this is a recommendation to reapproved budgets for the general building
013in the Child Nutrition funds uh as outlined in the memo and in the attachments as we mentioned the uh budget was originally approved on September 11th the estimate of needs was approved by the county excise board on October 19th uh so we bring our budget back after we've made any adjustments needed for reapprovals for all funds uh remain the same we made a few uh small minor changes but uh we ask that those budgets be reapproved we for this sub committee line item changes Chang appr second Mr yes M yes Mr yes mrman yes and the chair all right uh any new business no all right our next section is opportunities for comments from the audience and board members the rules for this section of the agenda are as follows speakers should identify themselves each
014speaker is given a maximum of 3 minutes total time allocated to this item is 30 minutes under board policy 1800 the Board of Education president has the discretion to determine if topics are relevant enough to be heard and to establish the order of presentations this includes the right to interrupt this section and move on to the next item we have several people signed up to speak tonight the timer is on the wall over here when you come up so that you're able to see it as well if you'll please speak from the podium it would be appreciated our first speaker that has signed up is Jordan Thompson hello my name is Jordan Thompson and I want to say I I too and want to fight for diverse and inclusive literature in our schools and I'm
015so happy that we have um some books here that are available currently at Union I I love erotic fiction myself so I'm so happy let me give you an example um he started humping me again wildly the base of my spine was crushed into the ground this is um Lucky by Alice by the way he nailed back raised your legs he said spread them I did my legs were like plastic Barbie's page inflexible but wasn't satisfied he put a hand on each calf and pressed them out farther than I could hold keep them there he says he tried again he worked him he worked his fist he grabbed my breast he twisted the nipples with his fingers laughed at them with his tongue tears came out of the corners of my eyes and rolled down
016either cheek he kicked me and I curled into a ball I want a he said he held his stick in his hand I've never done it before I said I'm a virgin in your mouth I kneeled before him can I put my bra back on I wanted my clothes I saw his thighs before me the way they belled up from the knee the thick muscles and small black hairs and his flci of dick he grabbed my head put it in your mouth and suck he said like a straw I said I'll stop there um but I wanted to say also that um we need do a quick go search of the struggle for uh the literature and our schools you'll find a lot of opinions saying that we're infringing on Free Speech or freedom of
017expression Free Speech was made to for a lot of reasons but is to protect your basic speech mostly to challenge authority and government and share their opinion on what's going on I I am here tonight I'm speaking well ironically I came I was going to come with a a parent who's from the Union district last month because I haven't been to a Union School District meeting yet and we couldn't come last month so we decided to come November well early November end of October your chief Communications officer Christopher Payne I saw that he likes to troll Ryan Walters which I feel is inappropriate considering his job is to be a Communications officer and he mocked moms for Liberty parents and I'm going to read what he wrote coing up to this group and inviting them
018into the classroom isn't going to normalize their bad behavior or are they there to infiltrate and remove offensive books this group doesn't get to de side for [Applause] everybody and while there are offensive books you just heard one that is in your library it's sitting on the Shelf at the high school and I have proof so if it's removed I'll know there are new rules put into place for the state and you have to abide by them so that would be one that would need to be removed or you risk losing accreditation so there is a committee that has been formed at the level for the state level to for parents any parent can from Union has the ability to submit those books to that committee and if they find them breaking those rules that
019have been implemented as of September 11th then you have the risk of losing accreditation so I would guess every adult in here I would hope every adult in here would have found what Jordan just read extremely offensive and that is totally inappropriate for a child have access to at a public facility that is paid for by tax dollars and I would hope that Christopher Payne would after hearing that would agree that those words are not appropriate for children for Youth and at high school level that can be as young as 14 15 years old um but I also want to just the main reason that I want to speak today is just to to share that it's really just offensive to parents that someone who's in charge at a higher level here in your school
020is okay with going around dissing parents when there are parents in this District that are moms for Liberty then maybe he needs to not share every opinion he has on social media and he can just keep that opinion to himself so thank you all right our next speaker is Heather tacero I apologize said that wrong you got close enough all right let's see if we can get this all out in three minutes my name is Heather Certo I actually have children in the union Public School District I'm here today to address the issue of book Banning and to express support for the district um I speak for myself but there are many others in this District that share my opposition to this sort of divisive rhetoric and will push back against this type of restriction
021the book mentioned is a high school level book there are scenes in this book that might make some people uncomfortable if that's the case don't breed it don't tell your children not to read it but in a state with the highest rate of domestic violence in the nation and a sexual assault rate of 40 That's 45% higher than the national average there are going to be students that have lived this experience and could benefit from seeing themselves represented in literature yes there are other students that can gain empathy and understanding by reading about these experiences of others since they came to start trouble at our house I'm going to be blunt moms for Liberty members have run for seeds on Union Schoolboard twice both Times Union parents and stakeholders came out and voted we voted
022no we don't want your culture War we do not need or want what you are sell Union started this year with eight plus days of bomb threats due to online propaganda against one of our media Specialists who had done nothing wrong this book Banning initiative by moms for Liberty seems like an to gain attention to continue to sew the seeds of divisiveness but at what cost more threats more fear what are you willing to do to help are you only interested in manufacturing outrage I'm proud of our district of our community schools and Community School coordinators of the homeless Liaisons that are partnering with Anthem Church to make sure that our families in need of assistance have Thanksgiving dinner our district takes care of our students so again I ask you what help or positive
023impact are you offering okay gromer we have board members that volunteer and work in our schools to support our students Union's community school program success has been featured in a book Chris Payne had just won the Lifetime Achievement Award as a communication director Dr harler is an award-winning superintendent and last year's National teacher of the year came from from this District Union is doing great we trust our leadership this is a large diverse and most importantly inclusive district and a small noisy group does not get to dictate what books and materials are available to our children they are welcome to make decisions about what their children read they do not get to make decisions for the nearly 15,000 students that attend our schools and their fam amilies they do not get to dictate how this
024district is run the last thing I will say is I'm sure everyone here is familiar with some common Union phrases like Union strong and you belong we mean them parents are United against these attacks on our district our Schoolboard our administrators and especially our teachers media Specialists and students We Are One you we stand stand together thank [Applause] you all right our next speaker is Bailey Tyler hello board my name is Bailey Tyler I am the state chair of defensive democracy Oklahoma so I'd like to formally introduce myself to you um I don't have a child of this district and today I'm here to be the voice for parents who have jobs they have lives that they can't make it here but you know who does make it here to where she doesn't have kids
025in this district is jice stand for and she does nothing but try to destroy public education and tell people how to do their jobs I'm an engineer and if someone that wasn't an engineer tried to tell me how to do my job I would be really upset and to the previous statements that were made that the book uh excerpt that was readed I could give you guys some verses from the Bible which the Bible is available in most School libraries um I can tell you about lot's daughters I'll spare you that because there are very young children in this room and they did not deserve to hear that sorry I'm shaking because I feel so strongly about this those books those books that they're complaining about are rated for 17 and up for the one
026that she read and a 17-year-old at the discretion of their own parents can read that book Janice does not get to decide for everybody what their children and you know what I've never heard a bad thing about Union Schools so I think you guys are doing a great job Kirby thank you for doing the great job that you do and there are more Oklahomans that agree with what I'm saying than that agree with Janice Danforth and Tulsa County moms for Liberty so I will give back the rest of your time I just wanted to say you guys are doing great and you have a lot of people behind you and more people are starting to wake up and are realizing the bull crap that's going on so thank you oh like all right our next
027speaker is [Music] Erica my name is Erica Stormont I'm a lifelong Oklahoman and a product of Oklahoma Public Schools Oklahoma State University and the University of Tulsa I'm the veteran of the Oklahoma Army National Guard with two combat deployments in Afghanistan I am a volunteer with the defense of democracy and Veterans defending democracy I first moved to Tulsa in 2018 and received a support staff position for Union Public Schools I returned to Union for my graduate externships and seriously considered applying to work as a speech language pathologist after graduation to protect my sanity I chose to P pursue a career outside of public education because I identify as queer I am an active member of the lgbtqia community I made the choice to leave education in search of acceptance for who I am rather than
028to face scrutiny from religious extremists as a licensed professional unfortunately choosing to change my career and leave education did not keep religious extremists from impacting my livelihood I parent an elementary Age Union Public School student I am here to advocate for my child's right to a diverse and inclusive public education experience evidencebased research now and has always supported diverse representation in books that feeling a child gets when they read a book in which they see themselves that book that puts words to their experiences words that describe their identity and how they feel about themselves far deep inside this feeling is one that all Tulsa Union Oklahoman American children have the right to experience despite race religious beliefs cultural background or sexual orientation stay local officials and religious extreme organizations such as the moms for Liberty
029undermine public education playing politics with efforts of censorship within School curricula directly in interfering with the interests of all children and families again as a veteran that served abroad I have seen the detrimental repercussions of religious extremism and censorship on a culture the specific books to my understanding that are being threatened today are lucky which is age rated for 9th to 12th grade as a childhood sexual assault Survivor I remember the first time I read a book that allowed me to put words to my traumatic experience I was in seventh grade I needed representation I needed books like lucky I needed books like lucky 5 years before they were executively deemed age appropriate my military experience trained me for this battle this war on terror and censorship in my backyard at my child school every
030parent has the right to be involved in their child's public education experience the opportunities are overwhelmingly endless please read your child's parent handbook and note that you have the right to opt out out and censor your child's education experience and book access you do not have the right to censor my child's [Applause] experience all right our last speaker is Erica weakens wkins wkins I apologize oh you're fine hell hello all right I'm short sorry all right hi everybody I'm Erica Watkins I um I am a J's parent I'm the regional director for defense of democracy I'm also the vice Commander for veterans defending de democracy which is a national nonprofit but unfortunately um we only exist because moms for Liberty does and I honestly I I don't want to be here because I love politics
031it is something that is very very like I'm passionate about politics should not be intertwined with public education but we also cannot sit here and let other people try to make decisions for our children that's right I am I am also a veteran and the idea of freedom that I believe is that I should be able to decide what books my kid reads and I really don't feel and what what we're not understanding is that making books accessible in a library is not forcing a child to read them it is not removing the library might be removing the only source of literature that child has access to I hear a lot of arguments of oh you can buy it on Amazon oh you can go buy it at the bookstore not every child that is
032privilege speaking to think that every child has an Amazon account that everybody can go to the store and these people over here that want to talk about Patriots that come up here and threaten this school board and threaten this District because you think that you're some Patriot when you've done nothing for your country except cause problems I don't want to be here having this argument making these speeches but we're over here deciding that you know and we have this we got to protect the children narrative and we read these really really graphic p p passages from these YA books so that we get this shock and a factor maybe they want to go viral I don't know what it is why there are children in here so it it's really so you're okay with these
033children hearing this book but you're not okay for maybe a 17-year- old child then maybe was sexually assaulted to go check it out so that they can understand what the experience is what kind of freedom is that it's not yep so I have a couple other things to say and I'm going to wrap it up um but I know that like we want to talk about that these were just protecting the children um during the bomb threats Janice Dan for decided that she wanted to go on Twitter um and continue to pour gasoline on a raging fire by continuing to threaten Kirby saying she had an agenda going going to y'all's media center and Googling um or going to the search bar in your media center website and Googling woke racism an activist because that's
034on the screenshot you shared on your public page a for activist feminist baby anti-racist baby cuz we all know TR has a problem with anti-racism I am Jazz which is a true story about a child who exists and matters I almost dropped that bom sorry can take the veteran out of the army but and a whole bunch of other ones I'm not going to sit here about all these books that are so terrifying but if books are so scary I don't know that's all [Applause] sorry all right uh thank you for everyone who chose to speak tonight that was the last item on our agenda I will now entertain a motion [Music] forj