indidual whose appointment hiring performance or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual's request to have a closed session we do have a copy we have a written statement uh authorizes us to go into close session so with that I need a motion a second to uh go into close session please so moved second we have a motion second to go into close session r call vote please Mike Thomas yes Bob Thomas yes shondel yes Berger yes Carter yes whus yes the Centerville School Board is now into close set what in as a point uh to our audience the um second stream uh will be available when we exit close session so you'll need to click on the part two zoom in order to review to see the rest of the meeting following Clos session okay yeah hopefully everybody understand that so fortunately we have to cut you off to go into close session so uh wait there's a message up there how what I don't know if you can see that message Mark I just saw it pop up on the screen the chat to answer that um if you uh click on the part two it will say waiting for host to start the meeting and we'll start the meeting as soon as we're out of close session thank [Music] you recording stopped yeah we still got a green light on the camera so trying to end the meeting now yeah but it's not ended okay don't want to sign any post do you want me to call Cameron Yes actually me answer camon right now answer oh you are Cameron is that what you are up there okay I see the res this is where I just RI the cord out the wall we can't seem to stop the meeting um when we say when we say this to Mark when we click on end it says to assign a new uh post no it does not correct click the end button and it doesn't end it now it did that's where it been before but right there it did so okay well I'll take it it's like going to the car or the car repair guy right all right thanks bud unfortunately Brad I have to kick you out yeah I figured you do I'm sorry thank you for your help tonight though okay you have so uh Lisa is going to pack pass around we have a u resonation of employment and release agreement and um I guess we have you don't have a signed copy but we have a copy sign from Mr hod is already Yes um did I not put out the sign copy [Applause] you do have a side copy you do have a side cop shoot should I go yeah oh are we recording yet yeah okay yeah do we need to have that one here you want me to go get the same yes let's do that take a minute to go ahead and read this so you understand it and then what Lisa gets back um Mark's going to walk through a couple of things I want to print the signed copy for everybody okay cuz there may be some slight differences to the yeah cuz uh we need to get a different kind cuz paragraph 11 changed right that's the difference IID of I just click PR gra it prep failed so is your read through just no get to 11 that's been eliminated because Mr Hodes is not over 40 years old and that is a paragraph those time limits are only needed for uh if you're over 40 for uh age discrimination that's the change that's not age discrimination what do you call it yeah yeah you're right yeah at 40 you become protected class employee by age I fored that to you okay [Applause] [Applause] basically as we would prefer not to have 2A in there 2A gives us paragraphs 4 five and six right I'm sorry here give me one guys so yeah you guys want me to go ahead and start going through some bullet points from the lawyer or do people need another minute still okay all right so these are the items from the lawyer on this that kind of draw your attention to so he will be officially on leave through the 13th that's where we would officially approve his resignation um even though it'll technically take effect now in terms of things like being able to post and start looking for a replacement which is important for that position thank you um and the reason the the 15 days um item which is through the end of February uh is the case is because to do a termination we would have ended up paying him through pretty much the end of March to follow all the timelines so to give get him to give up a slight amount of the money he was going to be able to get from us to go through a termination um um to get this done quicker for us and in his case for him um so that's what uh item two does it also um is an item that causes item four um as you are probably aware uh there was a leak of a document that should not in any way shape or form benle uh from the investigation from some party um that uh has traveled through social media and and to the media uh as well so um there's a desire to get this done quickly um an agreement does another important thing for us allowing for this agreement um doesn't only save us pay some days and give us release from potential lawsuit from him for any wrongful termination that you may try to bring uh but it also makes it where we don't have to bring a a victim a young teenage female victim to sit in that chair during a hearing in front of a group of us men um to to be um revictimized uh which could then again also happen on appeal um should we issue a a ruling and he appeal um and potentially other young female witnesses to have to talk about their story um so that helps us to to keep victims out of the Limelight uh let me find the right one there there will likely be some initial media coverage or social media talk and it'll die down um as the news cycle moves along because that form uh got leaked to the public um undoubtedly we will hear some backlash uh from that but this does everybody know what got leaked you know I have no idea what's going on okay it was the uh level two investigation on allegations of sexual harassment and uh the question was whether it was sexual abuse but it sexual harassment is what it was founded as on Ryan Hodes um with a 17-year-old student um and the report um talks about a couple Witnesses and what they had experienced in previous years from him um unfortunately I think doxing is the is the term in this case there was another witness who didn't want to tell her story uh from some sexual contact um who now her graduation year and her initials are out in the public because this document was released and she's now doxed and people will probably figure out who she was and what happened to her and she wasn't ready to tell that story she's trying to move on in life and doesn't want to relive it sure um so I think uh you know but somehow the county attorney's investigative report got released and is floating around in social media we have suspicions we've checked our side we've checked any place that was received here any place that went from here and from our office it's not possible for it to have gotten anywhere there are still a couple other parties who did receive by law a copy of that level two report and they're not required by law to keep it confidential either um there's no law stating that they can't share that that with somebody um it's just unfortunate cuz it it kind of outs a couple other young ladies and and what happened to them um so that that is something that could come out of this here I will tell you uh for the sake of the district um there's an item in there that says that uh the the young lady who was the center of the investigation had uh claims of uh staff member bullying her about the issue and some students bullying her about the issue we did deal with some students Bing uh there is an investigation on a staff member I will tell you it's not concluded yet however what we're finding is it sounds more like uh girl had heard from a friend that they were talking about the issue in class and the teacher said knock it off don't talk about that that's not true um but again I take it seriously so if we find out that there was bullying then I'll come right back to this table with another name if I have to because I'm not going to let a victim be bullied uh by somebody in our school I don't believe it's that uh but because we can't comment on it the story May well be cille staff police victim um so you may want to be prepared for that um so ending this quickly and and getting the story done benefits Us in that way um so it bullet point five the leak is very concerning once this is over I'll continue to investigate as appropriate we have no authority over the other parties so there's not uh discipl that we can issue over that but we'll continue to investigate cuz we want to know how the leak happened so we know if we ever have to do an investigation again we can try to avoid that if possible we have a statement that Danielle has written um that I will share with uh any media that requests additional information on this uh this because it's a voluntary resignation uh we're not allowed to discuss the specifics of the resignation um Danielle put clearly with the information already out in the media people won already know what transpired they'll have a pretty good idea um but that statement uh was uh given to his attorney to look at and agree to uh because of the fact that the information was released out there and uh we wanted to act in good FL good faith to show we're not trying to trick anybody here we're not we we are appalled by the fact that that was released as well um you covering oursel uh with them to be honest with you uh If an employer calls we will simply advise of his dates of employment with the district I will tell you as an educational leader um when you hear that someone was let was allowed to leave uh from a position in February as important as high school counselor that says a lot um we've also filed two separate complaints with the Iowa Board of educational exam ex miners regarding the outcome of our investigations um and we'll continue to investigate any allegations of bullying and harassment to toward the victim um I'm told by the boee that because they they're in the process of changing lawyers and very backlogged that it will likely be months before they're able to get to uh reviewing that case so um any questions so he will continue to have a teaching license until the boee reviews yeah um my one question I would have is where does the district sit as far as possible legal action from the family of said victim yeah that's and that's why it's important that we do as we've done to investigate the claims of bullying and properly document those um in terms of legal action against the district I mean you you would need to prove negligence in that case uh properly investigating placing somebody on leave the what we did on the first day uh Pro protected us from most of the potential damages uh by by placing them on leave and removing uh that student from uh an unsafe situation we also provided the student with a safety plan um so that there were some f there's a family member that teaches at the high school an associate that the student feels very safe with that if she ever felt unsafe in a class or felt like a kid was talking about it or something was coming up or she needed to be somewhere safe she could go there and we worked that out with the parents so that would be something that we would certainly bring up on our behalf for what we're doing obviously I take it really seriously um that there's a concern that a staff member may have potentially allowed talk in in their classroom about um about this topic um either with a student there or not there um you know I I take issue with that and uh Andy hotek is conducting that investigation because I'm the appeal level person so I've learned a lot through this process when we started into this I thought all right it's my job I'm going to go out there I'm going to investigate it I'm going to be Hands-On first first line of defense technically that takes away an appeal that a teacher is supposed to have or I think that's a policy that we reviewed this summer isn't it yeah this is how important board policies are we updated these policies this summer yep uh and probably some revision to our bullying and harassment policies are are to come out of this obviously some training for our staff is to come out of this around uh ethics and Reporting and bullying and harassment and what we should do if we see things in classrooms um lot of work to do uh coming off of this but it's the right work to do and I think in some cases it's work that may have been needed for a little while okay what other questions you got now who all investigated so there was an investigation by the police department well that was shortlived because it wasn't determined to be criminal activity at that point there was no real proof to actual criminal activity um and Morgan um works for great Prairie AA and also does investigations for school districts Serv a lot of districts level one investigator in this case we had an serve as our level one investigator because in when we approved one investigators this year we approved me with my alternate being Ryan Hodes um so we thought it probably best to go outside to pull in a a person for that and and actually as we move forward I'm really thinking um we'll probably name I'll probably recommend that we name Andy hotek as our level one investigator next year uh with an alternate of another is that action that we need to take up and just do since H just well with him resigning we might need to actually that's a good point um but really I probably shouldn't be level one at any point um but that's something you know you live in ill and I took uh an investigations class I think you guys probably saw that a couple weeks in a row on my uh on my agenda and I took that this year and that's something that an Morgan happened to be the teacher of that class and she said and if your District as your superintendent as your level one investigator you need to get that changed right away about a week before this came out so okay now there's an by the the County Attorney you're yep that's so when level one was concluded okay let's make sure that doesn't go green on us there we're good when level one was concluded by Ann she refers it because it was founded with her she refers it to level two and our level two is the County Attorney uh who then conducted her really review of the documents to determine if a crime if a crime was committed or if really how did they work that so level one determines if the behavior would rise to the level of being some form of abuse or harassment level two determines did this person actually do it intentionally and in this case it was founded as as sexual harassment um so that's where we get the l two report and so that along with our level one report um all text messages um and and interview notes that we have um were forwarded to I for them to review um in terms of license sure and they'll make a determination on whether they think what level it's founded right well and and if they think that it is worthy of loss of license and for how long yeah so at this point it's his license is in their hands and what they do is you know if if we were not to do this and we were to wait for the Boe to come back and they says hey we're pulling this license then we'd have to terminate cuz he doesn't have a license license mhm in this case we're getting in front of that and so whether whatever they do with his license is no longer in District matter because he if he approve this he'll no longer be a district repor and if they don't pull his license which would find hard to believe but if they don't we would be past the date by which we have to tell a certified employee that they don't have a contract for the next year and we would be on the hook for his contract for next year so in this case uh waiting for the pwe wasn't something that we could do uh for the sake of the district a concern that I kind of have okay I wait maybe okay just want to make sure I not having camera and I don't trust this thing I think you got to H the okay yeah we're good sorry okay um I'm going to see concern that I have is that he has cuz he has two children in the district yeah and I would hate for any backlash to happen to them agre anything and I know um through this I mean they're both I think like few well at least ones at like View and I think things have been pretty good um you know they're little still so not a l their friends know about this I would be really concerned if they were Junior higher high school age I I really would worry about that and I know Terry is Terry is aware to watch out for the kiddos make sure they're all right and as this being a voluntary thing any events that they have or anything you can walk right in we might hear something and even if it weren't voluntary our power on that one is is kind of limited in the case where somebody has guardianship of a of a student um so like if he wanted to go to a concert with for his kids or something um our power is pretty Limited in that area and but it could be frowned upon by people in the community we could hear about it oh I would guarantee we would yeah unfortunately the law doesn't give us a lot of power on that one no I think there needs to be an important terminology brought up here um because Mr hod has voluntary voluntarily offered his resignation and again you guys have been great about not talking media and and I haven't been asked by anybody but you've been trying to remain impartial and bias and I appreciate all the efforts on that um we we will not be using the term resigned in L of termination so that has a very specific um in the eyes of Iowa law that has a very specific connotation to it and so because this came prior to the commen of of termination um proceedings um if media would contact us and ask for his employment status uh it would be uh voluntarily resing now if we are sitting at in a close session looking to terminate him and he says I resigned that would be a resonation in L of termination because we had at that point we would have started termination proceedings because the district has not done that this is just a straight voluntary resignation and part of the expectation of the agreement is that the term resigned in Louis termination will not be used so please don't slip up and use that term we he just resigned so if somebody says did he resign because he was going to get terminated don't say yes you just say he it's a voluntary resignation because that's legally the the terminology that we're working under thank you brought that up the greatest with SH words I two me today and basically tell me he's taking the easy way out you take me for what it is so and and I will tell you at for for your conscience CU this was a hard one this is a tough pill for me to swallow in some ways too um this allows a 17-year-old girl to not have to sit in front of us and then again in front of a judge and talk about because in his defense for those of you who were in a previous termin Clos session if you remember what you know what the uh the employees attorney was going through and saying to basically defend his client could you imagine what attorney was going to do to a 17-year-old girl who's already been victimized and so yeah this is tell you after my discussions with the investigator it was not going to be pretty what he planned to say about that young lady and her relationship so so a lot of this is we're protecting a teenager seriously yeah now what I will say about Miss Mr Taylor's handling this I've had remain advis too um my supervision of Mark through this process has been basically through Danielle because I have the duty to become advised too um early on I saw a couple of texts just to say yep Mark you're on the right track my supervision of Mark has been through what's going on in the timeline where we at what is the process it was all what is the process are we going through to do this okay so this is started okay so now we have this what are we doing it's all been processed it's not been any evidence at all so I've been I've been kind of closed out of all the evidence that you guys have had and um and my uh I guess supervision has come through the discussions with the district's attorney saying are we on track are we doing the right things and all along she has assured us that we're doing the right we're handling this the right way M this would be a super clean process if it weren't for whatever leaks that level to report at the end there yeah um and and that's the part that kind of sticks in in my mind is something that I want to know what we can do to prevent that in the future y okay not cuz I want to hide something or cover anything up just because it's not clean in our process so I'm I will assume that this that report will probably actually hit the news media I haven't seen it across I mean I saw Emily's on so I would guess so this is we'll turn these back in L Lisa and as I understand it that you know cuz we just want to make sure that nobody walks out with this right so so we're all clean um but this could be released under Freedom of Information Act request I think there may be some debate on that now is there okay we would we would only our attorney said to release it would we release it um and so and just so you know like because of the sensitive uh legal nature on this one um if there's a request for any comment that comes to me I'm actually having Danielle craft that comment to send out um because we just want to make sure that we're completely in the clear as you pointed out too there's not just potential for uh suit from a perpetrator in this case potentially from a victim as well so um making sure that we uh also protect the district any other questions are we missed anything from process s okay anything else anybody got any questions okay so the way the motion has to be very specific right so actually if Derek has a motion that was actually prepared for the attorney it's very short very brief you want to let know what it is we can't make a motion to close session correct right when we come out of close session correct we're getting good at this close the motion is motion to approve the resignation and release agreement with Ryan Hodes as presented that will be the motion and that sentence will be the only thing in this meeting that includes the name so that will probably be the item that gets quoted consensus to come out of Cl session thank you for your patience through this this is the ugly part thank you for your work thanks I I I would that certainly not what you expected seven months in but Adventure thank you from what I've heard more than a lot in of your predecessors so thank you yeah okay so we have consensus to come out of are there any objections of coming out of clst on that no we don't we cannot cuz we can't have a motion in a second and a vote CL It's the weird one all right are you ready okay all right here it goes