##VIDEO ID:YYlY2Kr_FOQ## night um thank you for everyone for coming to tonight's meeting we're going to start out tonight with a very special recognition um tonight is sadly director Petrie's last night so we're gonna honor her tonight um in appreciation for your continued investment in our students and staff through your service on the school board of Independent School District 834 Stillwater area public schools we would like to present you with your Bell so we'll give this over to you so thank you for the four years you've would you like to ring your [Laughter] bell that is no Bev specifically asked for um not a lot of comments in Fanfare tonight so um she's going to have plenty of time to say her goodbyes personally and she would prefer to do it that way and um but I just want to I feel very comfortable saying on behalf of the board and on behalf of the community thank you doesn't seem quite enough to um to just Express how grateful we are to to the community you've done so much both on the board and from for the school district in so many other capacities whether it's the partnership plan um countless volunteer um activities uh I know after the School Board you're going to continue to be that active volunteer in our schools and um we're so grateful and so blessed to have you um in our lives I know I speak for everyone on here you've made the board fun you've brought um great comments and questions and just a steady calm and um and so we just enjoy having you and serving with you so you're going to be really really missed like it's going to be hard to have you not here so um for everyone look she's hold it together so thank you and I guess I just want to turn over you if you have a few things to say I just want to say thank you um I am honored that the community put its trust in me um electing me twice um and it's been an honor to serve these four years and I have been grateful to serve it with the people at this table um it seems to me that we've accomplished a lot some of us have been at this table for the whole four years years and we have accomplished a lot in that time we've um we're building two new schools we're adding on to um Oakland we um what else have we done we've done a lot hired a superintendent we've hired a superintendent I knew that there was another big thing that we Ren L our first and I do have to say that is a big thing because I think that we tend um to underestimate the power of stability in an organization and that is one of the things that we all of us here have helped to bring to this um to this school district and um I know that I I stand on the shoulders of a lot of really wonderful board members that we have had over the years in this district and um and they all sort of had the same goal and that was to do what's you know without any sort of an agenda or any sort of narrow interest to do what's best for kids within the limits of our our fiscal boundaries and I just feel I feel very confident very confident that the board um that's going to take office in January is going to continue that um and I will be cheering you from afar so thank you very much well thank you and um I don't know did you want to say anything superintendent Funk or you don't you don't have to I don't have to to um you know I think when you talk stability I think stability starts with the school board and I think you in particular have been the backbone of this board since at least since I've been here and so um you know it's transitioning to to a new board as you're transitioning to a new role um but I think a lot of folks on the board and in the community are very appreciative and I'm very appreciative of um your strength and I can tell you that it will be missed at this board uh but we will still be reaching out to you for guidance and wisdom and uh um all that you uh have been able to assist us here at this table you're still around and we're we're still going to be reaching out to you so thank you thanks thank you very much P I mean it's really been just an awesome privilege to get to know you and serve with you and just watch you work so it's um we will miss you but we are still going to always be in touch and I just am going to be curious what you do with your Tuesday nights now watching you guys all right well all right well let's move on um and we're gonna move into public comment I'm going to we have quite a few speakers tonight um I'm going to read the public comment expectations and then we'll call people up uh director Hawker next to me is holding up time cards for the three minutes just to kind of kind of um let people know where they stand in their time and when you come up to speak to the board just take a seat here by the microphone at the end of the the board and we look forward to hearing from everyone and thank everyone for coming out tonight uh public comment expectations the school board encourages Community input while comments and questions are welcome law prohibits the board from discussing concerns about individual employees or students in a public meeting the board will not deliberate discuss or engage in conversation with speakers however the board may ask Administration to review the concerns presented speakers must present their testimony in a respectful manner vulgarity character attacks malice or specific complaints identifying staff or students by name or implication will not be permitted we will stop the proceedings immediately if employee or student privacy issues are raised and direct the speaker to forward comments regarding individual employees or students to the superintend with that our first Speaker this evening is Kate Hari I hope I'm pronouncing that right okay in America is Harry Harry okay well thank you for that is this the spot for me that's it my name is Kate Harry and I live at 13588 Manning Trail North it's in Stillwater and I thank you kindly in advance for what I'm about to say and for it's about the formalizing the process for the identity harm protocol and I'm opposing that particular protocol as being unnecessary inappropriate designed to selectively support victim groups rather than directly addressing a bully to get behaviors to stop in my history I have a double major in sociology and criminology as well as an advanced degree in counseling psychology I have a work history of being a probation officer a therapist in a day Treatment Center working with adolescence and working in a lock Psychiatric Hospital counselor in outpatient chemical dependency Center and a psychologist I worked with adolesence for about 17 years of my life just like all of you I attended school I went to school I was bullied as a kid for my last name Harry Applause I put up with it my whole life so anyway um when I was an adolescent some of my hair fell out it grew back white and I had brown hair with a white streak in it it was called skunk so with all of that in mind I have a history of it personally and professionally and I think bullying is not only wrong it does have to be addressed but the way we have to address it is to address it individually rather than proposing an equitable way of resolving it because in this situation bullies are always going to exist they've been here since the beginning of time and they do it because either they don't feel confident in themselves or they want power over someone that will not not change but our approach to them has to be very consistent this protocol that is being proposed to be put in place permanently was brought up by at the last District advisory committee meeting of which I am a member on December 6th Mike McCarthy who's also going to be speaking tonight spent significant time putting together a summary of what his talking points would be he tried to hand it out someone refused to even take it saying I will not even accept taking that particular agenda item as he started to speak he was interrupted many times by ATT IES he was called names like CIS and people started to pile on bullying him to silence him this was the perfect example in microcosm of why this protocol is harmful in and of itself because he's not one of the recognized or celebrated victim classes he was harassed and bullied to silence him no one stopped The Bullying behavior in that room so in closing the comments that you're hearing tonight may be surprising to you because usually you hear consensus you hear someone saying it it's great life is Wonderful Life is Beautiful well it's because there hasn't been a lot of opportunity to show the different of opinion because our committee itself is broken there are very few meetings it's down from 12 to now four a year the majority of the members are tied directly or indirectly with the school which is a conflict of interest there are two or three people who are just community members like myself there's no substantive discussion there's no motions to vote on things presented there are no meeting minutes taken or shared agendas have not generally been available prior to meeting to discuss these various issues the meetings are held at 4:30 which is an incredibly inconvenient time time for just about everybody who's apparent in in this community the only people who can attend people like me I'm retired so the bottom line is it's not easy to find this and I thank you very much for your time and I appreciate that you were listening thank you thank you okay our next speaker is Michael McCarthy I want to first comment that unity and stability are the Hallmarks of tyranny is not the Hallmarks of a functioning democracy and as we all celebrate that I'd like to just speak for the minority for a moment in our culture wars community members believing that we are all humans that our sons are male our daughters are female and that this is fixed and unchanging deserve equal treatment we must not be marginalized and have our children taught beliefs that contradict their parents and Faith Community the district alone cannot the district cannot claim to have informed the public or to have public input on tonight's Progressive identity policing protocols without engagement with those who oppose having their children taught that they live in a systemically white privileged world where bipo children should be treated differently and where binary heteronormal as Illustrated in all an all staff distribution is considered an evil to be abolished and replaced with lgbtq multi-gender fluidity indoctrination we want our children treated equally not divided into political identity groups of those accused of being privileged oppressors pitted against children assigned victim status needing restitution from their less politically favored classmates no seven-year-old child owes restitution to their classmate no classmate should expect to get it we do not accept the progressive worldview that divides our children into competing skin tone groups where some get more voice resources opportunity and others are expected to surrender Theirs to be good allies of those having political favor in a recent public meeting a senior School official began a statement by saying we could all say that white student is automatically assumed to have more privilege right wrong that is exactly the difference we do not accept the progressive worldview that sexualizes young children by promoting Unlimited sexual practices as a means of discovering their authentic selves while keeping their child's gender identity plan secet from parents and ridicules those who believe there are only two fixed genders who are normally attracted to each other in our most recent advisory committee I was told my identities were essentially bad I had the labels applied to me they were not my own labels they were deemed to be privileged and as a privileged speaker my ideas were not acceptable they were loed they were denigrated and they were left out and that is why I expect to see these protocols applied exactly in that manner by exactly the school employees who did that to a fellow Committee Member in a public meeting is evidence of what's occurring and what is to come I understand that social justice demands suppression of my bad identities and the uplifting of those who are privileged Racial equality for all bad racial equity for the political favored good binary heter normality bad lgbtq multif fluidity good we have a committee that's 32 people only three of us are not School Employees or family members this is a scam when you look across at each other and all say tonight when this comes up do we have public agreement on this and they go yes we do thank you Mr McCarthy time is well time is up and that's exactly right time is up and we need some recognition thank you for your time we need the recognition you've gotten public input from non-employees this is the time to act on that your time is up thank you our next speaker is joy pillin hi yes I am Joy pin uh a resident now of Hugo but was born in still water and went through the school system as did my sons I'm a concerned grandparent and now a great-grandparent of a 2-year-old who lives in Oak Park Heights I know firsthand from a niece whose children were bullied here in the high school and middle school the youngest was removed from middle school and homeschooled that student has since returned to the high school and once again is being bullied I agree and support the statements that have been made by Kate and and Michael because those are the only two that came before me so far I am in full support of Mike's documentation and agree that the privileged SL victim identity group social model is wrong and harmful I am in opposition of today's proposed identity harm protocols 101 and request as he and Kate did that the district give this full public engagement thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Katherine Hobbs good evening I um attended the curriculum oh uh I'm Katherine Hobbs and I live in Still Water I attended the curriculum advisory committee meeting last week and as a district parent I was disappointed to see there were attempts to shut members down and stop them from voicing opinions not the majority these minority voices were interrupted numerous times and eventually shut down well before the meetings end which also ended like I think almost an hour early they were accused of causing offense when they wanted to speak on policies at hand and why in their experience those policies are not good ideas does that sound like a community that's open to criticism or different ideas to anybody the committee is not a process that allows for Meaningful feedback it's a presentation process designed to rubber stamp Community approval and by its own rules only the majority approval is presented to the board so now what will be presented to this board from the committee will be Community agreement with identity harm protocols many in the public have no idea these Protocols are being implemented like the disting voices on the council I was also merly bullied at school as a child rules that are broken need consequences for bullies and those rules need to be actually enforced properly students look to those in Authority in school to administer consequences to rule-breaking actions fairly and in accordance with the rules not pressure the victim into a restorative Circle and face their bully themselves or watch their bully get off easy because the bully is a protected class class should have nothing to do with this the only only thing these protocols will enshrine is grossly harmful gender identity ideology and a culture where all students are equal but some students are more equal than others but if you have a problem with that you are free to go to an unlisted hard toin meeting stacked with District staff and be interrupted and belittle for your trouble thank you thank you our next speaker is Kathy Salzman so first I just want to thank all of you for your service I'm Kathy Saltzman a 30-year resident and as a grandparent proud to see a second generation of ponies begin their education in 834 sorry Bev but I'm here tonight to recognize and express my deep appreciation to you as our as as at you know as has been noted this is your last board meeting and after serving our community and students for the fast um the past four years I am extremely grateful now be before you even considered running for office you had already made a very significant impact on our district you chaired a critical operating Levy campaign in 2007 you were tireless in those efforts and the result was successful passage in a year when many other districts failed and later as executive director of the partnership plan which is our District's Foundation you brought energetic and also creative leadership to the position that secured the needed Investments to fund the many special projects and grants that you know too many of us take to um that that happen and that are taken for granted in our schools but when many of us felt our Schoolboard faced a crisis and Leadership a lack of Direction and litigation that threatened the financial stability of our district it was you who many of us saw as a respected Community leader who voters would recognize as the noons fiscally responsible does her homework and student-driven candidate that they could trust your fellow board members selected you as chair the first day you took office you led this board through many difficult decisions to address outstanding issues left by your predecessors um I have seen your many efforts to be an accessible listener and one who always is prepared you had a critical role in hiring Dr Michael Funk realizing the strong and strategic leadership he would bring to this District was exactly what we needed you may be retiring beev but I know you're not going away already you've joined the ranks of the vessel volunteer tutors and and will be working with students two days a week so public service is an honor but it's also an incredible sacrifice you stepped forward at a time in your life when it would have been very easy to say it's someone else's turn to serve please know how grateful I am for that and how your legacy and contributions to this District have not on unnoticed and you exemplify what being a servant leader truly is thank you Bev thank you our next speaker is Laura Lou hello my name is Laura louu and I'm a parent of two kids in this District I also on the district advisory committee where I first learned about the proposed identity harm protocols that you will be discussing tonight I am here to voice my support for them after our committee discussion one Community member who opposed these protocols told me that bullying is a part of life suggesting that children should simply learn to deal with it while challenges can build resilience today we understand how profoundly harmful bullying can be especially when it targets someone's identity such as their race religion gender sexual orientation culture or disability others have suggested removing the focus on identity from these protocols while that may sound appealing in theory the reality is that much of the bullying children face is directly tied to their identity ignoring this fact undermines our ability to protect the students these Protocols are designed to help consider these statistics a 2021 report from the government accountability office found that one in four students experience bullying based on identity for lgbtq plus students the numbers are even more alarming more than half were targeted due to their identity and 82% feel unsafe at school and the impact is profound identity-based bullying is linked to increased anxiety depression suicidal thoughts and lower academic performance left unaddressed it creates a school culture of division and fear eroding the safety every child needs to learn and thrive adopting these protocols will equip Educators with the tools to recognize and respond to identity-based harm they establish a clear consistent framework for addressing incidents together with parents staff and students this isn't about punishment it's about fostering accountability empathy and growth every child has aspects of their identity that are deeply personal and Central to who they are schools have a responsibility to ensure those traits aren't sources of fear or harm when students feel safe and included they learn better form stronger connections and develop the skills to succeed in a in a diverse world let's make our district one in which every child knows they belong thank you for your time and your commitment to our students all right our next speaker is an shmakin hi I'm an shmakin I live in the district my three children were ponies and I am here tonight to recognize beev Petri for her remarkable service to our district I met Bev in 2007 when she was co-chair of a successful lovey Campaign which is no small feat um by that time she was already a seasoned volunteer in the district helping or probably leading where she was needed as her boys grew up after leading the lovey effort she became a board member and eventually the executive director of the partnership plan helping to raise literally hundreds and thousand hundreds of thousands of dollars for students and teachers for most people that would have been enough but be isn't like most people the school board was in need of an experienced Steady Hand and Bev once again stepped forward ran another campaign and won twice there are very very few people in this District who have been as dedicated hardworking and passionate about Stillwater area public schools as Bev here are a few things that stand out to me about your leadership you're Guided by strong principles you're not afraid to roll up your sleeves and work and you're willing to learn new skills and think creatively to find Solutions I'm personally grateful for your many years of service to our community and for allowing me to learn alongside you I can truly say our community is a better place because of you well done and I can't wait to see what we do [Applause] next our next speaker is Liz toker hi I'm Liz Tucker and I'm the parent of two children in this district and I'm here to voice my support for the identity harm protocols I uh learned about this when I saw it on the agenda and I read through the identity harm protocols and I felt compelled to come here and show my support tonight I am not originally from this area and when we first moved here I had no idea of the wide choice of Education options that I would have for my kids um it actually felt really overwhelming but based on the recommendations of trusted friends that I made and close neighbors I chose Still Water even though I had been educated in religious schools my whole life um and a lot of it was due to the mission statement of the Still Water School District and actually it's right over here on a poster um I'm going to quote it from a children's point of view there's a statement that says I feel safe heard and accepted at school and my individuality and diversity is valued and from a parent perspective there's a line that says my child is seen and valued for who they are and is part of a safe community that is kind loving and respectful of each other to me the identity harm Protocols are a furthering of the mission statement of this District it's a way to protect what makes our kids Unique Individuals their identities I see this not as uh you know a furthering or a way to uh exclude uh children but it's an inclusive policy that's here to protect all the children in the district and to me what stands out a lot in the mission statement is the word safe in a world that doesn't always feel safe especially at the news this week I really want my my children sorry I really want my children to feel safe in school and the facts back this up it's not just emotion marginalized kids are at higher risk of suicide depression lgbtq kids according to the Trav project are 19 times more likely to have suicidal ideation so Dr pet said it best when she said that we're here to do what's best for our children and I think this policy is so clearly in line with that that to me it's wild that we're even here to have to have a public comment on it thank you thank you okay our last speaker this evening is James Cashman is James Cashman here okay um it looks like James is not in the room so with that our public comment is concluded thank you to hold on a oh welcome come on up you're you can sit right here and director Hawker I think you just walked in so director hackard has your time cards for your three minutes welcome you made it yes I ran hang on hi I'm James name is Cashman a longtime resident of Stillwater and I have grandchildren growing up here will soon be part of the Stillwater School District I want I would like certain assurances from the school board that my grandchildren will be accepted for who they are my 5-year-old grandson currently identifies as a pirate I'm wishing and hoping that my grandchildren grow up and live their best lives I would like to be assured that no one on the board has any issues with an amputation of one of my grandson's legs and the removal of an eye so he can live his truest identity as a pirate there's been many troubles for my grandchildren growing up in Still Water For example just the other night he was denied whiskey at a local pub even though he clearly identifies is a middle-aged pirate this type of bigotry must be stopped and identity should never be limited to solely a person's choice of gender and we should support everyone's choice to be whatever they want even Pirates everyone should be able to choose their gender their race religion Etc so whatever idea my 5-year-old grandson comes up with we should fully support so I would would like to ask the board members tonight does anyone here have an objection to the permanent removal of my grandchild's leg and the removal of an eye so he can live his best life if you do please raise your hand it appears that the board unanimous unanimously agrees that the permanent mutilation of a child is not in their best interest thank you all right with that our public comment period is closed and um we will call this meeting to order Joan roll call director hacker here director kenberg here director lower director Petri here Dr thander here chair Sherman here for right let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Obi to the flag of the United States of America theu for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all now we're going to approve tonight's agenda I will go ahead and make a motion to approve the agenda can I get a second second great director thelander with a second all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed agenda passes welcome to our new St I'll let you do the introductions here but there's a new face for that the board May recognize and our student representative so as you can see anley is not um here with us but we have a special guest with us I'll let her introduce herself hi I'm Jillian Maddox I'm a junior representative on the student council at Stillwater and I'm a part of a lot of different things in the school district I'm on the lacrosse team in NHS Visa trust club and Morgan's message so yeah welcome um but we have a kind of a quick easy little student report tonight so we'll start off with we had our Winter concert for our top high school band Orchestra and choir and each of their selected chamber groups and it was very successful super wonderful way to spread holiday cheer and to show off the incredible Talent we have here at Still Water um nhs's coffee house is this Friday the 20th they have two shows at 600 and 800m and so students will share their singing dancing and talents um to help raise money for the Bea program at the high school which I'm actually going to let talk a little bit about what visa is yes so I'm a member of visa and we our main goal in the club is just to um we do a lot of fundraising and it's to help African children get off of the streets and into schools so we sponsor kids and we fundraise for their education and we just spend a lot of time in our meetings learning about them and that kind of things so then student council had their first United council meeting um at the the beginning of December which is an organization that invites any club sport or art program leaders to come meet with a and I to talk about what's going on with inst still water whether it is school initiatives student perspective and opinions or just ways that we can better our school environment we're open to discussing anything so we meet usually the year we're going to try to meet once a month um the first meeting was good we're hoping to get a few more participants in there um for our meeting in January and then our final thing is that just winter break is almost here we're three days away um so students are just getting ready to spend some time away and reset for New Year and then finishing semester one in mid January that's all we have for you today thank you thank you um super tender report so unfortunately you're all aware of the um tragic shooting that occurred yesterday in Madison where a couple of people were killed um so I just wanted to inform the board and the community um where we are at as far as crisis response as District so number of weeks ago Mark drummer Housen and I met with um representatives from Washington County Emergency Management and the sheriff's department to talk about training our staff in the eventuality of a situation where there's a shooter or a threat within our schools um we've done a really good job here in still water I think of looking at how we're going to re reunite families we've done a really good job here of identifying um standard response protocols as far as what language we use throughout buildings but we really have not done a lot of focus on preparing staff if a bad situation happens um what to do so we talked about training uh our our building leaders in these protocols um and so that that training actually took place a couple weeks ago after the holidays um Mark and I are going to go out and um take some of the um information from the training we had with the principes and we're going to meet with um staff from all the buildings so that uh they can start thinking about it and really what I'm trying to uh emphasize with the staff is there's no perfect solution to anything that that happens but we want you to be able to think through some potential scenarios in case the worst thing does happen so that we are more prepared to uh take care of ourselves and students um if something tragic did happen so so that's an important piece that took place the other thing uh that happened La later last week was we met with the Still Water uh police chief and uh member of his department and somebody from Washington County Emergency Management to talk reunification and the concern I have as superintendent is if we ever had an incident at uh stowater high school we have you know 27 2800 students there and we have a plan to reunify them as at the uh the arena here in town however the the mass chaos from all the families trying to come and and go out to that situation would be something very hard to manage so we we're putting a uh plan together with uh the Stillwater Police Department with the assistant of Washington County so that we can actually shut down some streets and manage um the uh lineup of of vehicles that will be coming to pick up kids in the in a worst case scenario so I I I say this to let the board and the community know that um you know we don't we're not just talking about student safety here and in the safety but we are act actively planning with our Community Partners to a keep our students safe um and B um work with them um on a reunification type situation and the last thing I want to talk about tonight is uh I had my uh I think uh you guys went to a school board student School Board uh meeting down in chicag Capia a couple months ago and one of the things that came out of it was a student Advisory Group for uh superintendent so we had our first student Advisory Group at the high school uh last Friday chis and I went and met with about a dozen high school students from uh different grade levels and they provided us uh lot of good insight into cell phones and uh we talked some of the identity harm uh protocol and and got some feedback from them on that so it was very successful I plan on I have a a uh parent advisory or or Community Advisory Group that I meet with quarterly I think we'll do the same thing with our students moving forward here great that's my report for this evening great any questions for the superintendent great thank you um I do not have anything for my board report so we will move on to our consent agenda and is there a motion to approve tonight's consent so moved great director petriot with the motion is there a second second okay director hackert with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed consent agenda passes so we are taking our first action this evening which is to certify the uh property school property tax levy so welcome Marie turn it over to you good evening so before you this evening is um the final um proposed um pay 2025 uh property tax levy and so uh with that you can see that the general fund amount is 46 Milli 841 2.61 and uh the community service fund is 1,357 91353 and The Debt Service fund is 17,94wh um to certify that bottom line amount I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to certify the amount can I get a second second great director kelzenberg with the second questions for Marie I know we had um last week we had our truth and Taxation and we've had lots of updates from you which are appreciated did you have something to say roll call this will be a roll call yeah okay see no questions Joan roll call cheor her yes director kenberg yes director Petri yes director thander yes chair Sherman yes motion passes great thank you very much Marie okay our next item is a report from staff on our elementary literacy curriculum and I believe Caitlyn and Sky yes Sky tried to point out that she wasn't listed on the agenda so have to be here it did not work that's not the way it works um so I did I brought sky with me because as we work through just updates if you have specific technical questions she is more she's better able to answer those questions than I am but thank you for allowing us to just bring you an update uh this is a a Hot Topic and and people are really engaged uh staff and Community alike around literacy which is exciting because it's part of our strategic plan maybe maybe not there go I don't know if I you did you did okay thank you okay so I'm going to first of all pass it off to Sky but um just kind of give you a little bit of grounding as to why we're here having this discussion so you may or may not know that at the state level they passed something called the read act and as a component of the read act there are professional development requirements for teachers in the science of reading as well as approved curriculum and materials requirements for school districts to adopt and so our current adopted literacy curriculum is not approved under the read act so we need to move forward with adopting a new um approved curriculum as part of those components of that legislative action yes and so specifically from the read act um it's a lot to read but it specifies that um evidence-based instruction explicitly cannot include the three queuing system and so the three queuing system is also known as MSB or essentially having students guess at words based on meaning syntax and structure and so um our current curriculum does is based in that we have made edits internally to remove remove the 3 queing from our curriculum on the day today and we're in our third year of having that removed um but it does then invalidate the phid the Fidel Fidelity of our curriculum and so we're piecing things together to be able um to get to this point where we're ready to adult curriculum so as we kind of pointed out our current reality is that we need to Sunset our current curriculum and adopt a new both found and knowledge building curriculum so at K3 we have letter land and K2 we have hegerty those are both foundational skills curricula that are not approved under the read act and for grades K5 we have Lucy ckins units of study which is our knowledge building curriculum that's not approved so we are looking to adopt new K2 foundational skills curriculums 35 morphology skills curricula and knowledge building curriculum K5 and so you may have heard of the science of reading this is a graphic that looks more confusing than it is but essentially um one of the questions I get all the time is why do we need so many pieces in an Elementary classroom why can't it just be EMA that's what I had when I was younger that's what we have and so where the science of reading has discovered and has proven is that you need both sides of the multiplication equation to get to your ultimate goal of reading comprehension you need both the word recognition so that phonics piece that down to the sound level piece of sounding Out words in addition to that language comprehension or that traditional way that you're used to seeing that vocabulary and comprehension piece and so the main changes that we've made um with letter L and with hegerty piecing them together to create a more robust side is that left side of this equation that for a long time in the reading Wars they completely eliminated the left side of the equation um and so the science of reading has proved that you have we in either side your end result is weaker overall so moving forward um we were charged with Gathering a group of teacher and teacher leaders in the district to um create a literacy adoption committee and we are working together to evaluate the curricular options that are approved under by mde and through the react so there's not a lot of options as you'll see in a future slide um which kind of which did make our work a little easier and then we have to also ensure that as we're looking at this we're looking at from the lens of research-based and effective instruction again mde did a lot of that work for us as well as uh gather stakeholder input so kind of this is the first you know this is the first kind of beginning of gathering the stakeholder input and there'll be future opportunities for additional input and then make sure that whatever we adopt is in alignment with our district goals and just briefly this is is a timeline of where we're at so far in the literacy uh committee process we met in early November and kind of established the purpose of the committee um you know kind of reset everyone around the norms for the science of reading and the requirements uh you know had discussions on how to communicate with our larger stakeholder teaching group around being transparent with the work that the literacy curriculum uh committee is doing because again everybody there was a lot of interest in participation which is wonderful and so making sure that as we move through this timeline we're keeping everybody up to date on the discussions and decisions that the committee is bringing and so then those days one and two that we have had we're looking at previewing with the vendors the foundational curricula as well as the knowledge building curricula options and then moving forward we're going to continue that community and um staff feedback opportunities and uh hopefully we'll be back here in early to mid-February with recommendations that include um fiscal and professional development components as well so just uh for your information really these are the options in the foundational skills morphology for 35 and knowledge building K2 and 35 that were provided to us as con options for consideration the ones that are SC scratched off are ones that the committee has already vetted and said we think we can take this one off the list and bring these other options forward for for larger review and and more in-depth um feedback as well as more in-depth review so we're looking at uly and Benchmark Advanced phonics we have gotten some questions around Benchmark Advanced this is the one curricula on this list that is in re-review with the Department of Education the others are already fully reviewed so um and it was specifically correct me if I'm wrong so it was specifically the phonic part or the foundational parts that are under rral not the knowledge building components of Benchmark and you can see like for 35 they already when they looked at the two functional morphology versus Benchmark at 35 it was a clear clearly foundational morphology stood out for that committee so things to consider um when we when we move into making a decision and we're thinking about adoption and implementation there's a a couple of important things the curricula is one component to outcomes right so we're really focused on improving our literacy skills districtwide as we should be um curricula is the materials it's what we teach it's one tool of improving literacy but it's not the only only tool we have another component of the read Act was that science of reading professional development that was required and so we have chosen to move forward with letters it's extremely robust it's extremely excellent um but it is a heavy lift for our teachers and I am grateful to all of them for their level of Engagement because we're often here for very long days right before holiday breaks learning what is essentially um very intensive graduate level studies so uh there's the professional development components the how we teach that pedagogy that's a Al really important to student outcomes we need to consider both of those as we look to adopt and implement the curriculum moving forward because there are um obviously large price tags to these curricula as well as time intensive um professional development and training that will be required for implementation I've gotten some questions about funding sources you know with the reduct there's I I hear a lot well the state's going to give you money for these things and that's true to some degree so we have our redact literacy incentive a that is a ongoing um Revenue source that we have with that also has the most flexibility for use in the area of literacy the other two buckets the react literacy Aid and the teacher compensation Aid are specific to uh the react and their one-time funding so the literacy Aid is meant to help us um adopt the new curricul and then the teacher compensation Aid is exactly that it's meant to help us compensate teachers for the additional time um and work that is required for becoming science of reading trained I will say big picture it's a drop in the bucket for what it's going to cost to adopt a new curriculum and so additional expenditures above and beyond what is provided by the state under the react will have to be staggered as part of our Capital outlay plan and we may have to um consider staggering implementation as well and I think Beyond fiscal to do that there are as I said um professional development considerations because our teachers I mean I I just cannot say enough about the the heavy lift that they are doing to become science of reading trained and it's consuming every single professional development day and so as we move forward we want to make sure that they have the time to put into you know creating the scope and sequences for implementation of this new curriculum making sure they're comfortable in in the m in the materials with the assessments assessing student progress all of those components so right now and again we're working with the committee so I think you know I'm happy to continue with updates and if changes happen I'll keep you all informed uh this current year we are piloting the approved curricula a few different schools and a few different grade bands our plan is next year to implement the adopted K2 literacy curricula K2 will be completely finished with letters training at the end of this school year so then they will have the time within their PD schedule to spend on learning and working within whatever new curricula we adopt then moving into that if there are there are classrooms and teachers that are piloting at that 35 level we would of course have them continue to Pilot with that approved curricula um if they're piloting one that is different from where we end up we would have them work to Pilot the one that we are moving forward with of the two options depending at the grade band depending which grade band you are there are two options and then from there once that's fully implemented we'll also start piling math curricula and then we'll move into new math adoption in roughly three to four years there is social studies in there too that will be more about uh reviewing standards and aligning those standards with our current resources it won't necessarily be um it won't necessarily be additional curriculum and materials the other thing that's a little bit to be determined with all of this is both of the knowledge building curricula at the K5 do have embedded social studies standards within them so depending on which one we end up we'll do a lot of work um interdisciplinary work to make sure that we are covering any standards that are missing that aren't covered by the literacy curriculum so that will guide our social studies conversation as well so then again our next steps are to continue with our literacy committee adoption work and then bring um forward our curricula recommendations as well as an implementation plan that will include include a professional development plan as well as the expense expenses of adoption whether that's within the professional development as well as the materials themselves and then something that I want to highlight for anyone watching or listening is that we are doing a staff and community openhouse on January 17th from 8 to 6 originally I think I mentioned at this table it was going to be 8 to 3 we got um good feedback from the district curriculum advisory Council to um adjust that by 3 hours in into the evening so that uh families who are working who may be interested in previewing that curricula have the option to do so so we are extending those hours and um I'm not 100% sure if the vendors of the curricula will be able to be there for that fulltime but we will make sure we have people on site here to answer if they want us to buy their books they will yeah a true statement I thought that but I don't want to commit to anything um so with that if there are any questions specific about this update we would welcome those great questions from the board Char py um so thank you for this I I appreciate it um you know which of the I want to go back to the slide where you're talking about the ones that are under uh review which of those are being pilot tested right now do you want to answer that you know better than me so we are currently um coming to to the end of our fourth unit of Benchmark Advanced and then we will begin um the same teachers or a few of the same teachers will be starting the wit and wisdom piece of it and so um we will have individual feedback from people who have piloted both the reason for not having just different sides is we wanted them to be able to compare and contrast the two different ways of it um and I would say the main difference between the two is really that pedagogical delivery of content um and and that's what we're hoping to get a lot of feedback on uh one is a little bit more open um to a guiding of it versus a direct instruction of the full-time and so although they cover very similar content I would say and are almost identical in how they scored on against a pretty robust rubric out of the University of Minnesota and mde um the pedagogical pieces are enough to be able to look at both with a critical eye and make a decision for what's going to work best within our system too do you know why they're doing a re-review of The Benchmark Advanced phonics yes so should we be scared about that well maybe yes I I think it's always good to be have a critical eye and they did make adapt adaptations that um based on the review of it as well and so Benchmark Advanced is a program that applied for a robust both so foundational skills and knowledge building as one package whereas wit and wisdom applied just as a know knowledge building curriculum and so if you look at the scores from the knowledge building side they're almost completely equal but if you look at Benchmark Advanced phonics scores um they were lower than they needed to be to get that full approval um and our honestly our curriculum committee is also pulling that out which is why they were comparing the two um 3 five actually eliminated Benchmark even if it does get approved from it the comparison between the functional morphology and what Benchmark was offering um was was pretty different and a clear winner out of that for what they were looking for and then youly which actually is just stands for you know an acronym which is what teachers love the University of Florida literacy Institute and so it is um a company or it is out of a research institute so the money that you spent on it goes back into the research of it which was a really compelling piece of um it's made for teachers by previous teachers for the committee to be looking at and that one scored significantly higher than the original Benchmark phonic scored um and we're still waiting to know how the new Benchmark Advanced phonic scores against the other one but if it were to not pass that would be a pretty significant elimination yeah we would eliminate it and move forward with a different option and we are correct me if I'm wrong we are piloting youly yes we are piloting youly as well sorry so is this list um these are all the choices that mde has wow limited that is a limited list I said they they really made the work for the committee fairly easy in that there were only three options in knowledge building and two three three yeah three option three options in each foundational and knowledge building and that open up C curricula got that was very early on the committee said nope that was just it required a significant amount of prep time and there were so many resources that you could pick and choose from that there was a lot of concern that the student experience would be so different from class you know same grade class to class to class so that one was pulled off the list by the committee well I I also want to commend the teachers um for all the effort that they've been putting into letters training um you know it it is definitely a um a uh an important goal for this District to imp improve those literacy scores and I mean we can't do it without the dedication of the teachers and you know bless our hearts for diving into that because I know it's a heavy lift in terms of a time commitment so thank you cudas to them for doing it agre Dr Hooger thank you thank you for this presentation it's been great to get an update on this um I'm am curious about the committee itself um I'm assuming this is just a committee it's a curriculum committee but it's just focused on literacy right now correct okay um I'm curious about who is on the committee um in particular like are we getting teachers from multiple schools are every all the elementary schools represented um are there community members or um parents who's all on that committee so it's made up of K5 um teachers they are we did it by grade band so k235 and we have Specialists as well like um special education ml El teacher but yes all to answer your question all seven buildings are represented all grade bands are represented I think actually all grades might be represented um and then we have a special education representative we have one a principal on there um and a reading intervention and a reading interventionist yeah so we did not uh open this to community because there's just some very technical components to reviewing these the rubrics themselves are very technical and so having that background knowledge that foundational knowledge actually I believe all of the committee members are letters trained or are very very close to being fully letters trained that was kind of we put out a Google interest survey for all K5 teachers and said are you interested we knew so many people were interested that we then kind of shared in advance a decision-making framework to help us kind of scale that committee down and uh one of the primary components of that decision-making framework was to be fully letters trained um to have maybe a reading endorsement at The Graduate level and then there were a couple of other things listed on there as well so uh that all got communicated out our staff expressed interest and then we worked through and and tried to get good representation across buildings across grade levels and across practices at the elementary level we do have Early Childhood an early childhood administrator and Coach sitting in um there is nothing approved yet under the react for Early Childhood nor is there Beyond fifth grade yet so they're more just kind of listening to say okay wh which direction is the committee going to end up going and how will that potentially inform our work at the Early Childhood level as we feed students up into kindergarten thanks Dr singer yeah thank you uh for the helpful information inform and all the continued work that's being done by each both of you and teachers and staff and across the district it's it's a heavy lift so um you know obviously with the new information that's made available through this you know science to reading um and kind of the new truths around what's the best way to help children learn to read what does that look like for uh students that maybe are now Beyond fifth grade you know how do we kind of help catch them up if there was some deficiency um you know in kind of the curriculum that was just you know was based on at that point what we knew was best practices um and on an anecdotal side note I'm really just sad about letter lands going away my both my boys loved it many many people are sad yes there there was there was a lot of grieving of of losing that curriculum um to answer your question we follow our mtss process so for students you know at at the middle school and high High School level who are not performing at grade level you know we have the same process with regard to we screen it fast with our fast Bridge screener we're looking for indicators that they need additional support and then we um work to get them the appropriate interventions I will say honestly that that is an opportunity for us uh reading intervention at the secondary level I think there are things that we can do with regard to master scheduling and how we use the resources that we currently have in absence of having more resources um but ultimately that is something that I think we should consider moving forward yeah absolutely and then one one point and then I guess that would be something from a board standpoint and you know Dr Funk you can interject but you know as we look at those you know middle school and high school and some of the additional resources that are going to be needed you know that make sure that's part of that full expenses for adoption because I think it's going be really important to make sure that um no one's missing out out yeah yeah and I don't know the timeline do you on approval for um secondary we're supposed to have an update in January um I have yet to you know last time they also said January it ended up being you know March and so last I've heard on the react it will be January and that'll be specific to the 68 band um that they're going to give updated best practices they haven't guaranteed they'll give a curricular um recommendation because content and curriculum looks a little B a little bit different at secondary when teachers are specialized versus um the general content areas and so I will as soon as I have that update I will bring that as well thank you great direct kenberg we're working off of this list I imagine other districts as well are working off the same list and do we know if we're kind of consistent with what they're doing or are we going rogue on any of this it's pretty hard to go Rogue with three options but uh yes we when we look at our comparative districts um Adina has adopted Benchmark advance for knowledge building and they're getting very good results um we have we've we've worked with a few of the we've worked with a wit and wisdom vendor to actually get a list of school districts that have already adopted wit and wisdom so that we can reach out and maybe potentially even see some lessons in action um so those are the you know those are really I I don't know of anybody that has adopted open up that but again we moved that so quickly off the list that we haven't spent a lot of time there so um and then ufly is I would say adopted in many places that I know of like I can think of half a dozen districts that are using youly for foundational skills and then the functional morphology comes out of the University of Minnesota so again it's pretty hard to go Rogue when your options are so limited okay and will mde kind of I imagine they're going to be um following okay you're choosing this one they're choosing that one which one seems to be working better and how long of a time frame are we committed let's say somebody's trying one wow this one's really working or this one isn't working is there a j a long time because it's super expensive usually when you adopt a new curriculum you're hoping for 10 years um so again when you when you if you feel curious you want to go on MD's website and look at the rubric it's very robust okay so um I think it's a combination and I and I like to remind everyone it's a combination of pedagogy and materials right so the curriculum is the materials the letters training is the pedagogy finding that sweet spot I think that's going to take some time right we're a few years out till we have all K5 fully trained as well as all special ed and all El ml teachers so we I I would say I would give it three years and I don't want to suggest that one is absolutely better than another because it all comes into the implementation of it and the energy put forth so appreciate it question so I know um there are likely going to be board members that will want to attend the open house um do we need to notice that just putting that out there for maybe Joan if you could look into that or um I don't know but I'm assuming that board members will be attending and could or you can time when you're there yeah either way we'll figure it out sign up exactly um I just want to thank staff for doing this because I know we talk about you know letters is taking a lot of time but then this investigation of the curricula takes a lot of time I mean not just the meetings but the piloting and the testing I mean that's all on their own time correct I mean that's yeah it's a lot of work yeah so I just all of this is appreciated so please share that with the committee and um did I hear correctly that K through two at the end of the school year will all be completed with letters K1 and many of the second grade okay but K1 other than one kindergarten teacher who Moved grade level okay um who's in volume one this year will be finished with uh volume one and volume two and then all other remaining K K5 will be finish at the end of wow that's amazing thank you for that I just wanted to make sure I I heard that correctly so I know you guys have been working hard on getting that scheduled and I think that the extra PD time this year has helped I would imagine tremendously there are a lot of moving pieces and I mean Sky's organizational capabilities with regard to just managing the moving pieces it feels like a full-time job in and of itself so I'm very impressed with her um and it and it took a lot of work to help people understand because usually when we move forward with PD everybody's moving forward as a grade level team or as a building and this is is very different in that you might be for for different reasons you were an early adopter of letters or you came in from another District or you moved to grade levels you may be at a different place in in letters learning than your colleagues at the same grade level in the same building so it has been very um confusing and I think sometimes very frustrating for staff that they're not able to have the time to with their same grade level teams to do some collaboration during those professional development times but time well spent I mean we know now we know better so yeah um this is a question for superintendent um so I'm think this all sounds great and I'm I'm loving it and then I'm thinking oh the money and um obviously the state's not going to be giving us a ton of money to implement or ton of money to District because I'm assuming 350,000 350,000 from the state is what we will receive and we're looking at Millions 1.5 correct so like I said drop in the so you know you look at you have up there you have K2 you have 35 and then okay all right we've got Capital dollars perhaps we could with that but then then long term you know uh we've got math coming um so really it becomes a you know how are we going to support this um and that's you know Marie and I and and the team will have to sit down and and look up look at long-term strategies and bring recommendations to the board as far as uh you know potential funding streams moving forward do you ever hear like when you're talking with other superintendants I can't imagine this isn't just an absolute struggle for so many districts because they're probably doing the same thing we're doing looking at adopting new curriculum and not having that funding I mean is there any advocacy that you see coming you know I I think one of the things and KD I think you guys had the meeting yesterday when we're talking about the uh you know the upcoming legislative session is you know if you're coming down with these recommended um this recommended curriculum from the state um okay what do you really you're got $350,000 I mean so we got to look at the per pupil Aid um how was that that needs to go up for districts to be able to afford this right um and then the other thing is yep you could you can pick curriculum that's not on that list but then you don't get any money from the state at all um so that that's the that's the the other component of this um so yeah we um the fact that we're looking at breaking it up K2 35 and and really the driver of that is we don't want to overwhelm the staff all right if we're staff's going through letters training training that's their F focus is letters training it's not letters training and know by the way we want you adopting this new curriculum at the same time so we're trying to be strategic about that both operationally and financially um but yeah is it is it a concern for us absolutely but is it what we need to do to meet the needs of our students absolutely yeah and that was the 1.5 million that you're I'm not holding you to that but um is that K2 is that is that K2 or K5 is that that would be on the low end of a uh K five implementation low end of K5 okay great and again we you know we'll have a better when we can bring you recommendations in February we'll have a better bottom line right no this has been this is a fabulous update and it's just nice to keep tabs on where the process is at and I look forward to kind of seen everything on the 17th and I hope the community comes out too I I totally appreciate you extending those hours and um and just making it so accessible to the community so thank you thank you any more questions okay that's it thank [Applause] you all right and then um next is our report on the identity harm protocol welcome jacen and Caitlyn will be I just thought I should grab my notes just in case I think I have it in my head but you know yeah know so thank you for having us come in this evening and provide this update um I'm gonna pass the microphone over to jacine for most of this but I did want to just ground this work um you know what we're looking at and what we're sharing with you are administrative procedures to support all students in the district when instances of harm occur so the the this is came straight out of some of our key initiative you know our key initiatives this year literacy School culture diversity Equity inclusion and social emotional learning at its core the identity harm protocols address all of these things you know if students feel safe and secure in school they're going to perform better academically we know that so this is designed to um provide us with the tools and the resources as both classroom teachers and administrators in the building to be able to respond in a fair and consistent way it also allows for transparency with our families as we are working through these incidences so that they know what our consistent practices are and I think it's also important to call out that much of this work is not new and it's grounded in policies that already exist so these are some of those policies um again I I want to reiterate that I have I set foot in a classroom and if something happens teachers are you know boots on the ground at making sure that kids feel safe and engaged and able to learn so again it's not new but it it's improved it's taking what we're already doing and improving it specifically in the areas of communication and transparency and consistency so with that I will pass it over to our integration coordinator to walk you through the components of our identity harm protocol thank you everybody um so when we're thinking about identity harm we're first starting with what is identity and identity is just the characteristics the traits that make each of us unique it's what makes us who we are so yes that is race and gender it is religion age but it's also our abilities or disabilities it's also our culture it could be size of our bodies that is all a part of who we are so then when we think about identity harm that's any harm any words any actions that hurt somebody because of who they are so it's not just about race or sexual orientation it's everything that makes us who we are it also looks different like there's not we can't say this one thing is the only thing that's identity harm you can see some different examples up here it is teasing bullying exclusion could be fighting rumors things on social media it takes many different forms we had the Caitlyn and I both had this great opportunity we went and we spoke to students in our schools uh fourth and fifth graders and then six through 12 and what they told me in terms of what they're experiencing it's really eye openening um I had one student who shared with me that every winter they bring tamali right because that's what their family makes and they get made fun of because it looks weird it smells weird and that's something that she internalizes because that is such a a private part of her culture and something that she takes a lot of pride in I talked to another student who said the problem with identity harm is it it hurts your confidence right he said I was really angry and I hated myself this is a fifth grader I hated myself because of what people were saying about me I thought that I wasn't good enough so when thinking about identity harm this is impacting our students already and we need to become proactive we need to find a way to support our students so our identity harm protocol we have this visual right here it's not a linear process because you can't move through this in a linear way what we're asking all staff to do are these first two things of putting Safety First and denouncing the act and putting Safety First could be emotional physical or mental mental safety and denouncing the ACT is just saying this isn't okay in our schools As you move through this we are going to make sure that we're bringing together a response team which is going to include multiple perspectives um we're going to go through some fact finding something students said like we need to ask multiple people what happened we're going to be clear and consistent in our communication with our families we're going to work on repairing relationships which is not mean that we're going to set everybody in a circle our students were very clear sometimes I don't want to sit next to the person who harmed me sometimes I don't want a forced apology because that's not authentic but they do want to know that after something happens we're all safe to come back to school we're asking all of our um building leaders to document reflect and learn and then this one our um students were really insightful they said we need people to check in on us so one to two weeks later check in on us let us know how we're going because sometimes the adults think that something is done when it's really not we were just really good at hiding it so we want to make sure that we're checking in with students and families to make sure that everybody feels supported so as Caitlyn said this isn't new it's grounded in work that we already do all of us that's working in buildings and working with students we're already ensuring student safety um we're already working on repairing relationships what is improving here is denouncing the act and being very explicit in what we're denouncing um collaborating more trans like more consistently and with more transparency with families and really working on systematizing this so that the experience that a student has in one school to another is consistent so that every single student that goes through Still Water Public Schools has a similar experience one that is positive and one that's preparing them for what comes after high school so I want to walk you through a little more in depth of some of these important pieces with the protocol so when we're looking at putting safety first Sometimes depending upon the severity it might be securing the area but other times it could just be providing an ally or an advocate for a student we had some students who said I would be much more comfortable telling an adult that something happened if I knew I could bring a friend with me that emotional safety is it's real for our students and so we want to make sure that the protocol we have in place really prioritizes safety in all forms denouncing the act it could be expressing disapproval offering support the one thing that we want to stress here is that when we are denouncing the act when something happens in that moment that we are publicly saying this action this speech this word is not welcomed in this space because because it causes harm um we want to make sure that we're doing this so that students learn oo I can't do that here that's not acceptable in this space it's not about judging it's not about um embarrassing or making somebody feel unsafe right it could be that partner little talk right there being like hey I heard this we can't do that here and then we just move on with our day after that I will say hands down of all of our when we were going across our schools and speaking with students that was of anything on that protocol the one students continued to say we need to do a better job at I need to see and hear the adults denouncing the ACT specifically so that I can feel safe to continue to report things or to take the stress and pressure off of the individual child to feel like they have to always self- advocate for their identity in a way that maybe their peers don't have to so we heard that loud and clear and to add on to that we also heard the students say that when a teacher or an adult can specifically say what is not welcomed it's a learning opportunity because sometimes they do things and they're like oh I didn't know that that was something that we shouldn't do now I do so now I'm not going to do it again when we're thinking about a response team we want to make sure that we're including multiple perspectives in this be administrators counselors um it could be uh uh social workers I lost my train of thought for a moment sorry the classroom teachers classroom teachers PA professionals everybody's G to have a different lens and whether it's the student who's experienced harm or the student who may have caused harm we want to make sure that in this response team we're taking care of both students this is not about isolating one single student both of those students need to feel support so that they can come back into the classroom and still learn we want to make sure that we are preventing further harm and we have to do that by having multiple perspectives and through early and consistent communication and that's what the response team would be responsible for and then our students also told us that fact finding was really important to them they said too often a teacher will say to the person who had who experienced harm what happened to the person who caused harm what happened and then that was did and they told us that's not enough you need to talk to more people you need to get all of the details so that we get a better understanding of what happened what history might be there um and so that fact finding is going to be really important that we're talking to multiple people so that when we do communicate with families we're able to communicate with all with as much information as we have um for more serious incidents there might have to be a formal investigation but if we're doing this consistently we should over time see less of those really severe incidents because we'll be able to handle this at more of like a tier one basis and then communication we've heard from some community community members that we're not always really great with transparent communication so we want to make sure that we are partnering with our families when families send their children to school they are sending us their most precious of everything and they deserve to know that their students their children are safe in school we don't ever want it to be where a student goes home and they're like hey guess what happened and the parents like oo why didn't anybody tell me that why did nobody prepare me for what my child experienced today so I would know how to care for my child when they came home so we want to make sure that we are communicating out to families as early as we can with the most accurate of information that we have and if we learn more information we'll communicate with families of the information that we have um added to that we going to do this because it's going to build trust with our families um it's going to ensure that what we're sharing is accurate and it's really going to help everybody feel safe so that when something happens parents will know this is the protocol this is what happens I know it's being handled and then with repairing relationships restorative practices can look a lot of different ways yes sometimes it could be restorative circles those also require a lot of of training they require quite a bit of like human capital capital to be able to do those well and sometimes they're not as effective as we want because everybody has to be willing to engage in that um but we do want to make sure that we are offering students the opportunities to connect with one another again when they are ready and that's the other thing that our students told us is I want to be able to say when I'm ready to be able to talk to somebody else again I don't want to be forced to do that the same day I don't want to be forced to say that apology I want to make sure that we are in a safe space to be able to have that conversation and what that conversation is will look different depending upon grade levels depending upon the students depending upon the incidents that happen so this is something that we're going to build out um but the focus is going to be upon education on safety and upon just repairing and rebuilding those broken relationships and then an important part of this also is that this is going to be a living document so after incidents occur we are asking the school leaders to come together to document so that we have um clear data to see how we're doing with this and then we want to be able to reflect how did we do what went well what are some areas that maybe need some more Improvement so we can learn from this um as we're documenting and as we're looking at the data and we're seeing the trends that's also going to help us figure out what it is that we should maybe be preparing our students for so at one of the schools that we went to they're like oh we have a school Mantra right so they know that they recited it for us like I wish I could recite it back to you but I can't couldn't tell you but it was super cute right um and we had some schools we went to they're like oh no we learn about kindness all the time we learn about differences so there are some schools where we're being really proactive about this and there are others where there just needs to be a little more work but if we know what types of incidents are happening then we can figure out what learning needs to happen so here's what the protocol is not it's not meant to be a political agenda I know that when we say identity identity harm there's a lot of buzzword there it's not a political agenda this is truly about every single student because every single student deserves to come to school they deserve to access their education and they deserve to be able to leave and go home and be safe it's not about punishment the very first first time something happens we want to educate because we are an educational institution that is what we are supposed to do we are supposed to be educating our students so they can go be civil citizens right and that's going to be like how do we learn to work with people who we maybe don't always like so we are focusing on Education First if things become harassment and bullying and it's something that continues then we're going to move on up with appropriate consequences after that but the heart of this is education and it's not meant to be reactive we want to have a proactive plan in place so that we are educating students first so that every single one of our students feels like they belong so that they feel like they're seen and valued and heard and that has to happen by having something in place now so that we can avoid some of these issues we do have if you are interested in learning more uh Caitlyn Carissa Dr Funk and myself recorded a great podcast right Pony voices you are more than welcome to listen to it I encourage it I listen to it I don't like the sound of my voice it's great right like it's great uh go for it um it's really good and then there's also that QR code or the stillwaters schools.org identity harm you can go ahead and you can take a look um we are being incredibly transparent in all of this work because it's going to take every single one of us both in this building in our schools and in our community to make sure that our students are safe any questions thank you that was wonderful and I did listen to the podcast it was really good it was really good director kelber I listened as well and your voice is good um thank you thank you I I was writing a couple questions and I think kind of that boils down to the who who who does it so first I'm imagining an instance happens in the hallway in the bathroom or outside school on the bus or even off school grounds uh who's so you denounce the ACT who who's doing the denouncing how has that happen and um we can take this one by one or and then also uh the communication and restorative practices again who's who's doing that counselors the teachers and sometimes the direct individual might not be real apparent if it's especially the social media that is talking about somebody at school today and uh if they're going home and The Bullying happens on the phone how do we get involved with that and who does the communicating that's um so I I'll I'll start the first one is the who does the denouncing it's whoever hears it so we actually already have students who are denouncing acts um and I know what some of our high schoolers are saying is I am tired of being the one to always denounce the ACT I need the adults to step up and do that also so it's whoever hears it so if it's in the classroom and the teacher hears it we're asking the teacher to denounce it if it's in the hallway and it's up professional that hears it or yeah teachers in the hallway we know that this is going to take some training um it's we're GNA have to roll this out we're gonna have to implement it we're GNA have to train um and get everybody comfortable with just saying like hey I heard this or I saw this that's not okay here we can't do that um so that's part of that who it's going to take all of us together um the restorative practices I would say yes yes yes it's going to depend upon the situation so I think sometimes it could be counselors or social workers I think sometimes it could be classroom teachers we have some classroom teachers where things have happened and they've done that restorative piece with like social stories and conversations with the students and then they report up and let the principles know so I think it's really going to depend upon the situation and what is called for at that time um and then in every situation we built into the component of these protocols report up right so no one is ever making these decisions or trying to do this in isolation right so I think as Jac Leen stated there are some pretty significant PD and training needs that are going to come along with this but where we're going to start is with denouncing the act right because that's the that's one of the things on that protocol that's pretty much impossible to delegate right I can't necessarily I could maybe could call on my colleagues to help me with a restorative practice or help me cover a classroom while I'm restoring um and repairing harm but as the adult that maybe Witnesses or sees harm occur the the key skill that they have to have is to be comfortable and able to specifically denounce that act so that's where we're going to start with our professional development all of those other components of the protocol require teaming and communication and um inclusion of families and processing through you know where we were where we are and where we're going and how we're are going to support students through those things thank you and bus drivers will receive some some uh training on this as well I kid you not I was going to bring that up elsewhere but yes thank you yeah students said students said it over and over again repeat and they have lots of ideas if you want to hear some ideas you go talk to some fourth and fifth graders some middle schoolers they'll give you all the ideas on how you can train bus drivers I get them yeah great yes director P so I want to follow up on the on the denouncing part of it um how is the training going to be rolled out I mean how are the teachers and the adults supposed to know uh when and how to intervene I mean you know is there some sort of a dynamic list for instance of of harms that you are developing that they need to know about so that they can intervene at the appropriate time so um I'll give you that where we're at and then kind of where we're going so currently with regard to professional development and training we are working to just establish common language around identity identity harm denouncing what is you know we I was at a building this morning and we were walking through these slides and someone asked what is what is denouncing what does that look like right and so uh right now what is happening is at all of our schools between Thanksgiving break and winter break we have identity harm 101 so it's a just a short kind of meant to be 30 minute pey bite that all staff are getting and it's designed to develop that common language have an understanding of the components uh Within These protocols and then to listen honestly and get feedback from our teachers to say here are the resources I'm going to need here's the training I'm going to need to feel comfortable doing this so um one of the things that came up this morning that I thought was a really great idea that a teacher had is can I have some sentence starters like is there can we create maybe a Google folder resource list that has here different sentence starters for different maybe frequently occurring um identity harms just to get me going to understand how I can better be specific and denounce that harm so as we move forward and we are delivering these um identity harm 101 kind of PD bites at the building a component uh that will go out to the principles is that they will have a Google form to add feedback Reflections you know questions we can't be in all of the buildings um many of them run their staff meetings at the same time so while we're trying to be there for as many of these 101 conversations as possible we can't be everywhere so trying to gather all of that feedback all the reflections all the here's the barriers I see here's the resources I'm going to need that kind of thing um we will take that feedback and then jacleen myself and Steven Gordy and of course Dr abamu if her schedule allows will go building to building and have onetoone meetings with principes and they of course are encouraged to bring maybe some members of their leadership team teacher teams to engage in a conversation around what does implementation at this building look like the reality um is that our schools are in different places some of our principles has have taken on some of this work earlier than others some of our um teacher leaders have taken on some of this work maybe just even self-directed learning in these areas there's been different opportunities offered by scea for learning in this area but there hasn't been a consistent approach and because there hasn't been kind of a system systematized consistent approach the needs of the individual practitioners regardless of whether what role they're in you know custodial bus driver parah teacher are different so what we're trying to do is be responsive to those differences and create building level professional development plans to kind of um start to to build those resources up and provide teachers with opportunity to practice this and reflect on it and practice and reflect because this is it's messy it's nonlinear and it also requires a lot of vulnerability and honesty about I'm comfortable with this I'm uncomfortable with this I need support and so you know my goal is if we can just start having those conversations then we're moving that professional development that training just in our ability to be comfortable and engaging in those conversations asking for help from other uh colleagues who maybe may have more experience in navigating these things so we are working on those plans we'll be building out resources based on the needs of each building we're also up against the reality that we have limited professional development time and so not only is this good in that we can differentiate our professional development it's also good in that we can deliver this in short bites allow people to practice small components of it reflect give us kind of a continuous feedback loop oh yes one more question um I know we keep student files already that um follow the student but with this will there be data kept somehow and then she pull some analytics off of that and what's happening and where and what kind there is we have already done a first um blush at training with uh documenting identity harm there are components in power school that we can't change because of reporting that we need to be a certain way but there is something in power school where you can add an action so what we are um training our principles to do is to be able to add actions when these instances occur and we have a drop- down action that is identity harm so then we can run a report based on who is adding an action to a behavioral incident that has then added that identity harm dropdown we can start Gathering some baseline data and understand and you know what are the common kinds of harm that is happening you know that can drive our professional development that could drive um educational resources we put together if we see that it's specific in certain classrooms or certain grade levels we could even do some classro wide or grade wide intervention to educate and um try and and prevent these things from happening again something where you pull the name out and then so the instant is there so you can measure we can just look and see what are the what are the themes sure so here's just an example this has been in the news recently and you're asking data uh you know people ask well why do we do this all right you know kids been bullied since you know time began well in the uh CBS news on December 13th um the um WCCO reported that um the Department of Human Rights the Minesota Department of Human Rights announced Thursday that it has secured a $65,000 settlement with the Pine City public school district for alleged repeated racial harassment of a seventh grade girl who was repeatedly intimidated bullied and harassed for months by multiple students after her parents had reported the behavior and the district did nothing and they were found liable by the uh department of human right rights and they were charged so as superintendent I take it very seriously that our students here are all treated in a respectful Manner and that we're consistent about it and we have a behavior Matrix that um we have administratively developed for certain types of behaviors that we follow but we have never put together a um harm protocol such as we have and it's an identity harm protocol because it's based on an individual's identity so this is our attempt to be consistent across the district and to make sure that our students have a um Equitable experience in uh how they are treated and uh um how they go to school here so that's what we're about um I know you might want to say something I just I want to make sure that the students know that you can offer your experiences and thoughts just raise your hand and I'll call on you as well so director okay thank you um okay I kind of have lot of thoughts on this um but I'll try to keep it succinct uh first of all uh thank you for coming and explaining a little bit more about these protocols we don't normally get a lot of protocol presentations at the board table we focus more on policy obviously um and it's very clear that there are lots of things in policy that this is now creating a toolkit for our staff to um Implement what is already expected of them so um I appreciate the further information um and I also recognized that there was a committee meeting that was this week that we heard some speakers tonight as well um who shared their opinions on their thoughts on this protocol um and it's very nice to hear both the community side and also the staff side and the um um the podcast the presentation tonight and on that podcast in particular are the students there's a lot of students who start out that um presentation the podcast um talking about their actual experiences in our schools and that was very um meaning ful and um heartbreaking to me as well I know bullying is something that all of us have seen or experienced In Our Lifetime and it's something that we as a school district and me as a school board member want to improve um and that's something that I feel like we are making a concerted effort as a district to address um and make our students feel more safe in our schools so that they can learn because if they don't feel safe and if they feel like as you were saying they have to constantly defend themselves or advocate for themselves that impedes their learning they're much more focused on that than on the stuff that they're supposed to be learning the reading the math all of those academics they fall to the Wayside when people feel unsafe when our students feel unsafe so um I recognize that that is something that our students are asking for I'd like that this is a um clear toolkit for our Educators to take that burden off of our students so that they can really get back to the job their job of learning um and focusing on their schooling so I really appreciate this work and I know that it's important um and that I very much support it and I do actually have one question getting back around to it um so there's a piece in here where you talk about communicating both to parents and to students themselves I also know that there are privacy laws um and that how explain a little bit about how that fits into the picture here in being able to share information with different groups sure um we did I I mean students said this too like sometimes they feel like nothing happens there are things that we can and cannot that we cannot share but there are things we can share we can let parents know that an incident happened and we can let them know what we did we cannot tell a parent like so and so did this to your child and this is we can't share consequences can't share the consequences but that's what's great to that's what's great about this protocol is that when we're having these conversations with families and we're saying here's what I can share with you and here's what I can't and why but this just so this is the protocol these are the tools these are the resources here's our Behavior Matrix and these things go together so as we're working through this you as a parent can peruse and say okay if this is the harm that's C that was caused to my child here is what I can expect from the school district or from the whether it's the principal or the classroom teacher or whomever is is the one that's doing that communicating um so it does provide that consistency it does say yes while there are things I cannot share with you you can know that all of these steps are being employed for your child and many of our principles are already using that behavior Matrix they already tell principles or families this is what I can share with you and so I think that part of the conversation is something that's it's not new um I think the part that is new a little bit is students want to know okay well what happened and that's going to be the part where again principles are going to have to say I can't tell you the exact consequence but I can tell you that we took these steps and I think because we're being so transparent with this and we're saying this is how we're going to respond I think it's going to help to build up that trust because students and families will know what to expect from us great thank you has this been shared really quick has this been shared with um parents outside of um the curriculum advisory committee or has any I know you talk about students that have seen this but it will be yep so when when we uh were talking to students beforehand we emailed their parents we shared with them the protocol we made sure that we shared with them everything that we're going to do um I I will um be sharing this with our Native American parent advisory committee so that's something that I speak to them about quite a bit is identity harm so I'm going to share that with them after break we also have our Caminos and our Washington County African family Alliance Group so we'll go in front of them also the other thing that I will share that was consistent when we were meeting with our student groups which really was our kind of our first share out was to get student voice and in doing so then of course there was some pocketed opportunities for parent voice um but students consistently said can you come back do this again um so I think that's one of the things that jacene and I have talk talked about is how can we expand these small group conversations with students and that is also a good kind of organic way to to gather parent feedback there because before we're going to meet with students we're also going to share with parents here's what we'd like to meet with your students on here's the resources and materials we'll be talking about and so as we continue to kind of circle back to the schools we'll continue to do those uh reach outs to families and I do appreciate that this went in newsletters and um there I saw the comprehensive article on the front page of our website and but I know because this goes beyond race because this can maybe someone is heavier set maybe someone just got eyeglasses I mean bullying isn't always way know in all kind sorry um uh you know it can be so many things and so and all of it is damaging and so I appreciate that I just want to make sure that we're going Beyond kind of our race based organization groups and going to parents in general and making sure they have because I think part of the Strategic plan which I'm so glad and superintendent Funk talks about this a lot it's you know you go through this process of listening to families listening to students listening to staff and then it just kind of gathers dust and this process really does check off a lot of what I'm seeing on this daily desired experiences now I'll be curious to come for you to come back and say you know how is this working in our schools um how are teachers responding to it but I mean I'm looking at one bullet point on our strategic plan and our teachers ask that they want to feel safe and secure and know how to respond when disruptions occur so to me training is a huge piece and our teachers want to support students and avoid um harm of any kind we want kindness and respect and service and and I think it's important to note that this is this is a fluid document right so as we are implementing these things and as we're getting more comfortable in denouncing act we're going to learn more about ourselves as Educators more about the needs of our students more about what part components of this protocol are working well and what maybe needs more Improvement so it it's not meant to be a we drafted up it is what it is we're one and done it's meant to be an ongoing you know reflection what do we need to adjust and that would be I mean we have to have parent feedback on what are the and student feedback on what are the experiences so far as we're implementing these tools and we already did some changes based on feedback like one thing that student said was they didn't like the word rebuild and they're like how about repair instead so like that that word choice came from students um including the checkin with students and families that was on our larger document but not the graphic that most people are going to look at and students were like well can you put that on there because that's so important to us and then after we checked in or after we did did student feedback I sent an email out to the parents of all the students and I said this is what we talked about these were the common themes if you have questions if you have comments if you'd like for us to consider something else please reach out to us and they did and so that was just more feedback that we were able to include goad Dr Wonder yeah well thank you both for the work that you're doing on this matter um no I appreciate the idea that this is a systems-wide approach uh just because it makes it consistent I think that what we talk about as a board is making sure that our students have consistent experiences whether it's around literacy curriculum or science or whatever you know access to playgrounds I mean all those things are important no matter where they live uh or what school they go to in the district and so um you know I think as as kind of been mentioned um you know I do see this as a helpful Tool uh I do as a parent I appreciate the transparency of understanding what those processes look like um and you know I I appreciate all the the public com comment especially those you know willing to kind of share that you know they have had stuff in their past that you know where they had to deal with some adversity and and bullying um I don't think there's anyone here at this table that hasn't and it sucks um and you know it's something that um I think as Leaders you know if we have the tools and the ability to help Foster those conversations and it's not about you know you know anything that's above and beyond just helping each student uh maximize their potential in steel water schools you know and I sit right across every meeting the pony Community commitments you know and so much of that applies to this um you know this procedure uh and protocol and and it's something that um I see it as a way that we can Empower our students uh especially you know I look at you know my boys and you know and conversations that we have with them and some of their conflicts at home which um can happen you know as they grow um you know just you use a lot of the same type of processes and again it's not linear but it's the saying you know there's certain things that are just off off limits like you just that can't happen it's not productive does no good um and I think we all have stuff in our backpack where that's you know we've had to deal with that and you know I know for me um and thankfully I was able to you know persevere through that but I can think of you know several students from from you know where I grew up that took their own life and I know for the fact that they were bullied um and you know it's not something that I did anything about you know I wasn't a part of it but I didn't do anything to stop it and I think that's just an opportunity for us to uh be more intentional about the work that we're doing so um I'm I'm in support of this as well I think it's a great way of just providing the tools and opportunities for students to uh do that it's not going to eliminate bowling I it's just I don't that's could be impossible I think but it's a great way that we can try to mitigate it um and make it a better place for all students um and you know I'm just you know hopeful for you know what those types of outcomes might look like moving forward and then also from a systems approach you know it's it's a risk management tool as well I mean Dr fun shared that you know it that will only continue to happen if schools aren't doing uh what needs to be done so um no question just want to provide some commentary and gratitude I will say that when we talked to students they they said that bullying's not going to stop but they also said that if somebody denounced an act if somebody said that's not okay and stood up for them that made them feel better that helped them feel like they had a place it helped to limit or decrease it's not going to remove it but it did help them to feel more positive about where they were at because they knew that there was somebody else who cared about them even if it was just one person and I think the more we do that and the more our students feel that support the stronger we are as a community and we're allowing the parents to be involved and to um have a active and primary role in this because I I hear that all the time from parents that I just feel like I send my child to school and I don't really know what is you know and so this is closing that Loop and that's also on our strategic plan that our parents wanted that communication they want to be able to be an active part of you know helping being their child managed through difficult experiences um that's a part of life and um but if they don't know they can't help and we desperately want to partner with our parents and I think we demonstrate that time and time again so Dr Petri um yeah it it seems to me that essentially what you're trying to do here and it is going to be messy and it's not going to be perfect but essentially what you're trying to do is to set standards for behavior and I appreciate that you talk about it as denouncing the act because you're not telling anybody what to think right but you they can hold hate in their heart for Trans people but they cannot express that in this school right because we have set these standards um they can go home and express all the hate that they want but they can't express it in our schools those those are the standards that we are setting and so I appreciate that you are talking about it as denouncing the act and not the [Applause] thought so so let me give you a little feedback from from the high school students on this so we talked about this with uh the student Advisory Group last Friday and their feedback was this that a they wish one one boy in particular spoke up and he said you know some of this misbehavior occurred when I was in Middle School at one of our middle schools and you know kids were joking and they were inappropriate and he said I had to address the issue and I wish a staff member would have the second comment that uh actually a couple kids made was that that they're hopeful and they're glad to hear that this is a K12 initiative because they see some behaviors occurring in the younger students that can be addressed now and it will help us out from a longevity standpoint because we are addressing it at younger grades and so it will uh um help us systemically over the long term so those were some comments on this from from our high school um students and I thought they were both uh um quite insightful and I'm glad to hear that our bus drivers I know um just as a pair of myself it a lot of this happens a lot of stuff can happen out on the playground in the lunchroom um on the bus when things are you know when a teacher isn't around when a principal is not there so it's imperative and I'm glad you're including that in this process and and the other thing is is this and and I don't and in this they have done a a tremendous amount of work on this and and this is a living breathing document that's going to be modified as it goes on but the the key thing and and we had a meeting with uh our teacher leaders this afternoon and we discussed this and the key takeaway for us at least initially is working with our staff and how to go about um denouncing the act and I think um if staff is is uh effectively um um educated on this um I believe that uh um this will this in itself will make a profound dist um profound um change for the district um as the first initial step in in uh um in implementing these protocols um because it just this is unacceptable Behavior these acts are unacceptable and um it it just stops now and so that's what our focus is and you heard you heard Caitlyn and Jacqueline talking about that is um how are we properly going to implement this over time uh but the you know when you're talking to parents okay yep Johnny your Billy can come home and say um Yep this happened in class and or this happened on the playground and somebody said this is unex acceptable behavior right then and there and that just sends a loud message that uh um we take uh these Behavior seriously here and I will say too I think that I like I too like the choice of the word denouncing the act because not only you did such an incredible job expressing that but I also think it's important we're not denouncing a person correct um this isn't most of the time when I'm you know in my school working on a playground it's it you're just helping people people to understand boundaries and what's acceptable and what's not and um or they don't have the language to language they don't know how to process an emotion maybe someone said something to them and they did and so they think it's okay and um so it's not denouncing the person either so I think that's um something I liked about that language as well and even when you look at the protocol we have in there specific things for somebody who's caused harm to make sure that we are still checking in with them that they still feel supported if it's a more serious incident that we're making plans with them and their family to create a safe re-entry if that is what is necessary so it's not about ostracizing that student but about helping them to learn those boundaries and say like that behavior that word isn't allowed but you are because you are a part of this community any other comments questions sorry public comment is over Mr McCarthy Mr McCarthy is public comment is over this is not a meeting open for participation from the public please sit or leave Aur Mr McCarthy okay um thank you any other questions or comments okay thank you so much and please I'll look forward to hear how this is implemented and we'll continue to bring you updates thank you thank you all right our next um item is an action item um Mark jber Housen is g to come and talk Oakland Middle School good evening chair Sherman members of the board uh tonight we're here to seek approval for the Oakland Middle School bids of the addition and remodel of the um bond from last year we opened bids on December 9th um last week 20 24 we had 34 different work Scopes um of those just uh we had some presentations and images but just a reminder in those work Scopes was the construction of a new gymnasium and a storm shelter we're adding eight additional classrooms we're connecting to Municipal Water and Sewer there'll be a boiler replacement renovate the current media center and gymnasium spaces and provide additional parking and Emergency Management access as well as some other miscellaneous improvements So within those bids um they came in at 24 $13,995 129 so as we go through through this bid process these bids were within um our budgeting estimation of where the bids would come in so these budg these um bids keep us on budget and um on our current timeline as we move forward with the construction project so with Oakland there's going to be two different phases of construction this spring Sumer will be the addition uh the addition will be the first thing to go so we'll add the new gymnasium space um the classroom spaces as well as a science area and then next spring and summer we'll get into the middle of the building and do a renovated spaces so we'll do the addition um spaces first and do the remodel next summer again all these spaces should be up and running um will be up and running for the fall of 2026 so with that I'll open up to any questions or comments that you may have um I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve uh is there a second second Dr thander with a second second questions for for Mark I'm glad to see the progress being made so and that it's within budget we like hearing that so all good news and exciting for our students great okay seeing no questions um all those in favor of approving the bid package as presented raise your hand say I I I opposed motion passes and with that we're adjourned all right e