001[Music] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all let the records show mr reyes yes yes dr mcneil yes the chairman consent agenda all of the following items those items of a routine nature are normally approved at 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 the consent agenda consists of the discussion consideration and action on the following items items a through w m all right information reports from usk this evening president romero dr hartzler members of the board teachers are definitely feeling the stress of pivoting back and forth between in-person and distance learning we see the lack of consistency taking its toll on our students as well
002teachers have experienced unforeseen increases in the new insurance plan beyond what was presented in the benefits meetings some teachers have had to refuse medical care because what had been affordable is now so cost prohibitive they can't afford the care ucta is partnering with union plac to host a moderated forum for the zone 2 board c january 27th from 7 to 8 30 at union 8th grade center we hope to see everybody there thank you all right and your communications hearings and correspondence i don't think you have anything this evening so we'll move on to the business agenda under school operations consider and take action on the safe return and continuity of services planned for the 21-22 school year mr bushy hi how you doing i'm wonderful how are you all this evening so as a
003requirement of the federal government associated with the sr3 funds and the art funds that we receive we are to bring our safe return and community services plan back to you they're really one major change that has happened and that is going with the recommendation that we allow folks to return after five days of testing positive as long as they wear a mask and if not the 10 days as we also discussed last month we discussed the math mandate and discuss whether or not you all voted on that and then we said we bring that back it is at this time that we would not i'm not making a recommendation that you change it so that we did decide uh we didn't declare last month and we would bring it up so i understand the cdc
004and i'm confused recommendation or requirement with respect to the five days instead of 10 days is that now a recommendation or just you can if you want to you can if you're no longer symptomatic and and furthermore do we know when the five days start five days from the test five days from one set of symptoms i'm honestly confused well my understanding now look let's let jay low green answer that question since i don't do much with this every few hours uh the way we way we're running it is we start the five we start the day count on the day of the positive test not the day of symptoms because right now everything is a symptom and anything you could have had in the last month could be a symptom so the day of
005the test taken not the day when you get the results is the day where we start day one then you are required to be out if you're positive for minimum of five days on the sixth day if you haven't had a fever in the last 24 hours and your symptoms have improved you can return to work uh what we're actually finding in the district very few people are able to return at the sixth day um a few are returning on days eight nine and ten but most people are out the entire ten days returning on the eleventh day yeah that that meets with what my expectations would have been so thankful for clarifying that the comments that i'd like to make and dr mcneal especially i'd like to commend you for your presence in the
006keeping the mask requirements um i'm big enough to admit when i'm wrong and you are clearly right i'm pretty good about analyzing data that's happened in various trends but you've got the ability to see what is happening with these things before they do so hats off to you for for taking the stands that don't take me to vegas just moving forward definitely think it's uh after reading the plan excuse me that accepted isn't really agreeing with me right now but um in terms of reading the plan i look very succinct in terms of what we're giving to our families as a way to be able to see anticipation of if things get bad is where we're going they can see the courses where we're going things get better this is where we're going and i
007think that gives me a lot of relief moving forward now i appreciate all the work that we put into this well there's uh what we're discussing today the hr folks we have a lot of sympathy for them through this i mean i do want to make one comment about this and the discussion at our last board meeting just because there were several of us gathered in the parking lot discussing our board after the discussion that we had and the common statements that were being made is we are so proud to be a part of this history and be a part of a board that can actually have those conversations speak those things out in public and we know that you're you're always looking at what you think is in the best interest of those keep
008our kids and so i want to say thank you because i was very very proud along with everybody else i talked to about just being a part and working for a board of education that i don't i can't imagine there's a better one anywhere so i just want to say thank you for that can you briefly address right before we came we announced that some schools are able to pivot back to uh in person can you just briefly discuss which buildings are going on well i'll have to get my list out of my hand if you have my phone dr hartman um reassess really our numbers and also evaluate where we stand by the way of our ability to staff and miss churchill is exactly right these decisions are very difficult decisions to make because
009as we all would agree that our kids need to be in school and certainly in person learning is supreme it is superior to anything that we do have and i think that that is certainly something that we all can agree with but certainly the last several weeks have presented us with some numerous challenges and it really all boils down to and i will say this again this has nothing to do as as was stated last week from the capitol perhaps that we're afraid of dealing with kova it's not that at all it really boils down to our ability to to staff adequately into safety and so i do apologize ahead of time to our teachers and to our students and to our families that we just could not and it was not possible for us
010to continue to try to patch things together as we did last week i don't know the public knows this but last week when we kept we tried to always keep all of our elements resulting we truly ask people from across the district from our aides at the high school to then go to the elementary school sites we had administrators that were serving in elementary classrooms from kindergarten all the way up through fifth grade we had cabinet members as well in those classrooms last week that trying to fill those unfilled classrooms so i was very proud um certainly and humbled to be a part of the team that said we'll do whatever it takes to try to keep our elementary schools going and keep them as a priority but unfortunately you do sometimes hit a point
011where you realize there's no way we can do that even by repurposing staff members there's still jobs that they do that need to be done uh business operations that that need to be fulfilled um and so um and we still have distance learning going on for secondary so we're taking aids from the secondary sites repurposing them the elementary um that they're i'm sure there was a negative impact on that as well so on sunday we actually met as a cabinet to talk about what this week would look like again based on our staffing and the decision was made that we would try to certainly give all of our parents at least a 48-hour notice or two-day notice in terms of what the plan would be or our plans are for the upcoming week and so
012that is that was the reason why on sunday uh knowing that monday was a holiday that tuesday and wednesday would be designated as a distance learning day and that was primarily done because again we we just did not have the adequate staff to have school today when we met we looked at our numbers and we realized that again although we've hit an all-time high of a staff code positive cases of 188 we also started to look individually at sites to determine what sites would be available to be back in person starting thursday and so it was determined that nine schools would be able to transition back on thursday those nine schools are the eighth grade center alternative education cedar ridge clark darnaby the early childhood education center the freshman academy high school mcauliffe and peter's
013not daughter sorry donaghy was pulled thank you for catching that and looking at their uncovered classroom the decision was made that donna could not be back in person on thursday so those schools will transition back on thursday uh unfortunately we'll we will not be able to offer transportation uh for grades 10 through 12. and i will just say that about over one-third of our transportation shop right now available to drive so the only way we can we can make this happen in terms of the other sites would be to not offer transportation for those grade levels and we're also thinking that probably for the most part those kids are either driving or they're able or have the ability to find a way to to school again trying to stay with that two days notice then
014on thursday we will reassess and re-evaluate what our numbers look like and truly when i say that these numbers change powerly uh jay and his and his team have done an incredible job incredible job at managing these numbers um it's like they're never off they're on constantly and they're always looking at their numbers to determine what happens on thursday we'll reevaluate that the plan would be that the remaining remainder of these schools that are not back in person on thursday we would expect to have them back on monday let me also i could mr can you comment also about the governor's executive order that we mentioned today we have looked at trying a way to streamline our onboarding process for any state employee uh that now would be willing to volunteer for us um again
015not ideal and i'll say that publicly but we are grateful and thankful for uh the help that the governor has offered up but it by by no means would we think that this substitute could take place of a teacher but uh once the governor's order or the executive order is signed we think we can possibly have a substitute in a classroom within one day a very streamlined quick onboarding process not ideal we know that but we just don't know how long we'll be dealing with the staff and shortage and the executive orders are done over the last 120 days so my office is waiting for the phone calls and as we'll see see how many volunteers can get to sign up for that's that's the plan um that's where it stands today and uh just
016we have to hope that dr mcneil could probably weigh in on just but we just kind of have to hope that this most recent surge will peak at some point in time sooner than later according to dr grassler from ou i think he has said he did say last week publicly as well that he thought that we could start seeing the point sometime this week and then we would start seeing hopefully drop precipitously that would be absolutely wonderful if that was the case but still yet even though this this surge is going to at some point in time passes by i think there still is a very important teacher shortage in oklahoma and a staffing shortage that we're all going to continue to deal with and i would encourage all of our state leaders to
017really be more proactive in thinking about making sure that we can continue to pay our teachers at a very competitive rate i i i want to be number one certainly in our region and teacher pay but also realizing that we also have a very equally important support staff that we should not do the work that we do in teaching and learning without child nutrition with teacher aids without bus drivers and all the amazing support employees that we do have we've never seen in recent years with my knowledge mr butch again you've compressed it on such a shortage of support service workers that were that we're finding overseas and experiencing right now yeah we're running about 20 unfilled positions throughout support services child nutrition right now has over 37 of their folks not at work due
018to either illness or an opening so almost 4 out of 10 are not in place i do believe that i need you to take action on this particular item not to rush you um i just want to be publicly assured that that expedited substitute plan does not neglect the sheriff department of security think the governor or spoke to that today or at this press conference that was mentioned that all of these volunteers will have to go through a criminal background check and then also in the school business i don't know if they mentioned this today the audio that i was listening to wasn't really good but there is a sex offender uh check as well but we do have the ability to do that through our school raptor wear still in line with the report
019that we got earlier i just wanted to make sure are any of the the staff that are out and you know this might be more of a personal hr concept but just kind of broad generalizations any of the staff that are having any severe symptoms out for prolonged periods and cannot receive insurance or benefits or are we seeing anything like that where some of the staff is not able to return to work because of health complications there are a few staff that have been unable to return to work um we have we have a couple of staff that are hospitalized right now but that doesn't impact their benefit situation okay if if that's in reference to my comments it was things like someone who needed physical therapy could no longer afford physical therapy with our
020new plan and the consensus that i the feedback i've gotten when people have gone and presented their new cards to like specialists the reaction is that that they're just that community care is so hard to deal with and they express their sympathy to the teachers understood thank you so what is the action we need to take well we're asking that you uh consider an approved any other discussion about dr mcneil yes mr kinnear yes the chairman's yes as well and thank you to everybody i know not ideal parents family children waking up and doing their schoolwork at home thank you all right item number two consider and take action to accept the bids for construction of the golf facility interior practice area and award the construction contracts assign such construction contracts to key construction of
021oklahoma inc and amendment number one guaranteed maximum price in the amount of 726 thousand three hundred and fifty four dollars and nineteen cents from bond funds mr isaacs good evening dr hartzler president roman members of the board so we took we took bids on our design for our golf facility and the career pool tonight this would give us a new indoor practice facility for our golf team so within the facility itself it's going to be at the south end of the freshman academy where the old weight room is or the wrestling room was it's a pretty good space for that i feel like it's a really good spot for it within that facility we're going to have some hitting bays there'll be a virtual hitting bay with a virtual simulator inside of it and some
022other ball tracking or striking simulators that will help uh the students you know uh become better golfers one of the things that's cool about it is there's gonna be a practice putting green in it that's gonna have terrain or contours with it so that it's just not like putting on a flat surface so it'll be a nice attribute for the golf team to have and hopefully will help them become better golfers we use key construction as our cm on the project we've had some success with them from the big chill projects so um they were enthusiastic to take the project we selected them through a selection process and uh there was a very good turnout for the for the bid the bidding period we had a lot of subcontractors looking at it so felt like
023the price was a pretty good price we felt like we were pretty successful in getting that price it's close to what we anticipated we're a little nervous with all the price increases that are occurring especially with this because it's kind of specialized but uh seems to have turned out okay so far so with your approval tonight we can get started yeah just one comment that i'm always excited about things that help make us more competitive but i see this one opening up opportunities to students who might not otherwise be have those opportunities so readily available just even participate in it in the sport so that in and of itself for me is very compelling yes [Music] action for sign on bonuses for extended day workers that are not classified under the current contract language thank
024you president robert this agreement with uspa as charlie has shared with a lot of our positions we have been struggling to fill openings it's not any different for our extended day plan those are the before and after care for the students through our extended care leadership they were able to obtain a grant through dhs to be able to help procure um additional staff by offering sign-on bonuses we've done this in a number of different positions in both teaching and a few support positions but they have obtained this grant which they have allowed us to be able to use for sign-on bonuses i will follow the same process we have with our other sign-on bonuses requiring a length of time to remain with the district otherwise you pay it back and we're hoping it can help
025attract a few more people but unfortunately this current job market i'm not sure what is working but with your approval we'll be able to move forward and see if we can hopefully fill up some of the gaps that they're having with extend the day program thank you mr reyes yes mr yes doctor mcneil thank you tonight no new business but under item number seven opportunity for comments from the audience and coordinators [Music] speakers should identify themselves each speaker is given a maximum of three minutes total time allocated this item is 30 minutes under board policy 1800 the board of education president has a discretion to determine if topics are relevant enough to be heard and to establish the order of presentation this includes the right to interrupt this section and move on to the next
026item mr kria thank you thank you my name is tomas carrillo i'd like to express my opposition to house bill 29k8 and my extreme anxiety and fear of what this law could mean this law would prohibit teachers when talking about american slavery from teaching that one race was a unique compressor and another was unique victim in turn this law would ban our educators from instructing our youth and the facts of history because the facts of history teach us that in this country for 200 years there were a slew of laws being constantly enacted that ensured one race be unique oppressor and another be the unique victim of the institution of slavery these were called the slave codes in 1662 for instance to solve the problem of white slave masters fathering's children with negro slave women
027the hereditary slave law was enacted declaring that all children born in this country shall be held bondage or free according to the condition of the mother condition meaning the race the unique race of course in 1705 the virginia general assembly enacted laws prohibiting negroes milanos and indians from owning white servants protecting white servants from being whipped by their master and freeing any white master of any punishment if he were to kill his slave when correcting and whipping his said slave with the passage of these legislations one unique race was protected from the last of the whip and another unique race was the victim of it in 1856 1857 excuse me the supreme court ruled that afro-americans be excluded from citizenship stating that the black man has been regarded as inferior so far inferior that he
028has no rights that the white man should be bound to respect these laws gave one unique race the right to oppress and designated uniquely specified races as victims of that oppression by law it's called white supremacy and it was the ruling system of this country for 500 years it is a fact so why do lawmakers want our youth to be banned from being educated in facts are they submitting to the woke mob and canceling our history class as not to hurt anyone's feelings facts do not have feelings what governments have banned our children's educations what ban what governments have banned books and unique races who wrote those books about such unique subject matter restricted class to which is our history class to state sanctioned lies and propaganda the taliban the third reich soviet russia if
029you study history and its patterns you only come to the conclusion that laws like the house bill 2988 can potentially lead to an ethnic cleansing if lawmakers can erase our history they can erase our present and they can stamp out our future off the face of this earth and they're starting the minds of our youth board members we the people in order to form a more perfect union need your help we need you to reject house bill 2988 and protect our children's right to an education we need you to draw a line in front of our children's classroom and tell the government that they cannot cross it voltaire said those who make you believe in the absurd can make you commit atrocities and what is more absurd than criminalizing the teaching of facts thank you
030thank you something to share this evening you know i think mr bush [Music] i just wanted to take a moment to publicly thank each and every one of you as board members as his board member appreciation and to think that um what we have been through certainly over this last year uh these are indeed unprecedented at times as we as we continue to um work through this pandemic and uh you know we never had a playbook in terms of how all this was supposed to play out but perhaps in the future we will have and we'll be better at it but i just want to thank you for your servant minded leadership and your heart that i know each of you have for all of our kids all of our families and uh truly all
031of you cherish the diversity that we have in this district it is something that uh you know we are very appreciative of and i'm thankful but i i as charlie said uh simply because the board sometimes does not vote 5-0 in terms of the superintendent's recommendation certainly does not mean that it's a dysfunctional board at all it means sometimes it's a very healthy board because we can agree to disagree or we can have this course in dialogue and i just appreciate uh that very much and all of you and always know regardless of the vote that you have to make um for your constituents and for what you think is best for this district is always in the end and keeping our students first and keeping them in the center of yours [Applause] i do
032have one more recognition we have a leadership union that is still going on i think uh you've been meeting them a little bit this week this week but we have uh one member of our leadership union group here natalie lee is natalie here all right thank you for being here [Applause] to share real quickly um two things the first one is that in my recent exploits i've met some legends of this district and it has been an honor to be able to see how proud people have served here and the impact that they've had i mean going back years and years and years and just being able to knock on someone's door and realize like oh hold on i'm in the presence of royalty here so it's pretty surreal and to see how much people
033take pride into what this situation has become and what it continues to be so with that you know i commend all of you and it's definitely been surreal um on the second point uh one of the things that's going to continue to come up again and again and again and this is i think i think it's important because as we've just adopted a di policy it's going to be something at the front forefront of everything that we do and it's like where are we at what place did we stand and uh i i commend you sir for coming up and speaking on that um it is not an easy topic to bring out and it is not something that everyone likes to hear especially when you're in front of somebody's doorstep and they're asking about
034it right in your face so well with that i say you know i love what we're doing as a school i love what we're doing as educators i love when kids come out of the classroom and they're able to be able to think about any and everything and how to interpret information in their own way and not that no this board has been able to provide a place where we can actually see where different topics deserve different platforms and everything has a place knowing that and not moving forward i i love where we're at right now and i love where kids can actually know where they have a voice i appreciate everything that we're able to do with the kids and at the same time that being a way to see that politics is something
035that they can get into they can use as a platform for whatever they want to do in the future but as for us as educators we're just supplying history we're just applying the facts that's all that they need right now looking forward so this is going to be something that comes up again and again and again and as i think one of the only black men that's in here that isn't paid to be here most of the time people are going to ask me and i definitely want you to know where i stand on things as well and i stand with our our teachers and our in our education system so i appreciate you guys for everything that you do i just want to add to that not that i just want to say thank
036you to each and every one of you for what all you all do i know it's tough it's been tough um you know i'm i'm part of it from the board side but you guys are in it each and every day and just want to say thank you for what you do for all the students [Music] yes the chair votes yes as well we are insured you