Board Meeting – July 12, 2019 Segment 3
 [00:00:00] Two more policies before US policy G BN J ba on sexual harassment. Is there a motion? I thought this was the one you wanted to pull out now. It's the bottom to the ones that are here last year. All right, all of my mic is on so I'll just go ahead and move that we approve policy gbn. J ba on policy regarding sexual harassment I will second.
any discussion.
I had a question this the change that we're our policy is now going to apply to properties immediately adjacent to. District property. I was wondering if somebody could talk to why that change is being made and what the enforcement of that might look like.
[00:01:00] Can you clarify your question just wondering about the implications of that term adjacency to school grounds? Sure, I mean. Having sexual harassment policy is fairly manifest, but to apply it to property that we don't own is an interesting change and there must be a reason for it and I'm wondering what that reason was.
And secondly, I'm wondering. How we would enforce that?
Well again, I don't want to assume what law enforcement may decide or not. But if a report was made for example at a bus stop or very close to school grounds and it came to the attention of the school district because of its proximity that between law enforcement and school district there would be.
Or at least [00:02:00] some level of responsibility to report because it is close enough to school district property. I don't just don't want to speculate beyond that because I'm not sure what legal. You know what what happened to create that term being added into it. That's when I could look into is Rick Stuckey.
If you'd like me to get back to you and I were so Shannon reviewed these correct. Yeah, either of them. I mean the policy extends to third parties on property next to ours. So basically some as a house next to our schools and they sexually harass someone on their property. It's the implications are I'd be really curious to know what our responsibility is in that situation and how and how adjacent is that liability, right?
Yeah, I can look into that. It doesn't affect my I guess my vote today, but I certainly would want to know more about that.
[00:03:00] Any further questions? All right. Let's call it pro vote, please Chelsea King Martin. I Christy Thompson. Yes in Jeff Edge, but ceiling Heights I camera Joy. Yes. And last policy update for today GBC with regards to staff ethics. I will move that. We adopt code off the top two changes to code GBC.
I'll second been moved and seconded any discussion. Yes, please. I've noticed that there is a distinction in some of or there's been a change in some of the policies we were reviewed from District employees to staff member. So the first question is is there a distinction [00:04:00] or so just a change in language and I want to know whether coaches who are not teaching staff are covered by this policy.
We're
processing your question gender. I
think I heard you ask are those who are not teaching staff. covered covered in this policy. Correct, because it says District employee. but this would include.
custodial staff this would include nursing staff this would include. Food Service staff. coaches need [00:05:00] coaches it would be paid coach us. All right. Yeah versus not paid we have we have many number of our coaches are also. District employees. Whether their teachers or working some of the capacity in the district, we do have some who serve who also sign up to be coaches as well and given that position.
I'm
concerned. This is I'm reading this first sentence. I think that there is a typo. Yeah, it just somehow I think. The benefit being crossed out so it would read no District employee will attempt to use their District position to obtain Financial or avoidance. Ohh or avoidance of financial to avoid yet.
It doesn't get obtain Financial or avoidance of financial detriment [00:06:00] for relatively. I should be I don't know why benefit is. Brock. history. Take my hand. I would agree that it reads better with the word benefit. I don't understand why that if there was a reason that word was struck but to obtain Financial benefit or avoidance of financial detriment makes more sense to me.
Financial. the very first sentence.
I'm thinking that maybe a typo. I think potentially. Yep. We can we can we can still approve something with a typo corrected. There's also one. I think Kelly may have caught there's a. comma in the word employee on the next page. Those are ones we can modify regular permanent.
[00:07:00] Any further questions? All right call for a vote, please. Chelsea King Martin I st Thompson. Yes Ginger Fitch. Dylan hides. Hi Kamala toy. Yes.
All right, we're going to move on to our last agenda item with regards to new board business and our board retreat, which is scheduled for August 5th. There's a note that we're going to discuss the retreat location and agenda and I'm pausing for a second for dr. Ludwig. I'm just thinking should we just officially put in the notes that we are going to move the discussion of policy jie.
Bian AE J FC f 2. Is that what you're doing? Yeah, I thought we'd already done that before we started okay, I note but yes if had we not been absolutely one of things I would [00:08:00] just add is that I had sent a message to the board that we would do some follow-up from public comment that was made at the June meeting regarding these two policies and our students who were unclear about some of the reporting procedures and that we have would give you an update around August.
So what will be sure to do in that August board meeting is give you an update to the follow up with our students in addition to your opportunity to discuss these two policies. So we'll make sure we have that and that may be helpful in terms of your discussion with these two policies. All right.
Thank
you. Dr. Ludwig with regards to the retreat location. Did you have thoughts on that coming into this meeting? I just I I didn't last year you use the crest facility. Certainly we can look into [00:09:00] its availability. Also, just a reminder that when we have. Video camera and microphones and recording devices for public meeting that we do need to think about the facility where we're going to have the meeting and can the public attend and be there if they wanted to observe.
For example, we were able to accommodate I believe I'm looking up at Curtis the. Facility is doing this. So that means well enough to get a good recording this room is always the easiest because of the the camera set up and some years. We've just had the retreat in this room. So it really is a preference up to you.
I'm on our staff can let you know whether the technology can travel there. I like doing it Crest I like changing locations different locations kind of changes Frameworks and mindsets
[00:10:00] and. I also like the crust location. It's that beautiful we can step outside. It's a different environment for us that we don't typically get to work in. I also to add to this discussion. Typically, we do board goals District goals, and so I'm not sure if the dish that the district goals. Will be part of this board retreat and then also just last year we started kind of changing our framework and language around talking about District goals and board goals partially due to the fact that we for the first time last year did a board self evaluation where we looked at how we operate according to standards which aligned us with the rest of the institution in which we in that we also.
Look at our performance and look at Art what we want to achieve in the coming years. So I liked that I think the work that was generated from that was useful to [00:11:00] the board. So I am curious the level of interest that my fellow board members have and potentially doing another board self evaluation similar to what we did last year potentially generating a goal or two.
If that makes sense, maybe we don't maybe we even have the same goals. We had last year much like the destroyed goals don't change every year. Maybe we just continue working on the same thing, but and having Renee sessler as a facilitator, I think was really beneficial as well so that we could all be participants and have someone else guide that discussion and take notes.
So I like that framework. I would love to replicate it and be curious to know what you all
think. I think something is sister, but I have some concerns about talking about the district goals without. dr. Ludwig's administrative staff being present. I think that they [00:12:00] added value to that discussion when we had it
planned. That's valuable feedback there on how we how and what we talked about.
Okay. Rather than like muttering. And without my microphone. I'm potentially we could do a board retreat where we focus just on our functioning as a board what we hope to achieve. Reviewing things like the board operating agreement the board and superintendent operating agreement and then we discuss the district goals potentially at a different time during one of the initial work sessions as part of an agenda.
I don't know what the agenda is look like how full they are or we can piggyback them what we did last time we started off with Renee's we kind of brainstorming what we want to talk about. And then we kind of narrowed it down to like the three most important and we got through those what we can't what [00:13:00] we could I thought that was really useful but I kind of want to ask Vice chair key Martin and director Thompson.
You guys have been out in the communities a lot in the last six months. You've been hearing a lot. Is there a mrs. Really good opportunity for us to delve into an issue or issues really deeply. Is there something that you heard or learned that the community would want us to address?
Yes. One concern that was brought up to me just on several occasions was just the behavior in classrooms and classroom clearing. And how do we move to eliminate that control that more help our teachers be better equipped to deal with those things and also come alongside our students and help them so that we have fewer of those disruptions.
And potentially I think [00:14:00] thank you. And I one of the questions that come up for me is at what is a conversation like that best suited for something like a work session versus a board retreat. What is the purpose of our board retreat and my opinion the board retreat is not necessarily to dive into.
You know curriculum and classroom instructional strategies and things like that as much as to look at how weird you know, what how do we want to guide our work as as a board and things like board operating agreement. So it's definitely an important topic and one that's been coming up and one that that we need to talk about.
We've been talking about it. We had a pretty lengthy discussion about it. Every three months ago, and so maybe we continue that conversation, but I'm not sure if August is the right time for that. There will be two two pieces of business that staff will want to bring to you. So however this fits into the agenda one is that you do need to make a decision about a [00:15:00] capital Bond and ballot and we'd rather you do that on August 5th, then wait until August 19th, just because of.
Planning for staff. We already deferred that one decision as a first reading because we were waiting to see the outcome of the awesome Grant osc IM Grant we have heard some good news that our application was in order and was approved and fortunately there are very few other school districts applying in November.
I think the total is five where one of the five. And with the amount that's been approved little over thirty 1 million. We would be getting the 7.1 million. So what we just now have to do is they have to do the formal submission in July by July 15th, which we've done and then very likely all of that will go through.
So we should be hearing shortly after that that we would have gotten that grant. That was one of the reasons we differed [00:16:00] that so we can quickly we can think about that receipt of that Grant in our ballot title and get that so I have a suggestion. We are I love how much we all wanted to tackle all the things and there's a lot of really big and important work.
So perhaps what we do is we have a date. I don't know if we want to put X there. We have a potentially a location. Perhaps the board chair speak with the superintendent to see what do we need to make sure we talk about the board chair and the vice chair can talk about what might be included in a retreat and fellow board members could email us if you have a concern or request.
To may be emailed at the chair that sound like a good way that's going to be my suggestion is I wanted to just get some initial thoughts. We can all work together to put agenda and that I'd like to float that agenda in advance just. And if you have comments for the whole board then to kind of chimed in and we'll do our best to accommodate what will [00:17:00] likely happen is this is going to help us set some of our work sessions for the rest of the year.
So to the extent that there are topics potentially kind of a little bit outside of our scope for the board retreat that will help frame the work that we may do over the rest of our year. One thing though I do are we doing a board self evaluation or not. I'm willing to do it. I'm also of people are like that was not helpful.
Let's not do it this year. That's fine. We lose a little momentum, but that would be one thing I think would want to know because we'd have to send that out because the state is not that far away. I feel like we should at least do an evaluation at least on the topic nailed the the goals we set for
ourselves. I just think it's good to just gauge how productive we thought we were and to the extent we were productive and that is an area where then we can do learning and growth at a board retreat as to how we can maybe do better. So rather [00:18:00] than go through like, oh sba's board self evaluation with all the standards.
What we could do is just look at the goals. We set the work we produced and maybe use a similar one through four like a you know, accomplishing or effective or developing ranking and. You could do something like that. Everyone's game for it Chelsea and I figure out how we would go about doing that.
Okay? Okay. Can I ask who attends the board our board retreat beside it because it sounds like dr. Ludwig does not. You do come okay, that's typically the board and superintendent. It could be that because we're asking for some board business to be done that the first part of the retreat could have.
More of that agenda and staff could attend for example the capital Bond and ballot. We have a Amendment. We need to make to school calendar that needs to be approved by a board would like to do that as early as possible. So those kind of small items [00:19:00] although through the capitol grounds a big one, but you've done your first reading but those ones you might want to have staff there to ask questions.
They want to present. Then you could take a short recess and then move into your retreat. One thing I would like to pass out to each of you is just as we think about the potential of the capital Bond and certainly you'll be doing a campaign at least for a logo option and would you have approved is just a board training of some sort and overview of what does it mean for a board to go out for a capital Bond and a campaign and ospa does offer a service?
For that so I've just gotten little information for you to look at all. This is on their website. If you look at under their services, click the tab that says Bond and you'll find a lot of this but just fa Q's, what's the board's role? What's the staffs role so that you feel you have all that information before you begin talking about it or planning for it?
[00:20:00] I know personally, I would appreciate that type of an overview a retreat gives you certainly the time to do that. You could ask staff to call OSB a we could see about their availability for the fifth Additionally, you could ask if you'd like our legal counsel to be there Jeremy right could be there.
Certainly he would describe what his services to us. He would not be in service to a campaign for the cap for the school board, but he he could share what what his role is and provide any kind of an update. So if you're thinking about a topic like that, we'd want to know early on so we could get the speakers for you that you would need in terms of having that as a topic for your retreat.
Have we used our services in our past campaigns? Well, I'm limited for me. We have had. The district has often not hired someone but this year we did just because of the complexity and more and more. [00:21:00] These campaigns are becoming scrutinized and exceedingly just complex. And so we did hire the district hired Jeremy right services, but in the past the school board then and or the capital Campaign Committee pack can then also hire services and that's where this OSB a would come in handy because they would be.
Providing that service for that campaign and on the last campaign. We didn't actually utilize OSB a but we utilized another consultant. Yeah. Yeah. That was out. What I was wondering is if the board had actually use those Services before. Right because you don't want to always be asking questions of Jeremy right to give you guidance or of Staff because we shouldn't be leading that campaign work.
So the only thing that's this packet is for you is just a reminder that you have ospa Services. We are members of OSB a we pay for their services and within their you could do some query or even have someone come and provide [00:22:00] a general overview to you as a board during the retreat. All right. So if everyone's okay with it, I'm gonna work towards wrapping this meeting up just be respectful of everyone's time.
My to do along with Chelsea is we will we will work with dr. Ludwig to start setting this board retreat agenda. Everyone. Should I think anticipate like a nine to three? Is it to 800 do we do to okay fantastic 228. I didn't know if we had a time. So excellent. That works. Okay. So on to make sure we and then as we go forward Kelly, I'm going to ask just as these dates become known for the new teacher.
Welcome the all staff. Welcome back if you know soon as you have that set just get those to us so we can start putting them on our calendars sooner than
[00:23:00] later. And I think that that is it and then we'll will disseminate some information to board members and prep potentially ask for feedback as we're leading up towards this Retreat date any final questions or concerns? All right. Thank you all for coming to this July meeting and we are