e e e e e e e e [Music] Thursday February 20th 2025 at 6 PM we are at the district service center in cottage gr Minnesota we would like to acknowledge that the land on which We Gather is the land of the mowan Dakota people midow wakaan means dwellers of the Spirit Lake our first item on the agenda is 1.0 roll call Dana Ryan Clark good evening Sharon vaner here Eric tesner Melinda does here simy pneak here Sagi Ibraham here H Janette hajim monu here Katie Schwarz here 2.0 Pledge of Allegiance please stand i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all 3.0 is the approval of the agenda can I get a motion to approve move second move by Sharon seconded by simy any comments all those in favor any opposed motion passes uh 4.0 is comments to the board at this time individuals may speak to the school board on any item relating to South Washington County Schools the board will not respond to or discuss your comments character abuse or specific complaints identifying staff students or task force members will not be permitted the superintendent may be asked to prepare a response to your concerns the comments to the board period will be held open for up to 30 minutes in total each speaker is permitted to speak for three minutes in total and the school board will allow up to three speakers per Topic at the e e e e e e e e e e e e e e will be introduced by Super jul H thank you uh we I feel a little um odd of sorts because typically on a day or an evening like this we have our student ambassadors with us and so it was over a week ago they were here and so as I was reviewing with them um last time they were in we did a tour of district office and they were all excited about the multiple things they learned about the number of students of the number of dollars I think someone guessed that you know our budget was like $100,000 and then when we told them it was like over 300 million they were like wo we're rich not quite not quite um but I feel like we've lost some ground not having them here so I'm going to start with our elementary student seia and seia I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself and just share what school you're from and what you enjoy about being a student leader I go to Newport Elementary and um something I enjoy about being a um student ambassador um is coming to these meetings and seeing a bunch of people from different schools and um meeting new people people it's a nice experience because they're new people and um it's nice to make friends and S you can actually keep your microphone on um from the first time they all rolled the buses together and were down here it was silent is everybody a little louder now talking yeah MH we definitely have made connections and made relationships um what is one positive experience or something fun you're doing um in your school this year something fun that we are doing this year is a fifth grade play we do this every single year and um it's really fun because you get to see all your friends and um we get to hang out have snacks sometimes we have parties it's really fun because they're new um they're people you know and I think the the key thing is just hanging out and being with other kids after school as part of this play um the next question um what have you learned about the school district as part of your representation I know when we were talking earlier you said something about the print shop what did you see when we visited the print shop in the back I saw five million pieces of not exactly but they were in boxes it looked like a small amount but it was really five million our students happened to go through on the day when the boxes were apparently delivered but there was like half of the space was all paper boxes did you get to see your red bin that goes back to your school did you get to see the red bin for printing yeah I saw it um it's really cool yeah we we explained to the students that we have a truck that takes District printing back to their school site so they got to see that um and finally as we close up um it is I love to read month what book are you reading right now and what genre is that book I am reading forgotten City it's a science fiction book and what do you like about that book I like how the main character um he um he protects himself and he meets um other survivors and um he he really wants to protect him and his dad and the other survivors so a science fiction there we go thank you SAA all right we're we're going to move on Janette Janette is our middle schooler and I'll have her introduce herself and she gets to kind of go by herself now she has a little presentation all put together so Janette just make sure your microphone is down there you go hello my name is Janette I'm in seventh grade I attend I attend Alman Middle School the best thing about being a student leader would be sharing my ideas and knowing what's going on in each school I feel the most motivated to learn when I am interested in the subject or think about how it can help me some the positive experiences I've had in school would be being a part of after school events and getting better in some subjects a few things I've learned about the district is how they get things done and why student voices matter and finally if I could make any program I would make an after school book program to help people get into reading so while we're talking about books um what is your favorite book um I really love the Dork Diary books dor Diary books um and you mentioned like you like to learn about your favorite subject what is that favorite favorite subject and why um I like language arts because um it helps me build my vocabulary and I it's I like to like look at how like how words are spelled and like um we learn how um uh what else I was going to say oops um and uh we learn like how some words are connected to others and how like they work together absolutely that is part of what we learned thank you so much and thank you to our student ambassadors for being here this evening thank you [Applause] both okay 6.0 is our consent items all consent items are considered routine and non-controversial by the school board and will be approved by a single motion there will be no separate discussion of these items prior to the meeting board members have had the opportunity to review each of these items and could have requested that any one of them be moved to an action item for individual consideration that has not happened this evening so can I get a motion to approve so moved second motion by Melinda seconded by simy all those in favor I any opposed motion passes Now we move on to 7.0 and that is our information items we do have one this evening it is 7.1 indigenous education annual update and that will be introduced by Kelly Jansen assistant superintendent good evening board chair Schwarz board memb superintendent neelon and student ambassadors I'm here this evening to introduce our required annual indigenous education report including highlights from our participation in the Minnesota American Indian education aid program tonight you will hear about the requirements to receive the aid the program goals and strategies implemented with the support of the funds from the aid and you will hear from our Native American parent advisory committee or napac who holds an annual compliance vote indicating whether or not they believe we are using the funds in alignment with their intended purpose at this time I'd like to introduce those supporting the presentation Stephanie schroer indigenous education Community coordinator Bob twei chair of the sashco Native American parent advisor committee and James McGee our director of diversity equity and inclusion thanks Kelly good evening everybody um just a quick programming note um throughout this presentation through the legislation and through our program um you're going to see some terms that can be used interchangeably though they don't necessarily mean the exact same thing um in our district we have a parent advisory called our Native American parent advisory committee this committee uh opted to use the term indigenous when referring to American Indian education Native American Education uh and the reason why that name hasn't changed yet is it's just a matter of passing it in our bylaws you'll also see the term American Indian use that is the the term that is used in the state legislation um and then when you see American Indian parent advisory committee that is also referring to what is in the legislation from the state for our purposes tonight all of these terms will be used can be used interchangeably though in practice they may mean slightly different things um so as a school district that has more than 20 self-identified uh students who belong uh to the Native American Community we're eligible to participate in the American Indian education aid program um you're going to see uh you may remember a couple years ago there's a change in legislation uh through the change in legislation which increased the amount of uh revenue for American Indian education along with uh a slight jump in our student count uh you'll see the aid jump in 22 to 23 uh then a modest jump from 23 to 24 and we anticipate that uh we'll be right around the same level of funding uh for the state aid next year as well based on where our student count currently is some requirements uh once we're enrolled in the program um first of all we have to have at least 20 indigenous students uh who have self identified in our Mars report on October 1st um we also have to have a working parent advisory committee uh to advise on uh program on activities on the way the money is utilized and to vote on whether or not we are meeting the intent of the program currently we have 386 students who have identified as Native American or indigenous in our district and that's about 2% of our student population one of the things that we have to do uh and we are happy to do uh is partner with our parent advisory committee um the parent advisory committee by legislation uh is the one to vote whether or not the district uh the and the program are meeting the goals uh that we set forth in our Aid package at the beginning of each school year uh and we're happy to report that on January 14th our parent advisory did vote concurrent uh and agreed that we are uh making progress in U using the funds the way that they are intended uh in the aid program now just one quick thing to know about the aid program um from the state there are uh five kind of six Focus areas that have been set forth for us by the state so all of the activities and strategies that we'll talk about in a moment fall into these categories that were set forth for us uh and then that last one supplement nuts a plant that's kind of a check that we're that we're meant to do on all of those Focus areas to make sure that we're supplementing uh curriculum or strategies not to planting things that were already in place so now to talk in a little more detail um about the the focus areas the action steps and the strategies that we have I'm happy to introduce Stephanie schroer U hello um we have the again we're taking a look at the different Focus areas our first uh Focus area is postsecondary preparation so how do we get our indigenous students prepared for college and so one of the things that we're really focusing on this year is making sure that our students are taking the ACT last year we had such a small number that took the act that it was uh hard to chart and so this year we're really trying to get at least 10 students to take the acts which doesn't sound like a big number but for our indigenous students it really is so we've oh I guess so one of the things that we're doing is we're doing an ACT test prep course just for our indigenous students it's going to be held virtually so that they can do it from the comfort of their homes another what uh strategy that we use is our cultural liaison she is a she's awesome she's able to work one-on-one with students and work in groups and I've also been able to go out into the schools and spend some time with students kind of help Mentor them uh talk them through some different choices as far as colleges and things and it's just it's been really nice to be able to spend time with students who haven't seen other indigenous people like themselves and so I met with a student today and he was just so pleased to say is she native and I was like yes I am and so he was very he felt that connection right away and it was really nice Focus area two is academic achievement of American Indian students we have been known to some of the terrible stereotypes for American Indians is that we have the lowest um graduation rate but not in sashko so according to the state um for the four-year graduation rates uh you'll notice that the numbers for sashko are much higher that's because our indigenous students in our district are graduating at a a much higher rate than around the rest of the state of Minnesota so we have something great going for us down here we've got um our one-on-one guidance and tutoring we've uh been pushing our literacy this year we want to make sure that our students can read so one of the ways we're doing that is we are doing a kindergarten through fifth grade literacy tutoring program with indigenous authored books and we each six weeks we are doing a progress monitoring cycle to make sure to see if if they are improving or if they're getting the skills for middle schoolers we are doing a book club so that way we can kind of take a look at at our stories and figure out how to uh reinterpret them because traditionally there are always oral stories but now being written it's kind of how do we apply those traditional teachings but still improve their literacy skills and for high school of course we've got that ACT test prep that's going to take them through each section of the test and help them um improve literacy as well Focus area three is a curriculum so uh embedding our American Indian cultural Heritage learning into standards lessons learning outcomes uh being part of different review cycles and just having representation on um some of those standards and um committees I we provide indigenous authored books for all all of our indigenous students for winter break for spring break to make sure they have something that they can read and they can enjoy um I've had Theon of being able to sit on some different committees the standards and instructional review cycle the scope and sequence both the elementary and the uh High School leadership uh committee uh the cultural trunk uh have finally the cultural trunks have finally started to be utilized uh We've bought those a couple of years ago but now we're actually able to get them out into the schools I'm able to do some lessons some demonstrations and now some of our our key people in the schools are taking those lessons and turning them um into their own Styles so being able to work with authentic artifacts Focus area four positive reinforcement so we want to provide more opportunities for the indigenous students the IND indigenous families and community members to come together to actually create that Community because there is really isn't a space here in the community and so through our school system we're going to create that community so we have got different celebrations we have different uh storytelling nights we have um different our senior honoring because we are so interested in making sure that our students do graduate and realize how important that graduation is we always have a huge senior honoring program at the end of the year to make sure that they see that importance so we've been having a lot more uh requests from families for one-on-one support or mentoring I think just being able to have more people in the district previously we've only had um one cultural liaison but now we've got myself and the cultural liasis on in the school district and so there have been a lot more opportunities for us to be able to reach out and connect one-on-one with families and with students and so that's been really helpful think about those developing Intercultural awareness so not only do we want to make sure our indigenous students know their history and background but we also want to make sure that the other students uh the rest of our population have a a good understanding of of why indigenous students are have this unique status and so we've done that through different things uh like meaningful professional development for our teachers the indigenous book club for sashco staff that happened last summer we've got um some different a sacredness Learning Classroom presentations I got to spend an entire afternoon teaching the entire third grade of Woodbury Elementary School for um our cultural Trunks and that was a lot of fun being able to describe the differences with the oju and the Dakota floral bead work and stuff like that and that was a lot um that was all the students not just our indigenous students and of course the last Focus area area six supplement state and federal education programs so supplement not supplant so this is specifically funds set aside for our indigenous families and our indigenous students so meet you migwi uh Miga thank you for listening it's awes all I have for tonight before we open up for questions uh Bob did you want was there anything that you wanted to add to the presentation we we like to talk we're very passionate about uh this program but I just want to make sure you had up all right okay uh so are there any questions about uh the programming thank you anybody have any questions I do um so I just had a couple questions so you had mentioned you wanted to get 10 over 10 students a year taking the act so excuse me I happen to be parent of a junior so I know that April is act time at our high school so would that be the the time that they that they would use so would be just encouraging them to show up that day and take the test how many um Native students do we typically have in any given year like by my rough math it's roughly 30 but I don't know if that's really how it works the majority of our indigenous students in the district are about elementary age oh really okay so we've got I think we have 30 seniors and 20 Juniors so okay so you're expecting to get over 50% of the Juniors to come and take the ACT yes okay um and have they have the students seemed kind of receptive to the idea I mean I know like the ACT can be pretty daunting for a lot of kids like is are are they receptive to to taking the test yes they were very excited uh about the test prep course because then they're like yes please because they want some guidance some help yeah okay oh for sure um and then my second question was around the native literacy programs you have for elementary kids and so how does that because you said every six weeks there's a check-in of some sort so how does that work with our Arc curriculum and what our teachers are doing in elementary um sort of overall for all of the kids yeah so um so we built the literacy program uh specifically with uh our elementary literacy lead so this is a supplement to Arc programming so uh with uh culturally authentic text however the benchmarks the strategies are all the same they are derived from Ark um in addition to that it is uh sashko teachers that are the literacy tutors and so most of them have already uh been exposed to Arc not all not every tutor has to be an elementary teacher um but regardless of their teaching or whatever area they teach in they're all trained in those Arc strategies before we uh get Start begin tutoring students so all of our staff that are in the tutoring program have been uh exposed to the arc curriculum or Le at least the strategies that they'll be using for the tutoring okay and so if I remember correctly like the arc curriculum had us like each kid has their own power goal is that the correct correct term or something like that so is that are those Incorporated in for this as well for these students I'm going to say I'm getting a little out of my Lane um but what we can do is if uh we can definitely get more information for you yeah I just yeah um I don't want to misspeak on exactly how it aligns with ar I know concept ceps are all from Arc but I can't speak to if we're using the same uh online Data Tracking that we're using uh like we are in the classroom but we can get that information to the board oh that would be great and then in terms of like using culturally authentic text or relevant text for these kids have that has that been um challenging to acquire like an appropriately sized library for the kids or I mean because listen I'm not when I was a kid I was the only kid who looked like me in my entire elementary school and I mean I was probably in college before I saw a book with a character that looked like me so I'm just curious like are how hard has it been for kids to have this experience it really is difficult because you need to go to the specialty stores and thankfully Louise edrich opened up Birch Park books over in Minneapolis and they do a lot of self-publishing and so actually there are a lot of texts now that are coming out in the languages so we've got ojibway comic books we've got Dakota comic books which is really cool kind of to experience because then you can visually see it and have the the language right there too that's all my questions thank you anyone else one one question is your funding source uh exclusively state aid um so for what we just presented on yes this is only talking about the state aid there is a separate Federal uh Revenue source for uh Native is it Native American education and however the federal puts it um treaty based yep and that's treaty based and that is a significantly less amount I think something like 23 25,000 I'm going to go 26 and I just sent that to a board member who asked that earlier so I want to say that that Federal award not connected to this is 26,000 Y and no no local funding um like from within no no sorry yeah I just wanted to check yeah so everything that we just articulated is uh all state revenue okay thank you yep okay thank you he we we'll move on to 8.0 and that is our action items we do have two this evening the first one is 8.1 and that is a resolution to appoint School Board to appoint a school board member and that will be presented by myself um at the last board meeting um we discussed that and agreed that we would follow the procedure to appoint a board member um after some discussion it was decided that we would appoint Louise Hines to fill the vacancy um her first meeting would be the March 27th 2025 Schoolboard meeting um and her term would be until the next general election in November of 2025 so can I get a motion to approve so moved second motion by Sharon seconded by simy any further comments okay seeing none this is a resolution so we will need a roll call Dana Ryan Clark approve Sharon vener yes Eric Tesmer yes Melinda Doles simmi petak yes Katie Schwarz yes okay motion passes we will move on now to 8.2 and that is proposed policy changes and that will be presented by Julie neelson superintendent good evening um I am bringing forward the eight policies that we reviewed at our last board meeting um including 410 Family and Medical Leave we have 413 and 525 5.1 both harassment and violence um our mandated reporting of child neglect or abuse mandated reporting of maltreatment student discipline and then our school district system accountability and these are all those annual updates and as was shared with the board we know that there are some executive orders out there um but at this point our policies reflect where we are at with state law and so this evening I am asking for approval of those eight policies can I get a motion to approve don't move second motion by Sharon seconded by Simmy any comments I I do have a comment um on uh on policy 5 25.1 you'll have to bear with me I have a I'm going to recall just a an experience that I had this last weekend I was uh at East Bridge high school and I was attending a volleyball tournament that my 16-year-old daughter was involved in and we were leaving the school and and as we were walking out toward the athletic uh exit uh I noticed a uh an office door I don't know exactly what office it was for if it was the main office probably not the main office but maybe the athletic office and on the athletic office door my daughter pointed out to me that it said protect black youth and I thought to myself okay fine and then she made the comment to me um she said hm she's like interesting she's like if if I went to this school I guess this school um is not all that concerned about protecting me now my daughter is she looks like me she's um she's much more beautiful than I am however um she looks like me uh I guess you would say she's white she's a little bit she's significantly more than that but that's that's what she looks like so she says I have to go to the bathroom so she goes to the bathroom and I take this opportunity to uh walk around a little bit in the um cafeteria area see what else I can find um I run into the inclusion Center and on the door to the inclusion Center uh I I find a phrase written on the inclusion Center that says to be young to be gifted and to be black and I want to be clear on something I don't there's nothing wrong with either one of these statements uh I think it's I don't think anybody would disagree that we need to protect black youth and I don't think there's anything wrong with highlighting um I guess since the term was used black individuals uh who are gifted and and highlighting their accomplishments um however here's the issue I think it's very ironic and I'm going to tie this back into the policy in a minute so bear with me it's ironic to me that on a inclusion Center okay that says inclusion Center we have a what to me appears to be an exclusive phrase it excludes every single person every single student that doesn't fit into the ideologically created racial box that essentially is on that door okay I mean there's many different uh ethnicities skin pigmentations people from all over the world that attend that particular School in this case uh and none of those people and if you don't fall into that that particular box you don't meet the criteria apparently according to the inclusion Center for entering the inclusion Center so now I'm not saying this to try to attempt to drum up some of some sort of sympathy for my daughter because she doesn't need any sympathy certainly she is a uh she's a very uh strong young 16-year-old adult and uh she's very well versed and educated in uh the toxicity of racial and um cultural Marxism which is what I believe this is that being said I think about you know and she's got she's got the benefit of having a strong male role model in her life she's got the benefit of having a strong female role model in her life and but what I think about is what about the student who doesn't have those things and perhaps is going to the inclusion center or is walking into this office to get some sort of counseling for whatever problem is going on in their life uh and maybe they don't have anywhere else to turn and they walk up to this door and they see something that indicates to them that they don't fit into that particular box and perhaps they turn around and go okay uh I guess I'm not wanted here or I guess I'm not worthy of getting whatever kind of advice or whatever kind of help maybe through that door and that's I never really thought about this in this way until this until I experienced this with my daughter and it kind of struck me a little bit um and not in a good way and to tie it into this to tie it into this um policy as I was reviewing the policy and I reviewed it the I reviewed it the week before before that meeting or I'm sorry two weeks before in the last meeting it didn't really strike me at all because it it seems like a reasonable policy however in light of this experience of mine I think that our schools are acting contrary to our very own policy the policy if you read section B Clause one or before Clause one it says racial harassment consists of physical or verbal conduct relating to an individual's race when the conduct Clause one has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating hostile or offensive working or academic environment and if you go down to clause three it says otherwise adversely affects an individuals employment or academic opportunities now with this type of exclusive speech or exclus exclusive verbage on a door that by its very nature does not include all students does not include all students it seems to me to be hostile by omission and I think that we need to do our due diligence on this in this school district to rectify this contradiction we either need to change the policy which I don't think we should I think the policy in itself is sound or we need to change the practice that's going on in our schools and I suspect that the practices at East Ridge are not alone I suspect that these kinds of practices are probably going on across our schools uh and I I think it is an issue I don't think it's an issue I believe in my heart that it is an issue this this kind of ununified divisive type exclusive speech what in our school system I understand its intended purpose I understand its intended purpose but there are unintended consequences to this kind of language and I think that needs to be rectified I would urge that we would table this particular policy uh perhaps for the next meeting to have a further discussion barring that I will be voting no not to approve it that's all I got thank you any other comments 5 25.1 or five 25.1 was uh staff I'll add something here uh I think it's important for the school district to be it should be politically neutral we're supposed to be nonpartisan many people view these things as having partisan undertones and so to that end I agree with there these things shouldn't be in the school people can feel the way that they feel that's fine but the school should not have this type of stuff displayed on the walls and I've seen this stuff in Easter idge too my son goes to Easter idge I've seen I have pictures of the stuff on my phone I've brought this to the superintendent's attention uh this is what I ran on we we should be balanced right we have kids from all walks of life who attend our schools uh and I I concur this it doesn't belong in school the school's job is to educate our children to help them achieve the maximum academic Excellence that they can achieve and I feel that the partisan bu that we have uh we're inundated with it every day outside of school so why do we need to have it in the school I think it's in our best interest to try not to bring politics into the school so to that end we shouldn't have you know black lives matter posters up in the school we shouldn't have white lives matter posters we shouldn't have any of those things they should be if we want to have diversity of thought great if we want to highlight uh different ethnic people who have done great things for Education great but it should be tied to education that's it and so I I would agree I've been saying this for a long time it's not we're not adversarial uh we don't want to have issues it just we want balance balance neutrality is not that much to ask for uh I I've spoken to this with everyone on the board individually um I tend to concur so I'm with Eric on this one if I can go further the the problem is is that when you begin to highlight one particular particular racial group or one particular ethnic group you are inevitably going to leave out numerous racial and ethnic groups inevitably it's like when somebody gives a a speech where they've been given an award and they start thanking people and they always say you know what I don't even want to start thanking people because I know I'm going to leave somebody out they do that for a reason cuz don't want somebody to feel left out we're we are making students feel left out okay we are making students feel left out by doing these kinds of things it is not right this is a public school district that provides public education to a large variety of people which is great if we want to be inclusive then be inclusive if you want to be exclusive you keep doing this kind of stuff any other comments yep you can we can come together to agree to disagree but for hundreds of years people of color have been silenced it is time for them to speak up and speak out stand up for what's right it's called freedom of speech I feel that these children have a right with all of the Discord that goes on not only in this District in these schools but in the country we have been silenced we are no longer going to be silenced we're going to be heard seen and I think that the uh if if anybody else wants to put up a sign they can do it what about the signs that say black people are not welcome here what about some of the S things that are said in the newspaper and in the in in in context of doing J Justice to to to themselves we need to let these kids determine for themselves what it is that they want and if they thought s saw so fit to put it into the school to be recognized to be heard and to be seen and this is black his case you don't know this is Black History Month and we have it black lives matter and that is what we're trying to say that's it Sharon I appreciate your opinion I really do um I think you're a a a very very well spoken intelligent individual um that being said look you're not going to find a stronger proponent of free speech in this room I guarantee you that and I am not here to suppress anybody's Free Speech yeah I am not here to suppress anybody's Free Speech I'm not here to suppress anybody highlighting the achievements of any race okay what I'm saying is is that when you put things like that in public you're leaving people out you're excluding people I don't uh mean to diminish certainly the horrors that were inflicted on black people African-Americans and many others in this country for hundreds of years I don't mean to diminish that whatsoever I understand that happens but is the solution to that to go overboard the other side why why don't we ask kids I think I think that's where I mean obviously I mean the are the kids complaining about it in the schools I don't think so I I think I've listened to them um there're in fact I I I suggest you go to the black history program that they're having um at where is it East rid yes next week I've been asked to speak um there try and go to it and listen to what they have to say and then if you still feel the same way I mean I'm listening to you so I mean you know it a going to so you know I that's all I suggest I think it's a way of the kids um feeling like they've been left out do you understand what I'm talking about they haven't been seen they haven't been heard so what are they doing and it's it's not a and it's not a violent protest it's not a violent protest of course not but then but again I asked you so your solution to a group of people not being heard traditionally for however long hundreds of years is to then subject others to that this make a statement that black lives matter no that I don't see anything wrong with that because you're exclusive you're you're excluding others with that statement you're excluding others with that statement my daughter says to me I guess I'm not worthy or or something to the effect I guess I'm not worthy of protection when she sees that now again my daughter is a strong 16-year-old young lady there's others that aren't so strong yeah that certainly will look at that and go say the same thing to themselves they don't they maybe don't have a strong role model like me to turn to and and you and you should have said oh yes you do matter why should I have to say that to her so wait it's only because she saw that that that thought even crossed her mind okay let's see if any other board members would like to speak on this topic please so one so people may or may not know but um my husband and I own a small business and several years ago we were advertising for a new hire and one thing that I had learned um from talking with lots of hiring managers was that when you put in a a document you know everyone is welcome or everyone is included there are many groups in this country who do not feel like the word everyone applies to them and so that's why you will often see when companies are hiring they will call out groups that traditionally have felt like they were not included so women or veterans or people with disabilities or people of color or whatever lgbtq yeah lgbtq right and so so the idea behind that is to signal to people that when you say everyone is included we are we are further stating these classes of people because you don't necess like statistically we know that when we say everyone you don't feel like everyone includes you and so my question would be that for those students who feel like okay we're going to say everyone matters at this school we know statistically in this country that when the word everyone is used there are huge subsets of this country who don't feel like everyone applies to them what is our solution then to allow those students to feel like they are included if we don't specifically call it out and you know I was advised to call it out specifically in our in our job posting because we wanted to make sure that we felt like everyone in the community was welcome to apply for this job and so how do we how do we communicate that to students when we don't allow students to do things like say say you know I'm young gifted in black or whatever whatever terminology it is that they want to use I and I'm I'm legitimately asking a question I want to I want to make sure I understand what what do we do then as a board or as what does District administration do to help students feel like they are part of our school Community other than doing what we did until you know you know the 1960s or whatever well I guess so what I'm going to call um this policy that we are talking about does not talk about posters it is not about these posters that is our diversity equity and inclusion so when that topic comes up we can have this discussion we are getting way off of the actual policy that I think there's I think there's a direct link to this policy that's my point in bringing this up tonight but but it's it's not in this policy it is not in this policy this policy is about harassment and it is not these I understand that but what I'm saying is that this policy is contradicting the practices going on in our schools this policy is not this policy is about I believe it is I believe you're creating a hostile area because you're you're explicitly I'm going to call the vote can I get a second on a door second second okay all those in favor I I any opposed opposed motion passes we will move on to n .0 superintendent report all right um we had a parent at um the open mic tonight talk about the SEC Festival which I know that a number of us attended that but also to highlight our Easter idge High School symphonic band under the direction of Brent KL um it was shared and we attended a number of District leaders along with school leaders um it was the Super Bowl of bands and so they perfor performed during their National Music Conference um and so big shout out to easd high school um not only did they have school and District leaders there but they also had I believe 100% of their middle and high scho or high school and middle school um music staff as well uh secondly it is I love to read month as I talk to the students and so I have been out uh reading in classrooms and as one of the teachers prompted the students they said this is the person who's in charge of the and one one yelled out world and then um she gave them a little bit of a clue and she said the du du and the next student yelled out disco so I am the superintendent in charge of the Disco according to kindergarteners um this morning uh Kelly Jansen and I had the opportunity to start at Woodbury middle school they had an avid showcase and part of that Avid showcase uh we probably had eight to 10 different school districts that were're visiting Woodbury Middle School um and in all of our classrooms taking a look at the high quality instruction that's occurred in at Woodbury Middle School and finally just to close um I know our Girl Scouts had a great picture I know not everybody got to see this but you talked about in your bus stops um you talked about uh the frigid temperatures and I do want you to know um students that I got this picture I got this picture uh from some of our staff letting me know that it was cold outside um and so just to share with the community some of the thinking um I think sometimes when it's a cold day or a snow day is called there is a Precision to how it's done like a specific temperature wind chill is going to set us into not having school first off um number one is that we want to keep schools in session as much as possible and that really when we're talking about that number of students it has a big impact but secondly on Tuesday when we did close for a school day obviously we know that there were other school districts but that's still not the reason to make decision our buses were sitting idle Friday Saturday Sunday and Monday Monday because of the holiday Friday because of a professional development day um with those temperatures we were not even sure that the buses were going to start on Tuesday um excuse me on Monday staff came in they were able to get the buses started we let the buses run we knew that Wednesday morning um was going to be a bit colder um and so we we were certain though that the buses were going to start and of course they did start um parents in community probably saw a message that came out from our community Communications Department just saying work with the neighbor sit in a warm car if you don't feel comfortable then please just keep your kids at home like we opt for that and students are excused so um there is no Precision it's not a temperature it's not a point um to be quite honest as I drove even through our own School District the temperatures varied as I uh was driving up here that morning at about 4:30 a.m. um the temperature range from everything uh -7 all the way to the paring year that was- 10 and so while we were thinking it was going to be minus 17 or higher it didn't quite get that high and so hence the reason one day there was a closure and the next day we were back in session thank you thank you um moving on to 10.0 future meeting dates March 6 2025 School Board Workshop meeting here at the district service center at 6 PM then March 27 2025 there is a Schoolboard business meeting also here at the district service center at 6 a.m. with that 11 know and we areed