good evening the january 11 2022 regular school board meeting of isd623 roseville area schools is hereby called to order kirk johnson could you please call the roll tonight of course uh director anderson here director chill here jeremiah here treasurer guardians here kirk johnson's here thank you sir madam superintendent do we have any adjustments to our agenda this evening we do i would like to move the covet health and safety update from a non-action item to an action item 9b along with their proposal for distance learning thank you do we have any objections or if not i think we should we need to move to approve that so moved second thank you all in favor aye aye aye opposed just so adjusted thank you thank you uh with that do we have any announcements from fellow board members seeing that i know we do have an announcement from the district and uh well i welcome to the podium the parkview principal kristen smith olsen who i believe has an announcement and will be introducing someone to us this evening so kristin you have the floor thank you school board members superintendent i'm thinking i'm too tall for the superintendent um i'm here tonight to honor this fine person i want to give you a little bit of information first the national education association defines national board certification as a voluntary advanced teaching credential that goes beyond state licensure national board certification has national standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do it is the most respected professional certification available in education and provides numerous benefits to teachers students and schools it was designed to develop retain and recognize accomplished teachers and to generate ongoing improvement in schools nationwide teachers who receive national board certification have met high standards through study expert evaluation self-assessment and probably the most important the peer review it's my honor to introduce jessica telsky our newest national board certified teacher in roseville schools and i'm lucky enough to have jess as a first grade teacher at parkview just healthy i don't know if i do i say something oh well thank you very much for the kind words i have i have three thank yous that i'd like to say i thought about it and the first one would be to jenny eckman she is my first grade partner teacher and she's also nationally certified she pushed me to get the certification and she spent many hours reviewing working with me helping me through my paper so she has been a huge support my second thank you is to sarah buxton for being my support at home and pushing me to not give up um and to listen to all my complaining that happened over the last two years um and then finally i thought about it and um i'd like to thank the school board and dr lake i've watched several school board meetings online and i think when i talk to my first grade class the most important thing i tell them is kindness you can be the smartest you can be the most athletic the most musical but if you're not kind that doesn't matter and i've watched several obviously meetings and um i just want to thank you for continuing to push that kindness acceptance of all whether it's race gender sexuality whatever it is that you continue to push that to the forefront because for the students i really think that is the number one priority in the classroom so thank you very much well thank you jessica and i know that um you know particularly the last couple years the time and effort that it takes to do what's required to receive border certification is what's been tremendously just draining on you so uh thank you because i think it's a it's a model and a kind of a thing that we we know many teachers aspire to and i think for those who don't know less than ten percent of the teaching staff at the district has achieved diversification it really is an honor and really does reflect the dedication and commitment to the profession and to bettering yourself and to serving as a role model for those around you so congratulations and thank you for joining our our ranks of board certified staff here at the district [Applause] with that we will move to the oafs of office for our board members who have been re-elected and our newly elected board members so our administrative uh person michelle i think will be administering the oath so i don't know what order you'd want to call people to the podium to do this if that's okay it's okay with me sure yeah if someone wants to come up and take a photo from a better angle i mean feel free to do that come if you want your family to stand with you side to side mine did when i did mine yeah please so i'll ask you to raise your right hand i'll read it first but you have your text there and then you'll just go ahead so the i your name do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office for the best of my judgment and ability i manage clark do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office to the best of my judgment and ability that's it congratulations [Applause] so thank you clark please please come and take a seat at the table as our newest board member thank you you can raise your right hand [Music] and the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office to the best of my judgment and abilities i kitty goggins do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office to the best of my judgment and ability congratulations welcome back director guys all right you can raise your right hand do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office to the best of my judgment and ability i curtis johnson do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states of the constitution of the state of minnesota and will discharge faithfully the duties of my office to the best of my judgment and ability congratulations [Applause] director johnson welcome back welcome back uh next annually we do also um it's recommended that we do um reaffirm our school board governance policies so i would entertain a motion to do that to reform our governing policies so move second thank you all in favor say aye our governing policies have been reaffirmed for another year uh now move into the board organization and offices it is required uh by the minnesota statutes that at our first meeting in january we do organize and select the chair clerk and treasurer the while it's not mandated or termed officially the the tradition and history within the roseville district has been for those of us who have vet officers to serve for two years and then rotate to give others the opportunity to do that and serve in that capacity and so we'll go through that process tonight and select our new chair clerk and treasurer so with that i would like to request any nominations for chair kitty i would like to nominate director uh johnson for the chair position thank you any additional nominations for chair any additional nominations for chair in additional nominations for chair having asked three times and hearing none nominations are closed uh i would entertain a motion that given that he's the only candidate that we vote by acclimation to accept and approve curtis's role as chair for the next two years someone may be moving i moved by acclimation curtis's chair for the next two years second great all in favor say aye aye with that i will turn the gavel over to the new chair johnson who will proceed with the clerk and treasurer thank you thank you it has been an honor to serve as chair for the last couple of years and i'm only thankful that my fellow board members had confidence in me that didn't kick me out of the role before today so i really appreciate that very much so thank you all great job mike thank you mike yeah foreign quite a different view from over here so um just before i start oh my really thank you for your service in the last two years you've been exemplary and i can only hope to follow your footsteps and then do half as well well you're quite welcome and as we know with kitty and others there's been a great history even before myself of wonderful chairs who absolutely really you know helped us organize and get going and really run our meetings well so thank you very much sir thank you i look forward to serving with you okay so we've got two more offices so looks like um we need a quirk so i will accept nominations for clerk um chair uh i nominate director anderson to the position of clerk is there a second uh you don't need the second as a point of order mr chair but what we do is you ask three times if there are additional nominations thank you are there any additional nominations for clerk are there any additional nominations for clerk any additional nominations for clerk with that i will close nominations for clerk and since you are the only one then i would uh accept a motion i accept i i move that um director anderson become our clerk uh and since it's uncontested that we just vote by approval great okay second if even necessary there you go okay all right director i'm sorry um all those in favor say aye aye aye all right congratulations clark anderson which leaves us a treasure response so i will accept nominations for treasurer chair johnson i would like to nominate director rose chu for the office of treasurer okay are there any other nominations for treasurer any other nominations for treasurer any other nominations for treasurer i am now closing nominations for treasurer and would entertain a motion i'll move that we approve rose as our treasurer again by acclimation as unanimous vote which we would anyway ah all those in favor thank you okay um newspaper so that takes us to the designation um of our official newspaper okay so yep so we just moved the pioneer press as our official newspaper and that is the same as in the past okay so a vote again so i would entertain a motion i move that the same pioneer press as our official newspaper for the calendar year 2020 to 23. okay i'll second that thank you all those in favor say hi all right those opposing name okay um and that takes us to uh community input uh well yeah yes right great yes right computer input before consent agenda right yes okay if you'll bear with me while my timer pops up on the screen our first speaker will be mike gregory and he is a parent and community member school board members and superintendent i want to thank you out of my heart for being here tonight my name is mike gregory my family and i first moved to roseville in 1991. he chose roseville because he wanted our children to go to brim hall elementary school we found grimaldi one of the most diverse schools in minnesota it was like a little united nations we were not disappointed it was a great experience for ourselves and our children it's my pleasure to be involved at the school when we first moved here i spoke to the principal and i asked how i could help he told me i could head up the parent involvement committee i thought that meant to involve and recruit more people for the pta i asked him what that meant he told me i was a leader and i could determine the direction i developed a poll statistically valid sampling program and invited parents to attend with free pizza and day care and we had a focus group what i learned among other things that single parents really needed and wanted it was a night out the following year we set up a friday night once a month with teachers pta and three hours of watching children from 4 pm to 7 pm on friday night we had popcorn hot dogs orange drink donated mcdonald's vegetables fruit open gym a game room a dance room a reading room and other activities we charged one dollar if you were late in picking up your children it was a twenty five dollar fine we never had a late parent in any of those nine months following the year we conducted the same poll and we found out that our parents were extremely pleased with having had that initiative what this taught me is a white middle-class male with a set of values is that i needed to listen i needed to provide what others needed not what i wanted to provide this also taught me that rather than recruiting for the pta the pta simply needed to encourage all parents to read to their children every day generally single parents really did not have the time to be involved with the pta for the most part reading to their children or what their children or being with their children was far more important than being with the pta why i'm sharing this with you here today is to offer perspective and to thank you i want to thank the superintendent principals the teachers the staff and everyone associated with this district for the work you do and for listening i was deeply saddened at the death of one year principles recently this hit me very hard i know his twin brother very well i'm a twin and it was emotionally very hard i recently brought to my attention an article about the principal at brim hall school i could hardly believe what i was reading the article was entitled threats burnout pushed a minnesota teacher of the year to quit he's still the principal of brimhall he quit another broader position from a commentary from minnesota public radio i heard i received threats that i should kill myself threats that i will be hung through a military tribunal i've been told that they're monitoring me on social media and things like that and it ebbs and flows there's been several stories written about me through the various and i hesitate to even call them media outlets across the country and when one of those gets posted and a story rehashed and then i noticed the significant upticks on those kinds of hate-filled emails sir i'm sorry three minutes am i done okay i'm sorry i didn't bottom line was i came here to thank all of you and the teachers and everybody at brim hall and when i called and spoke with them uh they put out an email the person i spoke to at brimhall school broke down and cried made me cry and i just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart keep up the good work protect all of our children as you're doing thank you our next speaker is a parent hi i came here today to ask you to keep schools open and to change the quarantine policy little did i know until i arrived that tonight you would be voting on moving our kids to distance learning so my speech is also about that um recently i was told that my kid who's in middle school would have to quarantine for 10 days after getting covered and that any siblings if there were any siblings in the house they'd have to quarantine for 14 days so a kid without covid without any symptoms even with the negative tests would have to quarantine and miss high school for 14 days these are kids who are um who are trying to get into college these are kids of color you know you guys say so much every single meeting equity we'll talk about it again today i'm sure it's on the agenda equity kids of color we love them we care about them so much but you're failing them the reading rates for white kids in roseville schools is 75 compared to for white kids 75 committed 36 percent for black kids math it's 68 percent compared to 27 percent yet you're gonna try to shut down the school and go to distance learning who is going to be hurt the most these kids are going to be hurt the most the ones that you say you care about the most and it's just atrocious all the white schools up in the rural areas and suburbs keep their schools open minneapolis st paul roseville closes it we have the biggest population of kids of color and i don't know how you guys can keep spout and how much you care when when practical things like keeping school open the only thing you're you're here to do can't stay oh it can't be done i don't like the fact that the covid policy is different for kids who are vaccinated and unvaccinated we all know that people who were vaccinated get covered one of the people arguing at the supreme court one of the attorneys arguing for mandates was vaccinated had her booster was at home because he had copen you know that happens we all know that's reality we all know everyone who's vaccinated gets cold people shouldn't be treated differently my mother-in-law and my my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law died of covet in september within a week of each other they were both vaccinated don't tell me they don't get sick and die they should not be treated differently even the cdc has acknowledged that a 10-day quarantine is too long um and they talk about a lot about how kids should be educated they acknowledge science that the omicron virus is not that bad it's almost 100 of the cases but in in summary i'd like to quote a few of the people that a lot of you know and trust who are completely against distance learning the biden administration said reducing quarantines after covet exposure would help prevent absenteeism and learning loss the cdc director said it is clear the best place for children is in school and learning and it can be done safely the minneapolis minneapolis mayor jacob fry has said we need to make sure kids are in school so that they can learn he's concerned about all the carjacking there was a carjacking at my gym a few weeks ago experienced fitness 13 year olds terrified and you know to go work out this is what happens we wonder why things are the way they are this is what happens when we don't have schools open so i'm here to ask you to not cancel school i'm sure i don't and ask you not to cancel school to have a reasonable quarantine quality quarantine policy and i'm sad that i have to sit here begging for schools to stay open when your only job is to teach our kids thank you our next speaker is kathleen bart and she's a community member my sister my mother they're dead too okay um last month i asked the school board how are you protecting girls in their bathrooms and locker rooms when an unjust law states that boys are allowed to use the girls bathrooms if they happen to feel gender fluid that day the response i received was an affirmation of the law that i already pointed out was unjust the law is unjust because it takes away the rights of girls to privacy in their bathrooms our country's had many unjust laws anyone remember slavery fortunately the republican party was formed to abolish it segregation women's suffrage our country is not immune to unjust laws this is another unjust law because it discriminates against girls again i ask what are you doing to protect girls in their bathrooms and locker rooms are you letting parents and girls know that boys may be using these private spaces do you take a roll call each day having students declare if they are transgender gender fluid non-binary etc each day and make sure that girls are aware of who they are sharing their bathrooms with on any given day as a mother of six girls and a tax paying resident of the roosevelt school district i and every other taxpaying resident deserves a real answer to the question of how you are protecting girls in their bathrooms and locker rooms when a girl is attacked and or raped in her bathroom or locker room every parent feels that pain and every tax paying resident of the roseville school district ends up footing the bill for the lawsuit aimed at the reckless manner in which this law was applied so again i ask what are you doing to protect girls in their bathrooms and locker rooms and i would appreciate a real answer this time thank you our next speaker is hello neighbors so i looked at the equity training curriculum being taught to the staff of roseville area schools and it's very similar to the crt narrative that whiteness and whites are oppressors as if skin color determined character or the heart of an individual this very sad racist theory says quote speak your truth parentheses acknowledging that whiteness is part of the truth parentheses like the spanish inquisition they're looking for people to confess whiteness as if it's a conspiratorial supremacy or oppressive movement that's ongoing in america today we we all thank the lord this is not the case martin luther king jr said graciously we must not lead a this must not lead us to a distrust of all white people for many of our white brothers as evidenced by their presence here today have come to realize their destiny is tied up in our destiny true the equity training at ross is the sort of narrative of a marxist narrative working to bring a revolution to overthrow a free nation which is constitutionally run further down in your training equity training manual says equity quo equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place unquote and that's true as individuals we're all we're all at a different place we're all unique but you need to also add that equity also means we do all start from the same place in america as far as like martin luther king again said i have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal each staff person and student has equal worth and value based on they were created in god's image they were created not evolved by happenstance but they're a magnificent plan of god they're greatly loved by the one who created them that we are not a victim of chance evolution or oppressive social structure but at birth even in the mother's womb we have basic human value of a purpose a destiny a plan for us by god for their lives not a chance or accident sorry it's kind of hard to breathe through this i hope you could hear me good evening uh angela byrne harambe parent uh i'm speaking on behalf of a coalition of folks that are here tonight um with me andre sorry angela before before you start um you said you were speaking on behalf of a delegation if any of those people are here could you have them raise their hands yep and then my husband and child are here but they're in the back speaking to director smith for a moment very good thank you thank you yeah in in expediency instead of having all four of us speak individually and using 12 minutes we'll use a delegation time 10 minutes thank you um so i'm speaking here tonight with me i have anita mcdonald who's a longtime roseville resident and mother of three children who are all brim hall alum and are graduating uh have graduated or are at raz um i also have karen henry uh with me who was a mother of two children at roz as i said before my husband patrick and my daughter hen is here who is trans and she does exist her her existence is valid her bathroom use is valid and i will be here defending that every time and then i did have some folks that plan on coming tonight but had last minute conflicts or they had positive coveted cases come up so kathy vermont sends her support she's a co-founder of dugan roseville long-time russell resident and she's been here many times in support of dei initiatives by the district uh lynn huberty who is the co-founder of the roosevelt activist facebook facebook group with nearly 500 members she's a member of uh or a mom of four all of which are either in or will be in roseville schools and then also you've received emails from carensa fisher and carolyn halverson who are both mothers of children in the district as well as dana thompson who is a community member and a former city council candidate and all of them are here support are sending their support at the beginning of this year for continued efforts on dei work throughout the district in the individual buildings to make sure that we continue to close those racial gaps that were spoken about in a previous public comment so now me speaking as an individual very quickly the the in relating to support of dei work the debate about whether or not to close our schools i think is lacking nuance in that our schools have become community hubs children receive a safe space of say physical space they receive food they receive education they even receive health care here that is unavailable out in the community to many of them i think if we can actually have the debate of whether or not to leave schools open as them being the safest spaces for them to be while we are in the midst of a global pandemic with another enormous surge of another variant that we're still learning about is that we need to talk about how we as a society have declined to prioritize equity in housing in income and jobs in education and in health care any aspect you name it we can find racial disparities in it so our schools are picking up all of that slack to make sure that children are cared for here because that is the one place that we can actually count on that and we're still working every day to make sure we improve it so that way the children are not discriminated here in the same way they're discriminated against out in society declaring someone's heart based on their skin color has been codified into every aspect of our society and our law in that it has been to advantage people of my skin color who are white and to disadvantage and to declare people that are not white as hoodlums thugs you name it all the derogatory terms that i don't even want to say here because they are so loaded so um i'm interested to see the conversation you have tonight about keeping our schools closed but the folks that are here with me tonight are starting out this year recommitting to supporting your work in continuing dei work in this district and making sure that we continue to close those gaps thank you so much thank you okay so that was the last one okay um and we're going to move to our consent agenda and okay um and it's i'm doing everything not to call you chairperson director chair jess we accept the consent agenda that we approve the consent agenda second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed okay um and director bungie says he's going to do gifts that's right so this is our tradition in two years thank you that's right absolutely we do pull out our our gifts from the center study sessions that's right that's right i know i know so once again we have been truly honored and gratified by gifts to the school from various members of our community and as is our practice we do list those at our meetings so first off we have a gift of school supplies games toys and winter clothing for students in need from sue wozniak so thank you sue roseville lutheran church has also donated wither clothing and a gift of funds in in the form of griff gif sorry grocery gift cards also for students in need um and for from mighty cause on behalf of give minnesota donor a gift of funds again for school-wide needs and all those are geared towards central park elementary school those three lorentz etc inc also donated a gift of a monetary gift to be used at the principal's discretion at edgerton elementary school we had an additional monetary gift to be used at the principal's discretion for falcon heights elementary school from the blackbaud your cause on behalf of sean young also from blackbaud your cause on behalf of chad erickson a gift of monetary funds uh to be used at the principal's discretion at little canada elementary school we also had a gift of funds for the wrestling program from doug sneltzer and john jay fridlington for roseville area high school also for roseville area high school we had a gift of monetary funds from little canada canadian days for the basketball shooting machine for the boys and girls basketball program we also had a gift of funds for use of the nordic ski team at roseville area high school by podium sports marketing inc out in anoka that's nice of them we also had a gift of funds to support the food shelf at roseville area high school from the doc thomas d rower and carol rauer rev trust also for rosewood area high school a gift of funds for coaching staff gear and equipment from the roseville boys back court club a gift of funds for the food shelf at roz from greg and nicole garage a gift of funds to be used towards coaching staff at the ra's or at the roosevelt high school from the roz girls hockey booster club another gift of monetary funding for food shelf use at ra's by jennifer and troy shawley another gift of funds for the food shelf at roz by gina and carl hochsprung another gift of monetary funds for use in the wrestling program and advertisement insert by the falcon heights lauderdale alliance club for roz another gift for us from mark lammers of four trombones and a trumpet for use in the elementary instrumental music program and finally a gift of funds to be used for angel fund lunch accounts by premier bank also geared towards roseville area schools in general uh to help support kids who who make use of the angel fund for their for their lunch lunch fees so again tremendous gratitude for all of this and all that we're given whether it's gifts of goods or or funding uh again just reflects the tremendous support that we're blessed with here in the district so thank you mr chair we are really fortunate to to have such a given community um okay it looks like our next thing on lunch is going to be um update um sherry good thompson good evening so i wanted to just provide you um with an audit update this would have originally was scheduled to be an action item this evening uh the final presentation of the audit as has been further delayed i want to touch on that just a little bit first and foremost obviously as the director of business operations for this for the district i take full responsibility for that we have encountered a couple of challenges proven 19 continues to impact the duties even of the financial staff within the district um also with the cares funds the federal funds that we've received those just really started flowing to us last spring there's increased financial reporting i think i've shared that a little bit and then even the way that they test the use of those funds so that's been new to our audit firm and to us and some of this we're figuring out as we go along and also um we work with clifton larson allen who we've worked with since the early 2000s uh dennis hugovine um who is actually wonderful uh he just retired as of december 31st so we're going through some changes there um and in in addition um uh our man the manager that uh worked our audit had had moved on so there's been some turnover and staff and just overall even turnover with staff accountant with some new staff accountants and that's really something that um i should have worked better to manage with the in the communication back and forth because we're doing all of this electronically um and a lot of it you know via zoom and sending documents back and forth so um um and then also this was our final phase of our construction and ltfm funds and whatnot so obviously um uh it has been delayed longer than we had anticipated the final report was actually due to mde on december 31st i've shared that information with them this does not impact our financial condition there again it's just something that we take very seriously uh as far as reporting in a timely manner and there's no financial penalty so we are taking steps for better management of the timeline um and clifton larson allen will be out and show the results of the audit on january 25th so i'll stand for any questions can i say something yeah first of all thank you for the update i think um it no it is our responsibility a school board to ensure financial stability and all that so this is important absolutely and also understandably i mean i think about all that is going on um that and the staff turnover which is happening all over uh thank you for trying to manage it and thank you for the all that you're doing in order to make sure that the funding that we are getting and all the extra reporting is happening so so it's a balance act i know there's a lot going on i just want to acknowledge that this is no this is extraordinary times and so um i know you're doing your best and we'll just keep right keep pushing and glad to hear that it's going to come on january 25th yeah thank you thank you i think it's important to add because you already mentioned mentioned missing the deadline but there is no penalty there is no penalty do you realize there's no penalty and they in the process they actually granted us an extension if i'm correct i'm not mistaken correct correct okay but it's not something that we like to do but it happens anybody else okay thank you thank you thank you okay um and that takes us to the appointment of equity alliance thank you okay that takes us to an appointment of equity alliance minnesota board representative sure so i i can actually leave this off then i guess because i've been our representative to a minnesota equity alliance the last several years and even before that i think i succeeded kitty in that role i am currently chair of that board which includes representatives from the five districts that are part of equity alliance minnesota and in fact just to let you know i'm also going to be the equity alliance minnesota board liaison on the equity alliance minnesota foundation that was recently formed to be a legal charitable foundation so that it will expand their ability to apply for grants from organizations that only give to organizations that are formerly charities so we just had our first meeting uh a week or so ago so it's kind of getting off the ground right now there's a whole slew of funding sources so 15 or 20 that this year they're going to get going on to try and get grants and apply so i've enjoyed the work i i am interested in continuing in that role so uh would would welcome the chance to get to keep keep on as our rep to equity alliance minnesota kitty can i nominate the reappointment of mike or director bobashevsky to represent us on the equity alliance minnesota board just for the community's sake that is a board that we have every single district who is a part of it has a representative on their board is there a second second okay i was in favor say aye aye aye bill's close name okay thank you thank you thank you keep doing my best there thank you okay and so now we're going to have the uh covet health and safety update yes thank you chair i'd invite my colleagues to join me at the table wonderful thank you and this certainly is something we were not looking to bring to the board at this time as superintendent there's nothing i take more seriously than the safety of our students and staff in roseville schools absolutely pains me to make the following recommendation this evening i'm recommending the school board approve an emergency proposal to shift all grades to distance learning for two weeks beginning next week and cancel school this friday to allow teachers time to prepare for this transition and ensure that elementary students have devices for distance learning this is not a decision any of us wanted to make we have taken great care to keep our schools open for in-person learning because we do know that it is best for students academically and their social emotional well-being we have seen other metro area school districts close for the same reason with almost no notice to families we wanted to provide as much notice as possible of this difficult decision recognizing the hardship it places on our families at this time we'd like to provide additional data and rationale that will better paint the picture of our emergency staffing shortage and i'll turn it over to director of communications josh collins thank you superintendent like just to provide you with some of the latest figures uh we currently have um the seven day case rate per 100 000 residents in ramsey county is 1041. that is uh equivalent to in the previous year when we were when we had thresholds that the state would say that were points decision points where we'd be strongly encouraged to shift you feel recalled so that is equivalent to 167.7 in the 14-day rate per 10 000 residents that is three times the level that the state previously would have required schools to close and shift to distance learning for all grades so the case rate is extremely high in ramsey county we have we continue to track rates and vaccination rates and also new covent cases for our students and staff during the week of december 25th through december 31st we had 119 students and actually that is that number is low because we continue to have shortages even at our health offices which my colleague deb leaking will speak to but that number will be updated and we do expect it to increase so that was 119 new cases and students for a total of 552 cases this school year and for staff uh 19 cases again that is a low number we just to update you on the percentage of staff and students who are vaccinated presently 85 percent of our staff are vaccinated and the remainder would be providing us with uh proof of weekly uh i'm sorry weekly negative tests because as you as you know you approved a requirement for district staff to be vaccinated for our students we are seeing that number increase overall the percentage of our students who are vaccinated is 57 percent if you look at it by elementary versus secondary though you see why that number is lower 73 percent of our secondary students are vaccinated in 43 percent of elementary we do hope to see that number continue to go up as more families are able to get their students with a second vaccine and eventually boosters those are the data points that i wanted to share and i think with that i'll turn it over to my colleague den and we have a slight change in plan at this time i'd like for michelle if you'd please play the video uh our colleague melissa sonic is an assistant superintendent in roseville area schools and she is home with covet in her family so i asked that she described the staffing shortage in our schools to the boarding community at this time and then we'll turn it over to deb legion followed by a discussion at the board table oh problems so and if we can't get the video up we can read the script that melissa created for us as well there are academic emotional and social benefits to students being in school with routine and structure and as you have heard there is a high number of positive coping cases among students and staff that is currently creating a staffing shortage i apologize for not being in person tonight but unfortunately we have covered in our home my daughter has coveted and with my symptoms we thought it best that i share a video presentation instead of being in person i want to begin by sharing some data around our absence rate the average staff absence rate per week would you like to hear it versus the low volume is it the same it's the same texture it is the same texture yeah so the community can hear it too i'm wondering if michelle if you have that pulled up if d leonard jake would be willing to read that again this is in the voice of the person responsible for supervising all the schools working closely with principals in our schools thank you absolutely so it says good evening first it's important to note we all want kids in school there are academic emotional and social benefits to students being in school with routine and structure and as you have heard there's a high number of positive covert cases among students and staff that is creating a staffing shortage i apologize for not being in person tonight but unfortunately we have covet in our home my daughter has covet and with my symptoms we thought it best i share video presentation instead of being in person i want to begin by sharing some data around our absence rate the average staff absence per week this fall was 185.7 district wide our typical fuel rates prior to covet or 85 percent the fill rate for substitute teachers and paraprofessionals this fall has been roughly 48 the first week in january there were 302 absences with a 27 and a half percent fill rate we are currently facing significant staffing shortages what is especially complex is we have staff absences that are typical code flu life events sick family members personal leave etc but in addition to that we have absences due to covet when a staff member is out with covet it's not like they are out one to two days they are out several days we also have multiple staff members out with covet principals teachers specialists paraprofessionals health assistants nurses bus drivers the list goes on we also have staff who are out because their children have covert or their daycare is closed due to coping we also have more and more families opting to keep their students home due to the high number of positive copic cases in our schools there have been reports from individual schools on any given day they have 15 plus staff members out and unfilled meaning no subs we currently have two schools with 35 percent or more staff out for example one school has a following staff out today nine teachers out today six of the teachers are confirmed covet positive of the nine who are out today six are classroom teachers and there are 17 classroom teachers total at this particular school plus one specialist one el teacher and one behavior coach the house is the health assistant is out as well um and just as a side note roughly half of our health assistants are out this school has two total subs with teachers on call and a district admin is subbing in grade three until noon all the rest of the classes are covered internally with staff pulled from their regular duties this could include intervention staff el teachers lead teachers paris with teaching licenses the building principal etc at this same school another teacher will be out starting tomorrow due to their child testing positive this school is hurting when a school is hurting it's like being a mom and watching your child hurt it breaks you and you do everything in your power to help here are some of the things we have done to problem solve the staffs excuse me the sub shortage and staffing issues we have hired four floating subs and we hope to continue until we have at least one in each elementary school the postings are up and if you know any candidates please encourage them to apply we assign four to six pre-assigned subs using teachers on call monday through friday late this fall this week we shifted to that to one pre-assigned sub for each school this is in addition to the internal floating subs we have hired we cancel professional development or meetings during the school day they require subs this includes both district and building pd we canceled instructional leaders meetings in november and december so principals could be in their buildings to support with the sub shortage we create a sub rotation schedule for k-6 classroom teachers using ptosis which are teachers on special assignment and district administrators this is a tiered system that includes the building rotation and district ptosis poses so principles on special assignment and every district administrator with a teaching license including our assistant superintendent she says including myself there have been several days covered internally using this approach it's important to note when admin like myself sub our other duties and responsibilities do not go away for example when i sub i typically work in the evening and well past midnight and many staff on this rotation are out related to covet dr lake and myself attended a meeting on friday morning with legislatures and area superintendents where there was advocacy for funding and support to address ongoing staff shortages that have been compounded by covet we will continue to do all we can to address the sub and staffing shortage and we also have to face the reality that this is not sustainable while we continue to work to solve the staffing shortage we have reached a point where we may need to consider shifting temporarily to distance learning this is why this evening we are proposing the following we propose that due to the staffing shortage crisis that we are in we shifted distance learning temporarily distance landing will begin tuesday january 18th as there is no school on monday january 17th and it would run through friday january 28th friday january 14th would shift to a non-school day for students and it would be a transition day for staff this would give staff a day to prepare for a transition into distance learning and for us to ensure elementary students have devices in-person learning will resume again on monday january 31st we will provide learning support and supervision of emergency workers and for families whom it would create an extreme hardship in closing i want to stress that this would be a temporary shift to distance learning due to our extreme staffing shortage at this time we'll open it up for questions or possibly for dev and she says i'll be watching the board meeting as you discuss and i'd be happy to talk more if anyone has questions for me thank you director smith for stepping in and both director vondalini and director smith are in place for melissa but speaking on their own right they both have been subbing and working in district leadership roles and they'll be able to participate in the q a as well and if everyone i could ask for your patience if dev could go ahead and give her narrative as covet coordinator and lead nurse in the district and then we'll open it up for questions okay as you recall before break we had the three days added to our break which allowed us a 16 day break from um prior to january 3rd and we had sent a message out also encouraging people to do testing during that time because people would we knew people would be gathering with families and the community did exactly what we asked and we're thrilled about that that people did go and do testing prior to break we were you know we have home test kits that we've been getting out to families as much as we can and whether um whether families took their students or teachers went to community clinics people did test we anticipated that we would see a lot of cases we did not quite anticipate the avalanche that we would experience and january 3rd was definitely a show of what exactly community spread is all about these were not students who are giving covet to each other you know between staff and students this was definitely a community event that um community transmission that definitely spilled into the school so from the start of january 3rd everyone in the health offices their emails were filled the phone lines were filled and you know we worked as quickly as we could to get back to families to um you know those families who reported to us about their positive cases to let them know what their days would be for return to school and it has actually taken us days and to to keep up with it and um knowing that we would anticipate uh large numbers on january 3rd i started um you know contacting families who had already reached out ahead of time um starting about december 28th so i think before the start of school had already gone through about 30 cases well the high school in reflection of what last week was they they are they were complete i mean every health office has been overwhelmed but just as an example last week the number of pros uh positive cases that uh came in to the health office that they have um contacted families to determine what their dates would be because of these positive cases was 170. and then we thought well what would the second week look like and on monday yesterday they had 50 cases the school that i'm most closely tied with is parkview and uh up from january third to about now we're somewhere between 60 to 75 cases now when we have positive cases in school one of the requirements is that we do need to report these through redcap to the minnesota health department and we will do that we are behind i have long lists because every phone call to family is you have to determine when the symptoms started when the positive test was it's a process to get all the accurate information and by the same token for the district dashboard the way the data gets to josh so he's able to um crunch numbers and have it posted it is a survey that we complete and then that goes in and we're extremely behind on that so those numbers um don't even reflect the volume that we are seeing in every single school um additionally on the minnesota department health website um in the last podcast from dr michael osterholm he had even mentioned that the health department is overwhelmed with data and you know they can't even keep up with the data i would also add that the the home test that we have been able to provide to staff and families the binex now and the narrative tests those aren't even reflected in the health department numbers those are numbers that um they for whatever reason they are they don't post on the on the website the health department it's lab confirmed these are home tests and that is something that may change in time so any numbers you see is truly a small reflection so how does that feel on the front lines for our nurses and our health assistants they are all working enormous additional hours and also while we are short staffed we have been short staffed since we've been you know short nursing staff since the beginning of the year but during this period of time we have had upwards of eight people who have been out at any given time and really every evening the nurses text each other to figure out who's going to be here tomorrow who's out who's in who has covet who has symptoms and we have to essentially close health offices because there was no one who could cover the office and just said you know if you need someone for an emergency you'd have to call or and then have a secretarial staff pick up i've worked in three different uh well actually four five different schools within the last several days just simply because the nurse and the health assistant was out in one building and then also in another building so that we could have someone there to provide house support for the school it's exhausting and we are behind and because every every day your email is filled with more positive tests the upside the good side of this is that people are testing and this is what we wanted we wanted to keep the people who have positive cases out of the school but um this surge is truly extraordinary and it's unlike anything we have ever experienced during the whole period of time we have always gone through the process to process positive cases meet with you know get the information from the family but um cannot keep up so that is that's kind of how it looks um in the health offices right now thank you deb i think you summed it up while people should be testing and all the positive cases are also keeping our staff home that's the proposal to shift to distance learning i need to announce to michelle and for me that we were notified that the streaming service was stopped to do a network issue at raw so i apologize as i imagine the community is very interested in this discussion is that still the case please um so we followed up on that um so there is a network issue um they are addressing but the remedy to this will be as soon as this meeting is over it will the entire meeting recording will be posted to youtube thank you sherry thank you and i think with that we're all open to stand for questions from the board johnson thank you and and team thank you very much for again a very fair report so so then actually my understanding is that this is a very different there's a very different basis for this request than we've seen at all the last two years this is not really being recommended or thought of as a mitigation strategy against infection it is really totally because of the staff shortage and it's not that we don't have staff on staff it's that they're sick or their families are sick or they're positive or their family is positive or in some way shape or form they're off or recuperating or have to be quarantined and and because they're not super super people and so they were not immune to being infected just as none of us are immune from being infected so if it weren't for the staff shortage we wouldn't even be thinking about this right it's really a staff issue absolutely a hundred percent and our staffs children are being corrected and that's so just a quick follow-up to that so the proposal is for two weeks so given that what has to happen to get through the crisis is enough of the staff have to get through the recovery period the quarantine period whatever and be able to come back it once your confidence level that the two weeks is sufficient and i'm not lobbying to make it longer but i just want to know what the confidence level is because the worst situation is if we get you know 12 days from now and we suddenly realize oh my gosh two weeks wasn't enough is it is are you confident that it's predictable to the point that we that you believe what's your level of confidence in two weeks is sufficient thanks for the question i think i'll let deb respond to the peak in the search and what you know from that standpoint okay so two things thinking to a year ago when we moved to remote in november very different situation because that was pre-vaccine it was more about in-school transmission rising cases and concern about you know preventing hospitalizations and serious illness that's not the situation here we have there are things in place vaccines are available for those who want them this really comes down to the ability to maintain staffing and as far as what could be different in two weeks the cdc did make a media statement over break about a recommendation of reduction of isolation from 10 to 5 days they didn't provide any guidance on it until quite some time later and then the health department wanted to review the cdc guidance to before they so they could come up with some clear parameters for instance if you have symptoms then you test positive where do you count the five if you're totally asymptomatic how do you count the five if you test positive and then three days later you develop symptoms where do you count the five we we need the details and there will be an mdh webinar tomorrow at three o'clock where they're going to go through that in great detail and then additionally on monday we had a meeting with the regional support team where the um the state epidemiologist and a couple of other health department representatives even explained that they had some difficulty with interpretation of exactly of where we you know how to put this into place so my hope would be within two weeks we're going to have a whole lot of people who will be in that 90-day period post-code infection that you have a level of protection we will also have people who are vaccinated and boosted well this and then the omnicron from uh johns hopkins had a a couple of really good um news posts on january 7th explaining you know looking at um you know other countries and and they you know models and what it would look like and the anticipation is a sharp spike up with an abrupt drop so it seems that two weeks is an opportunity for everybody to take a breath to to let people complete their isolation to review the what mdh is going to present to us tomorrow at three o'clock and see if this is something we would like to consider for our district it will definitely there are people where it may make complete sense to have a five-day isolation we can get students back more quickly and then certainly will have a positive impact on staffing in the middle of crisis we can't get this all done to be able to implement it in the way it should be so um three o'clock tomorrow mdh will be going through what their interpretation is of the cdc guidance that was initially made as a media statement over the winter break okay thank you yeah any other questions right i have another one unless someone else has mannequins go ahead and just come back to me later yeah can you talk a little bit about the groups like that we'll have like the child care or any other is there any vulnerable groups that we worry about if we went to distance learning that um how how we would handle those groups yeah so just um i'm clear on what you're what you're asking so i think you're referring to like the emergency workers yes emergency workers and then like if we have special ed students or other students that how we would take care of those students are what we did the last time i know we're after three days i'm just trying to understand a little bit more about how we would handle those two yeah yeah i could speak yeah yeah yeah yeah so so we had some some discussions around that um you know um much of what we're doing is is based off of kind of what we did previously when we had this right um like who who would we provide child care for who we provide servicing for and so we um we'll continue to provide those child care services for our emergency workers but we're also adding the extra adage that if it's um providing any extreme hardship for families that we want to try to work with those families as well so it could be a number of different groups that you're talking about as far as who would service we you know special ladies is another kind of situation as well where we would look at those students on a case-by-case basis as far as servicing those particular students um and i might be going too deep with this but um you know with specialist students it's all based on what it says in their and then their ieps and so we'll need to look at those ieps and make decisions off of that but yeah i think you might have a better answer for that special education services so in our previous three days we did just asynchronous it's going to be the expectation that they get as much synchronous learning as possible through distance learning and like i said as much as possible you have students that are that just can't um do that and so then the case it'll be expected that case manager reaches in addition it would be providing some support which we haven't done before at the secondary level to be able to open up our schools in terms of creating area learning space for those students and that would be a new addition i don't want to speak to the specifics because that's a new program and needs to be developed of course the next three days but we are hoping to open our schools certainly to those who need assistance with distance learning or even just a safe warm place to access wi-fi so trying to think of all of our services this proposal also will include nutrition services transportation um again just global care for our kids as much as we can and i didn't mean to cut you after no no no you you i i would love to say that's what i was going to say next right you did a great job and that was my follow-up was that yeah if it's a student who isn't necessarily in a formal iep but we've heard from parents that their kids just it's not only they don't thrive they they're at risk they're an emotional and mental health risk at home your work you'll work out the details for a way for those kids to still come to some physical location and provide them an opportunity to get out and not just be isolated in their house that's correct clarification did i correctly hear that we're going to be able to offer transportation to those we're going to be able to offer transportation routes to all of our elementary students for child care not our secondary students okay but we'd have space available so the secondary students could come correct correct details will be forthcoming i anticipate no later than friday for families for the secondary plan did i understand correctly that that that this two-week period it would be synchronous or asynchronous do we have enough staff yeah to help out even with yes synchronous learning yes okay yes we are looking to do synchronism and that's a good question and a good point to make for our community so that's the reason for canceling school on friday to allow teachers time to prepare all of their synchronous lessons and students are really missing the eight days of in person because of the way the calendar works monday is martin luther king holiday the 17th and then the monday after is a professional development day in roseville school so it is uh an awful long and important eight days but versus ten days in that situation so the biggest move is from asynchronous back to the synchronous learning for students so to ensure that smooth transition because i i think that's a key difference too it is when you're not that asynchronous learning we we know my own child would do it and it you know it'd be maybe like a pre-recorder or video they would watch but any feelings of being a student feeling maybe isolated or checking out or just not feeling a part of a classroom with that asynchronous that can be really tough i if we can get that synchro synchronous model we have enough staff for that and at least i know it's not in person but it's i mean if it's right there it's still alive it's that synchronous line i think that's at least a lot better than the asynchronous thank you for that if i could make one more point too with so many students and staff in isolation we have a lot of i mean over 200 students from the high school who are at home who could learn but they're in in isolation same with staff their staff and students who are not well and would you know truly aren't taking sick days but there are people who tested positive and they're following the guidelines that have been in place since the beginning of the pandemic of a 10-day isolation but they could potentially be teaching just as the students could be participating while they're in the um in isolation at this point in time i appreciate that deb i think another point to be made too is that not only the difficulties simply from the extreme staffing shortages that we're experiencing we're also experiencing really high rates of student absence that we've never seen before in our schools uh correct me if i'm wrong but i think we average about a three percent student absent rate in roseville schools from what i understand and now at some of our schools we're approaching 20 to 25 percent of our students are absent every single day so as a teacher to be able to manage teaching in person and wrapping their arms around students who are at home is just another extreme challenge we're facing so the bottom line is and i like just to bring it home right in a way i can actually feel it i heard that one of the schools the other day literally had i think it was seven classrooms that literally had no teacher to actually be in the room with the kids running the class at 7 am at 7 00 am he had to scramble and that was not known because people called in or they were quarantined or they got sick or whatever so seven out of like 20 or so 17 7 out of 17 rooms until unmanned unstaffed okay all right so that's the crisis we're dealing with and so i guess i'll reiterate again just to be sure that the two weeks is enough time for you to think that that can self-regulate and be corrected education is a reflection of what other industries are facing as well and i think what other industries would do if they had 35 percent of their their staff we're there so that's the reality were there other other ways other things other pathways that you thought you thought about or talked about other than going to yell for two weeks that you know you could share what you thought of and what the what the cons were why they weren't really adequate compared to going to a full distance learning for a couple weeks yeah well we exhausted all the options we had internally if we can remember back to what director smith was saying about our tiered systems of subbing all hands on deck approach we've increased pay for our substitutes we've had extra positions we've hired floating subs we've been able to hire some pairs in we've had nursing and health office assistance and pera's openings for two years deb yes with a very high failure rate just due to worker shortage again across all industries but certainly in education in terms of the shift there was a consideration for a one-week shift and we just were not confident that all the quarantine and exposures could be over within those seven days to extend it to the full 14 days in combination to the peak predicted towards the end of january versus sooner than that i had that even our nurses started going we're not the only school district that's calling those agencies we're competing for those subs across the entire metro if not the whole state of minnesota correct there are no nurse nurses we we just cover for each other when when one or two of us are out we shift schools and that's how we do it well myself just happening to work for a major minnesota healthcare system we're having the same issues with a short resort out of nursing staff and bedside staff just like this too yeah excuse me can i add to that also in the other area of operations we have 18 percent of our custodians are out right now um so that's something we monitor daily we've been juggling with nutrition staff we have caught up a little bit as far as hiring goes but we do we have illness there also in the district center and daily contact with our transportation provider as far as how things are looking there our transportation providers i mean we have 60 buses through center line and they've been great and everyone's doing what we can but it's requiring constant communication and coordination you mentioned that there are at least a couple buildings that have very high levels um did you consider just closing those buildings and if you did can you explain for us why that wasn't a good option yeah we considered closing them the trend is in all our buildings staffing shortages increasing in combination of traveling staff and staff with families we also believed it would be a hardship for families to have split children at different age levels and not have older children to help care for and provide support during a shift to distance learning that was really the driver of that just the unfortunate anticipated and and i think the challenge of communicating well closing one building at a time in the district i think would be another hardship on our families just looking every day to see if their school was open so that we could be clear in our communication give enough time for families to plan all together all shipped together as a district of the things i found very uh impactful when i was listening this morning to the uh road map to return committee which is a group of parents and uh and and staff etc is an individual mentioned that in their district they literally got a call at 6 30 the night before that school was closed for a period and not just a day but extended period with an evening notice and that was it i just thought my goodness that would be i mean one of my biggest concerns with doing this is as parents and being able to um you know the challenges of parents so i really appreciate the fact that we are looking at providing some kind of support for families in extreme hardship as well as having our high school building open for students who need that contact the mental health concerns i i appreciate that you gave extra thought to those um who need that extra support and are really going to this is a particular hardship thank you thank you yeah um thank you too this is i know it's no easy decision right um we don't want this if we don't have to do this so really appreciate the deliberation that went on to make this tough decision and i also appreciate that you know i was thinking about how how do we talk about this so that we are not shutting down right there's some talk about it's really we are shifting that learning will continue so that our students continue to learn um so i think that something is in our language right how do we communicate it is we are not shutting down we are taking from in-person to distant learning in order to really address the challenge that we have at hand so i really appreciate that and i really was very worried about the mental health because we have heard so much from parents who are worried about students who just do not do well with distance so so i think i was just thinking about how whether you can say a little bit more about given how much we have learned from the last time we've done it versus this time i'm already hearing the fact that high school is open that's new it's a new program are there other things because we have learned so much that we are really considering it differently this time in the way that we are doing it i just would love to hear more about that i think i'll start and then i'll turn it over to my colleagues it's a i think a cry to our staff to improve what we've learned yeah we're lifelong learners as our teachers so we're reverting back to distance learning but actively synchronously with our students what have we learned we're also incorporating our sel standards into daily check-in so it's not only one-off mental health support it's everyday including related services and our counselors doing regular check-ins with our students and i want to be clear too because i agree with the community input earlier it this is not where we want to be it's best for our students to be a person and this is a shift to distance learning isn't something that our staff are asking for right this decision will be disappointing for so many folks across the stakeholder groups in our district this is a this is a recommendation that we're making because we absolutely have to an emergency situation for our schools right yeah i'll just kind of add from a building perspective um recently being principal in the building we learned a lot about synchronous learning um and and better ways to do that and so i i would believe that going into this time even even when we were in uh distance learning hybrid we were making changes to how we did synchronous learning so that it would be more more and more effective so that'll be a a something that you'll see that should be better than it was before from what we've learned i would also say that um and i would assume this is true for my my other principal colleagues but in my building we had a good sense of who was struggling with distance learning which families needed support during these times um and so we we we would be going into we wouldn't be going into this blind to that particular fact i mean i know we have new students and things like that and some situations change but understanding okay this student did not do well during this time and this was a support that we gave them during that time that helped to also see some better results and starting from there instead of starting at the bottom like we like we did initially i would also mention that it's it's if you see the quality of education that goes on in a school that has so many staff out and you're pulling from people for from everywhere uh the it just the the quality is not to where we would say it's it's an it's an appropriate situation that we're feeling like we're moving forward as well too so going to a distance learning format provides actual direct contact with with classroom teachers rather than continuous subs that have been in place for weeks at a time so and and often rotating people people coming in for two hours maybe one hour filling in as they can when they have an open prep time or uh some other kind of time too so i was in a classroom today uh spent this morning at central park uh in the third grade classroom and um i can tell you i'm not a very good backup quarterback i was a teacher there i tried my best but through a lot of interceptions i think today so we tried thank you thank you jake for doing that thank you that was helpful yeah i said uh one may be a comment another one maybe a question keep in mind i'm new so i don't know enough about the no no but will it affect our activities at all how will they be affected activities will continue under the guise of the state high school league for fine arts and athletics okay and then the other thing is when i heard them talk our staff seems like there's some stress there is there anything we're doing to help them as they deal with because sometimes you know you take when you hear the stuff from your families and your students you take that on you and i worry about how the staff the health staff the teachers are taking that on them is there anything that we can provide or help them as they work through some of these we do need to care for them and love them and they are overworked and very very stressed i believe my global answer would be and of course dev and others can respond the shift to distance learning right the day on friday to provide some planning in order to have effective lessons planned for the following two weeks right the support the ability for teachers to work with their students on one platform versus i made the comment earlier trying to support the kids in their class and distance learning at the same time is very stressful on staff our health offices and deb spoke to that are completely overwhelmed and it's just unsustainable for your own health as a nurse in our community and we need to take pause okay good and thank you for the question just dig a little deeper into the events thing so um i think we understand that that the minnesota uh high school league does have out of the right word is jurisdiction over things like games and sporting events there are plays or other things that are going on and just to be clear we we have continued to do those with the mitigation strategies that we have either uh passed as policy or that's recommended in terms of masking social distancing all that kind of stuff and again since the crisis is related more to staffing in this in the classrooms not not as a mitigation of the spread of disease itself because we're doing the things already we think are successful with that or as successful as they can be that that ties into going ahead with those kinds of things and i know we didn't have a comment from a parent or two about um you know the kind of traditional i think one of the emails i saw traditional was like let's pack the gym kind of thing but i've learned that we're not doing that right that the word is going to go out that we are not intentionally going to try to create super spreader events right but we're not going to do that that's what container activities continue but we're not going to say hey everybody come on down you know and let's just party that that that won't be happening is that correct yeah full mitigation strategies and we have shut down activities when covert is present within those activities so keeping a daily eye on all the all of the activities that have a reporting procedure in place as well great could you uh uh talk to technology in the supporting role of technology how we're dealing with devices how we're dealing with hot spots sure do you want me to open jake or cherry yeah i mean i can talk through i know that um so for our sixth through twelfth grade um students they already have an ipad issued for them um and we do have lists at each of our buildings of students that do need a device or hot spot we have had those because of the need for quarantine and isolation throughout this fall so we've been collecting those lists and have active lists we'll work with our our school buildings and our staff at the buildings to to make sure that we hand those out as much as possible on thursday when students are available and then following up um continuing through the next week as well if if there's a need yeah we'll hand out devices on thursday and there's additional needs families can contact the school and they can come and pick up a device on tuesday and we do have an adequate supply of hot spots as well for those that need those just one final thing and it's a broken record it's again just my feeling for the families and those kids that like we've been saying not just can't make it but that are an actual you know danger of trauma by being isolated at home and and so we've said their resources gonna be available for them to come and come to whatever it is just the messaging on that you know if if i have never needed a particular kind of help the first problem i have is even figuring out how to get it to where to go for it and so for its families that have kids with ieps or kind of involved in the special ed system they kind of already have those connections but i would i'd encourage this to be clear on the website messaging that if if you're if this is new to you but you have a student that you just really really worry about fear for if if they're isolated even for these two weeks who do you contact what phone number do you call what do you do so that the district can address that individually and help that family out to make sure that that kid isn't at home at risk in an isolated way so yeah yeah thank you for that we're also working with our cultural liaisons and our english language learners and our families to ensure that everyone receives that support i have one more question speaking of communication so during these two weeks you know we think that two weeks is enough we hope that it doesn't extend any longer how do we maybe keep our families and community informed on what we find out and what else we know so that so that we you know so that maybe we really encourage families to stay stay alert right for communication from the district for any changes right just just so that so that i mean with the contacts we have who knows what happens and i just i just want to make sure that family knows that we're this is what we think this is we think it's sufficient um and that we will keep you informed right of any changes and the updates uh things like that i just want to make sure the communication is clear that way hello joshua thank you director gee that's a great that's great feedback we're going to be we intend to communicate yet this evening to our families uh and to our staff to make them aware of this uh and in the coming days they will hear also from their teacher or from their teachers and from their uh principles building principles about those details because that's really where particularly like that support that social emotional support in the secondary grades as we put together the details of that plan of what does it look like for those students who who may be taking advantage of that new type of support where they're coming in and using the wi-fi that sort of thing so there will be details communicated out in the you know beginning tonight and through the coming days just uh um i like hearing about the area learning spaces and i know we said at the secondary level it's probably too much to ask at some of the elementary buildings to do some of that or was that was there a discussion about you know getting to the point of isolation depression let's just be honest i've seen emails and talked to folks about these kids go down the path they're depressed and we're talking about suicidal thoughts it it it's i know it's an emergency and i i really want to help our staff but it's hard to vote for this i mean for the distance learning what we're doing to some kids i mean it's not a good alternative when you start talking about depression isolation suicidal thoughts i mean i mean i i just want to make sure we've got to be aggressive with these kids or with these families who are calling us with i know it's two weeks but you know boy it's already two or three days my fourth grader at emma d williams is really you know there may not be a learning space in the school for them but we we've got to make sure that we're right on target with them and it doesn't go any further it's i mean it's it's it's horrible choices to choose from i get that i just i know it's emergency but we have to we really have to be there um when we're getting those calls and whatever hotline or whatever kids are feeling isolated depressed and they're having really scary thoughts because of this distance learning i'm just really scared of that director anderson i can share that district leadership agrees with you and that's the addition of any family experiencing hardship that we want to welcome students into our communities we're also working to set up a plan where we'll shift some secondary staff into our elementary buildings to ensure that there are staff there to care for them thank you okay with that i guess i would entertain a motion i will i will move and we can still have further discussions i will move the emergency recommendation uh that we move only to a two-week distance learning to really deal with our current ongoing crisis staffing shortages and to take a collective breath and with the uh with the safeguards we've already talked about in place the communication in place i'll second the motion discussion um i can't say that i i just didn't deeply answer i can't say that if this continues that i'm going to be able to vote for business learning again i'm just laying that on the table i i that's not trying to sound harsh to anybody but there's just it's it's not the right model it's just and i choosing between it it's just a horrible choice i'm just maybe i didn't need to say it but i need to be honest with myself and with the board and the community i don't know that i could vote for it again so okay i guess the i'll store my two cents in um uh first of all first of all todd i appreciate your your candor and truly what it does come down to is that that sometimes um all we have are bad choices right but we still have to choose and this what we're doing right now is not working okay and i can honestly say i i i have a kid in uh at raw's she's not gonna be happy about this yeah okay yeah she's got right to not be happy on this um but our what it comes down to is is our responsibilities are to our students and our staff and our staff are breaking down and there's a there is a reasonable expectation that within two weeks our staff will be in a place that's very easy much better place to continue through the rest of the year as stated before this is not about um our code rates per se yeah and the core rates inside inside the schools okay because they're already like crazy high um but we it it it doesn't it doesn't help our kids if we have kids in our buildings and there's no one to teach them um you know so um yeah i that i guess that's all i'm saying about that well i think you know todd your earlier question and emphasis i i share that too in that it's across the board it's from elementary and and secondary both that if if i'm a parent of a child that is at real risk for for self-harm or for advanced depression or emotional issues while i sit at home we need to provide that option to allow them to come to a facility and serving as a as a safe learning space even if it means there's a group of whatever picking ever 10 15 kids sitting around just doing distance learning but as a group with the interaction with the ability to relate with the ability to emote with each other with the the kind of structure that some kids just need that's not home that's a way that's within kind of a formalized school school building if that's there then that's that's the kind of safety safety issue that will allow me to vote to support the recommendation that has to be committed to we have to have that i think your point that there's no good options yeah what all of us believe i don't think there's there's any discussion about what's the what's a good option it's a question of what's the best option at this point in time with the information we have available and if we truly have you know quarter of our students missing we have significant staff missing so the education our students are receiving now is kind of haphazard whoever we can find to be in that space and in that room that's not high quality education either and if this gives us an opportunity to return to somewhat more systematic uh teacher uh the teacher appropriate for that group but that that has some advantages clearly it has some disadvantages that we very much talked about and we're trying to do what we can to offer options there so it's not a great option but i will go in favor as well yeah i agree i was going to say the same too i think jade really when you mention that right when you think about the from the students experience right now it's not that good when you have teachers out because they are sick and that they are getting subs different hours different people coming in that's not the kind of education that that we we promise them in a lot of ways so there is no good option and so hopefully this is temporary and that this these two weeks will give us give us some time to really um kind of get through this hump um and then get back to the business of what our students deserve and what our staff deserve right it's also that right you i mean we can push them until they burn out and how's that good for anybody too so this is yeah this is not an easy choice and i really am so grateful for that option about you know to address the mental health and i hope that we really really really think about you know students that we know already who weren't successful before how do we reach out how do we reach out to make sure that they are okay so yeah i'll be voting yes for sure uh one last thing that um throw out here is um i i really [Music] i really appreciate um that um each and every one of you um have taken what you've learned what you've learned and i've applied it okay this is this is not a great situation okay but i know at every at every opportunity everyone is trying to make it as best as possible it's and it's it's easy just to go okay let's just do what we did last time it's like no there was never a moment where that was a thing okay it was like okay we did this is what we did this is what was not great how do we address that um so for that i'll be voting yes if there are i moved it i moved it sorry yeah unanimous thank you i thank you guys thank you thank you and maybe in this space they'll say the biggest thank you goes to deb legend as our lead nurse and all of our nurses and health staff in the district okay um if i'm reading this correct um it takes us to our study session report um at the stumpers uh study session we had two things on agenda but the first was so rich and so long that we ended up having just one and that was uh talking about the futures project overview and uh this project was a group of our of folks from our district that represent a cross-section of stakeholders and released looked at trends and scenarios for about 10 to 20 years out to help enable thinking about policy work and other foundational preparation needed for that longer term desired future the catalyst for this particular project was a statewide effort from the minnesota school board association where they took individuals from some different districts and tried to do this kind of work at the state level and then asked that the groups do some work at the end at the individual district level and in our district we had the opportunity to do something a little bit deeper and really valuable particularly as we were looking to start up strategic planning this year it was really helpful to try to take a longer-term question monitoring look at this futures thinking is very complementary to strategic planning because strategic planning tends to look at in buckets of five years but if you don't do some of the work for what you want 20 years from now when you're just looking at five year buckets you may not have that preparatory work there are often legislative changes that are needed for example seat time is very much specified in the legislature today but yet as a real inhibitor if that doesn't change to do some of the community learning that we've talked about uh also there's often uh you know various trends that are contrary to direction we'd like to go and one has to work to mitigate them early on to get us in the right direction and then building the foundational things that we need in order for that to happen so this group looked at a variety of of possible futures a ideal future a vision they looked at some alternative futures that are within the realm of possible especially the farther out you look the more is uncertain the more range of possibilities there are they uh looked at various scenarios and uh with the vision in mind they tried to do some backwards planning not just forward planning to give some insight they recommended that when we embark on our strategic planning effort we do it in a very inclusive way including uh certainly underrepresented groups but also groups who who don't like the direction our district is taking to try to get all the voices at the table so that we can build a unified perspective behind what our students need for success and that we think about some of those uh long work that needs to be done in the next five years in order to develop that foundation capability of getting where we'd like to go farther so that was uh what we spent our study session on all right thank you very much um board reports uh mr chair the only thing i had was the equity alliance foundation news which i shared earlier so i'm good i was going to say um i know three of us were at the amsd legislative session preview and i know there's some staff zoomed in um so i know we probably have a few things to say i guess i just wanted to highlight that some of our area legislators were present senator chuck wieger who was on the senate education finance committee representative alice hausmann was there senator john marty was there and i guess what i'll do is i'll just mention the first part of the session was three great presentations by some area superintendents going over the amsd platform reducing mandates enhancing local control ensuring safe modern school facilities you know part of that was a discussion around ltfm expansion and increasing and diversifying our teacher workforce um that's that's those are some of the highlights that i i took i guess i'll leave some other updates from my colleagues um and then um a meeting of the district curriculum activity um dcac last night sorry um started out with a wonderful presentation from dr yang chang um with the office of educational equity uh she works with uh jake and delon about some um online learning possibilities next year again only optional and just a real high level bird's eye view but just what would online learning look like for those that want to partake in that program but just some fascinating areas about what we can be doing some really good questions that my colleagues on that committee asked and they're still obviously working on some things and we're going to hear more about it as a board but some really fascinating opportunities there let's see and uh i think that's all ahead thank you go ahead okay there's one that i'd like to give a little bit extended like maybe a minute or so and then these others i'll get on really quickly but what i want to talk a little bit more about is the educat edgerton of family story circles um it i had the privilege of being part of this uh second session that they ran they have a series of three sessions they're running the first ser first one was just for families and this is a to be done in partnership with the minnesota humanities center and they've been running all the meetings but then the second one uh which is the one i got to attend in december was where the families shared their stories with staff that they talked about in the first session and then they each of the different language groups because this is all being done simultaneously in korean lung and spanish so in essence there's a translator and then talking english they translate into all these three languages and then there's that when they're talking then the translator translate back to the english and it may be then translated to manga what the other group is so that all the groups can understand each other and being able to do that virtually is really impressive i know that the district we've partnered with the humanities center pre-pandemic where we've run a similar program at central park but we're now doing this in a virtual environment which adds so much complexity but really was executed very beautifully the goals of it are really to bridge and create stronger relationships with school families by intentionally prioritizing voices that are not typically heard to better understand the issues and joys experienced in the edgerton community um what uh there were kind of three so after the group you know shared what they had and then these individual groups went off and kind of summarized and synthesized what they had and we all came back together and we agreed on on some key themes and those kind five key things i thought was worthy of of mentioning um the first one is really building on the strength that edgerton provides in love and compassion and respect and and um you know how can we help foster that between students and students and students and families more even further building on the strength of that community the second one was improving our communication engagement to really strengthen the two-way communication and to provide more and different ways of family engagement the third one i found very interesting which was navigational support and the topic that was of most concern to people was report cards that the symbols on the report cards they didn't understand and if they once they even understood the symbols they didn't understand the significance so what does this mean what are we supposed to do with this as parents and um and so that was that was fascinating to hear about uh the fourth one is around celebrating the diversity in the schools that they have a lot of different cultures in their building and really having an opportunity to share their culture with others with the school and classmates and the last one is one we've talked a lot about tonight and that's prioritizing mental health so those were the five key themes that i thought was worthy of all of us understanding and uh this whole this whole opportunity and program was so exciting on thursday afternoon uh the social worker uh mara bishop from edgerton will actually be presenting along with uh delon and uh cecilia martinez on you know really really partnering with families and improving student success through that at the msb so if anybody's interested on that we did actually video our dry run so we do have that available as well for anybody who would like to learn more about the work we're doing with underserved communities it is i'm just very excited by what the district is doing here to me that's a a real area of exciting development and it's amazing to see that even in these times as there's so many other distractions the central park pta meeting i attended the 6th and uh there were two things i wanted to share in particular one was uh there was a report um from title one you have to have reports several times a year and this time they chose to really focus on kind of math and how the curriculum is different the cognitively guided instruction which i keep hearing that term but i i didn't fully appreciate what it was until i heard the families talk about it as well as the teachers and really getting a lot more problem solving into it and really students coming up with their own ways to answer questions and developing the math knowledge on a deeper level um so for example before you know like the kindergarten teacher was talking about how does she do this and she was talking about well what do you know about whatever the topic is and then the next day you know kind of going back and what have you learned the previous day and using that to really feedback the loop but really not just okay what's the answer but how do you think about it and how do you get there and like one parent was it was really sharing that oh this was so hard for their child at first but now they're getting a much deeper understanding of the whole material and that was just really really exciting to hear and then the only other thing i wanted to mention is that the challenges that we've been talking tonight about staffing came up at the meeting i mean they were um you know they mentioned they have a really positive vibe among the children you know there's it feels good to be in the building the atmosphere is stood but staff is doing a lot of juggling and trying to to uh make things uh you know keep the kids in school and they did talk about the assistant superintendent had subbed that day and the kids thought it was pretty cool that uh that they had uh the principal's boss teaching yeah um okay that was the second one um the optimus club i just wanted to give you a heads up they are doing trying to get together a project and developing a community of character in our community kind of a community-wide development of a roseville specific set of shared values and positive character character attributes their timing is somewhat different than what we're looking at for us treatment planning but there is possibilities of maybe ways we can help each other as we're trying to recruit more people in the community to participate in strategic planning that's one area that um is potentially uh you know something synergistic that we can work on so i'll leave it at that thank you i'll just say i was also at the association for metropolitan state no metropolitan school district and i think beyond the legislative platform i thought it was great to have the panel of legislators really talking about kind of their upcoming it was really great to listen to how they think about education where they're heading with some of the things that they are thinking about whether it's local control whether it is about um funding um so that was very was very insightful right very insightful um and then the other thing that i did was i was able to attend parkview center schools school's pta meeting and and i left my notes at home but i i think the only thing i would say is um when i when i participate in that and they delete overzoom i have to say i'm just so impressed i want to thank you to the parents who are so engaged whether from fundraising to putting a festival from some festival together it was just amazing how engaged they are to support the school so really thank you to the parents who uh such as contributing so greatly to the community at parkview center school so just want to say that [Laughter] now you know all right um yeah i've got two things um i also attended the the the amsba msd legislative preview and um i i enjoy it every year um partially because we get the opportunity to let um legislators know what we're thinking all right and we get to look them in the eye and and figure out okay so what are the chances of some of this happening um but it's it's also invented to echo your sentiment um rose it's it's um very helpful to see what uh the legislator's point of view is um even when it's different than ours right but it's just to know okay so this is where we're coming from okay um so if you ever get the you know uh yeah i'm i'm speaking to perhaps some new people if you get a chance to go to uh msd you need to drop in any time um it's it's a it's a great organization and um the legislative preview is always interesting and i'll leave that there um the the last thing i will toss out is because i can and it's actually the last time i'll be able to to talk about this social studies standards okay um january 14th is the last day that you can submit your comments on some really cool standards that some of us spent over a year putting together so it's really important please if you haven't done it take the time and and put your comments on it because really it's in the hands of the permanent dead and if um and then they they will they will make changes that are completely appropriate i don't i don't doubt that but um the more support for it the less changes they'll make so i will leave that there um and i believe you had something that you wanted to add yeah i'd like to just add a couple comments to the board juan congratulations and thank you for accepting the role as chair look forward to working with you to welcome new director clark to the board thank you for accepting the leadership role it's a large task and then i'd also like to publicly recognize and thank outgoing chair mike bogashevsky and only did mike chair the board for the past two years during this unprecedented pandemic he led the board and the district with grace strength care and commitment as a new superintendent mike provided me with a high level of confidence and communication that benefited my leadership and the entire organization his unwavering commitment to equity and all we do has been demonstrated throughout his tenure as a board member and will be into the future but it was so very highlighted in his leadership as chair these past two years his commitment to all students families and staff in district 623 is beyond admirable and will not be forgotten thank you former chair bogoszewski [Applause] [Music] thank you like i said it's been an honor and uh i look forward to uh swing shooting with curtis in the role at least as well for the next couple of years so thank you very much thank you okay with that um this concludes our meeting we're going to take a five minutes we're going to take a five minute break and reconvene for um our study session which will not be televised so but it is an open meeting but it is no convenience so the folks out here if you want to hang out hang out it's a project we'll begin at 8 45. you