zestester and the honey crisp. So, it's got a little bit of tartness to it before the sweet. Today is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025. The time is 3:45. I will now call the policy committee meeting to order. Miss
Kenny, is there a quorum present? Yes. All right. Uh, please stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. All right. Thank you for that. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So move. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Okay. I'll give that one to Nate. I'll get you later. All right.
Any discussion? Discussion. Discussion. All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion passes. All right. We are in the review of policies. So, we have some policies up
for review here today. Um, these policies are being reviewed as part of the three-year review cycle. And remember, when we review, we review the entire policy. So, what you'll notice is for these next uh, I believe it's four
policies. There are no red lines. Um, they're just full reviews. So, is there a motion to approve sending policy 203.5 school board meeting agenda? Uh with no
changes to the school board. So moved. All right. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right. Uh discussion. Discussion. Discussion. I'll just say simply say 203.5
is a standard policy in which it lays out the procedures um around what schoolboard meetings looks like. And there's some legal references there as well. It was adopted back in May of 2022, so it's in its first review cycle.
Right. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion passes. Is there a motion to approve sending policy 205, open meetings and closed
meetings with no changes to the school board? So move. All right. Thank you, Terra. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Thank you, Nate. Discussion. Discussion.
Discussion. All right. Oh, go ahead. Do we still need the line about the pandemic? Can you give me a page number, please? Sure. or section uh 205-4 um number seven
recessed or continued meetings and then it's item seven meetings during the pandemic or chapter 12 what's a chapter 12 so I would say we would leave that in there simply due to the fact that we
would have policy if something were to arise or if there was an emergency that needed to keep people away from each other, this would allow us to be able to then interact uh through technology or through phones versus in person. So, I
see it as you know overall pandemic versus just COVID 19 pandemic. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? I think it also says pandemic or chapter 12, whatever that is. Emergency. Yes.
Anything else? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion passes. Is there a motion to approve sending policy 209, code of ethics, with no
changes to the school board? Thank you. And I will second this one. Uh discussion. Oh, Mr. Chair. Yes. Um I don't know what page is on. I think it's on page three, but it's two F.
It talks about legal obligations. As a social as a school board member, I will comply with all federal, state, and local laws relating to my work as a school board member. I I would like to uh put a resolution forth to add this as an
amendment that um federal law supersedes all state and local laws. I think we need to put that in there because sometimes local laws can conflict with state or federal. So my resolution would be to add a
sentence after comply with all federal, state, and local laws related to my work as a school board member and just add after that federal laws supersedes all state and local laws. So are you looking to make a resolution or I I think I said resolution. Yeah.
And then I want to make a resolution to or propose an amendment, however you want to put it. So, you're proposing an amendment to add correct to uh section F number one comply with all federal, state, and local laws related to my work as a schoolboard
member. Whereas, federal law supersedes state and local law. Yes, you you word it very nicely. Thank you. Yeah, I would like to put that away. Okay.
So, amendment has been put forward. Is there a second? Is there a second? Is there a second? Okay. So the motion fails for an amendment due to no second.
Um back to discussion on 209. This was adopted in December of 2022. There are three state statutes there that it conforms to. So just to kind of piggyback
um federal law generally supersedes and overrides conflicting state law. No, federal law always supersedes Yes. state and local. So but we're not voting on that now because
it's no SE correct. Yeah, we're just just confirming that that's the way it all it works. Federal law is always supersedes state and local and state always supersedes local. So,
okay. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. All right. Uh motion passes. That would be what? One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven to one. All right. Um, is there a motion to approve sending policy 210 conflict of interest with no changes to the school board? So moved. Thank you. Is there a second?
Second. All right. Um, discussion. discussion discussion uh there's a litany of state statutes there that talk about um that are legal references for it as well
as cross references to model policy 101 and model policy 209 which we just discussed. Um so any further discussion? All right, hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I.
I. Opposed. All right. Motion passes. All right. We will move on to uh four revision of policies. So you'll notice here that we have three policy revisions which will come with red
lines. So remember as we looked at revisions, we're only looking at what is in red. Okay. So is there a motion to approve sending revisions to policy 425, staff development to the school board?
So thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right. Um discussion. So, you'll notice that this was tabled from August 5th um with the expectation that I would reach out to our attorney. We reached
out to Terry Marorrow, who is the attorney for M uh MSBA. Um he said, I think the wrong Oh, am I 425, right? 425. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That one was
We tabled both two of them. Two of them. Yes. Yes. So yep. So uh and 512 is the next one which I will discuss as well. Yes. All right. So 425 uh we reached out to um Terry
Marorrow who is the uh attorney at the school board. Um we said we wanted to know why it was replaced uh why it was changed from board to administration. Uh Terry said thank you for your message. We made this revision because we had
received some questions about the meaning of establish a committee. The paragraph that was revised is not part of Minnesota law. At the time that policy was first created, MSBA created the paragraph. In light of the membership of the advisory committee, as
stated in Minnesota statute 122A.60, 6. This committee seems similar to other committees of staff and others in which the administration creates a process for naming members. Thus, we recommend a similar process because the administrators tend to know more about
potential committee member members generally. Uh with that said, your board can keep the original approach and the board can make the appointments if it chooses to do so. It will take board action to replace committee members if
one resigns or etc. All right, I hope this information is helpful. So basically all of our committees have been chosen by administration. Um if they were to be chosen by the
board, so we we have not followed this board piece. if they've been chosen by the board, then anytime we would have personnel changes or people that wouldn't show up or people that would leave the committee, we would have to then uh go through the board to have them
and most likely it would be administrators bringing names to the board for them to verify that. So um that is the information that we received from MSBA around that. Any further discussion on 425?
Uh yes, just as a point of clarification. So they talk about the staff development committee. Uh there's other committees that uh So you're saying other committees are appointed by the administration then? All committee all committees are
appointed by administration. All of the committees. Yes. Okay. I guess with this one uh I I just with advisory staff development committee um I would just I I wouldn't mind even in putting school board and
administration andor but I I think that I and I actually t I talked to Jody Withers I think it was Jody Withers from the was from the legislature state legislature and he sent me this the duties of the um school board I think
it's it's uh section 123b.09 09 of the Minnesota statutes and it's under subdivision 8 duties that it said the board must superintend and manage the schools of the district adopt rules for their organization government and instruction that goes on to scrape
prescribe textbooks and courses of study when I and I actually talked to Jod it was a few months ago actually probably longer than that and he said the school board really has broad authority and what I'm just my problem is that I do not want to water down the school
board's authority and I think this may be doing it. I think if most you said most of the committees are you know uh appointed by the administration. I think staff development committee should be probably one that should be in but I I wouldn't mind the administration
and the school board adding that but I don't think it should be just for the administration and that's my personal opinion. So I don't know what the other board what the other committee members here think but uh I don't think it should be just administration. I wouldn't mind
school board and administration. So for only this committee but for for right now because you said all of the committees uh the administration uh chooses the um
who's on the committee. Correct. And this one apparently it it didn't because this was the school board. So I think we should I I just would like to I don't think we should water down the school board duties and that's what I think maybe is happening here. So
can I can I yes ask clarify and kind of reflect back on here because I've been on number of staff development committees um in early childhood and for special and administration
asked people to be on these committees. So if you're looking at the input from the school board, you're going to be looking at several buildings for staff development, maybe several departments. Does the school board want to spend that
time getting to know the ins and outs of all of those departments? Were they able to do that? I don't know how, but I think when we take on the role of a school board member, I think we really need to know what's going on.
So, you want to be a member of every building staff development. Well, uh, maybe I would. Yeah, I I think I'm sitting here trying to think, do you want input? Because that's what an advisory board does. It gathers
information and presents things to the school board for them to be able to vote gay or on. But if you want more involvement, that to me would be getting involved in Roosevelt, Jefferson,
Middle School, High School, ALC, and whatever other Well, it does say shall be appointed. So, we we would appoint members. And I I I wasn't going to bring this up, but I am going to now. I've heard from at least well a constituent that sometimes
they've asked to be on committees that were opened up and they never received a response. So, and I can talk more about that with you. Constituents or staff members? Staff. No, no, this was uh some like for some committees when you open it up to
the public and um one member said I have asked it to repeatedly to be on some I think it's advisory is it the advisory committee that they open it up. So can I ask how long ago this was? Uh maybe they told me about a year and a half ago year ago. So
we haven't had any committees besides reorganization committee that have been open. Well, this was before that. It was some kind of advisor or some kind of committee that was open up to the public. I do want to I do want to state that, you know, one of the things is this is this is an advisory.
You know, this here is an advisory committee. What we're also discussing here is an advisory committee. They are not making decisions. They are simply saying this is what we think or what we believe we should do. It is still up to
the board to then vote yes or no. Does that make sense? So, it's it's this what we're looking at for the staff development. It's an advisory staff development committee that is no different than what this uh policy committee is. We are an advisory
committee here as well. So, is there any further discussion? Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. No.
Okay. So motion passes seven to one. Yes. I'm counting correctly. Okay. Is there a motion to approve sending revisions to policy 512, school
sponsored student publication and activities to the school board? So moved. All right. Is there a second? Second. All right. Thank you. Discussion. Okay. So this one we also sent to MSBA.
Um, we had concerns about this and I think I was I was clear that many school districts and superintendents had concerns around this policy when it was changed. Um, we asked the policy committee has concerns about the wording in policy 512 that was struck by MSBA in
the latest revision of polic of the policy. Why was it removed? What are the implic implications if we do not accept the changes and keep the working in yellow in the policy? So keep the original policy. All right.
Um and then we laid out uh general statement of policy and the guidelines. Okay. Uh once again, Terry Marorrow, uh attorney for MSBA, uh responded. He said, "Thank you for your message. When the Minnesota State
When the Minnesota Legislature passed the student journalism law, Minnesota statute section 121A-8.8 80 excuse me in 2024 we engaged in substantial discussion about ret
retaining sentence regarding the district's authority subdivision three of the law reflects the final agreement. All right. So then they talk about sub division three unprotected expression. This section does not authorize or protect student expression that is
defamatory is profane harassing threatening or intimidating. Constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, violates federal or state law, causes a material and substantial disruption of school activities, or is a direct or is
or is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action on school premises or the violation of lawful school policies or rules, including a policy adopted in accordance with section 121A.03
3 or 121A.031. Nothing in this section authorizes the publication of an advertisement by school sponsored media that promotes the purchase of a product or service that is unlawful for purchase or use by minors. A school district must not authorize any
prior restraint of school sponsored media except under this subdivision. Uh turning to deletion of the word express expresses we discuss situations in which a student journalist may be writing to report on or expose such
speech. Similarly, a student journalist may be writing to take a stand against such speech. In both cases, the word expresses could be read as prohibiting a student journalist in those situations. That is the response that we received. Mr. Chair, I think that's a good
argument for 512-4 there with uh to take out expresses. Um that is a good argument. I also think that sometimes just expressing we have to weigh things too with the first amendment, you know, and I think I think we have to give a
little leeway sometimes to I to the first amendment that and also what you had mentioned. I could see a problem there. So I think that should be taken out. Uh my problem really is with on the first page uh 2A.
Um, it just said the school district may exercise editorial control over the style and content of student expression. It doesn't say you must. It just says you may. So, I I just think I think we should leave that in there because I don't think we should abdicate that
supervisory role. And the fact that it says may is is up to the administration. It doesn't say must or that you have to. So and also I I just feel that and I think we have very smart students but the reality is that you know the mental
capacity or not mental capacity but the um maturity of the brain doesn't you know until doesn't uh I think it's mid20s and so I think we with that in mind I think we have to
just make sure that we that um we don't get in trouble somebody could sue us or whatever. Uh I think we need to leave that in there, especially when it says may because then it's up to the administration for that. So that's where I you know I I
I think we have a responsibility to the students and to protect them too and uh you know and and as the brain doesn't fully develop till the mid20s
and so I think we should I think we should er on the side of caution and just keep that in there especially when it says may So, I definitely hear that and this was one that I was a bit conflicted on
myself, but um on page 55 512-5 under D um there's a whole paragraph notwithstanding the rights or freedoms of article or the first amendment of the United States Constitution. Uh where are you? I'm sorry.
Um page five. Uhhuh. And where? Uh section D. E or D D. D. Okay. Nothing in this article inhibits a student media advisor from teaching professional standards of the English
and journalism to student journalists. Um and then they go on to list six points. Um I think that makes me more comfortable. I will reiterate the fact that what I said at the last meeting that there are
very few superintendents that were excited when this revision came out. Um, you mean pertaining to page one for what? You're pertaining to mainly pertaining to page one. Yes. Yeah. A 2A. Um, so they weren't excited about it. Okay.
And and um my concern so my concern set aside the the advice from the attorney from MSBA is that this is that removing that A is exactly what
Minnesota statute section 121A.80 is stating. So saying that we're going to leave that in would violate the letter of the section of the excuse me the letter of the statute.
Um I don't like that response but that's the response that we have. Um, and I don't really see, and Jamie, I know you were the one that sent the email to Terry over this, but I
don't really see because we did also ask what if we just don't accept it. But I think that would fall under the message of violates violating it. So, it's it's kind of one of those things where you have
I believe um and I believe that is in uh if you look at uh the last page where it says posting it says uh section five posting the school district must adopt a student journalism policy consistent with
Minnesota statutes 121A.80 and posted on the district website. So what what would happen if we take this out and there's you know there's a journal article comes out by a student. Is there a possibility
the school district could be sued or what? There there's always a pool. There's always the possibility the district would be sued. All right. The district would be sued could be sued for that. The district could also then on the other hand be sued if we don't if we don't say yes to this because then we
would be infringing on and by what the attorney says here and the way the way the statute seems to be worded we would be infringing on uh first amendment rights of our students. So yeah that that is a balancing act.
Um just in I'm not going to just in principle I'm going to u you stand against that I have to do that for in principle
and there are advisors to the journalism and to the yearbook so there is kind of someone overseeing the process and helping guide the students into what they put out there yeah and they go over it before it's
produced too make sure that that's covered as as well. So, there is some protection there. And the the pieces here that are in here, and I'm kind of surprised it doesn't reference this
in Yeah, it doesn't reference this in the legal references, which is very surprising to me because basically the definitions that they give um in section three and what uh the
attorney talked about in section three is unprotected expression matches almost identically to Tinker v De Moine which is many many many decades old and has held up over time in the courts. So
whether we like it or not that there is substantial yeah there's substantial pieces here that you know that are um that are allowing this. So I guess just from my viewpoint and I like to look at things from a broad
perspective. Uh I think we're moving this is just one step in moving in a direction that I I'm very skeptical of. So that's my problem. So any further discussion?
Any further discussion? All right. None being heard. We are talking about policy 512 school sponsored student publications and activities. Um all those in favor of sending the policy
the way it is written uh the updated revision signify by saying I I opposed. No. All right. Motion passes 7 to one. Okay. New policies. So, we have two
policies that are here for us. Uh, we're going to have a presenter for one of these. So, Mike Birding, will you please come forward to discuss um one of our new policies? Uh, so is there a motion to approve sending new policy and we
would be looking at changing the number to 625 um use of and reproduction of copyrighted materials to the school board. So, moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second.
Okay. Uh so discussion. Uh Mr. Birding, I will allow you to discuss uh the changes that you have. This is formally policy 803.4 that you've done substantial rewrites on and changed it to policy 625. Correct.
Correct. Okay. Um so I don't know if you just want to give us a quick rundown um you know your ele quick elevator speech on this. So yes, so the thing that we were looking at most when um providing revisions for
this policy uh was the expansion of fair use. The original policy uh just said fair use in quotations. So we took the language from uh the law under what fair use is. Um and then we further added
some language in regards to the fair use of um films in classrooms which are uh presently questions that we do ask teachers currently if they want to show a film in their classroom. Um beyond that um I felt that it was more fitting
that this policy be within educational programs rather than buildings and sites. Hence the number change from uh the 800 series into the 600 series. And Jamie, do we know if this number 625 conflicts with any other numbers that we don't have?
Uh, not that I'm not that I know. Okay. All right. So, discussion or questions that you have for Mr. Birding around uh new policy 625. Any discussions? I just have a question. I know um more
so in high school I think than maybe college and things like that. You know, sometimes when you're doing research papers and you have to, you know, it's really illegal to copy copyrighted material but for your use so you can read it and research. Is that a problem
with any students? I don't know. I haven't been in high school for a long time. I know with college they there is something that you you know you cannot plagiarize but you have to use it for your own use. So when you're doing it I think the college let us do that even though technically we're not supposed to
do things like that because I know I took a copyrighted I was reading a book and I wanted some papers and I took it down to the print shop they said this is illegal we can't do that so I had to take it to the it was Mano's or the St. Aries and uh then I could do it. But I
don't know if that applies to us or not. It probably applies more to the college level when you're really going deep into research. You know what I'm asking, right? Because you know when I run things off, I'm not going to use it for my profit or anything like that. I'm using it for my research paper,
right? And so the majority of what you're trying or what you're talking about um it's kind of a gray area, right? Um and that and that's the difficult piece of this. Um but if you look at Minnesota as
a whole, um if you're in Minnesota or you have a Minnesota IP address, you have access to e library Minnesota where you have access to um you know peer-reviewed articles, uh journals, uh all sorts of different things. Um, but the idea of of copying something for the
research, um, generally if it fits one of those fair use categories, then you would be fine doing so, but you'd have to make sure that it fits that fair use category. Um, and as always, you want to make sure that you're citing your sources, right? So, it's really not a like you
said, it's a gray area and I didn't know if it changed since I was in in college or or but it wouldn't necessarily be a roadblock to students that really I want to dig into research maybe at the high school or something like that. So, that's what I was thinking, but I just
wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. I'm actually going to make a motion to table this until October. Uh Jamie, help me with the date. Seventh. Um what was it?
7th. October 7th. And the reason I'm making this motion is and I discussed this with Mr. Birding beforehand. While he has done a wonderful job at going through this and and updating it, I want to make sure that an attorney has looked at it
first just to see if there's anything in there that could potentially uh have us in legal limbo. So, I would like to uh table this until October 7th, which is our next policy committee meeting. uh have our attorneys look at it and give
us the thumbs up or make any changes and then that way we can approve it here and send it on the school board rather than it goes to the school board. They ask if the attorneys have seen it. I say no, they send it back to us. Then we have to send it to the attorneys. Then it comes back. So I just rather kind of get out
in front of that. So, I'm going to make a motion to table uh use and reproduction of copyrighted materials policy 625 until October 7th pending attorney uh the a chance for the attorneys to look at it. Is there a second?
Second. All right. Any discussion? Is there discussion on tableabling something? I don't think there is. So, all right. All in favor of tableabling uh use and reproduction of copyrighted materials until October 7th. uh signify by saying
I I opposed. All right. So we will come back to that one um on October 7th. Um then is there a motion to approve
sending new policy 599 use of social media to the school board? So move. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Um discussion. So this
policy was tabled at the March 4th policy committee meeting. Um once again this was a policy that was uh drawn up by Mr. Birding around social media. It was brought to this committee.
Um committee was uh like the idea behind it. um but wanted to make sure that we had an attorney take a look at it for any first amendment uh considerations. So our attorneys looked at this. You can see the red changes that they have made
um based around you know uh aligning it with what they currently know around first amendment cases. Um Mr. Birding has looked at their changes and has agreed that these changes look fine based off of his original intent.
Um so that is the discussion that I have. Is there any further discussion? U Mr. Chair? Yes. Yeah. I I was really concerned about a couple of the paragraphs and they took them out. So I think I think that was I
think it was a very good idea to let the attorneys look at that because like I say the first amendment is very we have to there's a fine line in there sometimes. But um I think they did a good job. So, thank you. Any further discussion?
This is kind of unrelated, but I really like how all of the comments are in here. Yeah, that was helpful, too. The attorney firm that we use does a very nice job um and is very thorough in their work that we asked them to do. So,
any other discussions? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor of of sending policy 599 to the school board signify by saying I. Opposed. Okay, that is it for our policies for
today. Our next meeting will be October 7th, 2025 at 3:45 p.m. uh right here in this room. There are no more items to discuss. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved.
Thank you. Second. I'll give it to Nick. fighting over this. Give it to me. Sorry, Mrs. Fashion. All right. So, all right. [Music]