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Unknown Speaker 0:01
Ready. Good evening and welcome to the st. Green Valley schools, Board of Education meeting. If you could please stand and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance
Unknown Speaker 0:17
to the flag of the United States of America. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Unknown Speaker 0:35
Good evening, Barb.
Unknown Speaker 0:37
Good evening.
Unknown Speaker 0:38
Can everyone hear me? We can? Yes. If you could please call the roll. That would be great. Mr. Aaron’s
Unknown Speaker 0:44
here.
Unknown Speaker 0:46
Mr. Bercow. Here. Mr. Garcia,
Unknown Speaker 0:49
your doctor are
Unknown Speaker 0:52
present. Miss Pierce here. Mrs. Raglan here. And Missy grist. Here. Thanks, Barb. And have there been any addendums or changes to the agenda this evening? There have under 7.8 of consent items, we’re going to pull forward policy gi student concerns, complaints and grievances and board policy ldb relations with charter schools. Okay, great. So when we get to that consent item, I will go ahead and read all of those policies. But from here, moving forward, we’ll just refer to that as one agenda item minus those two policies. Great. All right. That brings us to our audience participation this evening. Karen will be reading our public comments. We are going to follow the same procedure or process reading for maximum of 10 minutes. Many of the the submissions were questions and those questions have already been answered. Clearly on the district website and inductor had ads email communication, plus we will talk about many of them in greater detail this evening at our minute in at our meeting when we talk about the COVID update. And we also did remove the HR related comments.
Unknown Speaker 2:14
can sure the first comment is from Noel green from 1346 Washburn street Erie. Thank you for accepting questions from the parents. When SV SD switched to remote learning, we were led to believe it was temporary measure until we flatten the curve. Our state is well past the point and hasn’t seen a real spike in hospitalizations or deaths since April. At that time, parents rallied behind the teachers and accepted that the academics would slide we were led to believe it would be a short term sacrifice. Now it is apparent the closures will continue and our children must sacrifice possibly a year of education to protect a community that has sacrificed nothing for them. I have not heard one person from the school district from this board or from the community expressed concern about the harms closing schools will have on the children. Since it’s clear that SV SD will not be opening soon. How can we be assured the students will get the same education they would in a normal school year? Will the same standards be met? Will children be assessed to determine how much they lost and to track their improvements this year? What will happen if we see a huge drop in performance? Do you have a plan to get our children back on track such as perhaps extending the school year into June? Will students be given textbooks and supplemental materials since most of their learning will be self taught? How can parents help their children stay on track if the teachers aren’t able to cover all the material of a normal school year? Since the district and community are expecting our children to make all the sacrifices, then there needs to be more accountability from the district in the schools. The second comment from Mara harner 1121 Northridge, Dr. Erie, I understand the challenges that are in front of you and I am trying to be patient and understanding with all the decisions that have been made. However, the suggested daily schedule that has been proposed is unacceptable. I have kids in elementary, middle and high school. Based on the posted schedule. All three of them will be online for seven to eight hours a day. I realized that the time in front of a teacher is two to four hours a day. But the reality is that most of their work is done electronically, which means that yes, they will be on an electronic device for the entire day. It’s clear that you’re trying to meet state mandates for attendance, what concessions will be made for attendance, what technologies issues arrive, arise? What concessions for attendance will be made for my elementary child when we can’t be there to help them access his WebEx. What concessions will be made on homework took many hours past the synchronous asynchronous period and they’ve been online for 12 plus hours in a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that no more than two Words of day a day of screen, screen time. In total, I understand that you’re trying to give kids some sense of a normal day. The old normal doesn’t exist. Our kids know that. You have continually asked for our grace and understanding when navigating these uncharted waters. I’m now asking you to give the same in return as we work through with this with our families, requiring kids and parents to adhere to a schedule that worked when teachers were fully in control of the school day isn’t reasonable for kids or parents. I can think of many other options that fulfill state obligations and still give family the flexibility they need to make this work. educators and parents should be always partners in the education of kids. But now more than ever, you’re asking parents to be active in the Daily Execution of that education. Yet the consideration you’re giving to parents is practically non existent. Your motto is st brainstorm, this feels anything but we be willing to be innovative and bold for the sake of the kids. Our third comment today is from Aaron Matt Miller. From 3714 Mountain View of an online only option does not make sense for kindergarten, it is simply not possible that the quality of education can be equivalent to that of in person learning. In addition, kindergarten is a special time and experience for children that you are taken away from them. How can you possibly provide a true early childhood learning experience using only online tools? Our fourth comment today from Angie Matt Miller 3714 Mountain View F. With the online only option working parents will still have to send their children to community schools. How is this any different than offering in person education for those who choose it? The same precautions that are being taken at community schools to reduce the spread of covid 19 can be applied every day in the traditional classroom. The children will receive a better education and parents will not have to pay for something they can’t afford.
Unknown Speaker 7:02
The fifth comment today from Jill Casares from 20 from 7127 mount Sherman road Longmont, what can the district do to improve communication with both parents and teachers? There’s been a lot of confusion over the differences between launch Ed and online learning. I think everyone is craving a more thorough explanation of how this will all work. Could the district put out some videos explaining the differences and perhaps some training videos for parents on the different applications and websites that will be used, ie Schoology, seesaw, etc. Everyone I’ve spoken with just wants more information. Much of the confusion could be avoided if the district were more communicative and if the communication from all of the schools was more consistent and streamlined. I believe six comments today from Aaron Kay Jeffrey’s 50 to 30 retreat circle. Dear Dr. Donna dad, Dr. Jackie Confucian and Board of Education members, my family and I greatly appreciate the steps you in the district have taken to keep our children or I’m sorry to keep our students and families safe during these unprecedented COVID-19 times. My mother and grandmother were educators for over 60 years and even though I always respected their hard work, I gained a greater sense of appreciation for gratitude for all teachers this past spring. Our family continues to be extremely supportive of public school teachers and the st. Brain Valley School District. Please uphold the respect for the teaching profession within our SV SD community by granting teachers and support staff flexibility for where they would like to complete the remote teaching activities during the school week. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my letter. Please continue to make SV SD a shining star in education and show excellence by design to your teachers and staff by supporting their safety, health and resiliency. Best regards. And that concludes our comments for today.
Unknown Speaker 9:05
Thank you very much, Karen. And thank you to all of the community members, parents, anyone who has submitted a comment or emailed the board of education or Dr. Haddad, please know that we read those. And we appreciate your comments and your feedback and your input. Don, that brings us to agenda item five, which is the superintendence report. And you have some some positive things to share with us. Graduation was fantastic. By the way. Thank you to anybody who played a part in organizing that. No, I
Unknown Speaker 9:36
actually I was it was really good. I had the opportunity to to go to Longmont High School’s graduation. And it went really really well and then got feedback from all of the other folks, many of you and also many members of our team, that a lot of positive feedback. A lot of you know really good closure for a number of our students had a chance to talk and visit with parents and students and everything. So it was really powerful. We got a lot of nice memories with pictures and videos so that we can keep that
Unknown Speaker 10:06
the pictures were outstanding. Yeah, they really were they weren’t the pictures this year taken, of course, by professionals were far better than any picture I would have taken in a previous year. So
Unknown Speaker 10:16
no, it turned out really well. The other thing is, is Brian’s got some pictures up here. We’ve had a number of major construction projects going on this summer. And obviously Meade elementary school, the new ones got its certificate of occupancy. So we’re excited about that. And then broke ground on the new elementary school out in Erie. And so we also broke ground on the new wing at Frederick High School. So that’s going to be exciting to see that come to fruition. Longmont high school, I was there just yesterday, and they have that whole north side, all those windows classrooms have been renovated. And then the cafeteria and the front entrance ways and new administrative offices so Longmont looks great. And then in our pool, we’re going to start it on the pool in October, we also at Silver Creek had a new weight room, basically a really renovated weight room. And then Longmont high schools getting new tennis courts, they’re just about done right now. We also have the lights going in at Skyline High School, and at Silver Creek High School and at nyuad High School. So that will be exciting for us, you know, an opportunity to really start having some night events there, those kinds of things. So a lot of good things. I don’t know, Brian, if you want to add anything to the construction, but that’s this is really, really positive things.
Unknown Speaker 11:38
Yeah, I appreciate that Don, and, and truthfully, Don and I were were out. And when looking at schools, and all of our time, a lot of it is spent COVID related. And it was such a pleasure maybe to break free of that a little bit and focus on some of the good stuff that we’re doing. And so we will be doing a complete bond update in September, I think it’s on the 21st is when that’s going to happen. But nonetheless, if I can. And you obviously have the the board memo that we put together quick, but to date, we’ve spent about 226 million, our total Bond was 260. So we have approximately 30 million left to go. We’ve added and I know it’s written there but about 215 additional classrooms and the entire bond program. But just some of the projects that we’ve worked on, or that we have been working on since COVID. Started. Lyons middle senior we are just getting ready to break ground. We’re waiting for graduation to finish. And we’ll be great breaking ground literally this week. Yeah, finally how spark we’re putting in new bathrooms or we’re putting bathrooms into those classrooms. For those preschool students. Timberline PK we we started design there as well as Centennial Elementary, new elementary 28, which is going in in Erie that’s underway. And we’ll have pictures next week. But they are just coming out of the ground with that project.
Unknown Speaker 13:16
Let’s see here in middle school, we did a lot of site work there. Mountain View Elementary School, we did a lot of work inside of that building. Frederick High School, we just started the classroom addition there. And there’ll be nine classrooms there. As Don said, we started well, we’re about done with the design for the pool. And our plan is to start construction there in in October Westview Main Street if you haven’t seen Main Street, and you probably haven’t, but with an amazing change, and it feels like a school when you go in. And it is. Yeah, you just got to see it. I could talk about it all day long. And the words just wouldn’t do it justice. Field lights, you know, when when Dan and I worked on the field lights on that project, and just the idea behind that. It was you know, there’s a bunch of reasons why we needed that. But even more so now as we start talking about doing athletics now in a total shift, and we’re going to do athletics now and you know, February, March timeframe, when we would have been doing them now. And those lights will be just essential for us to accomplish what we need to do during that time. So that’s awesome. Now Burlington we did some ADA and site improvements call ridge. We did some parking lot improvements altona Trail edge Vance brand, if you haven’t seen that, we redid all of the seats and Vance brand, fixed up the stage, that kind of thing. Security upgrades now, this wasn’t actually a bond project, this was a grant project.
Unknown Speaker 15:16
But
Unknown Speaker 15:19
what we did was we received a grant. And on every one of our schools, we will we put a lockbox on the, on the wall. So if there’s an emergency at the school, the police can show up, they’ll pull out of the lockbox key badge as well as keys to get through the school easily. And then we we can operate the lockbox from our, from our system over here. So they can open it and essentially give anybody a key or access to the building that needs it, essentially. So that’s, that’s ongoing long. My high school Don talked about that another beautiful project, yeah, made elementary school courses, the old mead elementary is gone. And the new mead school is, is open. And that’s pretty fun. Made Middle School, we’ve replaced the fire alarm system did a computer lab and I went to high school on I know, you recall, we did a grand opening there. But we continue to work on that. And we will continue to work on the branding, or the signage and such out front, I think we have that finally design. So that’s kind of cool, too. So truthfully, there’s a lot of good stuff happening. And you know, it just feels good. It feels good to be able to, you know, in the face of what we are all struggling with. Just keep moving forward and keep trying keep pushing. So So, you know, thanks for letting us do that.
Unknown Speaker 16:57
Yeah, no, that’s great. And Brian and I had a nice tour around the district and went in and visited with people very a lot of people excited about their new surroundings and stuff. So it’s good. And along those lines, I have an opportunity to visit a number of schools yesterday and today and just try to get to all of them within the next week, and had an opportunity to go into different classrooms and visit with a number of teachers with the principal, and a lot of energy there a lot of excitement. And they’re hard at work trying to get their laptops and their synchronous learning set up and their microphones and, you know, a lot of professional development, we had several 100, we had 900 teachers engaged in the summer. But then we had in this last go round, a voluntary professional development, you know, nearly 1000 teachers engaged in that. And then we this week have the required, which we don’t really have to require because people want it. But another round of that synchronous, asynchronous blended learning. And so teachers are starting to really get into that. And we know that it’ll take a couple weeks, maybe a week for some different levels of cover, but it’s all coming along very nicely. So we had the new teacher orientation. And Diane Lauer and her team and Learning Services, did a great job about 120 new teachers, and just a lot of really positive comments from the new teachers in terms of the support that they were receiving. So we’re excited about that. We have about 622 students enrolled in our community schools daycare program now, because we added two classrooms for each elementary school. So two classrooms have 50. And then we have the capacity to add more if necessary. But right now we’re starting with two classrooms of 15 in each Elementary School, for any parent, or teacher, and we gave our teachers the opportunity to sign their children up first. The other thing is with our teachers, if they would rather not use the daycare option, they are welcome to bring their own children into their classroom. And I, I did see a number of teachers that had their children in their classrooms yesterday and today and things like that. And so and they’re working on their, their work, so it works nicely. And then we’re in the process of hiring. And we’ve got you know, smatterings of people that a lot of work balancing the launch dead, which is somewhere around 2900 students enrolled in our launch dead program, and balancing from the traditional schools as we have to shift. So that’s a constantly evolving process today was the deadline for enrollment in the launch dead program. So things will begin to settle and I know that they made some adjustments with about 13 additional teachers today. So the nice thing is we’ve been able to accommodate several tiers of requests. So originally, we were thinking about the first tier, which was any teacher or staff member that they themselves have a pre existing medical condition and so We were able to get through that tier. And then the second tier, which we’re not obligated to, but we want to is if you are a primary caregiver, for someone at home, and you’re a teacher or a classified staff member, we want to try to relieve that burden on you and that stress. And then the third layer is other things that might come up a unique situation around daycare or a unique situation. And then they would work with HR around those. So because we have the 2900 kids that have signed up, that gives us a little bit of flexibility there, which we’re glad to be able to, to support our teachers in that regard. And to support our classified staff in that regard. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s something that we feel much better that we’ve been able to go deeper than just tier one, through the ADA accommodations. I, Jackie is going to in a little while talk to you about blended and asynchronous learning and give you a little bit of a run through that. And then also the attendance and the grading processes that are at work. And we’ve now set up yesterday in our cabinet meeting, we’ve set up a series of count dates for August and September leading up to the October, official count weeks and things like that. And so Jackie will do that. But before she gets into that I wanted to also share with you I met with Brandon Shaffer, and our Jason Hopper, our lobbyist. And we’ve identified some areas that we’re going to be pursuing with our legislative agenda in partnership with case one around the school accreditation and accountability process, one around internet access, safe to tell, and then growing your own teacher program, we’re also going to watch and see where the school finance act migrates and evolves to some issues around p tech funding, the regulatory environment,
Unknown Speaker 21:57
vouchers in support of learning pods and private school tuition, which some of the legislators were asking the governor for a special session to reroute money for students who are at home. And I don’t know where that is. So we just watch that. And then any COVID related bills, and then the budget, and all of those kinds of things that are out there. So we will keep you posted. As we get involved. We were asked to participate on a smaller group with case to become a little more proactive with the legislative agendas than in prior years. The other thing I wanted to share with you, I had a really nice meeting with a couple of parents around the issue of equity. And they represent a group called Serge stand with it’s an acronym, and it stands for standing up for racial justice. And it’s these two individuals that I met with were really proactive and seem very supportive. And I met with them along with Johnny terell, and Olga. And so as the five of us, and I felt like we had a really productive meeting, they’re going to invite me to one of their group meetings. And I said, I would invite a couple of board members to attend with and they were excited about that. And they had given a letter, which I will give you all a copy of. And the areas that they were primarily interested in looking at were curriculum reform for grades K through 12, which is something that we are working on. And we have done some things like the project, the Latino history project for the last five years and some other things. But we can go deeper in that arena. And we’re excited to do that. And then also professional development, focusing on racial identity development, anti racism and or culturally responsive teaching for teachers and administrators. And as you know, we are going to be doing that that was part of our agreement with our teachers and staff. And there’s a lot of energy and excitement around that. So we’ll be working with our entire teaching force around that. They wanted to have some conversations about dual language education, reach recruitment and retention of teachers and administrators. And we talked about our P teach program and our expanded recruitment efforts out of HR. And so we were excited about that as well. And then we did talk about their concerns with the SRO program, and discipline policies. And we had some positive and productive dialogue. I think there are some differences of opinion there. But we all agree that we are here for the best interests of our children. That was one thing that is absolutely clear. So I’m excited to work and collaborate and support. A lot of these things we’re moving forward on and a lot of these things we can go deeper on. But it was a very, I felt very good about the meeting and I felt that that they did as well. So I wanted to thank them for that. I will provide this letter for you as well. Let’s see, I think I’m going to at this point stop and turn it over to Jackie, I will come back to COVID. After Jackie talks about these things, which are related to COVID, blended, synchronous, asynchronous, and also the attendance and the grading,
Unknown Speaker 25:19
Great, thanks. So I’m going to take my mask off. So my glasses don’t fog
Unknown Speaker 25:23
up while I’m talking. Good evening to our board. So I’ll I’ll update you on about three things here. One will be our synchronous model for going into the fall semester. And how that juxtaposes against the spring model when we were more asynchronous. I’ll also give you a little bit of an update on our attendance procedure that might address some of the concerns that the one community member had about how we mark attendance and how flexibly that will look. And then I’ll also just touch on grading just a little bit. So in the spring, most of our work online was asynchronous. asynchronous, of course, is consistent outcomes, but in a very flexible learning space and learning time. And at that time, maximum flexibility was needed because of the rapid shift from work to home. And families and teachers had a lot of personal logistics to work out. In addition, students were sharing devices, we were working to get devices in the hands of our students as well as Internet access for some, many of our teachers were experiencing a steep learning curve as they learned our online platforms or applications or video conferencing tools to bring instruction to students, teachers were working to recreate all of their lessons at that time, so that they were applicable to an online setting. And some of our students were shocked at the abrupt nature of having to leave school or the actual school facility, and needed time to make that mental shift away from their peers and their teachers face to face. And again, flexibility was very much our friend in the spring, we believe that we were able to treat students with fairness in being able to accomplish their workload, as well as the grading practices that we put in place. And we were able to really engage our students and keep them engaged. As we enter into the fall, we are ready for a more structured approach through synchronous learning, which is offering direct instruction in real time. So when you would normally go to class, you’ll log in and you’ll have some direct instruction. we’ve strengthened the infrastructure for some of our students in their homes with access to more devices and the internet. We’ve had as Dr. Haddad said 1000s of teachers participate in blended learning professional development this past summer, and in the spring to look at the best approaches to live lessons and how to engage students better in an online environment. Teachers have reworked all of their lessons to support direct instruction online to seek student feedback to retool assessment for an online setting and also to allow for student collaboration and projects in an online setting. And then finally, families have had more opportunity to work out some of their family logistics, and their work logistics and are asking for a more structured approach as we go into the fall. So what what does that look like? I’ll give you some examples. Many of our schools and classrooms will start with morning meetings so that both parents and students can log on with the teacher can ask questions, the teacher can set the objectives for the for the day, they can talk to students about what it is we’re going to accomplish what we’re going to do in our live lessons and then what you’re going to complete independently. In order to get credit for those assignments. It’ll give parents of younger students a chance to ask the teacher questions and to get clarification around work assignments. So we believe that will be a very family friendly approach to have morning meetings. We will offer about 25 to 35 minutes of direct instruction. So in a block schedule at high school, which is typically about a 90 minute class about a third of that will be direct instruction will follow Madeline hunters, if any of you know the old Madeline hunter strategies, which are still very relevant today paddling with Madeline. You start with an anticipatory set you give some direct instruction, you give some guided practice and examples. And then you allow students some independent work time while the teacher monitors that independent work time. So the teacher will stay online. Answer questions give some individual support to students, but students will basically be able to spend the rest of that class period completing an assignment. We are very cognizant of the amount of screen time And what
Unknown Speaker 30:02
the American pediatrics says about screen time for students, we used that to build our structure and our schedules. So our elementary students will have no more than two hours of screen time with teachers. Throughout the day, our older students will have a little bit more, but we have broken that up with independent work time, with student collaboration time, and with some project time, as well. We also have been very cognizant not to keep students online for a full seven hours. So we’re trying to condense the day and shorten the day and at the end of the day, you know, have that direct instruction upfront, and then at the end of the day, allow students to be offline to to complete their work. So we’ve paid close attention to that. Also, we’ll have a very structured approach Monday through Thursday, it will feel to students like they’re going from class to class to class, on Fridays, we will check in with students in each class or through a morning meeting at elementary in order to take attendance, but also to offer office hours for any students who want to stay online with the teacher and get additional tutoring and support. And really what we’re looking to do is to close out the week, with students feeling successful, feeling like they’ve accomplished all of their workload, going into the weekend, being able to answer have any questions answered that they have about outstanding projects or assignments, and going into that weekend feeling like they can comfortably and successfully finish any assignments that they need to finish. But that Friday time gives us time to put closure to a week before we start a new week. So that’s really what are what the differences between spring and fall. And we believe that just offering more structure and more support, will will will better support our students. So we’ll see if there’s any questions about that piece. And then I’ll talk a little bit more about attendance and grading.
Unknown Speaker 32:05
I think if you keep talking you’ll answer many questions. Is that okay with the board of jockey just continues on? Yeah. Okay. Please, please go forward. Jackie. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 32:13
Great. So I think doctor had passed out for you our attendance during full time online instruction recommendations, we have one of these for a hybrid approach as well. This is one of the more complex things that we’ve worked on. We know that attendance, we have to pay close attention to it because it is it is that lever that optimizes student teacher contact time. If it gets looked at it gets done. And so we know it’s an important lever to pull. We also know that it helps us adhere to the compulsory attendance laws for students, as well as it supports our student count process, which keeps our funding healthy for our for our school system and for our students. And so we’ve built an attendance process that really allows for that flexibility, but also builds in a lot of accountability, and for the elementary level. So parents are able to log on for the morning meeting, and we would with students and we would take attendance that way and then keep the student online for instruction. We also know that some elementary children are going to private daycares, and they may not get that online support. So the parent is able to go into Infinite Campus and toggle that their student is present for the day and that they will be working on their assignments independently with parent support. Or the parent can call in any on any morning and say my child is won’t be online, but we’ll be working independently. And we’ll ask questions about whether they need help or whether they need additional support. So that will be one way to one of three ways that will take attendance as well. For the secondary level, it is mainly through WebEx and the completion of assignments that will take attendance. Now, one of the concerns that a parent had is you know what, if it takes students longer to complete an assignment, we have opened up Infinite Campus to teachers so that they can back track attendance by assignment completion, up to two days, and the attendance register and registrar can actually modify attendance at any point. So if a student finishes assignments A week later, the registrar could go back and make that modification to attendance. A teacher can do it and backtrack it two days. Okay. So that’s how we are attending to attendance. And we’ve had to do a little bit of work in our Infinite Campus system. It really is called participation. And not attendance. participation is a system we’ve built specifically for the online environment that allows us to convert to attendance. And it allows that flexibility to back track attendance. And so we kept our attendance structure intact, should we go back to school part time or full time. And we’ve built an additional system to track participation in an online setting. And then the last thing is grading last semester, we gave a lot of grace and a lot of flexibility around grading, and really tract engagement and participation. This year, we will revert back to a full grading system that will really be driven by teachers. It’ll be aligned with our previous board policies and all of our grading scales. But it will really be directed by teachers and communicated by teachers for their individual classes and courses. And so parents can expect to hear from the teacher, what grades will look like for each individual class. Okay, so that is my update for this evening. And I’m happy to answer any questions.
Unknown Speaker 36:12
Thank you, Jackie. Don, do you want to go ahead and jump back in? And then we’ll just save all of our questions. For the for the end, if that works for everyone else?
Unknown Speaker 36:25
Yeah, no, I, you know, I was just going to talk a little bit about, you know, the whole process with our teachers and our staff, they’ve been very, you know, they’ve worked really hard. And they continue to make sacrifices and stuff. And we can’t, you know, we haven’t been able to accommodate every request for a variety of reasons. But we really are trying to do the best we can in terms of recognizing the hardships for our teachers and our staff, and our parent community as well. You know, we know that when we go to this online, synchronous, asynchronous blended model, it creates some dynamics with, with childcare, that are really hard to overcome for people. And, you know, it’s one of those things where we’re trying to do as much as we can do, within the limits that we have. And so I always want to just acknowledge that it’s not a perfect system, by any stretch. And I agree with people who want to be back in school, I think we should have school. You know, throughout the year, I shared with you guys many times that I think the summer is too long. There’s too many, there’s too many days off. And I think our children do need to be in school in person, I think that that’s absolutely the best thing for them. And we just need to make sure that the circumstances allow for that. You know, one of the things that changed on July 30, was we received new recommendations and guidelines. And really expectations, they’re not suggestions, you have to adhere to these from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. And interestingly enough, we just received another update today. So it’s one of those things where we continue to get revisions and continue to get a whole host of new information. But opening is one thing. And then being able to stay open is something else. And what the guidelines and the expectations indicate is that we would be entering into a system of constant closures, last minute closures, multiple students and adults being asked to quarantine, and it would those those things would be happening on a regular basis, with very limited amount of lead time for people to be able to adjust. We’ve seen across the country where schools have tried to open and now several of them are weak, considering and closing. And the problem is these guidelines are so onerous that you have to not only pay attention to positive cases, but you also have to pay attention to probable cases, and you have to pay attention to suspected cases. And then you have to pay attention to illnesses that aren’t related to COVID. And all of these involve quarantining people, closing classes, closing schools. And so really what you would be into is just a series of these types of inconvenient last minute closures. And, and that’s the that’s really at the heart of the issue. The other thing that’s been happening is just a number of different reports coming in. And I get in the month of July, they talk about the percentage, the increases in the number of young people who are being impacted by this disease. And so we look at that and we try to make sure that we’re not bringing our students into a situation that’s risky. We also don’t Don’t want to bring our teachers and our staff into a situation where the information is constantly evolving. So we’ve got some time to take a look at how things continue to evolve, to continue to work with the Department of Health, and continue to make sure that when it’s safe, and when it is manageable, to bring people back into the building in larger numbers, right now, you know, our buildings are relatively empty, we have our teachers and our classified staff who are reporting to work. But those numbers are very, very, very low. And our teachers are able to work in classrooms by themselves, and our classified staff as well in offices in areas. So it’s different when you start bringing in large numbers of students. So those are the kinds of things that we are grappling with. And our hope is to try to get students back in as quickly as we possibly can. But there are some serious logistical problems that make it extremely difficult, if not impossible. And you know, what I worry about is
Unknown Speaker 41:07
how would people respond, getting nightly phone calls, saying that your child’s school, your classroom is closed, your children need to quarantine for 14 days or for 10 days. And then the next day, you’re calling additional parents and the next day, you’re calling additional parents and the next day you’re calling. And so you just have a series of ongoing closures, classrooms, schools, and it just becomes completely unmanageable. And that’s, that’s a little bit where some of the income grew and slides with the messaging at the state level, because we all want our kids back into school. But the policies have to make that possible. It’s one thing to say we want our kids back in school. But then when you impose these guidelines and these expectations on school districts that they really have a hard time if they can at all meet them. That creates very, a difficult incongruent, conflicting message to try to manage. The other thing that I would share with you is I continue to receive a lot of communication. And as you can imagine, people’s viewpoints are different. You get a number of emails, and they’re saying, Thank you, we’re glad that the schools aren’t opening, we feel much more comfortable now with this model. And you have others who are saying, We want our schools open for full in person. And you have some that like the hybrid model. And so you get a whole host of different opinions about this topic. And I, you know, I value everybody’s opinion, I, you know, my preference is to have school and session in person, that’s what we’re all hoping for. But it has to be feasible. And we have to be able to make that work in a way that doesn’t create even more unintended consequence. So that’s, that’s what went out. In my last communication. I also included in my last communication, a link for parents and teachers and staff to be able to see those guidelines themselves, so that they could take a look at what you have to do if you have one suspected case with one individual. And then the other thing that we talked about was the cases throughout the United States, some of the contrasting studies that are out there. And and the other thing that we have to consider, even though it’s not always calculated in the data, is where people are in terms of their mindset, because there’s the physical data. And then there’s the emotional impact, and emotional safety, physical safety there. All of those things are important. We also have different communities. You know, we have to monitor data from Boulder County, weld County, Broomfield county and Larimer County. And so you see different positivity rates, and different numbers of cases, all of those kinds of things. And they, they evolve continuously. So I guess if there were one message that I would want to continue to, to emphasize that I’m really proud of our teachers, I’m really proud of our classified staff. I’m really proud of our parent community and our students. And, you know, our entire system is, is hurting from not being able to come back to school right now. And I you know, it’s, it’s really unfortunate, it’s unfortunate, but, but I want to thank everybody for their support, though, as we work through this.
Unknown Speaker 44:36
Thank you, Don. And thank you, Jackie. Barb, I just want to know, and if it’s okay with the board, I think we should just complete the agenda item 6.2, which is the COVID-19 update now, so that we can stay consistent just with questions and otherwise I’m gonna forget and it just makes the most sense.
Unknown Speaker 44:57
Joey one other thing that I want to say is just we did start Four sports. One was tennis, and then golf and cross country. And then we also had the softball. So those four sports are up and running now. And we’ll see how things evolve with the other.
Unknown Speaker 45:12
And certainly wish those those student athletes, the best of luck and glad that they’re able to participate. I know that I have several questions to ask you, Don and Jackie. Carrie before, before we start asking questions, I did want to acknowledge your department and your team. For the communications that have gone out, I spent a good 45 minutes to an hour, just clicking the links and reading about, you know, nutrition and assistance with connectivity. If people need that attendance is on their grading. The communication is outstanding. And it’s incredibly thorough. And if by chance, there’s something that’s not answered in there, it’s very clear how to contact somebody to get that information. Thank you very much. Yeah, appreciate that. So I think before I ask my questions, I’ll open it up to the rest of the board for any questions that they might have for Don. No.
Unknown Speaker 46:24
I just figured we would do the entire it’s a report. And and actually, you know, my suggestion, as I was thinking about it, dig during the meeting. I’m just going to have BB from now on move COVID-19 under the superintendent report. It just makes more sense. Yeah. So if it’s okay with the board, we’ll just wrap up, you know, go ahead and talk about 6.2 right now. So if you have any questions for Don? No.
Unknown Speaker 46:57
Okay, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 46:59
Thanks, Don, thank you for that. For the update. You bet. I just wanted to we have received a lot of input through through comments, direct emails to board members throughout the whole system. So they’re just a couple pieces. I just wanted to, to clarify. There was a number of questions around essentially the decision, the decision making process, and when is it going to be safe and feasible to come back into classrooms? And what I hear what I hear you saying is and correct me if I’m wrong, there is no algorithm, there is no trigger, there is no specific answer to Okay, if if a happens, the result is coming back into schools. As I’ve been reading all of these communications from from the district, which I think have been have been excellent, thorough and detailed and timely to get through. But But excellent, and the information is in there. When I see it saying is we look at this very holistically, but it starts with the science, it starts with the science. It starts with our subject matter experts and our public partners in Boulder County in weld County, and at the state level, and we are tracking that data daily, if not more frequently, if not multiple times during the day. We had Jeff here at our last last meeting with Dr. Urbino. We are we are clearly working lockstep with our public health counterparts. They are the experts that are looking at this research going on worldwide across the country, they are synthesizing it, and helping us interpret it and how we can apply it into into our business into this business of education. So my takeaway from all of this is that’s really the first step we are starting with the data, we are starting with the science. The next step is assessing risk tolerance around that, because there’s a huge continuum of risk tolerance. And we know this from from our teachers from our, from our community, even among the people in the room, there’s there’s probably variants of risk tolerance around what are you willing to expose yourself for your child to what do you believe? What do you not believe and, and that’s really not something that we can manage, we can just be very aware of it and very sensitive, very sensitive to it. But then the third step of it are our resources and our capabilities relative to the guidelines and the policies that we are being told to follow by the state. There’s a mask ordinance. We can’t there’s nothing we can do. We can’t work around that. There’s a mask ordinance, and to do your mention of July 30. When the quarantine guidelines came came down, those are not really a suggestion. We have to do those things that you offered the link to in the data. We have to shut down a classroom if there’s one kid or teacher, one person in that space, that is that is positive. And then we have to trace it through to through a family, there might be a sibling who’s in a different classroom or in a different building. tracking those dominoes is extensive, am I right? Like that’s an excruciatingly extensive resource intensive process. And that is what we can’t, we can’t commit to and Boulder, correct me if I’m wrong, but Boulder County Public Health can’t commit to helping us with that, either.
Unknown Speaker 50:26
Yeah, they could commit to helping us what they can’t commit to is being able to keep up with it. I mean, they’re certainly enthusiastic about trying to help us and we’re enthusiastic about trying to do it. It’s the capacity isn’t necessarily there, because of the number of people. And you know, one thing, Paul, it’s not necessarily a positive case, it quarantine can come from a probable case. And if you have a probable case, in a classroom, with a staff member, then you have to look at quarantining all of the students in that. And then from there, it branches out to then you have to contact trace to find out who all those students came into contact with. And it’s this kind of spiderweb effect. And it becomes and that’s where the, the challenge in terms of manageability in terms of some of the data that we look at, you know, they’ve identified a 5% positivity rate, if you’re lower than that, and Boulder County is weld County was not. But if you have that, there’s that’s why Jeff was here, and Dr. Urbina and Heather crate saying that they would support the hybrid model that was prior to these expectations around how you would contact trace, we also look at hospital admissions. And what are what are the they tracked to see how many hospital beds are available in the event of an outbreak? They look at death rates, all of those kinds of things, the number of outbreaks, what are some of the trends, things like that we also, as schools getting ready to start, we know we have a lot of people coming back into our system, who are outside of Boulder County outside of weld County. And so the question there becomes, what are they bringing back with them? And how will that impact us? I know that the month of July was the worst month in Boulder County with several 100 cases. And the other thing that happened in July, I think that was not fully expected, but just the significant increase in the percentage of children who are being impacted by this, which early on wasn’t necessarily the case. So I’m not quite sure what’s happening there, why those numbers are starting to climb. And what happened in July, that caused a major shift from, you know, what was happening in March and April. So I think those are the kinds of things you know, some of the other things that are a little bit off putting, and a little bit concerning for me, as a superintendent, but also as a parent, when you have, you know, some of the major epidemiologists in the country and the experts on communicable disease making statements. That it we’d be engaging in an experiment, as we bring our students and people back into school, that that’s worrisome to me at a very high level, I don’t know that I have the right to experiment with the health and well being of children in that capacity. And so what I really need is for that definitive, that definitive statement that, here’s where you are, here’s what you need to do. And all of these things line up when you receive mixed messages from the state level leadership, and the federal level leadership, and the county leadership, and the media, and all of this information is swirling. And what it results in is a wide range of different opinions. And you have to be and you want to be responsive to all of those opinions and feelings. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day is I cut through all of that, I have to feel like the environment is going to be safe. I don’t have the luxury of making a mistake. And right now, there’s no clear, there’s no clear messaging from the leadership at the state level. And there’s no clear messaging from the leadership at the federal level. And it makes it very difficult at the county level, even county levels across Colorado don’t agree. And, and at the you know, at the heart of this is the safety of our children and our teachers and our staff and our community. And, and that’s at the core for me. So when I look at these expectations that come out on July 30, and I think to myself, how do you manage that? And when the answer is you can’t, you can’t manage it. You can’t close classrooms on a daily basis, and quarantine, dozens and dozens of children and adults at a moment’s notice. You can’t do it. And so, these are all of the things that that go into our decisions around doing synchronous and async Embrace it, I want to be clear in person instruction is our preferred approach. That’s what we’re all striving for. And I know that that’s the case with the board as well. So
Unknown Speaker 55:14
thanks, Don, I, I really appreciate that. Because I think there’s a lot of frustration out there, there’s a lot of fear, and it is all legitimate it is this is just an undescribable time. But it’s, it’s there is no data point trigger, that’s going to bring us back unless perhaps everything goes to zero. And then compliance with the guidelines is moot. Or there’s a relaxation in the guidelines, but a couple of those, all of that has to be evaluated all the time, so we can get the overall risk level down. So we feel it’s a safe environment for teachers and for children. And the other point, I know that’s been brought up a good amount is the longer term effects, and how kids are going to adopt to this, if there’s going to be some sliding on the part of kids. I know that’s something we’ve thought about, I know those answers aren’t in place yet. Because as we’re going through this, we’re learning a tremendous amount about what’s working, what’s not working, and learning is not linear, it’s never been linear. I mean, people just don’t learn on a, on a straight line. Sometimes it comes in bursts. And then you kind of rework you know, you remediate with other things. But that’s what our professional teachers do, they do it all the time. So I’m pretty confident with the skill that our teachers have, and in identifying it, and also what we’re going to learn along the way, that we’re definitely going to, when we get to the other side of this, when we get over this hump, we’re going to be in a really unique position to find to find ways to get these kids, you know, to where they should be or even beyond. So I just wanted to kind of publicly make that that it’s clearly on the radar, we’re aware of it, that the pace of learning could could be different. But we know it, and we’re there will be responsiveness to
Unknown Speaker 57:09
is that can you share, I know, we’ll definitely be continuing to do adding extra time adding extra programs. You know, we we had that this summer, we had the project launch set. And we did that with algebra, we recently had to, as you know, we had to discontinue one of the classes over at Thunder Valley, just because of the the probable case and then those students had to be quarantined and things like that. But those opportunities are available to us. And we’ll continue to pursue them.
Unknown Speaker 57:41
How many COVID cases that we had in schools over the summer? Do we know?
Unknown Speaker 57:48
You know, I would have to go back I get a an update from Johnny terell. And so he’s given me several updates today that I haven’t seen fully. But we’ve got a spreadsheet that we continue to track. And it’s, you know, between probable cases and all of those kinds of things that continues, you know, you get several every day.
Unknown Speaker 58:08
Yeah, so it’s there. It’s from people traveling, and even with the small groups of kids that we’ve had in for jumpstart programs and such, it’s, it’s there. Yeah. And the other thing I just wanted to emphasize was the recognition on social emotional health and understanding the social safety net that schools provide to communities and how we’ve been so it’s been amazing with keeping up with nutrition for families, social emotional support for families, because that is not forgotten. That is that forgotten in this whole mess. Those and those services are still there, outreach to families is still there.
Unknown Speaker 58:43
They are in counselors in our special education department and our Student Services Department. And our interventionists and school psychologists, and our teachers, you know, are everybody’s kind of teaming up to provide as much support as we can for our children. Paul, I
Unknown Speaker 59:00
also wanted to make note that one of our parents or community members requested some tools for parents around the use of technology applications, we have some of those videos ready to go one on Schoology one on seesaw. And we’ll look at some of those other requests to see if we can put together some short videos for to support parents in the use of online tools.
Unknown Speaker 59:25
I just my left my last comment. I just want to thank you guys so much because this if this isn’t the definition of a complex problem, I don’t know what is it’s like juggling 12 balls balancing a few plates in quicksand with all the the social underwriting that schools do when a community so it’s just been incredibly complex. You guys have worked all summer long on it. While the business of education keeps going, we’re still building buildings. We still want to have the kids in the classroom that is 100% the intent But this is just something that we, you know, we have to just keep an eye on everybody’s emotional and physical health, and get it get everybody in the right headspace and physical space to get back. So I just want to thank you so much, because I know what I see. And you guys will see a lot, a lot more of it. So thank
Unknown Speaker 1:00:19
you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:22
Thanks, Paula. And I do want to clarify just one more time that we’ve moved on to agenda item 6.2. And then we will come back to 6.1. When we’re finished, done, um, I guess you mentioned that new guidelines were released today or updated guidelines, or the guidelines were sent back to you today, where they significantly different, are they the same?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:48
They don’t change a whole lot in terms of what you have to do to contact trace. Okay, it’s a few adjustments. But you still have to look at all of those cases, probable cases. We also are finalizing our, you know, logistics for testing that we’re going to be providing, it’s voluntary. But we are, we’ll be interested to see what that yields, in terms of how many people test positive, or for and that will give us some more information. Okay. And that’s what I’m talking about is our teachers and our staff. And again, it’s not required that they test, but it’s available to them at no cost if they choose to.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:26
Okay, so the guidelines were released again, but with with not enough modifications to make it reasonable or feasible to open schools. Is it fair for me to say and please correct me if I’m incorrect, that it will be a challenge to open schools unless those guidelines are changed significantly?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:47
Yeah, or unless some of the data really shifts in a way that you can comfortably say, you’re not going to be dealing with cases and problem cases on a daily basis. So that’s one of the things and we’ll have to see, you know, where that lands. I know that Cherry Creek has chosen to move to a hybrid. I think there’s out of the nine major metro area school districts. I know that I think seven of them. I’m not 100% sure, but I think seven of them are starting fully online. And then I think Douglas County and Cherry Creek, we’re looking at a hybrid, but with very limited amount of time for for a student in class. I think it’s one day a week, something along those lines, because I will see what that yields as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:29
Okay, thank you. The other thing that that I was curious about, and I wonder if you could you could comment on is I saw in the paper, Boulder Valley, had several teachers were granted exemptions. What has been your experience here in St. vrain?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:49
Yeah, you know, I did hear that I saw that. And I read about that. Are we did not have anywhere near the number of teachers that requested exemptions under ADA. That, you know, I think we were ready to move forward with our hybrid model, with our teachers and our staff, up until those guidelines changed. Our teachers, you know, they’re, they want to be back in school to, you know, they want to be back in school, too. But no, we did see those numbers out of Boulder Valley, ours, we’re not anywhere near those numbers in terms of teachers requesting exemptions.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:26
Thank you. And then, you know, question that I’ve gotten a few times and you guys will be able to answer this better. The curriculum is the same. Correct, that children won’t be learning, I think there’s among, you know, a small handful, tiny, just a very small handful of people that are questioning just the curriculum will look different. And I think that’s just because it’s synchronous learning, but it’s what you would be learning just the same as if you were in the classroom.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:55
Yeah, launch dead, we’ll have Jackie you can elaborate a little bit on it, but launch dead will have, there’s alignment with launch dead, and it’s being taught by our teachers. And so they have that opportunity to influence an impact. So, but the curriculum that we normally implement, we will be implementing, and our teachers will be dressing that our teachers always have the opportunity to add, and to supplement and to collaborate. But it’s the same curriculum that we will be using in our synchronous and asynchronous as we were using during regular school. You know, I say that but I always want to be clear that you know, I never want it to sound like the, the model is going to be equivalent to in person. Because that’s always what we believe when our teachers are, you know, in person with our students. That’s the best. But yes, there is alignment with the curriculum.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:53
Many of our textbooks as you all know, because you adopted them are digital versions of textbooks. So that has really supported our shift to online and instruction and the materials we’re using should feel very familiar to students who are returning to us. So for example, if you are a first grader who is going into second grade, you will receive fundations, we’ve actually purchased the at home foundations materials kits. So as teachers are teaching students how to read online, the students will have their materials with them in front of them will use ready Jen will use Orton Gillingham strategies and materials. So that should continue to feel very familiar to our students. Florida Virtual has its own curriculum that is also aligned with state standards and national standards. It is a different curriculum than what we have adopted here in St brain, but it’s still as a cohesive and coherent curriculum. The answer to one of the questions is how do I choose between launch dead and and st brain online learning is really if you believe as a parent that you would not want your child to come back face to face either in a hybrid or full face to face model, Florida versus the launched Ed, Florida Virtual curriculum may be the best choice for you because it will, it will be delivered consistently throughout the entire two semesters by a saint brain certified teacher. But it will be a cohesive scope and sequence of learning for your child at that grade level. If you believe that you would like to come back at any point or have your child come back face to face, knowing that teacher that style of teaching the materials that that teacher uses to teach core content, or any content would probably be the best option. And we certainly can answer any of those questions for parents who who call in and want, you know, more of a conversation about that.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:55
You know, at a minimum also. I mean, there’s, there’s nothing great about the pandemic, I don’t want anybody to hear that. I’m saying that. But there are opportunities from every situation. And certainly, this is an opportunity for all of us to learn a little bit more and have a better understanding about curriculum and opportunities. And so you know, if there were, I won’t even call it a silver lining, quite honestly. I think that answered all of my, my questions, and object, did you have a question?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:28
I do. But go please,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:29
I just wanted to voice my agreement on with you that my preference would always be for students to be in the buildings and in the classrooms. And I do hope for that day to come sooner rather than later safely. And we’ll be very excited for that to happen. And right now, it sounds like the two things that tinging on, which are the two things that that you’ve been paying attention to, among many other things are really those guidelines, being able to meet the guidelines, Boulder County Public Health, being able to support you in meeting those guidelines in a reasonably timely fashion. And then also just watching that data. But the reality is, even if the data is is agreeable to opening schools, if the guidelines can’t be met reasonably, then the data just doesn’t matter.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:21
No, no, it’s it’s definitely a comprehensive look at everything and making sure that it’s something that we can do safely, physically and emotionally and, and reasonably for our community.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:32
And we certainly can’t look at it with just one lens through just the lens of data. So dig. Thanks. Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:39
Thank you joy. I just wanted to also express my appreciation for the thoroughness and careful nature with which you’re beginning helping us to begin the school year. I think it’s correct that in this time, that we’re going back to school in a fashion that is in fact an experiment. And that the the approach we’re taking is the most conservative approach that protects the health and safety of our students while working hard to deliver as robust an educational experience at all grade levels, that we can’t. And since it’s an experiment, I know that we are in the process, we will learn things in the first week and the second week and the third week and and on about what is working better for our students and the things that may not work as well as we planned. And I know from from one experience, seen both being in the classroom but also seeing the way in which you and your team have responded to challenges that we will be flexible in our Quickly adopting is for larger practice systematically those things that work well in the first week to, or period of time and focusing on those things in a way that is, takes into account the very needs of elementary, middle school and high school students. So I want to recognize that yes, this is an experiment. And yes, we are beginning that experiment with from a robust foundation of online learning preparation. But we’re gonna learn things in the process of these next weeks. That we didn’t know before.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
One thing I wanted to just clarify, when I was referencing the experiment, it’s not what we’re necessarily doing. It’s what the top epidemiologists and communicable disease experts, one of them, and the most renowned one was referring to, if you send your children back in, it was in response to a question at a town hall meeting, if you send your children back into the schools, you would be engaging in an experiment. From a health perspective, now what we’re doing is trying to eliminate the safety piece, and protect the health. And as we work through the online piece, we have a pretty good handle on what we’ll be doing with the synchronous and asynchronous, there will be that learning curve for everybody involved for our teachers, or staff or parents or students. But I just learned to make sure that when you heard me reference the experiment, I was following up on a comment that was made from leading a leading expert, when they were asked if it was safe to bring kids back into school. So
Unknown Speaker 1:11:46
yeah, I actually should have clarified that I recognize that that was in reference to the putting students back and in person instruction. But it and then I extended it to it is an experiment for us with regard to synchronous learning, throughout our throughout our school system. And we’re going to learn so to experiment with in the sense that we are, through an online process, going to try to come as close as we can, with regard to an educational experience for our students correct. To the in person experiment, and we are learning we will learn things that we didn’t know. I mean, I would assume that there will be surprises that emerge that certain things work better for, than we expected for primary students, for high schools to
Unknown Speaker 1:12:52
someone else.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:54
Oops, sorry, I forgot my microphone was off. I think just if anybody calling in can mute their mute on WebEx, that would be helpful.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:01
Okay. Yeah, you know, what I think it’s, what I’m saying is, you know, we know we have really good teachers, we know we have a really solid curriculum. And we know that we have sound technology. And so there’s, there’s a lot of what we’re doing that’s deliberate, and by design, and with expertise, and then there’s a lot of what we’re doing, that’s new, that we will continue to evolve with. And I think we’re both saying the same thing. I just don’t want to give the impression that we’re going into this, with this. Just pure experimental mindset. Without knowing there are a lot of factors that are well known to us, like the high quality of our teachers, like the high quality of our technology, like the high quality of our curriculum, and the capacity to deliver a sound education. Not I’m not saying it’s equal to in person, because I think that connection with teachers face to face in the classroom is absolutely the best. So I do believe we’re saying the exact same thing. I think it’s just my, in my mind, when I think of an experiment, I think of you have no idea what you’re doing. Just experiment. And that’s just not that’s not the case.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:14
Well, I would say from a scientist perspective,
Unknown Speaker 1:14:16
way to say it, because you are a scientist.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:20
As the scientist approaches an experiment, they do a tremendous amount of work ahead of time before they ever actually do an experiment. Just as, as you and your team have done preparing for this year. The extension of this then, for me as we recognize that there will be an impact or a change on student learning during this time, that is different than if our students were able to be in person. And as we mitigate that to the extent that we can online, being flexible in our response, As we’re also planning ahead, I know that you and I have had conversations about the work that will need to be done at the end of this time to help our students recovered to the degree possible. And equal, if not exceed, where they would have been in normal times, I think we’re going to learn a lot through this online period that we have for our school and instruction. And I think those lessons may well help us, excuse me accelerate student learning beyond what we were reasonably able to accomplish with in person learning alone. So with regard to opportunities, you know, after school opportunities a couple of times a week as you, you and your staff have talked about under the online experiment, but also the project launch time in for the summertime, and perhaps extended opportunities during during the school year to support and develop an even more robust educational experience for our students, once things, even when things return to normal.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:31
Yeah, no. And you know, the interesting thing is, we’ve been doing the, the online through saga, and some students respond really well to the online, some students struggle with it. And some of its, you know, more opportunity to work with it. So it’ll be interesting to see, you know, where all of that lands, one of the things that I’ve always believed with education is we every, every fall, have to engage in catching kids up. Because our public school system, and our, our, you know, our state, and our nation has not yet decided that they’re going to fully prioritize public education. And so we continue with three months off in the summer, and then engage in mitigation of all of the learning that was lost, and the backsliding. And we’ve known that for years, we’ve known that for years. And so the practice of catching kids up is not anything new to us. We do that all the time. And you know, one of the things I was really proud of our teachers, we had so many kids engaged in school this summer. And so many teachers engage in professional development, and kids working on recovery. And it’s the whole host of project launch with algebra and things like that. But we we would not see anywhere near the achievement levels, even prior to COVID that we see if we weren’t engaged in playing catch up all the time with students, when you take three months off in the summer. You know, if you look at the school year, and you look at the the days that were in school, in a 12 month school year, if you eliminate, you know, the winter break, and the summer breaks, and the weekends, and the President’s holidays and spring break, and the fall break, kids are only in school for about five and a half months. And even then they’re only in school for six, seven hours a day. And so the notion that we in this country, have prioritized funding for public education, I think is flawed. And public educators have spent their life trying to mitigate the gaps that exist in our public education system. So to your point, not only will we be doing that, but we’ll be doing it enthusiastically because we have to, and we want to. So Absolutely. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:52
Thank you, Karen. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 1:18:55
was curious, john, if
Unknown Speaker 1:18:56
we’re going to be doing just the active case, diagnostic test or antibody test as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:04
Not, not the antibody tests that I’m aware of the the case test, positive or negative. Now, that doesn’t mean people can’t go get an antibody test, but we are looking at just testing the positive or the negative case. You know, what makes it challenging to Karen is they, let’s say you were exposed to someone and then you go get a test. And it’s negative. You still have to wait out the period of time because conceivably, theoretically, you could get a test is negative and go back two days later, and now it’s positive. So they still have you wait that time period out. And that’s what makes some of this challenging is a negative. And then you know, you’re but it’s the best we can do. So we’re going to do it but it still requires the quarantining even if you’re negative in some cases.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:59
I have a quick question. For Jackie, although it might not be quick, and I’d be happy to let let this go to the next meeting, if you if you’d rather answer it another time. But I would just love your opinion on what you think the biggest difference between the online education in the spring was to the fall, maybe just some lessons learned and takeaways that you’re going to be implementing in the fall? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:20:28
I think definitely the structure that we’re adding is going to be the biggest difference, you know, asynchronous I’m, it’s just different. It’s not better, it’s not worse for the conditions we were in at the time. And the need to get technology into students hands and to allow our teachers time to take care of their family logistics, while they’re were planning and getting their lessons converted to an online setting, we needed to have an asynchronous model. And parents also were trying to figure out childcare, they were trying to figure out their, their jobs and having their students at home. And so it called for that to happen. And at that, at that point, we really had to prioritize families taking care of their basic needs. And we had to keep learning going, because it was the right thing to do. kids deserve their education, but we had to be very flexible in the environment. Now that we’ve had time to plan, families have had time to settle. And to get their structures and their supports in place, we need to move back to a more academic focus. And we need to allow our students who have academic goals and post secondary goals to achieve those credits, to obtain that content, and to have it be delivered in a very consistent and structured way with their teachers support as much as possible. And so we need to get back to delivering explicit direct instruction and lessons in real time. And to create that community setting, because students not only learn from their teachers, they learn from their peers. And so we need to we need to carve out time to really attend to that.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:21
Thank you, john.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:22
Thank you very much. Sort of a comment, not any, maybe I’ll even take this off. You know, I’ve never had any doubts that same brain administration and teachers have always had the best intentions to provide the best education that they can. And I just did want to remind that, you know, st grain was in an A unique spot with having our one to one iPads, having the online curriculum having run this course before, in terms of we had our own online school. And so we weren’t caught completely without some preparation. And I know, preparation is something that same friend does extremely well. And I’ve seen it happen all summer long. And I saw it happen last year. But it was kind of a good listening to what Paula said. I think everyone in this room would like to have classroom, students in the classroom. But we look at the landscape that’s in front of us and the mixed messages that are out there. And as Paul said, you know, the dominoes can trip us at any time to make us pull the plug and have to reshuffle our curriculum and reshuffle how our teachers are teaching. So what I look at is, is what we’re doing is providing the best ability that we can, it’s maybe not the best option, I mean, other people would say hybrid option or in classroom or online, but But what we’re doing is we’re giving stability, we’re letting the teachers know the landscape that’s out there along with the parents and the students to keep a steady course and that’s not easy to do in this landscape. I mean we have many people that are have different opinions and so to give them stability is is is high and mighty task in this wake of the pandemic. So that’s one thing I want to say we know we’re choosing stability and the second thing is we are really choosing to provide the best education in the future. We are going to learn so many lessons on how to provide an online education how to do the design thinking how to do the curriculum, how to do keep our students engaged year round, I think is where we’re letting our our our mastery to that year round education is only going to really happen by allowing Kids to choose a personalized pathway that is going to be gravitated by the lessons we’re learning here. And I’m hoping we’re going to build up a repertoire and a library of lessons with the teachers are providing this year that students can pick up in the middle of the summer and say, you know what I need to get a refresher on chemistry, I need to get a refresher on algebra, I need to get a refresher on any one of the number of subjects that they’re teaching. And they can pull up a lesson that our teachers are providing right now. And I hope we are building the library, that’s going to allow the students to really perpetuate lifelong learning all the way down the line. So I congratulate the extraordinary task that our administration and our teachers are doing and have done and the goals are to learn a pathway to better education and the future. And so I’m cheering for stability. And that’s what I think we’re really providing in this era of unstability. And so I just wanted to point that out. But thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:12
Thanks, john. Any other board member questions or comments? No. All right. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Don. Thank you, Jackie, please, please pass along our appreciation. That brings us to agenda item 6.1. With it, which is fourth quarter gifts to schools fiscal year 19. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:30
I apologize. No, don’t apologize. Acknowledge both dick and John’s comments and just say that, you know, I did, we have seen a couple of outreach from some parents who have offered their assistance and their willingness to collaborate, and think about some of those ways that we can mitigate some of the loss from from this pandemic. And so will continue to be well, we’ll continue to welcome I had a really nice conversation with a parent and a community member, that we’re going to share some thoughts with their group, I’m going to be able to do a meeting with their group, and identify ways that we could do exactly what the two of you were raising, you know, strategizing on how we can keep giving our kids opportunities in light of this global pandemic. So thank you both for those comments.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:23
Thank you, Don. Appreciate it. Greg.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:26
Good evening. So I’m going to talk about fourth quarter public gifts to schools. board policy. kcd refers to public schools to give public gifts to schools, and who is responsible for accepting and those kinds of things, but I just wanted to kind of give you an update. Fourth quarter this year was $154,000. Last year was $276,000. And so we did see a significant drop off in terms of the number of gifts, once schools were closed. And, you know, that’s to be expected. I mean, there’s a couple of reasons people are, are busy with other things, trying to, you know, take care of their own needs. But also, just getting the money to the schools was very difficult, because, you know, we were working through that process of who would be there and those kinds of things. So that’s it. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:24
Thank you, Greg. Any questions, comments? All right, thank you very much. We covered agenda item 6.2. Already, that brings us to 6.3, which is the 2016 bond activity update. Brian, I know you talked about a lot about much about that. earlier. Do you have anything that you’d like to add?
Unknown Speaker 1:28:44
No, not really, I certainly will entertain questions that I think we can put that on there at the last minute just to really shed some light on what we’ve been up to a bunch our our plan is to bring a complete update.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:02
You know, with everything scheduled dollars and all of that in September, and I think it’s the second
Unknown Speaker 1:29:08
week of September.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:11
Okay, so I went on a trip and after that trip, we’ve agreed to travel so excited. When I say a trip, I mean, or
Unknown Speaker 1:29:17
I love that no, it is a trip right now, the trip, but
Unknown Speaker 1:29:21
if any of you have any interest, we’d love to take you on a tour of some of these things. And then also, while we’re there, we can also visit with the teachers and the staff and you can see the great work that they’re doing as well. So if you have any interest, just give me a call and we’ll schedule you should do that. Get in the car and go
Unknown Speaker 1:29:40
That would be great. You’ll have to make multiple trips Of course, but no, yes. No, that would be that would be great. You know, I haven’t I drove i think i think i told you don was out in Meade and drove by me to elementary right after they and I’m not going to use the right word but they raised or they level The old school the new elementary school is absolutely gorgeous completely changes the look in the in the feel of that area also went for a run and went by Longmont High School. As a Longmont high school graduate, I have to say it looks beautiful without the white rings. I don’t even know what to call that. But you know, that deck you taught there, it looks like an entirely different school. It’s beautiful.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:28
It’s amazing. Yeah. Brian, your staff, the design staff, it’s not only beautiful, but it’s tremendously functional, much more functional. As a result, and it was in need it was, it was a good building before. And it’s an excellent building now. And I’m, it’s something to be proud of our whole district, I think should be proud of that. Yeah. And
Unknown Speaker 1:30:56
the change is quite remarkable, I have to say, and then Don, I saw your face light up underneath your mask when you mentioned Main Street, and actually was on my way to the bank, I can’t remember his last week or the week before. And the black wrought iron fence changes the entire look of that school without you know, when when the flood happens and lions moved down there, they put up the chain link fence around it, that black wrought iron fence. It’s beautiful. Also, it’s just so you know, I know that as board members, you know, we typically all of us really enjoy being in the schools, and out in the community and active and we haven’t been able to do that this this past spring semester. So it would be wonderful to get out there again. And I did reach out to the elementary schools in my district, and we’ll be stopping by tomorrow to a couple of them to help pass out iPads and, and just materials and, and whatnot. So I’m really excited to just connect with everybody and get back in the school. So that’ll be fun. Yeah, I’m really excited. Can’t keep me away. So Brian, anything else done board members?
Unknown Speaker 1:32:07
A quick question for you know, our track history of putting up buildings was remarkable. I’m thinking of the Innovation Center and soaring heights. And I know now more people are doing more home projects. Is that slowing down any of our school building? Are we still on the same pace? And you feeling no bumps in the road?
Unknown Speaker 1:32:30
Yeah, actually. I guess what I would say, john is we are right on task with our bond plan and delivering those promises that we made right on schedule. That’s the long term view the short term view from from the pandemic is we’ve we have had difficulties of getting resources into the buildings and we’ve still been successful. But it hasn’t been peaches and cream, if you will. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:03
All right. Okay, thank you. Agenda item seven is our consent items. Do board members wish to pull any of the consent items this evening?
Unknown Speaker 1:33:15
Yes, I’d like to pull item 7.8
Unknown Speaker 1:33:18
Okay. 7.8 are the policies thanks, Paula. Anyone else? Okay. Then we have 7.1 approval staff terminations and leaves 7.2 approval staff appointments 7.3. Approval of minutes for the June 10 and June 24 2020 regular meetings and the July 20 July eight and July 22 2020 special meetings 7.4 approval of change order five to construction manager general contractor cmgc contracts the Longmont High School addition and renovation. 7.5 approval of easement agreement with town of Erie for elementary 28 7.6 approval of change order to two cmgc contract for elementary 28 7.7 approval of change order to two cmgc contract for meat elementary school. And I believe that’s it I would entertain a motion for approval please. so moved by Karen and a second second. by john BB. Can you please call for the vote? Aye.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:28
You have no audio on?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:29
You’re muted.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:32
How’s that? Mr. Aaron?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:33
There you go. Yes, I
Unknown Speaker 1:34:36
Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:39
Yes. Dr. martyr?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:41
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:42
Miss Pierce. I this is raglin. I am Miss secrets. I
Unknown Speaker 1:34:48
thank you, Barb. Paula, you wanted to pull 7.8 which is several policies.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:59
Yes. Thank you, I did want to pull it because there are in fact 21 policies that have been added to the agenda with a recommendation that the board adopt or or edit them. So I wanted to give a little bit of background and explanation around that to the board and and also to the public. So I’m gonna back up a little bit and go over very briefly the whole process of policy adoption that that gets them to our agenda. essentially how, in large part, our policy changes come from Kasmin all of these initiated with Kathy, which is the Colorado Association of School Boards, of which we are a member and they are constantly tracking changes in Colorado legislation CDE compliance, the policies that are necessary for the functionality of school districts, so they very often start the process of looking into individual policies. We worked with them in 2015, about five years ago, on a holistic review of our policies at the time, we had over 600 some of them were from our original start date of 1961 and went all the way up through 50 years of or more of operation. So at the time, it was myself, Joey and Debbie Lammers, who were on the committee, along with our attorneys to go through all of the Caz B suggested policies to go through our own policies, because we do have some that are that are not driven by Caz B, and dig into all of those, share them with all the policy owners on dawn staff, the people that are actually doing the work on the staff to make sure everything is in compliance legally be we have best practice is represented in all those policies. And their current and accurate and in the in represent what the board wants them to say and what we want to direct the district to do. So all that work happened over a two year period from 2014 to 2015. So we believe our policies we cut, we cut them significantly, we cleaned out what we thought was a lot of older sort of dead wood. And we I think we have close to 300 of them now. So that was that’s kind of where we stand. Before we ever see a policy change request. And our agenda though it does get looked at by a lot of people. It goes through a lot of hands and a lot of experts. These have come from Caspi, they get passed along to Don and his leadership team who then share it out to their staff, as I said, so they’re they’re looking at they’re giving it the reality check on you know, what does this say? And what are we really doing. And then best practices as well. And then we also have our own attorneys look at them. So there’s several subject matter experts and attorneys that are looking at these before they get to to us. So I just wanted to give a little bit of that of that background. Also for you know, when you when we have to dive into these things, it is sort of a lot of detail. But the policies are also organized by sections. And essentially many of the ones we’re looking at tonight address are foundations and basic commitments they address
Unknown Speaker 1:38:15
are some personnel policies and student policies. So if you ever go in and are trying to look at any of our, our policies for the district, they are organized by student by staff by board. For operations, they are organized and labeled and categorized. That’s what the labeling system is is about. So specifically tonight, what we’re looking at are 21 policies that we were being asked to to adopt. They these changes are being driven essentially by three, three things. One is changes to title nine, which came out of the United States Department of Education pertaining to title nine the education Amendments of 1972. So the policies tonight that fall under those federal changes are AC, AC, e one, AC e two, those are just exhibits attached to policy AC which is non discrimination and equal opportunity. There were two new regulations ACR one and ACR two and those also support the policy of AC non discrimination equal opportunity. Because we were adopting the new required regulations coming out of the US Department of Education, we can repeal a ce e, which is a separate policy for non discrimination on the basis of disability. Because a discrimination non discrimination on the basis of disability is now being rolled into AC. And then there’s also changes to jbB which is a student policy, sexual harassment of students. Those changes for those seven policies are directly driven by The US Department of Education. In addition tonight we have six policies that are need to be changed because of colorado state legislation. The Colorado State Legislature met was delayed closed and then opened again they ended their session on June 15. And several different state laws are driving changes to this this group of policies and what they are ADC tobacco free schools open GVA open hiring Equal Employment Opportunities GC GC EF professional staff recruiting and hiring support staff recruiting and hiring ik a grading assessment systems and then JB equal educational opportunities. So six of this group changes are being driven by colorado state legislation. And then the remaining eight changes are being are being driven by guidance from the state and federal agencies regarding COVID-19. And how we are operating under a public health emergency, we have to write that into our policies how we are handling Henry Henry or administration of this. So those eight policies driven by public health emergency and COVID-19 are ABB, a ABB AR which is a regulation tied tied to prevention and disease, infection transmission EBC there’s a new policy GB AB which is work, Workplace Health and Safety protection. Staff health gbg a staff health ici ca school year school calendar instruction time j LCC communicable infectious diseases and KPI visitors to school. So those are the essentially the three main drivers that are putting this quantity of policies on her plate right now, prior to the beginning of school starting, it’s a very good time to get all this housekeeping done and make sure those policies are in order. There are we were all sent this packet late last week and haven’t had time to go through it all. And we asked for feedback from everybody. There are a few edits that have been suggested to the policies that were published in our packet. So I will read those aloud too. And we can we can certainly discuss. And if we’re in agreement, we can approve these policies with the changes that we’ll put on the table now. So the first one is policy, GB GA, which is staff health and medical examination requirements.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:43
The thought around this policy was to correct a few of the references to the board and replace it with the district or the superintendent and his or her designee because we wanted to be clear in this policy that the board is in a governance position and we are setting these policies, we were putting these policies in place so that we can tell Don and his staff what the expectations are, but you you and your staff are taking the actionable steps, because it doesn’t really quite read that way as published. So for example, on line one, or the first sentence it would say through its overall safety program and various policies pertaining to school personnel. The district through the superintendent and his or her designee will seek to ensure the safety of employees during working hours and assign them assist them in the maintenance of good health. In the following sentence will read the district will encourage all its employees to maintain good health and practice good health habits. The next paragraph starts under the following circumstances the district may require medical examinations of its employees or applicants for employment. All of these are replacing reference to the board with the district to other similar corrections under line 21. under special examinations, they’ll say the district recognizes that an individual’s medical diagnosis is privileged information between the patient and medical professionals. And then goes on to explain how a staff members condition could we want could warrant additional medical medical information and then line 27 in paragraph six, the district may request physical examinations in our mental health examinations of any employee at any time to determine if the employee has a physical and or mental condition disease or illness, which may interfere with the employee’s ability to perform required duties at cetera. The rest of that language is is not changing. We are simply changing the what we believe is the direction around what is governance and who’s taking the actionable steps. So those are the suggested changes to GB ga Any questions on that I kind of ran through But quickly the clear. Okay. The second policy, we are looking to make a very similar edit is GDP GDF. Under support staff hiring and recruiting. Line one, we would like to say the board and Superintendent will budget for classified positions in the school district on the basis of need and the financial resources of the district. as it’s written now, it doesn’t say the superintendent it says the board will establish and budget. And I we just thought that was a little misleading because we don’t establish the staffing we we ask you just establish the staffing. And we collectively do the budget and you come with us you propose a budget, and then we discuss and we you know, approve, what, what where we land. So we wanted to be clear on the board and the superintendent will be budgeting for classified, establishing budgeting for classified positions.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:54
That’s actually more in alignment, or brings it into alignment Paulo with the policy that speaks specifically to the superintendent responsibilities,
Unknown Speaker 1:46:02
yes, as well. Yes. Okay, and
Unknown Speaker 1:46:05
then one more sort of on the fly edit. For policy ik a grading assessment systems. It’s a clarification, the first line that really, really just kind of puts the statement in the present tense. It currently reads the board believes that students will respond more positively to the opportunity for success than to the threat of failure, which is a true statement and a fine statement. But the recommendation was made to strike the word well, because the board believes that students respond more positively to the opportunity for excess success than to the threat of failure. So we just wanted that to be a little bit of a stronger statement said in the present tense. And that would be the change for ik a that was a lot of policies. I guess my my, the main idea here is understanding the backstory to all of this, that it goes through a lot of hands and a lot of eyes and the people that are doing the jobs, understand the best practices understand the reality and our attorneys. So what was the when it comes to us, I feel very confident that there have been highly, highly vetted and then we can look at it from a governance a governance standpoint. And then I just wanted to make sure that you guys are okay with those three policies with a couple of wordsmithing edits on the fly. Okay, so with that, I will make a motion to approve Impala. Can
Unknown Speaker 1:47:33
you please read all of the policies
Unknown Speaker 1:47:35
the the
Unknown Speaker 1:47:36
Yeah, here we go. I want to use that yeah, that’s fine.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:40
Great. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:41
I will make a motion.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:43
There’s two pages of them. There’s the rest of them.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:47
Make a motion to approve 7.8 first reading adoption approval first reading adoption board policies AC non discrimination equal opportunity. ac E dash one non discrimination Equal Opportunity sample notice. ac E. Two non discrimination Equal Opportunity complaint form. new policy ACR one non discrimination Equal Opportunity complaint and compliance process. New AC are two sex based discrimination and sexual harassment investigation procedures. repeal of pilot repeal a policy AC E. Non discrimination on the basis of disability. I’m going to flip over to mine real quick. Ad fee tobacco free schools EBV a prevention of disease infection transmission handling bodily fluids EBV a our prevention of disease infection transmission. Handling body fluids and substances EBC II school closings and cancellations gbta open hiring Equal Employment Opportunity new policy GB AB Workplace Health and Safety protection GB ga staff health and medical examination requirements GC slash GCF professional staff recruiting hiring GDS less GDF support staff recruiting hiring I see I see a school year school calendar instruction time ik a grading assessment systems JB equal educational opportunities jbB sexual harassment of students and K i visitors to school approve approve motion of all of us policies with stated changes for GB ga Staff health and medical examination requirements stated changes for GDP GDF support staff recruiting slash hiring status changes for ik a grading and assessment systems and then
Unknown Speaker 1:50:17
we also need to put in there j LCC Paula,
Unknown Speaker 1:50:21
those get that one.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:22
Okay. It’s a long list and honestly, I’m glad you read it and I didn’t have to so.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:28
Okay, also including J. LCC communicable infectious diseases. Great. Nope. Okay. Also including k i visitors to schools. Apologies if I skip those, but that’s included. Now.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:43
It’s a long list. Barb, I think she read everything. And then I just want to clarify that you are making a motion polit to adopt these upon first reading that they will not come back again, correct?
Unknown Speaker 1:50:58
Yes. Okay. Because they are mandated by by by law.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:03
Okay. And then can you briefly just clarify, there were a lot of changes, shall and will. Can you just clarify legally, what your conversation with the legal team was on that place?
Unknown Speaker 1:51:18
Yes. According to our legal team there, there is no material difference there is there is a grammatical alignment between shall and will depending on whether you’re using a first person pronoun or third or second person pronoun. Dick actually got some follow up information from Caz B. And there who, who initiated the striking the shells and replacing them with will, must, may or is. And their position is that recent court interpretations of the word shall is that it’s not a word of obligation. And it can mean multiple things. It can mean must, May, will or is. So caspari is cleaning those up along the way as those recommendations are coming out as to whether the position is must have a will or is so we will be seeing those over time. As as the recommendations come through. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:11
Thank you. All right, then. I think Dr. Paula has made the motion so then we just need a second.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:18
I’ll second. Correct.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:19
Okay, a second by Jim and Barb, if you can please call for the vote. And I did I call you Paula. I’m sorry if I called you Paula. I feel like anyway, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:30
Okay, Mr. Arens?
Unknown Speaker 1:52:33
Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia?
Unknown Speaker 1:52:36
Yes. Dr. martyr?
Unknown Speaker 1:52:38
Yes. Miss Pierce.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:40
Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I
Unknown Speaker 1:52:43
have no secrets.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:44
I thank you, Barb. We have one action item this evening. 8.1, which is the recommendation for approval of charter agreement extension for car carbon Valley Academy.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:55
Greg? Yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:52:57
again. So just
Unknown Speaker 1:52:59
if I could, before we move on to the next item, I just wanted to express my appreciation to Paula, for the for the work that thank you did Paula in in not only revising the following this chain through but also, the presentation was very clear, I felt that I really understood the different categories. And it helped put it in a context as to why we’re doing 21 of these policies at one time. I just found that to be very helpful. And I know that it took a lot of time and attention and wanted to acknowledge, Paula, for that.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:35
Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Thanks, Paula. And a second. Yep, I can. Okay, Greg, every time Greg, I introduced your agenda item this evening and say your name something, something happens. So nothing will derail you. Now you are up.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:50
All right. No worries. So we’re asking you to approve a one year extension of carbon Valley Academy’s charter agreement. So just to give some some background is when a charter school applies. They put in their application and they get authorized through a charter agreement. Usually that’s a three to five year agreement. And then once they’ve been in place for three to five years, we would extend it for 15 years. Right. And then on the flip side of that is we have charter contracts, and those charter contracts kind of delineate all of the different operating things. Not the agreement. The agreement is that 15 year accord category. So they have a charter contract with us. But their charter agreement expired primarily because Tony Carey, who was the executive director directory, tired at the end of last year, and didn’t, didn’t go through that process. So we’re asking you for a one year extension of it. What that will look like is they will have basically until December 1 to turn in all of their renewal stuff. That gives us time to go through the application process, see what changes there are see how they have responded from an assessment point of view from those types of things. And then we would approve another 15 year extension in May of next year.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:20
Thank you, Greg. Any questions or comments by by the board? Dick, I can see your hand up. Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:27
Yes, Greg, I just have one question. Are is carbon Valley Academy currently in compliance with all of the terms of the existing contract contract? Yes, they
Unknown Speaker 1:55:39
they are they have filled out they’ve completed all their waiver process. They have submitted their financials to us. They’re going through the audit process right now. So they have basically complied with everything that’s within the charter contract.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:53
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:56
Any other comments or questions? All right, then I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.1, which is the approval of charter agreement extension for carbon Valley Academy by Chico and a second.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:11
Second,
Unknown Speaker 1:56:12
by Jim BB. Can you call for the vote, please?
Unknown Speaker 1:56:16
Mr. Arens? Hi.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:18
Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia?
Unknown Speaker 1:56:22
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:24
Dr. martyr?
Unknown Speaker 1:56:25
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:26
Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Ragland?
Unknown Speaker 1:56:30
Aye.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:31
Aye. I’m Missy grist.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:32
I thank you, Barb. We don’t have any discussion items this evening. So that actually brings us to the adjournment of our meeting, I did want to note that we have canceled the study session that was scheduled for August 10. That is the first week of school. And, you know, we’ll give Don give you and your team and everyone the gift of time, during this unusual back to school event and allow you to focus all of your energy on that. So and then we’ll reconvene here and the Board of Education room on August 26, at 2pm.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:09
For our regular meeting. certainly wish everybody a fantastic first day of school. And then Dec.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:18
Go ahead. I have just one, one thing, I would say. And many of us did listen to the convocation message to the staff this morning. And the board. And I sent you a note, as well. But I wanted to acknowledge at this meeting that what a wonderful job that you did on behalf of the district. It was inspirational, it was forward looking uplifting, and unified. And I just deeply appreciate your ability to capture the spirit of what it means to be part of a high functioning organization with one of the most important missions that that there is. And I really appreciate your leadership. And I thought the complication message was extraordinarily well done. wonderfully produced carry. And, and just it was just in this time, it was it was exactly the right way to start off the year. So thank you, Don.
Unknown Speaker 1:58:24
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 1:58:27
Sorry, Don, I interrupted you now. Thank you for bringing that up. That’s why all seven of us are up here. It is a good idea. Because between all of us, we can remember. We can remember everything. Thank you. It was a wonderful way to start the morning. And I appreciate your leadership and your care and attention to every single detail and nook and cranny and right now particularly the safety of everyone in the district. Thank you. Yeah. So if nobody else has any comments, then we’ll go ahead and adjourn. I would entertain a motion please. Did I say adjourn did I think I messed that up every single time. So Karen, made a motion for adjournment. adjournment. And john seconded that BB and then all in favor. Hi. that’s becoming a typical