[0:00] [Music] good evening tonight is monday march 8th and we do have a forum which i will call this meeting to order [0:06] due to the current federal and state emergency declarations and guidance about limiting person-to-person contact [0:12] due to the coven 19 pandemic this meaning of the edina public school district school board has been conducted [0:17] online in accordance with minnesota statutes 13b021 people may monitor this meeting from a [0:23] remote location by using the district's youtube channel media participants are reminded to mute [0:29] their microphone or phone when they are not speaking and participants wishing to speak should unmute their microphone or [0:35] use the raised hand feature so i can see who's waiting to speak and then wait to be recognized i will [0:41] determine the order in which participants wishing to speak will be recognized the first order of [0:46] business tonight is agenda approval do i have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's [0:51] meetings second [1:02] [Music] [1:10] i'm just i did not hear who made the second sorry lenny did i thought lenny had made the motion [1:18] made the motion did it okay perfect allenberg [1:25] [Music] [1:36] oh she can't vote because she's not on video okay why don't we uh we [1:44] go ahead since we have core there's an exception to that because it's called correct video you can go to the next [1:50] board member microsoft [2:04] again she's on okay [2:12] thank you okay will you quickly review the gender force tonight please john [2:17] yes um tonight with excellence in action [2:24] we're here from edina high school global scholars um and hearing from members of the [2:30] public and we have a consent agenda with various things on it in discussion tonight we have policy [2:37] review and under action uh we have um some items that you've already bought [2:43] some study with already which involve the 20 20 21 revised budget uh the 2122 budget [2:51] alignment plan is the preliminary approval of the next year's budget um and then [2:57] as a follow-up to the february 16 special board meeting um uh making a approving recommendations [3:04] um that were prioritized at that meeting um and then we also have policies there [3:10] are five policies up for review so that's it [3:15] great thank you john we're going to move to our excellence in action portion of the evening and in tonight's [3:20] excellence interaction portion we're going to learn about the dinah rotary global scholars program [3:26] and meet two exceptional editing high school seniors their global scholar capstone projects [3:32] were recently recognized at the model g20 youth leadership summit here to tell [3:37] us more about the program is the programs coordinator lindsey smacka so welcome um mrs maca and our two [3:44] global scholars hi everyone thank you so much for having [3:50] me tonight thank you to the board for having me for letting us talk um and also to the district for [3:55] supporting this awesome program so i'm going to go ahead and give you a brief background of the [4:02] program and then allow for our awesome scholars to present emma and ashna [4:10] [Music] all right so a little bit about the program um it came to be [4:16] last school year um we recruited students um such as ashna and emma [4:23] and this school year the 2020 2021 school year was our first inaugural year of the program which was [4:29] a very interesting year to start the program but we made it happen the the students [4:35] took it in strides with everything going on and we've had some awesome projects come out of it [4:41] so it is designed to be a three-year program it can be completed in fewer years so ashna and emma are [4:47] current seniors and they completed it in this year because they already had some of the requirements um [4:54] it's sponsored by the edina education fund and the rotary club of edina [4:59] the point of it is to help students develop global competency skills for post graduation work whether that is [5:05] school or going into the workforce prepare for a global career in this increasingly interconnected world [5:13] um develop understanding for world issues and build bridges across nations and cultures and on top of all of those [5:19] cool things um there are scholarships opportunities at the end of the program and [5:24] students get recognized at graduation here's an overview of the requirements [5:31] so students choose a program of study something that they are passionate about it's either stem humanities or fine arts [5:39] and complete a set number of classes um in their program of study students [5:45] reach proficiency in a world language so oftentimes it's going to be one of the [5:51] world languages offered at the high school sometimes it is a world language that students already know [5:56] and maybe speak at home or maybe come from another country and are already fluent in that language [6:04] they participate in a global collaboration experience which i will talk more about in a little bit they also participate in the rotary club [6:12] um and there are many youth programs through our local rotary club that [6:17] students participate in and then they take a capstone course and in that course do some global [6:23] competency training in that course their main objective is to create a research project [6:29] on a global issue they choose a country and focus on that global issue in that [6:35] country as well as here in minnesota so asana and emma are going to talk about their research [6:42] projects so global collaboration experience this was the one hurdle we came [6:48] across this school year with um code hitting because normally our global [6:53] collaboration experience would include travels so the rotary international youth exchange would [6:59] fulfill this requirement um the um edina public schools travel based [7:04] learning courses such as our south korea exchange our [7:10] science expedition to ecuador those all account as a global collaboration experience [7:15] or some independent international exchange program but with covet all of that was not possible [7:20] so this year we came up with some virtual experiences to fulfill this global [7:26] collaboration experience which is actually great because that was one of my goals at the beginning of the program was to try to [7:32] create a virtual experience so that travel wasn't necessarily [7:37] needed so some students participated in the mo the model un conference and some [7:44] students participated in the model g20 summit and that was ashna and emma and they just [7:50] participated a couple of weeks ago um ashton was the best minister [7:56] of energy representing south africa at the end of the conference emma was the best minister minister of [8:02] the environment and sustainable development representing australia so i was not at that conference because [8:09] it was all virtual so i'm going to let ashna and emma explain a little bit more what that [8:14] conference was as well as their research projects that they're currently working on [8:21] hi my name is ashna i'm a senior um and basically i'm going to go over the [8:27] cobra um so oh miss maca you went off the [8:38] slides okay so basically um it was four four hour sessions over two weekends and [8:46] during that time we got to speak with students from all over the world we had different kinds of meetings [8:52] we had country delegations so i had meetings with all of the ministers from south africa [8:58] and emma probably had meetings with all of the ministers from australia um we also [9:06] had um ministerial meetings where we got to speak with all of the other ministers of our same [9:13] group but from all over the world to create multilateral and bilateral agreements um between our [9:21] countries and there's also this um new aspect [9:26] um called the deciding committee and that's also a group of students that would actually grade our performance um [9:33] and our policies that we made during the conference in addition we also had some expert [9:39] lectures so those are really inspiring to listen to um from professors and [9:46] at the end we had final presentations we really had just a short amount of time because so [9:51] many students spoke but we got to present our policies and then the um deciding committee asked us questions [9:59] to follow up if they needed to um overall we were graded on creativity and innovation public [10:05] speaking domain expertise um integration efficacy and feasibility [10:11] and equitability of our policies so the whole goal of the summit was to research your country get a really [10:17] in-depth view of um your country's point of view on [10:22] um the issue of climate change and create policies to [10:28] as just ideas to implement um for your country and for the entire [10:34] world and a cool opportunity that some people could take part in was to create a paper a position paper that would [10:41] actually be sent to different organizations around the world so um my project this is just kind of a [10:49] brief overview of the policies that i came up with on the top left [10:54] on the top left those are just diagrams showing the um impact of um climate change in south [11:01] africa and how they're not really meeting their goals and then the other two um pictures are [11:07] my policy slides so my two different policies were one to implement a green recovery from [11:13] covid um by transitioning to um renewable energy sources [11:21] and then the other one was to establish in the independent power producers so um those [11:26] are both of my policies and then for my capstone course for [11:34] rotary global scholars that's also a requirement of the course of the program [11:40] i'm focusing this semester on um the issue of farmlands becoming wastelands [11:48] unsustainable practices that are um destroying our food sources [11:54] and and i'm trying to figure out a way that we can move to sustainable [11:59] practices to hopefully maintain our food source and provide food for everyone [12:05] which is why i'm focusing on the united nations sustainable sustainable development goal of zero [12:10] hunger so my question is what sustainable agricultural practices from all realms [12:16] of science can be implemented to provide reliable food sources to people around the world and i really want to focus on that [12:23] part of all realms of science because i really um i think i'm going to work as my local [12:29] project with the indigenous food lab here in the um twin cities to have a different [12:35] perspective on sustainable food practices and i'm just going to create that in a [12:41] podcast [Music] [12:47] hello everyone my name is emma um i'm a senior at the high school with ashna and i also had a pleasure being [12:54] part of the edina global rotary scholars program and because of this i was introduced to the model g20 summit which [13:01] i participated in with about 430 other members from across the globe [13:07] so like ashna said the summit was held in february and lasted for around [13:12] two weeks we went from 6 to 10 pm on friday and saturday nights and everyone met up for country round table and [13:19] ministerial meetings um members were divided into three groups and assigned to either a country [13:25] delegation or a deciding committee so in cohort c i had the chance to be a delegate of [13:31] australia um upon first joining your delegation you and your fellow [13:37] members determine which position you want to play you can either be a minister or the head of the state [13:42] and you run for election and other members will vote for you i was chosen as minister of the [13:47] environment and sustainable development during the summit we had the opportunity to listen to keynote lectures like [13:53] austin talked about with the professors and we got to take a course on the foundations for climate action [13:59] in order to understand more about climate change the course was made up of around seven lessons with [14:05] corresponding assignments and forums so we could collaborate with other people on each topic from lessons [14:11] um we then established bilateral and multilateral policies with um our with the help of our groups and [14:17] other countries and policy creation was honestly an absolute delight we were given a [14:23] platform to present our policies for around 60 seconds and with the summit being over now we have an [14:29] opportunity to create a position paper and go in more in depth with all of our policies [14:35] um so now i'll talk a bit about my work specifically and i think the hardest thing about this particularly was just [14:42] the time management in general because originally i was going to create around eight policies but with the limited amount of time we had i was cut [14:48] down to four however even with four i still feel i was able to creatively and effectively [14:54] convey the majority of what i wanted to say in my policies uh going over them briefly my first [14:59] policy was a bilateral agreement with the eu talking about uh ecotourism [15:06] promoting ecotourism to preserve natural environments we wanted to work together and produce [15:11] investment opportunities with local entrepreneurs increase protected lands that were emission-free and establish strong [15:17] branding and human resource programs my next policy talked more about ensuring better [15:23] protection for endangered species by bolstering um existing reserves in [15:29] protected area and expanding said reserves while establishing mitigation steps [15:35] and handling fire ramifications in a better way my third policy was about reducing the [15:41] destruction of marine habitats by establishing carrying capacity restrictions to manage recreational use [15:47] instituting prevention and control initiatives to handle invasive marine species reducing harsh land impacts from erosion [15:55] sewage storm debris and agricultural chemicals setting up new emission initiatives to combat coral bleaching and ocean [16:01] acidification and finally establishing restoration protocols and my last policy was probably the most [16:07] important because it was about reducing deforestation in australia by encouraging companies to adopt zero [16:12] deforestation policies stopping illegal logging decreasing agricultural rent with reforms food for tenure security [16:19] increasing road upkeep increasing forest rentals due to some industrial growth and expanding protectively to ensure [16:26] preservation of old growth forests now i'm going to move on to a little bit [16:31] more about my capstone project in specific and because of policy creation work from the summit [16:37] i was very inspired to do my capstone on deforestation so i'm focusing on the [17:53] resources to think about the rotary club or others once this work is done it's basically a proposal for funding that's [18:00] really what you're doing like you put it at a country level or a ministry level like you're putting together a thoughtful [18:06] detail-oriented data proposal for funding is there any way to continue that process once this [18:11] is done [18:17] [Music] [18:22] um right now it is exactly what you detect where the students are just merely um creating this suggestion as to what [18:30] can be done and showing finances what can be done we are working with [18:35] um the rotary program um so in the future i think some of these proposals [18:40] could actually come too late that's great i did uh stuff in high school and it wasn't like [18:45] this it was much simpler it's impressive anything else well thank you thank you [18:53] everyone for presenting that's very impressive and thank you to the rotary and edina education fund for [18:58] sponsoring this it's such a great opportunity we really appreciate the community support um [19:04] so thank you and good luck finishing your capstone projects [19:09] that's awesome thank you guys thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] okay we're going to move on to hearing [19:16] from members of the public um and i just want to remind members of the public that the board reads all emails sent to [19:23] us and you would like to submit something to be read at the board meeting to send in an email by [19:30] noon of the day of the board meeting to school board at edinburghschools.org and add to the subject line board [19:36] meeting comment um we do have one uh email tonight to be [19:41] read and so i'm going to ask business director tope to please read the email [19:46] good evening cheryl brooke can you hear me yes thank you the letter starts with dear [19:52] edina school board members as a community member active eps [19:58] volunteer with the ehs access program former eps parent [20:04] and long-term eps partner with edina given go i'm extremely grateful for your time and [20:10] focus on the critically important selection of our school district's next superintendent [20:16] no doubt our district's new leader will be called upon to be a crucial moment in the public education sphere a moment [20:23] endowed in equal measure by considerable challenge and immense opportunity within our local [20:28] schools our next superintendent must be eminently qualified and the selection of our new [20:34] superintendent will surely be your board's single most important decision i'm [20:40] writing today to ask that each of you put considerable thought into these two critically important parts of the search [20:47] process one candidate profile as you review the candidate profile [20:52] ensure that it is bold and reflects the importance of the visionary leadership that will be required effectively [20:59] effectively delivered on the district's strategic plan the profile should bring to life the [21:05] courageous leader this community needs to motivate and encourage students staff [21:10] and community members and it must invite leaders who have proven track records of effectiveness [21:16] and commitment to academic excellence and equity these are core components of our [21:21] strategic plan they work hand in hand and we need a leader who has the vision and [21:27] substantive experience to lead us forward two identifying and betting candidates it is [21:34] my understanding that this search will be national and i believe that it is vital to ensure we build a diverse slate [21:41] and secure the most qualified leader for this important role purposeful recruiting and vetting is [21:47] going to be critical to finding the leader our district needs i would encourage you to reach out to a [21:53] few of the many hr professionals in our community to help inform your product [21:59] i know they are happy to serve and the types of strategies they are using to recruit and select [22:04] high caliber talent from around the country might be helpful as we seek to do the same for our [22:09] district most importantly how will you ensure that the process will include [22:14] broad re-bursting and recruiting efforts thank you for your service and leadership meg rodriguez [22:23] thank you john and thank you for everyone for your emails engagement in our district [22:28] we're now going to move on to our consent agenda is there anything anyone would like to remove from the consent [22:33] agenda great right but motion to approve the [22:39] consent agenda is there a second second so i have lenny [22:46] with the motion and julie to second it thank you alan i fox [22:53] all right green hi jones aye [23:00] michelson hi [Music] hi helen friedman hi [23:08] the consent agenda is approved uh we're going to move on to discussion and for discussion tonight we have two [23:13] policies to review so i'm going to turn it over to um owen michaelson who's chair of our policy committee [23:19] and director tisher tischer is there any comments on these or [23:24] thank you chair ellenberg as you have just mentioned we have two policies to discuss [23:31] versus 218 the operation of the school board during a pandemic this is what we brought [23:38] forward and approved last year and it came up because it was expiring you know we put one year [23:43] on it and so we discussed what kind of [23:49] termination to put to it and that was probably the biggest point of discussion and we came up with the [23:58] basic edit which is that this policy will automatically expire upon the revocation of the state of emergency as [24:04] declared under chapter 12 of the minnesota state statute so [24:10] rather than six months or a year it's tied to the governor's order and that we're striking on language [24:18] in section f um that's uh similar to this a few um linguistic changes that have [24:25] been made and that's it so any comments [24:30] so um i think it's fine to delete the language at the end i [24:37] actually wouldn't put language in here in that first purpose saying that it expires when the [24:43] um when the state of emergency expires and the reason is the policy by [24:48] definition applies only in the event there is a state of emergency and so [24:54] rather than worry about whether we have to reinitiate this type of a policy having drafted [25:00] this one i think we're better off keeping this policy in force it applies only in the event of a state [25:06] of emergency and it will guide us otherwise in the event we have a yet another state of emergency then we have [25:12] to go and revise the policy and bring it back so again i don't think there's a need to have an end date on it [25:21] so you're saying lenny that really our amended language is redundant well [25:28] the policy says it applies only in the event that there's a state of emergency so when the state of emergency ends then [25:35] the policy isn't used okay so then um my my lens is the [25:43] the prisms that i apply to policy are purged if it's redundant but don't purge [25:50] if it communicates and so i was thinking that this was substantive we ought to add that and so the [25:57] substantive argument is now taken away by what you've just said here [26:03] but the communication argument remains that it spells it out for people [26:08] because i think a lot of people wouldn't know that what would you say to that um i i think it [26:16] kind of says on its face that this provides direction in the event of a [26:22] pandemic or a state of emergency sorry um nikki you you had a lot to do with [26:28] the language here do you have some comments i think that lenny's revision it makes [26:34] sense because it does cease at the expiration of the of of the state of emergency so [26:40] i think there is a level of redundancy by the language we added but in in committee it made sense [26:45] because we were just trying to um basically get rid of the expiration date so i think in committee it made sense [26:52] but um i think lenny's comment um and getting rid of that extra sentence and the purpose would make [26:58] make the policy tighter and better okay i guess i'm sold on that anybody [27:06] else have some thoughts yeah i'm i'm fine with that i would recommend that um within the year or next year that we [27:13] review this policy with the lens of any health endemic or [27:19] any state of emergency because i think some of the language is very specific for [27:24] the cova type of pandemic where it says like we can't be in person so i think that the changes make sense [27:31] and i'm on board with them i just think we should review it again with that lens of um broadening and make sure nothing's [27:40] too specific for the specific emergency that we're dealing with right now so bring it up in six months six months or a year i [27:46] don't think there's a urgency because hopefully we won't have a state of emergency [27:51] should we just put it in a tickler to bring up sometime in the fall i would put it in a year i would put it [27:58] in a year because it will give us time hopefully it will have expired and then [28:04] and we can like reflect and like you'll have that rear view mirrors yeah i think i think within six months [28:11] okay so we'll we'll put it in six months to a year um the other substantive remark i would [28:18] have is are lenny given what you are saying are we looking at keeping this as a [28:24] standing policy to have on standby in case another [28:29] state of emergency is declared during a pandemic or do we want to revoke this and expire [28:36] it when we revisit in a year if if covet is no longer a serious health hazard [28:44] yeah so i would as erica said review it in a year at the time either clean it up to make [28:49] it a general application in the event of a state of emergency or rescind it okay i mean [28:56] my temptation is to leave it in a cleaned up fashion again i would [29:02] hope we don't have yet another state of emergency but the net was that we kind of [29:08] hurried to get this put together and it would save us that hurry the next time around [29:18] okay so we can visit in six months to 12 months and we will then strike the language [29:25] that we added to the purpose alan did you have a comment yeah i was just going to [29:31] um i don't think uh the last paragraph and i guess it's e [29:39] which is this policy is being adopted under the provision of policy debate i don't fully need that in this [29:46] policy and all policies are added under policy 208 so [29:52] could strike that last sentence [29:57] right because it can stand alone on its own doesn't mean yeah so we okay if people are good with [30:04] that we can strike all of that yeah i think that makes sense [30:10] i think that makes sense okay so it looks like members are [30:17] in agreement on us and we'll pass to a ticket and then we will bring up policy 413 [30:24] harassment and violent prohibition students and employees [30:31] and we did language cleanup and there's a lot to this and [30:36] it came in toward the sort of last minute and because of that nikki i'd like to turn [30:42] it over to you you were much of the architect of the language would you care to give us your comments [30:49] on it perfect um the majority of it was process oriented and have [30:54] has they're no they're not substantive changes by any means for example we define the term protected class and [31:01] then we put it in parentheses but yet we continue to refer to all the different protected classes [31:06] so that that is one of the really big revisions you'll see throughout similarly um we have a long list of [31:13] types of employees and instead of instead of listing out all different types of employees we simplified to go [31:19] to employees and so those are all non-substantive changes that were made throughout the policy [31:25] there are only um just a few substantive changes one would be and i'm just flipping [31:31] through the policy number of the policy page [31:36] one would be um a reference to independent contractors and it towards the end of the policy [31:42] um and we don't necessarily want that in policy because independent contractors are not our employees [31:49] and this kind of this this policy by the words of it confuse independent contractor and [31:56] employee and so i suggest you removing that and the other semi-substantive change is we had the [32:03] assistant superintendent as the investigative designee and instead of that i put the director [32:08] of human resources knowing that sometimes titles change like my title isn't officially the director of human resources i have [32:14] admin services too but knowing that the person who oversees hr [32:19] is the reporting element and so those are two relatively substantive changes that i've included but everything else [32:25] in all the other suggested revisions are purely non-substantive changes but i [32:30] i'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have [32:46] [Music] yeah i have a couple of questions uh one is this is um i'm [32:54] i'm reading this and then see that um harassment [33:01] um and and using it kind of broad definition of harassment in most of the [33:08] document is very broad and it doesn't speak to sexual harassment specifically until [33:17] it's defined and so i just i wanted to make sure that [33:24] that i understood in the policy sexual harassment was being considered [33:31] as harassment or does it need to be spelled out in other areas in the policy [33:40] so if you look at the definition of harassment based on protected class you'll have the sexual harassment [33:47] component of things so i think that answers the question that you're asking it is included within [33:52] this policy well the reason i'm asking that is [33:59] because this policy is really directed support [34:06] only violence or harassment on the basis of protected [34:14] destination so for example much of sexual harassment [34:22] is not um done on the basis of [34:29] any of the protected classes it's just it is done [34:36] um and and likewise uh there's for [34:44] our district we have a paying policy for students but we don't have [34:51] a a similar bullying policy where um harassment would come [34:59] involved when on um for just general reasons um not [35:07] on the basis of protected classification and so i i just wanted to to [35:14] clear that and and suggest that if since i don't see any policy on [35:22] bullying um what i'm calling um if um and for [35:29] things like sexual harassment i would say i would approach the [35:36] wording for example on 5 a a person who believes [35:45] they have been targeted harassment or violence for any reason including on [35:52] the basis of protected clarification [35:58] so that would be my suggestion [36:05] so ellen on f they do have like you mentioned they have that robust definition of sexual harassment [36:11] which is included as a component of this policy and um you know you have the broad term of [36:17] harassment which would encompass sexual harassment but i'm not sure if that [36:24] um explicit um definition is needed but i'm open to other thoughts or suggestions [36:32] so i think that i think the essence of what ellen is saying is that when we [36:38] describe the purpose do we need to broaden that to say the school district strives to maintain [36:44] a working environment free from harassment or violence on any basis including those protected classes [36:52] or is this policy meant only for those protected classes [Music] [36:58] no i i understand that the question you wouldn't necessarily want to make it that broad because it is [37:04] based on protected class but sexual harassment itself isn't necessarily on those protected [37:11] classes so it is separate from but that's why it's included included as a separate definition if we [37:16] wanted to be more explicit about sexual harassment in particular [37:22] um it may be a small modification of the purpose statement and the general statement of policy but [37:28] i wouldn't necessarily um so like looking at the general statement of policy you have in a you might want to say harassment [37:35] and violence and violence based on protected class and the district you have that second census [37:41] as the district prohibits harassment um or violence on the basis of uh protected classification but you might [37:48] want to add and this the district prohibits sexual harassment um i think that could be an inclusion of [37:54] something that would be a small change but would uh make it more explicit if that's what [38:00] the board was looking for [38:08] so that that would be what would be looking for i think that our we don't have policy for well just [38:14] general harassment and um so i do think that we need to [38:20] make sure that our policy com just general harassment and also make sure that it covers [38:28] sexual harassment so both of those things i think that this policy really is written very tight [38:36] and it is nearly all the definition when i read it um you have to be [38:43] being harassed on the base of protected class and i just don't think [38:48] that we might have that be our only policy [38:55] on harassment so do we want to take that feedback and take it back to [39:00] committee and see if there's any yes let's do that let's take that back ellen we'll take your thoughts [39:06] uh into advisement and we'll bring this back for discussion at the policy committee lenny [39:14] well go ahead ellen then we'll talk then we'll hear from lenny okay just my last comment um and this always comes up in [39:21] our talking about protected classes and um for example the [39:29] these specific protective classes are different than the ones that we have in [39:36] policy found four and i know that throughout our policies there are lists of these [39:43] and always comes up when one of them is is meant when we're reviewing one policy but i [39:50] think we need some kind of consistency and that's their comment that i would [39:56] make is um that we become resolutive of what our [40:03] protectivenesses are and be consistent throughout all policy [40:12] statute yes they are okay lenny you had a comment [40:20] i would only note that when you take it back to the committee just uh think about whether this is a [40:26] distinction without a difference that's all and i haven't really thought through the [40:32] the question itself but when you go back to committee and you've got a chance to reflect upon it [40:38] think about that aspect because if it's a distinction without a difference then maybe we don't need to make a change [40:45] ellen to that point money you done yes to that point um ellen my [40:53] my observation question would be the way nikki presented this to us um [41:00] is that in section 3 b uh the striking of these specific forms [41:06] of classes the specific classes that are struck out [41:12] is because they are included in the definition of protected class and so that's why i was [41:20] sold on striking the language and in terms of sexual harassment [41:26] there's quite a bit of language in section f and g um [41:33] so justin could you give me a very high level perspective on what i might be missing from your [41:40] perspective on that [41:48] ellen i'm i'm sorry are you asking me owen yes yes oh owen can you hear me [41:56] yes can you hear us okay so what would i yeah yeah i can't i'm it's just i think [42:02] there's a delay or something and so it's it's a little awkward tonight but my um [42:08] where i'm coming from is that if you look at not the definition [42:16] but clear analysis the wording is [42:24] just lost man you hear me now yep [42:32] can you hear me yes okay well um great [42:39] um so i'm gonna try to pull up those um those piles i [42:45] don't have them in front of me but all i remember reading was that purpose [42:50] was um to prevent harassment on the basis of and then all [42:58] of these all of these classes well sometimes [43:03] it is not on the basis of any of those certainly sexual sexual harassment [43:09] usually is not on the basis of any of those and so [43:15] i'm just i want our district to make sure it has policies that protect employees and it's and if you [43:23] are being harassed it matters so it matters and if the [43:31] harassment doesn't you know it you might look at this policy looking for well where is it in the identity policy [43:38] says that says that this person shouldn't be doing this to me and it's nowhere so i'm i'm just i want [43:45] you to read it like that oh and that's where i'm coming from just ellen so one of the cautions that i [43:53] do have around just a general policy so i understand the perspectives you're sharing around the sexual harassment [43:59] component and how we can make it more explicit but we don't want to have a general policy [44:04] on harassment of course if there is some type of a complaint that an employee is having about another employee we take those seriously even [44:11] despite this type of policy and try to work through those but there's actually a lot of conversation in the uh [44:17] right around 2010 whether those types of general harassment policies should exist and in general um the coast [44:25] of the council school attorneys suggested not because what it does is it gives another cause of action [44:31] of course from the hr perspective we take all employees concerns seriously but you don't want to create [44:36] another cause of action against the school district by putting a general harassment into policy and so that that's just [44:43] a general statement but of course we'll take the conversation back to the policy committee to vet it out more or more thoroughly [44:54] thank you okay good thanks thank you alan thank you nikki uh two final comments regarding [45:01] policy discussion we have uh only two policies to review which is unusual we usually have at least half [45:08] a dozen and a big part of that is that nikki is our driving force in reviewing the [45:14] policy and she's been very busy with vaccinations and so many other things nikki thank you so much [45:21] and she was still able to get it together to help us with these two policies thank you we have as our commission to review the [45:28] 400 500 and 900 series this year as the policy committee and we are on pace to do that so [45:35] we are not falling behind by doing this so we'll pick up uh the temple again next month and then [45:41] the last item is we have one of our commissions is to form some equity groups and [45:49] um nikki is sort of passing some of that on to dr smazel and we'll be getting an update on that [45:57] next month that's the policy meeting so just to let the fellow board members know in the community that [46:02] we still have that uh on our agenda so with that i can turn it back over to [46:08] sure thank you thank you very much for the updates as well um we're going to move on to our action portion [46:14] of the meeting um do i have a motion to approve the 2020 2021 revised version of budget description [46:22] second so we've already seen this before so director tope i don't know that you need [46:27] to actually present it um to us again but i do want to make [46:32] sure that board makers have the opportunity to ask questions or their comments about this before we vote on it [46:48] um if there are no questions then we'll now vote by roll call to approve the 2020-2021 revised [46:54] budget [47:01] [Applause] ellen i can you repeat the motion [47:11] the motion is to approve the 2020 2021 revised budget description [47:19] hi michaelson hi hello hi [47:27] hi the 2020 2021 revised budget description is approved [47:33] um we're now going to move on to the 2021-2022 alignment do i have a motion to approve the 2021 2022 budget [47:41] alignment plan second so we'll do julie for the motion [47:46] and jd for the second thank you are there board comments or [47:52] questions about this this one for director tope [47:58] you've also seen this before no no no further questions we'll now put my role to [48:04] approve the 2021-2020 budget alignment plan allentown aye [48:10] fox hi green hi jones hi [48:17] michaelson hi [48:23] the 2021 2022 budget alignment plan is approved um do i have a motion to approve the [48:29] school programming for twenty one quick comment now that the vote's done i just wanted to thank john tope and ron [48:35] the entire finance farm because it was a ton of work constantly doing new budgets throughout this clovis cycle so thanks for all the hard work [48:42] good edition thank you thank you all very much thank you you're welcome [48:49] i've found a motion to approve the 2021-2022 school programming so moved is there a second [48:58] second there's the violin there it is there it is you want it on [49:08] okay so we have dr randy smallzel here um assistant superintendent and director [49:15] of teaching and learning uh director d state hubert here we did see this at a work session [49:21] session and talked about a work session um but i don't know if you have any additional comments to make [49:27] um randy uh good evening chair ellenberg uh board members superintendent schultz [49:32] community and staff uh no we have previously uh discussed these three recommendations i believe [49:39] that our february 16th work session the uh edition of french immersion [49:44] online provider accreditation at the high school and then continuing to pursue eva at the [49:51] elementary level we have asked additionally with our students staff and families a [49:58] couple of survey questions around support for online learning and so we'll do some analysis on those [50:04] questions and bring that data back to the board as well we also have been collecting some [50:09] information through the middle school registration process to explore what level of interest there [50:15] are with families around middle school courses being offered online so i think one of the things jody and i have talked about [50:22] is the idea of bringing back a proposal um assuming that there's a level of [50:28] interest with staff and students and families to bring back a proposal to look at [50:33] online providing at the elementary level and at the middle school level i don't know jody if you want to answer [50:39] that nope you you uh summarized it well [50:48] so so the board had previously said to administration to continue [50:54] forward so we are just formally bringing that to the board this evening for action so can you clarify for me the motion is [51:02] to approve um accreditation for high school and then also [51:08] elementary eba as a potential learning pathway but it doesn't mention middle school and i know you just addressed it but i'm [51:14] still a little confused if we're excluding middle school at this point or [51:20] is that intentionally left out or are we still wanting to explore that as a pathway [51:26] uh go ahead jody um we would like to explore it as a pathway [51:32] we just don't as have it as a formal recommendation tonight we were doing the follow-up on the recommendations we have [51:38] brought to the board at the work session questions i have a question observation [51:46] i've been ruminating over this since we brought it up a couple of weeks ago there's a number of pros for me on this [51:53] it's experimental this is the kind of adaptation that i like um we can have some lessons learned from [51:59] how we've dealt with distance learning and we have learned from community surveys [52:04] that there's a market for that we're being sensitive to our customers it reinforces our ties to the community [52:12] and it helps keep revenue coming into the district there's a flexibility to it one of my [52:19] questions is you know how committed up will be we be to this in [52:24] the long run it is a significant departure from [52:30] our delivery model of the last seven years since the district has been [52:35] in operation as it would be for many districts and apparently this is becoming very popular um and many other districts are applying [52:43] for this sort of accreditation so i'm not really so much asking a question but something i'd like to keep [52:50] in our focus for later discussions about how committed will we be to this and [52:56] what sort of checkpoints will we have along the way to see that we want to maintain this [53:01] how many resources is it demanding of us versus the benefit derived so those are just my [53:09] observations i think to your point i think it would make sense once we have [53:14] more information about not only the number of students that are interested but if we do like piling it i think we would have to [53:21] look at it at the end of the end of the year and see how did it go and i would be interested [53:27] and when you do come back randy um i guess how do you [53:33] what is considered success and how do we know that it's actually contributing to our district [53:39] um and it's related to that but one one comment that [53:45] i had was um i want to make sure when we're looking at like if this works if it's if this doesn't [53:52] work um i'm sold on the high school i think it makes sense to me to offer that [53:57] flexibility um i'm a little concerned from an elementary school perspective that's [54:02] so much of especially like k to two of elementary school is um social benchmarks [54:09] it's learning how to stand in line it's learning how to interact with students and this takes [54:15] that away so i can see the benefit from an academic perspective and [54:21] that it will actually be easier to keep consistency from an academic perspective but one thing i'd like us to keep our eye on [54:26] is um are those students missing out on social and emotional [54:32] benefits that we would actually want students in the classroom for that purpose um [54:39] and how do we make sure that this actually if we do pilot it for a year that um [54:47] that we are able to demonstrate or ensure that the students are achieving at the same levels from [54:54] both of those perspectives um and like i said my primary concern is really the early elementary school years [55:00] but i just wanted to bring that up i have a quick question julie um i agree [55:06] with that like i was thinking about the student experience right and the student success like we have the district success but then the student success i'm [55:12] like what that it's kind of on top of what erica was mentioning and what owen was saying i think that's a really really important [55:19] benchmark and how that fits in the second thing is i just want to clarify that [55:24] adding the online option just like at the high school has no impact on our in-person learning [55:31] model as it stands the traditional classroom in-person learning model does not change [55:36] at all adding this in right right okay i know that that's i just want to [55:43] have that make sure that we are all super clear on what we're voting for so ellen thank you [55:51] yeah i i wanted to um just second erica's comment [55:58] made earlier about looking into not just google but middle school as well during during the process [56:06] of of looking at perhaps enhancing our [56:13] programming and then secondarily i just wanted to [56:19] um i've been we've been getting a lot of uh mail from uh people who are concerned [56:26] about online school uh the assessments and i just wanted to just [56:33] throw that out um i i do think we should move ahead with this but i think that we should be very [56:42] um what i understand there is a bit of cons from parents [56:48] in the high school and middle school about students using additional [56:54] resources during their online assessments [57:00] and how that um how the school handles that as we roll this [57:07] program out will be very important so i'm just going to throw i'm just going to highlight that because we did [57:13] we have had people make that comment [Music] [57:19] jd or matt or lenny i thought we covered the main topics and [57:25] i was happy for those clarifications around changes or lack that are under the fall schedule for our main schools [57:32] okay um without further ado we will vote by roll call for the school programming [57:38] for 2021-2022 hi hi [57:45] green hi jones [Music] hi michaels hi [57:58] the 2021 2022 school programming programming i apologize is approved um [58:04] we uh drive a motion to approve policies 903 995 96 and 907. [58:13] so matt for the motion and lenny did you second it yeah okay all right hold on great [58:29] director tischer to talk about these policies we had five policies up for discussion [58:36] last month and we had i think really no discussion about them and so we are very robust [58:42] very very robust discussion sort of not really um and so we just open it up for any [58:48] discussion that you may have on these points on these policies [58:55] no changes back in the committee from the last version right yeah no nothing was drawn back no changes [59:00] whatsoever has the same comments okay so i guess we [59:05] can move it back to chair albert uh we will now vote by roll call to approve policies 437 [59:11] 903 905 906 and 907. ellenberg i [59:30] hi policies 437 903 905 906 and 907 [59:36] are approved uh we're now going to move to leadership and committee updates and for [59:43] my leadership update um we did have and in the school board conducted any formal [59:48] review of superintendent schultz on february 8th of 2021 in general the board determined [59:55] that dr schultz had met or was progressing towards media's goals dr schultz has exhibited success in [1:00:01] executing on plans that are in place working with lead team and overseeing district finances areas [1:00:06] of improvement that were noted included communications and guiding the board's work the board discussed various priorities [1:00:12] for the remainder of the year including continuation of the management of learning models during the pandemic [1:00:18] moving the literacy review forward continuing magnet school research overseeing implementation of the coen [1:00:24] testing agreement with the united health group continued pursuit of the technology levy [1:00:29] and development of a transition plan for the next superintendent so that is our summary of [1:00:36] our informal midterm review of superintendent schultz and i don't [1:00:42] have any other updates i don't know if they're committee updates or secret kind of updates i don't have any other updates [1:00:50] great um so without further ado i appreciate everyone's time tonight and [1:00:58] um just one final comment we're going to be just for the communities who may be interested we're going to [1:01:04] talk more about ucf yes um next on the 16th of march [1:01:10] march 16th so one week from now yep thank you owen um with [1:01:16] that i will adjourn our meetings